Job again took up his parable, and said,
Parallel Translations
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Job again took up his parable, and said,
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Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
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And Job again took up his parable, and said:
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Job 29:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 27:1 Job again took up his parable, and said,
- Numbers 23:7 He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.
- Job 13:12 Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes. Your defenses are defenses of clay.
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 29:1 Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
Job 29:1 Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
Ver. 1. Moreover Job continued his parable] Or, his sentence, as Tremellius rendereth it, his sententious and elegant oration, his aureum flumen orationis, golden flood of grave discourse, as we may better call it, than Cicero did Aristotle’s politics, Tota oratio gravissimis sententiis, et verborum luminibus illustris est (Merlin). Here Job describeth graphically his former felicity; as in the next chapter his present misery. The promise of prosperity to God’s people is to be understood with exception of the cross, wherewith, if need be, 1Pe 1:6, they are sure to be exercised; and they shall take it for a favour too, Heb 12:6. "By the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report," &c., 2Co 6:7-8, they must learn "to be abased, and to abound, to be full and to be hungry," &c., Php 4:12, though this be a hard lesson, Perquam durum est? sed ira lex scripta est, saith the civilian (Ulpian). Hard or not hard, we must frame to it, and hope for better. The Epicures held that a man might be cheerful amidst the most exquisite torments: 1. In consideration of his honesty and integrity: this indeed was Job’s great comfort, as we see, Job 31:6. And, 2. In consideration of those pleasures and delights that formerly he had enjoyed, and now cheered up himself with the remembrance of, Ex praeteritarum voluptatum recordatione (Cicer. de Finib. l. 2; Sen. de Benef. l. 4, c. 22). But how slight and slender a comfort this was Job setteth forth in this chapter. And who knoweth not that as it is a sweet thing in prosperity to relate what hazards and hardships we have passed through; so in adversity it is grievous to call to mind what better days we have had? - Olim haec meminisse iuvabit (Virg.). Minerum est fuisse faelicem (Sen.). And yet it is but reason that we should eat the crust and crumb together; receive, I mean, evil at the hand of God as well as good, Job 2:10. {See Trapp on "Job 27:1"}
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 Losers may have leave to speak, and there is…
Losers may have leave to speak, and there is nothing they speak of more feelingly than of the comforts they are stripped of. Their former prosperity is one of the most pleasing subjects of their thoughts and talk. It was so to Job, who begins here with a wish (Job 29:2): O that I were as in months past! so he brings in this account of his prosperity. His wish is, 1. "O that I were in as good a state as I was in then, that I had as much wealth, honour, and pleasure, as I had then!" This he wishes, from a concern he had, not so much for his ease, as for his reputation and the glory of his God, which he thought were eclipsed by his present sufferings. "O that I might be restored to my prosperity, and then the censures and reproaches of my friends would be effectually silenced, even upon their own principles, and for ever rolled away!" If this be our end in desiring life, health, and prosperity, that God may be glorified, and the credit of our holy profession rescued, preserved, and advanced, the desire is not only natural, but spiritual. 2. "O that I were in as good a frame of spirit as I was in then!" That which Job complained most of now was a load upon his spirits, through God's withdrawing from him; and therefore he wishes he now had his spirit as much enlarged and encouraged in the service of God as he had then and that he had as much freedom and fellowship with him as then thought himself happy in. This was in the days of his youth (Job 29:4), when he was in the prime of his time for the enjoyment of those things and could relish them with the highest gust. Note, Those that prosper in the days of their youth know not what black and cloudy days they are yet reserved for. Two things made the months past pleasant to Job: -
I. That he had comfort in his God. This was the chief thing he rejoiced in, in his prosperity, as the spring of it and the sweetness of it, that he had the favour of God and the tokens of that favour. He did not attribute his prosperity to a happy turn of fortune, nor to his own might, nor to the power of his own hand, but makes the same acknowledgment that David does. Psa 30:7, Thou, by thy favour, hast made my mountain stand strong. A gracious soul delights in God's smiles, not in the smiles of this world. Four things were then very pleasant to holy Job: - 1. The confidence he had in the divine protection. They were the days when God preserved me, Job 29:2. Even then he saw himself exposed, and did not make his wealth his strong city nor trust in the abundance of his riches, but the name of the Lord was his strong tower; in that only he thought himself safe, and to that he ascribed it that he was then safe and that his comforts were preserved to him. The devil saw a hedge about him of God's making (Job 1:10), and Job saw it himself, and owned it was God's visitation that preserved his spirit, Job 10:12. Those only whom God protects are safe and may be easy; and therefore those who have ever so much of this world must not think themselves safe unless God preserve them. 2. The complacency he had in the divine favour (Job 29:3): God's candle shone upon his head, that is, God lifted up the light of his countenance upon him, gave him the assurances and sweet relishes of his love. The best of the communications of the divine favour to the saints in this world is but the candle-light, compared with what is reserved for them in the future state. But such abundant satisfaction did Job take in the divine favour that, by the light of that, he walked through darkness; that guided him in his doubts, comforted him in his griefs, bore him up under his burdens, and helped him through all his difficulties. Those that have the brightest sun-shine of outward prosperity must yet expect some moments of darkness. They are sometimes crossed, sometimes at a loss, sometimes melancholy. But those that are interested in the favour of God, and know how to value it, can, by the light of that, walk cheerfully and comfortably through all the darkness of this vale of tears. That puts gladness into the heart enough to counterbalance all the grievances of this present time. 3. The communion he had with the divine word (Job 29:4): The secret of God was upon my tabernacle, that is, God conversed freely with him, as one bosom-friend with another. He knew God's mind, and was not in the dark about it, as, of late, he had been. The secret of the Lord is said to be with those that fear him, for he shows them that in his covenant which others see not, Psa 25:14. God communicates his favour and grace to his people, and receives the return of their devotion in a way secret to the world. Some read it, When the society of God was in my tabernacle, which Rabbi Solomon understands of an assembly of God's people that used to meet at Job's house for religious worship, in which he presided; this he took a great deal of pleasure in, and the scattering of it was a trouble to him. Or it may be understood of the angels of God pitching their tents about his habitation. 4. The assurance he had of the divine presence (Job 29:5): The Almighty was yet with me. Now he thought God had departed from him, but in those days he was with him, and that was all in all to him. God's presence with a man in his house, though it be but a cottage, makes it both a castle and a palace.
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II. That he had comfort in his family. Every thing was agreeable there: he had both mouths for his meat and meat for his mouths; the want of either is a great affliction. 1. He had a numerous offspring to enjoy his estate: My children were about me. He had many children, enough to compass him round, and they were observant of him and obsequious to him; they were about him, to know what he would have and wherein they might serve him. It is a comfort to tender parents to see their children about them. Job speaks very feelingly of this comfort now that he was deprived of it. He thought it an instance of God's being with him that his children were about him; and yet reckon amiss if, when we have lost our children, we cannot comfort ourselves with this, that we have not lost our God. 2. He had a plentiful estate for the support of this numerous family, Job 29:6. His dairy abounded to such a degree that he might, if he pleased, wash his steps with butter; and his olive-yards were so fruitful, beyond expectation, that it seemed as if the rock poured him out rivers of oil. He reckons his wealth, not by his silver and gold, which were for hoarding, but by his butter and oil, which were for use; for what is an estate good for unless we take the good of it ourselves and do good with it to others?
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 Moreover, Job continued his parable,.... Or "added to take…
Moreover, Job continued his parable,.... Or "added to take it up" (q), that is, he took it up again, and went on with his discourse; he made a pause for awhile, waiting to observe whether any of his three friends would return an answer to what he had said; but perceiving they were not inclined to make any reply, he began again, and gave an account of his former life, in order to show that he was far from being the wicked man, or being so accounted by others, as his friends had represented him:
and said; as follows.
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(q) "addidit assumere", Montanus, Bolducius, Mercerus; "addidit tollere", Drusius.
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 Job, after pausing a little while, shews, what comfort…
Job, after pausing a little while, shews, what comfort he formerly had in his house and family, ver. 1-6. What honour and power he had in his country, ver. 7-10. What good he did as a magistrate, ver. 11-17. And what a prospect he had of the continuance of his prosperity, ver. 18-25
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Job laments his present condition, and gives an affecting
CHAPTER XXIX
Job laments his present condition, and gives an affecting
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account of his former prosperity, having property in
abundance, being surrounded by a numerous family, and enjoying
every mark of the approbation of God, 1-6.
Speaks of the respect he had from the young, 7, 8;
and from the nobles, 9, 10.
Details his conduct as a magistrate and judge in supporting
the poor, and repressing the wicked, 11-17;
his confidence, general prosperity, and respect, 18-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIX
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 29:1. Job now goes on to finish his…
Job 29:1. Job now goes on to finish his defence, and in order to it he first sets forth his condition in the time of his prosperity, against which he places, by way of contrast, his present unhappy situation, describing both with great beauty and elegance. He then proceeds to purge himself of the several crimes laid to his charge, imprecating on himself the divine vengeance, in various manners, in case he were guilty, and at last concludes that this was his plea, on this he would rest his defence: he was desirous it might be recorded, and prays that his cause might be brought to a decision, declaring he was under no manner of apprehensions of the consequences.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Moreover, Job continued his parable - See the notes…
Moreover, Job continued his parable - See the notes at Job 27:1. It is probable that Job had paused to see if anyone would attempt a reply. As his friends were silent, he resumed his remarks and went into a more full statement of his sufferings. The fact that Job more than once paused in his addresses to give his friends an opportunity to speak, and that they were silent when they seemed called upon to vindicate their former sentiments, was what particularly roused the wrath of Elihu and induced him to answer; Job 32:2-5.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Job_29:1 to Job_42:6
SECOND CHIEF DIVISION OF THE POEM
DISENTANGLEMENT OF THE MYSTERY THROUGH THE DISCOURSES OF JOB, ELIHU AND JEHOVAH
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Job_29:1 to Job_42:6
First Stage of the Disentanglement
Job 29-31
Job’s Soliloquy, setting forth the truth that his suffering was not due to his moral conduct, that it must have therefore a deeper cause. [The negative side of the solution of the problem.]
1. Yearning retrospect at the fair prosperity of his former life
Job 29
a. Describing the outward appearance of this former prosperity
Job_29:1-10
1 Moreover, Job continued his parable, and said:
2 O that I were as in months past,
as in the days when God preserved me;
3 when His candle shined upon my head,
and when by His light I walked through darkness;
4 as I was in the days of my youth.
when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
5 when the Almighty was yet with me,
when my children were about me;
6 when I washed my steps with butter,
and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
7 when I went out to the gate through the city,
when I prepared my seat in the street!
8 The young men saw me, and hid themselves;
and the aged arose, and stood up.
9 The princes refrained talking,
and laid their hand on their mouth.
10 The nobles held their peace,
and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
b. Pointing out the inward cause of this prosperity—his benevolence and integrity
Job_29:11-17
11 When the ear heard me, then it blessed me;
and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:
12 because I delivered the poor that cried;
and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.
13 The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me:
and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
14 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me:
my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
15 I was eyes to the blind,
and feet was I to the lame.
16 I was a father to the poor;
and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
17 And I brake the jaws of the wicked,
and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
c. Describing that feature of his former prosperity which he now most painfully misses, viz., the universal honor shown to him, and his far-reaching influence: Job_29:18-25
18 Then I said, I shall die in my nest,
and I shall multiply my days as the sand.
19 My root was spread out by the waters,
and the dew lay all night upon my branch.
20 My glory was fresh in me,
and my bow was renewed in my hand.
21 Unto me men gave ear, and waited,
and kept silence at my counsel.
22 After my words they spake not again;
and my speech dropped upon them.
23 And they waited for me as for the rain;
and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.
24 If I laughed on them, they believed it not;
and the light of my countenance they cast not down.
25 I chose out their way, and sat chief,
and dwelt as a king in the army,
as one that comforteth the mourners.
2. Sorrowful description of his present sad estate
Job 30
a. The ignominy and contempt he receives from men: Job_30:1-15
1 But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,
whose fathers I would have disdained
to have set with the dogs of my flock.
2 Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me,
in whom old age was perished?
3 For want and famine they were solitary;
fleeing into the wilderness
in former time desolate and waste.
4 Who cut up mallows by the bushes,
and juniper roots for their meat.
5 They were driven forth from among men,
(they cried after them as after a thief);
6 To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys,
in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.
7 Among the bushes they brayed;
under the nettles they were gathered together.
8 They were children of fools, yea, children of base men;
they were viler than the earth.
9 And now am I their song,
yea, I am their byword.
10 They abhor me, they flee far from me,
and spare not to spit in my face.
11 Because He hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me,
they have also let loose the bridle before me.
12 Upon my right hand rise the youth;
they push away my feet,
and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.
13 They mar my path,
they set forward my calamity,
they have no helper.
14 They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters;
in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.
15 Terrors are turned upon me:
they pursue my soul as the wind:
and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.
b. The unspeakable misery which everywhere oppresses him: Job_30:16-23
16 And now my soul is poured out upon me;
the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
17 My bones are pierced in me in the night season;
and my sinews take no rest.
18 By the great force of my disease is my garment changed:
it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
19 He hath cast me into the mire,
and I am become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me:
I stand up, and Thou regardest me not.
21 Thou art become cruel to me;
with Thy strong hand Thou opposest Thyself against me.
22 Thou liftest me up to the wind;
Thou causest me to ride upon it,
and dissolvest my substance.
23 For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death,
and to the house appointed for all living.
c. The disappointment of all his hopes: Job_30:24-31
24 Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave,
though they cry in his destruction.
25 Did not I weep for him that was in trouble?
was not my soul grieved for the poor?
26 When I looked for good, then evil came unto me;
and when I waited for light, there came darkness.
27 My bowels boiled, and rested not:
the days of affliction prevented me.
28 I went mourning without the sun:
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.
29 I am a brother to dragons,
and a companion to owls.
30 My skin is black upon me,
and my bones are burned with heat.
31 My harp also is turned to mourning,
and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
3. Solemn asseveration of his innocence in respect to all open and secret sins
Job 31
a. He has abandoned himself to no wicked lust: Job_31:1-8
1 I made a covenant with mine eyes;
why then should I think upon a maid?
2 For what portion of God is there from above?
and what inheritance of the Almighty from on high?
3 Is not destruction to the wicked?
and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?
4 Doth not He see my ways,
and count all my steps?
5 If I have walked with vanity,
or if my foot hath hasted to deceit;
6 let me be weighed in an even balance,
that God may know mine integrity.
7 If my step hath turned out of the way,
and mine heart walked after mine eyes,
and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands;
8 then let me sow, and let another eat;
yea, let my offspring be rooted out.
b. He has acted uprightly in all his domestic life: Job_31:9-13
9 If mine heart have been deceived by a woman,
or if I have laid wait at my neighbor’s door;
10 then let my wife grind unto another,
and let others bow down upon her.
11 For this is a heinous crime;
yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges.
12 For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction,
and would root out all mine increase.
13 If I did despise the cause of my man-servant, or of my maid-servant,
when they contended with me;
14 what then shall I do when God riseth up?
and when He visiteth, what shall I answer Him?
15 Did not He that made me in the womb make him?
and did not One fashion us in the womb?
c. He has constantly practised neighborly kindness and Justice in civil life: Job_31:16-23
16 If I have withheld the poor from their desire,
or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail;
17 or have eaten my morsel myself alone,
and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof:
18 (for from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father,
and I have guided her from my mother’s womb;)
19 if I have seen any perish for want of clothing,
or any poor without covering;
20 if his loins have not blessed me,
and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
21 if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless,
when I saw my help in the gate;
22 then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade,
and mine arm be broken from the bone!
23 For destruction from God was a terror to me,
and by reason of His highness I could not endure.
d. He has not violated his more secret obligations to God and his neighbor: Job_31:24-32
24 If I have made gold my hope,
or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence;
25 if I rejoiced because my wealth was great,
and because mine hand had gotten much;
26 if I beheld the sun when it shined,
or the moon walking in brightness;
27 and my heart hath been secretly enticed,
or my mouth hath kissed my hand:
28 this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge;
for I should have denied the God that is above.
29 If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me,
or lifted up myself when evil found him:
30 (—neither have I suffered my mouth to sin
by wishing a curse to his soul:)
31 if the men of my tabernacle said not,
O that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied.
32 The stranger did not lodge in the street:
but I opened my doors to the traveller.
e. He has been guilty furthermore of no hypocrisy, or mere semblance of holiness, of no secret violence, or avaricious oppression of his neighbor: Job_31:33-40
33 If I covered my transgressions as Adam,
by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom:
34 did I fear a great multitude,
or did the contempt of families terrify me,
that I kept silence, and went not out of the door?
35 O that one would hear me!
behold, my desire is that the Almighty would answer me,
and that mine adversary had written a book.
36 Surely I would take it upon my shoulder,
and bind it as a crown to me.
37 I would declare unto Him the number of my steps;
as a prince would I go near unto Him.
38 If my land cry against me,
or that the furrows likewise thereof complain;
39 If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money,
or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life;
40 Let thistles grow instead of wheat,
and cockle instead of barley.
The words of Job are ended.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Although introduced by the same formula as the discourse immediately preceding (comp. Job_29:1 with Job_27:1), this last long series of Job’s utterances exhibits decidedly a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος, a form and method esssentially new in comparison with the former controversial and argumentative discourses of the colloquy. They are not once addressed to the friends, who since Job 25. have been entirely silenced, and have not been provoked to further reply even by the elaborate instructions, which he imparts to them in Job 27-28. Instead of this they frequently appeal to God, and present, especially in the last section, a long series of solemn asseverations or adjurations uttered before God. They thus appear, in contrast with the interlocutory character of the discourses hitherto, as a genuine soliloquy by Job, which both by its contents and by its conspicuous length, forms a suitable transition to the following discourses, or groups of discourses by Elihu and Jehovah, which are in like manner of considerable length. The three principal sections are a yearning retrospect to the happy past (Job 29), a description of the sorrowful present (Job 30), and solemn asseverations of innocence in presence of the divine judge, or God of the Future (Job 31). These divisions are very obvious, and justify the divisions into chapters founded on them as corresponding strictly to that intended by the poet himself. Neither can there be much doubt in regard to the more special sub-division of these chief divisions. The first and the second contain respectively three long sub-divisions or strophes, of 8–9 verses each (once only, Job_30:1 seq. of 15 verses, which long strophe indeed may also be divided into two shorter ones of 8 and 7 verses. In the third part there appear quite distinctly five groups of thought of 7–8 (once of 9) verses each.
2. First Division: The prosperity of the past: Job 29. [“It is very thoughtfully planned by the poet that Job, by this description of his former prosperity, unintentionally refutes the accusations of his friends, inasmuch as it furnishes a picture of his former life very different from that which they had ventured to assume. We have here the picture of a rich and highly distinguished chief of a tribe [or patriarch], who was happy only in spreading abroad happiness and blessing.” Schlottmann].
First Strophe: Job_29:2-10 : The outward appearance of this former prosperity.
Job_29:2. Oh that it were to me [Oh that I were] as in months of yore! lit. “who gives (makes) me like the months of the past,” who puts me back in the happy condition of that time (so Rosenm., Welte, Vaih, etc.). Or, with the dative rendering of the suffix in יִתְּנֵנִי (as in Isa_27:4; Jer_9:1), “who gives to me like the months of the past,” i. e. who makes me to live over such! (so usually). On the construction in b (the constr. state כימי before the relative clause), comp. Gesenius, § 116, [§ 114], 3. [Green, §255, 2].
Job_29:3. When it (viz.) His lamp shone above my head.—בְּהִלּוֹ, Inf. Kal of הלל with the vowel a weakened to i (Ewald, § 255, a) [Green, § 139, 2], not Inf. Hiph. as Böttcher would render it, when after the Targ. he translates: “when He caused His lamp to shine.” This Hiphil rendering could only be justified if (with Ewald in his comm.) we should read בָּהִלּוֹ (בַּהֲהִלּוֹ). [“Probably alluding to the custom of suspending lamps in rooms or tents over the head. The language of this ver. is of course figurative, and implies prosperity and the divine favor.” Carey]. On the anticipation of the subject נֵרוֹ by the suffix, comp. Ew., § 309, c. Delitzsch quite too artificially refers the suffix in בהלי to God, and takes נֵרוֹ as a self-corrective, explanatory permutative: “when He, His lamp shone, etc.”
Job_29:4. As I was in the days of my harvest.—כַּאֲשֶׁר, “as, according as,” resumes the simple כְּ in כירחי and כימי, Job_29:2. “The days of the harvest” are, as Job_29:5 b shows, a figurative expression for ripe manhood [“the days of my prime” Carey], the ætas virilis suis fructibus fœta et exuberans (Schultens): comp. Ovid Metam. XV. 200. [The rendering of E. V. “in the days of my youth” (after Symmach. and the Vulg.) is less correct, as is shown by the reference above to Job_29:5 b, the time referred to being that when he had his children about him, as well as by the word חרף itself, which means the time when the ripe fruit is gathered]. When Eloah’s friendship was over my tent;i. e. dispensed protection and blessing above my habitation. סוֹד here meaning “familiarity, confidential intercourse,” (as in Job_19:19; Psa_25:14; Psa_55:15 [14]; Pro_3:22), not the celestial council of God, as in Job_15:8 (against Hirzel). [“בְּסוֹד either by ellipsis for בִּהְיוֹת סוֹד or סוֹד having the force of an active [verbal] noun, “His being familiar.” Dillm.—Carey’s explanation, though pushing the literal rendering a little too far, is striking: “lit. in the seat or cushion of God being at my tent; i. e., when God was on such terms of familiar intercourse with me that he had, as it were, his accustomed seat at my tent”].
Job_29:5. On children as a most highly valued blessing, placed here next to God Himself, comp. Psa_127:3 seq.; Psa_128:3. Concerning נערים): in this sense (not in that of “servants,”) see above Job_1:19; Job_24:5.
Job_29:6. When my steps were bathed in cream (comp. Job_20:17, where however we have the full form הֶמְאָה), and the rock beside me poured out streams of oil; that which elsewhere was barren poured out costly blessings, and that close by his side, so that he was not compelled to go far; comp. Deu_32:13.
Job_29:7-10. The honor and dignity which he then enjoyed. When I went forth to the gate up to the city. שׁער is equivalent to שַׁעֲרָה, towards the gate (comp. Job_28:11; Gen_27:3), not: “out at the gate” (as below, Job_31:34פֶּתַח), for Job’s residence was in the country, not in the city with שׁערים. For this same reason he speaks here of his going up עֲלֵי קֶרֶת, “up to the city;” for the city adjoining to him, was on an eminence, as was usually the case with ancient cities. [Comp. Abraham’s relations to Hebron, as indicated in Genesis 23.]. In respect to the use of the space directly inside the gates of these cities as a place for assemblies of the people, comp. above, Job_5:4; also Job_31:4; Pro_1:21; Pro_8:3, and often. When I prepared my seat in the market. רְחוֹב the open space at the gate, as in Neh_8:1; Neh_8:3; Neh_8:16, etc. On the construction (the change from the Infin. to the finite verb), comp. Job_29:3; Job_28:25.
Job_29:8. Then the young men saw me, and hid themselves;i. e. as soon as they came in sight of me, from reverential awe. And the gray-headed rose up, remained standing—until I myself had sat. [“A most elegant description, and exhibits most correctly the great reverence and respect which was paid, even by the old and decrepit, to the holy man in passing along the streets, or when he sat in public. They not only rose, which in men so old and infirm was a great mark of distinction, but they stood, they continued to do it, though the attempt was so difficult.” Lowth]. On the construction, comp. Ewald, §285, b.
Job_29:9. Princes restrained themselves from speaking (עָצַר בְּמִלִּים, as in Job_4:2; Job_12:15), and laid the hand on their mouth, imposed on themselves reverential silence; comp. Job_21:5. [“What is meant is not that those who were in the act of speaking stopped at Job’s entrance, but that when he wished to speak, even princes, i. e. rulers of great bodies of men, or those occupying the highest offices, refrained from speech.” Dillmann].
Job_29:10. The voice of nobles hid itself, lit. “hid themselves,” for the verb נֶחְבָּאוּ is put in agreement with the plur. dependent on קוֹל as the principal term, as in the similar cases in Job_15:20; Job_21:21; Job_22:12. [Comp. Green, § 277].—נְגִידִים lit. “those who are visible” (from נגד) i. e. conspicuous, noble [nobiles]. On b comp. passages like Psa_137:6; Eze_3:26.
Continuation. Second Strophe: Job_29:11-17. Job’s active benevolence and strict integrity as the inward cause of his former prosperity.
Job_29:11. For if an ear heard—it called me happy—lit. “for an ear heard, and then called me happy;” and similarly in the second member. The object of the hearing, as afterwards of the seeing, is neither Job’s speeches in the assembly of the people [“if this ver. were a continuation of the description of the proceedings in the assembly, it would not be introduced by כִּי” Dillm.], nor his prosperity (Hahn, Delitzsch), but as Job_29:12 seq. shows, his whole public and private activity. [For the reason mentioned by Dillmann כִּי is better translated “for” than “when” (E. V.)]. In regard to אִשֵּׁר “to pronounce happy,” comp. Pro_31:28; Son_6:9. In regard to הֵעִיד, to bear favorable testimony to any one, comp. μαρτυρεῖν τινιLuk_4:22; Act_15:8.
Job_29:12. For I delivered the poor, that cried, and the orphan, who had no helper (וְלֹא־עֹזִרִ לֹו a circumstantial clause, comp. Ew., § 331). [The clause “is either a third new object (so E. V.)], or a close definition of what precedes: the orphan and (in this state of orphanhood) helpless one. The latter is more probable both here and in the Salomonic primary passage Psa_72:12; in the other case ואשׁר אין־עזר לו might be expected.” Delitz.]. The Imperfects describing that which is wont to be, as also in Job_29:13; Job_29:16. As to the sentiment, comp. Psa_72:12.
Job_29:13. The blessing of the lost (lit. “of one lost, perishing;” אוֹבֵד as in Job_31:19; Pro_31:6) came upon me;i. e., as b shows, the grateful wish that he might be blessed from such miserable ones as had been rescued by him, hardly the actual blessing which God bestowed on him in answer to the prayer of such (comp. Hernias, Past. Simil. 2).
Job_29:14. I had clothed myself with righteousness, and it with me;i. e., in proportion as I exerted myself to exercise righteousness (צֶדֶק) toward my neighbor, the same [righteousness] took form, filled me inwardly in truth [“it put me on as a garment, i. e., it made me so its own, that my whole appearance was the representation of itself, as in Jdg_6:34, and twice in the Chron., of the Spirit of Jehovah it is said that He puts on any one, induit, when He makes any one the organ of His own manifestation,” Delitzsch. “Righteousness was as a robe to me, and I was as a robe to it. I put it on, and it put me on; it identified itself with me.” Words.] Not: “and it clothed me,” as Rosenmüller, Arnh., Umbr. [E. V., Schlottm., Carey, Renan, Rod., Elz., etc.], arbitrarily render the second לבשׁ, thereby producing only a flat tautology. [Ewald also: “it adorned me.”—The other rendering is adopted, or approved by Gesen., Fürst, Delitzsch, Dillmann, Wordsworth, Noyes in his Notes]. The figure of being clothed with a moral quality or way of living to represent one as equipped, or adorned therewith, (comp. Isa_11:5; Isa_51:9; Isa_59:17; Psa_132:9), is continued in the second member, where Job’s strict righteousness and spotless integrity (this is what מִשְׁפָּט means; comp. Mic_3:8) are represented as “a mantle and a tiara (turban);” comp. Isa_61:10.
Job_29:15. Comp. Num_10:31. To be anybody’s eye, ear, foot (here “feet”), etc., is of course to supply these organs by the loving ministration of help, and to make it possible as it were to dispense with them.
Job_29:16. On a comp. Isa_9:5; Isa_22:21.—אָב and אֶבְיוֹנִים seem to form a paronomasia here.—And the cause of the unknown [the strangers, the friendless] I searched out, i. e., in order to help them as their advocate, provided they were in the right.—לֹא יָדַעְתִּי, attributive clause, as in Job_18:21; Isa_41:3; Isa_55:5, and often. [E. V., “the cause which I knew not” is admissible, and gives essentially the same sense; but the other rendering is to be preferred, as furnishing a better parallel to the “blind, lame, poor,” preceding.—The man whom nobody knew, or cared for, Job would willingly take for his client.—E.].
Job_29:17. I broke the teeth of the wicked (the cohortative, וַֽאֲשַׁבְּרָה, as in Job_1:15; Job_19:20), and out of his teeth I plucked the prey.—For the description of hardhearted oppressors and tyrants (or unrighteous judges, of whom we are to think particularly here), under the figure of ravaging wild beasts, from which the prey is rescued, comp. Psa_3:8 [Psa_3:7]; Psa_58:7 [Psa_58:6], etc.
4. Conclusion: Third Strophe: Job_29:18-25. The honor and the influence which Job once enjoyed, and the loss of which he mourns with especial sorrow.
Job_29:18. And so then I thought [said]: With my neat [“together with my nest,” as implying a wish that he and his nest might perish together, would be “unnatural, and diametrically opposed to the character of an Arab, who in the presence of death cherishes the twofold wish that he may continue to live in his children, and that he may die in the midst of his family,” Delitzsch] (or also: “in my nest”) shall I die;i. e., without having left or lost my home, together with my family, and property (comp. Psa_84:4 [3]), hence in an advanced, happy old age.—And like the phenix have many days: lit., “make many, multiply my days.” The language also would admit of our rendering חוֹל “sand,” understanding the expression to refer to the multiplication of days like grains of sand; comp. “as the sand of the sea” in 1Ki_5:9 [1Ki_4:29 applying to Solomon’s wisdom] and often; also Ovid, Metam. XIV. 136 seq.: quot haberet corpora pulvis, tot mihi natales contingere vana rogavi. But against this interpretation, which is adopted by the Targ., Pesh., Saad., Luther, Umbreit, Gesenius, Stickel, Vaih., Hahn, [E. V., Con., Noy., Ber., Carey, Words., Renan, Rodwell, Merx], and in favor of understanding חוֹל of the phenix, that long-lived bird of the well-known oriental legend (so most moderns since Rosenmüller) may be urged: (1) The oldest exegetical tradition in the Talmud, in the Midrashim, among the Masoretes and Rabbis (especially Kimchi); (2) the versions—manifestly proceeding out of a misconception of this phenix tradition—of the LXX.: ωσπερ στέλεχος φοίνικος; of the Itala: sicut arbor palmæ, and of the Vulg.: sicut palma; (3) and finally even the etymology of the word חוֹל (or חוּל, as the Rabbis of Nahardearead, according to Kimchi) which it would seem must be derived (with Bochart) from חולtorquere, volvere, and be explained “circulation, periodic return,” and even in its Egyptian form Koli (Copt.; alloe) is to be traced back to this Shemitic radical signification (among the ancient Egyptians indeed the chief name of the phenix was béni, hierogl. bano, benno, which at the same time signifies “palm”). The phrase—“to live as long as the phenix” is found also among other people of antiquity besides the Egyptians, e. g., among the Greeks (φοίνικος ἔτη βιοῦν, Lucian, Hermot., p. 53); and the whole legend concerning the phenix living for five hundred years, then burning itself together with its nest, and again living glorified, is in general as ancient as it is widely spread, especially in the East. Therefore it can neither seem strange, nor in any way objectionable, if a poetical book of the Holy Scripture should make reference to this myth (comp. the allusions to astronomical and other myths in Job 3:9; 26:28). Touching the proposition that the Egyptian nationality of the poet, or the Egyptian origin of his ideas does not follow from this passage, see above, Introd., § 7, b (where may also be found the most important literary sources of information respecting the legend of the phenix).
Job_29:19-20 continue the expression, begun in Job_29:18, of that which Job thought and hoped for. [According to E. V., Job_29:19 resumes the description of Job’s former condition: “My root was spread out, etc.” But these two verses are so different from the passage preceding, (Job_29:11-25), in which Job speaks of his deeds of beneficence, and from the passage following (Job_29:21-25) in which he describes his influence in the public assembly, and so much in harmony with Job_29:18, in which he speaks of his prospects, as they seemed to his hopes, that the connection adopted by Zöckler, and most recent expositors, is decidedly to be preferred.—E.].
Job_29:19. My root will be open towards the water:i. e., my life will flourish, like a tree plentifully watered (comp. Job_14:7 seq.; Job_18:16), and the dew will lie all night in my branches (comp. the same passages; also Gen_27:39; Pro_19:12; Psa_133:3, etc.)
Job_29:20. Mine honor will remain (ever) fresh with me (כָּבוֹד = δόξα, consideration, dignity, honor with God and men—not “soul” as Hahn explains [“to which חָדָשׁ is not appropriate as predicate,” Del.], and my bow is renewed in my hand—the bow as a symbol of robust manliness, and strength for action, comp. 1Sa_2:4; Psa_46:10 [Psa_46:9]; Psa_76:4 [Psa_76:3]; Jer_49:35; Jer_51:56, etc.—הֶחֱלִיף, to make progress, to sprout forth (Job_14:7); here to renew oneself, to grow young again. It is not necessary to supply, e.g., כֹּחַ, as Hirzel and Schlottmann do, on the basis of Isa_40:31.
Job_29:21. seq., exhibit in connection with the joyful hopes of Job, just described, which flowed forth directly out of the fulness of his prosperity, and in particular of the honor which he enjoyed, a full description of this honor, the narrative style of the discourse by וָאֹמַר, Job_29:18, being resumed. Job_29:21-23 have for their subject others than Job himself, the members of his tribe, not specially those who took part in the assemblies described in Job_29:7-10; for which reason it is unnecessary to assume a transposition, of the passage after Job_29:10.
Job_29:21. They hearkened to me, and waited (יִחֵלּוּ, pausal form, with Dagh. euphonic for יִחֲלוּ, comp. Gesen. § 20, 2 c), and listened silently to my counsel (lit. “and were silent for or at my counsel”).
Job_29:22. After my words they spoke not again—lit. “they did not repeat” (וִשְׁנוּ, non iterabant). On b comp. Deu_32:2; Son_4:11; Pro_5:3.
Job_29:23. Further expansion of the figure last used of the refreshing [rain-like] dropping of his discourse. They opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.—The מַלְקוֹשׁ, or latter rain in March or April, is, on account of the approaching harvest, which it helps to ripen, longed for with particular urgency in Palestine and the adjacent countries; comp. Deu_11:14; Jer_3:3; Jer_5:24; Joe_2:23; Hos_6:3, etc. On שָׁאַף = פָּעַר פֶּה, to gape, pant, comp. Psa_119:131.
Job_29:24. I laughed upon them when they despaired—lit. “when they did not have confidence” (הֶאֱמִון, absol. as in Isa_7:9; comp. Psa_116:10; and יַאֲמִינוּ a circumstantial clause without וְ—this lacking וְ, however, being supplied in many MSS. and Eds.). The meaning can be only: “even when they were despondent, I knew how to cheer them up by my friendly smiles.” This is the only meaning with which the second member agrees which cannot harmonize with the usual explanation: “I smiled at them, they believed it not” (LXX., Vulg., Saad., Luther [E. V., Noy., Rod., Ren., Merx], and most moderns). [“The reverence in which I was held was so great, that if I laid aside my gravity, and was familiar with them, they could scarcely believe that they were so highly honored; my very smiles were received with awe” Noyes]. And the light of my countenance (i. e., my cheerful visage, comp. Pro_16:15) they could not darken; lit. “they could not cause to fall, cast down,” comp. Gen_4:5-6 Jer_3:12.—[“However despondent their position appeared, the cheerfulness of my countenance they could not cause to pass away.” Del.]
Job_29:25. I would gladly take the way to them (comp. Job_28:23); i. e., I took pleasure in sitting in the midst of them, and in taking part in affairs. This is the only meaning that is favored by what follows;—the rendering of Hahn and Delitzsch: “I chose out for them the way they should go” [“I made the way plain which they should take in order to get out of their hopeless and miserable state.” Del This is the meaning also suggested by E. V.] is opposed by the consideration that בחר, “to choose,” never means “to prescribe, determine, enjoin.” In the passage which follows, “sitting as chief” (רֹאשׁ) is immediately defined more in the concrete by the clause, כְּמֶלֶךְ בַּגְּדוּד, “like a king in the midst of the army;” but then the I altogether too military aspect of this figure (comp. Job_15:24; Job_19:12) is again softened by making the business of the king surrounded by his armies to be not leading them to battle, but “comforting the mourners.” Whether in this expression there is intended a thrust at the friends on account of their unskilful way of comforting (as Ewald and Dillmann think), may very much be doubted.
Second Division: The wretchedness of the present. Chap. 30. First Strophe (or Double Strophe). Job_30:1-15. The ignominy and contempt which he receives from men, put in glaring contrast with the high honor just described. The contrast is heightened all the more by the fact that the men now introduced as insulting and mocking him are of the very lowest and most contemptible sort; being the same class of men whose restless, vagabond life has already been described in Job_24:4-8, only more briefly than here.
Job_30:1. And now they laugh at me who are younger than I in days—the good-for-nothing rabble of children belonging to that abandoned class. What a humiliation for him before whom the aged stood up! [“The first line of the verse which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach is intentionally so disproportionately long to form a deep and long-breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun.” Del.] They whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock (שִׂית עִם, “to make like, to put on a level with,” not to set over, שִׂית עַל, præficere, as Schultens, Rosemn., Schlottm. explain). From this strong expression of contempt it does not follow that Job was now indulging in haughty or tyrannical inhuman thoughts [the considerate sympathy expressed by Job in Job_24:4-8 regarding this same class of men should be borne in mind in judging of Job’s spirit here also; yet it cannot be denied that the pride of the grand dignified old Emir does flash through the words.—E.], but only that that rabble was immeasureably destitute, and moreover morally abandoned, thievish, false, improvident, and generally useless.
Job_30:2. Even the strength of their hands—what should it be to me?—i. e. “and even (LXX. καί γε) as regards themselves, those youngsters, of what use could the strength of their hands be to me?” Why this was of no use to him is explained in b:for them full ripeness is lost, i. e., enervated, miserable creatures that they are, they do not once reach ripe manly vigor (בֶּרַה as in Job_5:26). [Hence not “old age,” as in E. V., which is both less correct and less expressive.] Why they do not, the verses immediately following show.
Job_30:3. Through want and hunger (they are) starved; lit. they are “a hard stiff rock” גַּלְמוּד, as in Job_15:34); they, who gnaw the dry steppe;i. e., gnaw away (עקר as in Job_30:17) what grows there; comp. Job_24:5; which have long been a wild and a wilderness.—According to the parallel passages Job_38:27; and Zep_1:15שׁוֹאָה וּמְשׁוֹאָה unquestionably signifies “waste and devastation,” or “wild and wilderness” (comp. תהו ובהו, Gen_1:2; בוקה ומבוקה, Nah_2:11; and similar examples of assonance). The אֶמֶשׁ preceding however is difficult. Elsewhere it is an adverb of time: “the past night, last evening [and so, yesterday],” but here evidently a substantive, and in the constr. state. It is explained to mean either: “the yesterday of wasteness and desolation,” i. e., “that which has long been wasteness,” etc. (Hirzel, Ewald) [Schlott., Renan, to whom may be added Good, Lee, Carey, Elzas, who connect אֶמֶשׁ with the participle, translating—” who yesterday were gnawers,” etc.], or: “the night, the darkness of the wilderness” (Targ., Rabbis, Gesen., Del.) [Noyes, Words., Barnes, Bernard, Rodwell, the last two taking שׁ׳ ,אמשׁand מש׳ as three independent nouns,—“gloom, waste, desolation”]. Of these constructions the former is to be preferred, since darkness appears nowhere else (not even in Jer_2:6; Jer_2:31) as a characteristic predicate of the wilderness,” and since especially the “gnawing of the darkness of the wilderness” produces a thought singularly harsh. Dillmann’s explanation: “already yesterday a pure wilderness” (where therefore there is nothing to be found to-day), is linguistically harsh; and Olshausen’s emendation—אֶרֶץ שׁ׳ ומ׳—arbitrary. [E. V. following the LXX. Targ., and most of the old expositors, translates הָעֹרְקִים “fleeing,” a rendering which besides being far less vivid and forcible, is less suitable, the desert being evipently their proper habitation. ערק in the sense of “gnawing” reminds of טרף, Job_24:5. It will be seen also that E. V. follows the adverbial construction of אמשׁ but “the wilderness in former time desolate and waste” suggests no very definite or consistent meaning. If a verbial, the force of אמשׁ must be to enhance the misery and hopelessness of their condition. They lived in what was not only now, but what had long been a desert—a fact which made the prospect of getting their support from it all the more cheerless.—E.].
Job_30:4. They who pluck the salt-wort by the bushes—in the place therefore where such small plants could first live, despite the scorching heat of the desert sun; in the shadow, that is, of larger bushes, especially of that perennial, branchy bush which is found in the Syrian desert under the name sîh, of which Wetzstein treats in Delitzsch.—מַלּוּחַ is the orach, salt-wort (also sea-purslain, atriplex halimus L. comp. LXX.: ἅλιμα), a plant which in its younger and more tender leaves furnishes some nourishment, although of a miserable sort; comp. Athenæus, Deipnos. IV., 161, where it is said of poor Pythagoreans: ἅλιμα τρώγοντες καὶ κακὰ τοιαῦτα συλλέγοντες.—And broom-roots are their bread.—That the root of the broom (genista monosperma) is edible, is indeed asserted only here; still we need not doubt it, nor read e. g., לַחֲמַם, “in order to warm themselves” (Gesenius), as though here as in Psa_120:4, or the use of the broom as fuel was spoken of, Comp. Michaelis. Neue orient. Bibl. V, 45, and Wetzstein in Del. [II., 143.—And see Smith’s Bib. Dic., “Juniper,” “Mallows”].
Job_30:5. Out of the midst (of men) they are hunted, e medio pelluntur. נֵּו, lit. that which is within, i. e., here the circle of human social life, human society.—They cry after them as (after) a thief. כַּגַּנָּב, as though they were a thief; comp. כַּמָּטָר, Job_29:23.
Job_30:6. In the most horrid gorges they must dwell—lit. “in the horror of the gorges (in horridissima vallium regione; comp. Job_41:22; Ewald, § 313, c) it is for them to dwell;” comp. Gesen., § 132 (§ 129], Rem. 1.—In holes of the earth and of the rocks. Hence they were genuine troglodytes; see below after Job_30:8. Concerning עָפָר, “earth, ground,” see on Job_28:2.
Job_30:7. Among the bushes they cry out. נהק above in Job_6:5 of the cry of the wild ass, here of the wild tones of the savage inhabitants of the steppes seeking food,—not their sermo barbarus; Pineda, Schlottmann [who refers to Herodotus’ comparison of the language of the Ethiopian troglodytes to the screech of the night-owl. According to Delitzsch the word refers to their cries of lamentation and discontent over their desperate condition. There can be but little doubt that the word is intended to remind us of the comparison of these people to wild asses in Job_24:5, and so far the rendering of E. V. “bray,” is not amiss]. Under nettles (brambles) they herd together; lit. “they must mix together, gather themselves.” Most of the modern expositors render the Pual as a strict Passive, with the meaning, “they are poured [or stretched] out,” which would be equivalent to—“they lie down” [or are prostrate]; comp. Amo_6:4; Amo_6:7. But both the use of ספח in such passages as 1Sa_26:19; Isa_14:1, and the testimony of the most ancient Versions (Vulg., Targ., and indeed the LXX. also: διῃτῶντο) favor rather the meaning of herding, or associating together. [“But neither the fut. nor the Pual (instead of which one would expect the Niph., or Hithpa.) is favorable to the latter interpretation: wherefore we decide in favor of the former, and find sufficient support for a Heb.-Arabic ספח in the signification effundere from a comparison of Job_14:19 and the present passage.” Del.].
Job_30:8. Sons of fools, yea, sons of base men,—both expressions in opposition to the subject of the preceding verse. נבל is used as a collective, and means the ungodly, as in Psa_14:1.—בְּלִי־שֵׁם, equivalent to ignobiles, infames, a construction similar to that in Job_26:2 [lit. “sons of no-name”]; comp. § 286, g.—They are -whipped out of the land; lit. indeed an attributive clause—“who are whipped,” etc.; hence exiles, those who are driven forth out of their own home. [The rendering of E. V., “they were viler than the earth” was doubtless suggested by the use of the adjective נָכֵא in the sense of “afflicted, dejected”]. In view of the palpable identity of those pictured in these verses with those described in Job_24:4-8, it is natural to assume the existence of a particular class of men in the country inhabited by Job as having furnished the historical occasion and theme of both descriptions. Since now in both passages a troglodyte way of living (dwelling in clefts of the rock and in obscure places, comp. above Job_24:4; Job_24:8) and the condition of having been driven out of their former habitations (comp. Job_24:4) are mentioned as prominent characteristics of these wretched ones, it be comes particularly probable that the people intended are the Choreans, or Chorites (Luther: Horites) [E. V.: “Horims”] who dwelt in holes, the aborigines of the mountain region of Seir, who were in part subjugated by the Edomites, in part exterminated, in part expelled (comp. Gen_36:5; Deu_2:12; Deu_2:22). Even if Job’s home is to be looked for at some distance from Edomitis, e. g. in Hauran (comp. on. Job_1:1) a considerable number of such Chorites (חוֹרִים, i. e. dweller in holes, or caves) might have been living in his neighborhood; for driven out by the Edomites they would have fled more particularly into the neighboring regions of Seir-Edom, and here indeed again they would have betaken themselves to the mountains with their caves, gorges, where they would have lived the same wretched life as their ancestors, who had been left behind in Edom. It is less likely that a cave-dwelling people in Hauran, different from these remnant of the Horites, are intended, e. g. the Itureans, who were notorious for their poverty, and waylaying mode of life (Del. and Wetzst.).
Job_30:9. In the second half of the Long Strophe, which also begins with וְעַתָּה Job turns his attention away from the wretches whom he has been elaborately describing back to himself. And now I am become their song of derision, I am become to them for a byword.—נְגִינָה, elsewhere a stringed instrument, means here a song of derision, σίλλος (comp. Lam_3:14; Psa_69:13 [12], מִלָּה, malicious, defamatory speech, referring to the subject of the same (LXX.: θρύλλημα).
Job_30:10. Abhorring me, they remove far from me (to wit, from very abhorrence), yea, they have not spared my face with spitting;i. e. when at any time they come near me, it is never without testifying their deepest contempt by spitting in my face (Mat_26:67; Mat_27:30). An unsuitable softening of the meaning is attempted by those expositors, who find expressed here merely “a spitting in his presence” (Hirzel, Umbreit, Schlottmann); this meaning would require לְפָנַי rather than מִפָּנַי. Comp. also above Job_17:6, where Job calls himself a תֹּפֶת לְפָנִים for the people.
Job_30:11 seq. show why Job had been in such a way given over to be mocked at by the most wretched, because namely God and the divine powers which cause calamity had delivered him, over to the same. For these are the principal subject in Job_30:11-14, not those miserable outcasts of human society just spoken of (as Rosenm., Umbreit, Hirzel, Stickel, Schlottm., Del. [Noy Car., Rod. and appy. E. V.] explain). The correct view is given by LXX. and Vulg., and among the moderns by Ewald, Arnh., Hahn, Dillm., etc.For He hath loosed my cord. So according to the K’ri יִתְרִי, on the basis of which we may also explain: “For He hath loosed, slackened my string,” which would be an antithetic reference to Job_29:20 b, even as by the translation “cord” there would be a retrospective reference to Job_4:21; Job_27:8. If following the K’thibh we read יִתְרוֹ, the explanation would be: “He has loosed His cord, or rein, with which he held the powers of adversity chained,” with which however the following clause: “and bowed me” would not agree remarkably well [not a conclusive objection, for עִנָּה might very appropriately and forcibly describe the way in which his nameless persecutor, God doubtless, would overpower, trample him down, by letting loose His horde of calamities upon Job. Comp. Psa_78:8 [7]. Conant not very differently: “because he has let loose his rein and humbled me;” i. e. with unchecked violence has humbled me. Ewald, less naturally: “He hath opened (i. e. taken off the covering of) His string (his bow). Elizabeth Smith better: “He hath let go His bow-string, and afflicted me.” פִּתֵּחַ in the sense of letting loose a bow, or bow-string however, is not used elsewhere, and וַיְעַנֵּנִי would hardly be a suitable description of the effect of shooting with the bow.—E.]. And the rein have they let loose before me;i.e., have let go before me (persecuting me). The subject of this, as of the following verses, is indisputably God’s hosts let loose against Job, the same which in the similar former description in Job_19:12 were designated his גְּדוּדִים (comp. also Job_16:9; Job_16:12-14). The fearful, violent, and even irresistible character of their attacks on Job, especially as described in Job_30:13-14, is not suited to the miserable class described in Job_30:1-8. They are either angels of calamity, or at least diseases and other evils, or, generally speaking, the personified agencies of the Divine wrath, that Job has nere in mind.
Job_30:12. On the right there rises up a brood, or troop. פִּרְחָח, or according to another reading פִּרְחָה, lit. “a sprouting, a luxuriant flourishing plant.” [E. V., after the Targ. Rabbis, “the youth,” which is both etymologically and exegetically to be rejected.—E.] This calamitous brood (of diseases, etc.) rises on the right, in the sense that they appear against Job as his accusers (comp. Job_16:8); for the accusers before a tribunal took their place at the right of the accused; comp. Zec_3:1; Psa_109:6.—They push away my feet, i. e., they drive me ever further and further into straits, they would leave me no place to stand on. (Ewald’s emendation רַגְלָם—“they let loose then-feet, set them quickly in motion”—is unnecessary)—And cast up against me their destructive ways, in that they heap up their siege-walls against me, the object of their blockade and hostile assaults. סלל, as in Job_19:12, a passage which agrees almost verbally with the one before us, and so confirms our interpretation of the latter as referring to the Divine persecutions as an army beleaguering him. [Not only is this view favored by such a use of the same language as has been used elsewhere (Job 19) of the Divine persecutions, but also by the language itself. It is scarcely conceivable that Job should dignify the spiteful gibes and jeers of that rabble of young outcasts by comparing them to the solemn accusations of a judicial prosecution, or the regular siege of an army.—E.]
Job_30:13. They tear down my path;i. e., by heaping up their ways of destruction they destroy my own heretofore undisturbed way of life.—They help to my destruction (comp. Zec_1:15)—they to whom there is no helper:i. e., who need no other help for their work of destruction, who can accomplish it alone. So correctly Stickel, Hahn, while most modern expositors find in c the idea of helplessness, or that of being despised or forsaken by all the world, to be expressed. Ewald however [so Con.] explains: “there is no helper against them” (appealing to Psa_68:21); and Dillmann doubts whether there can be a satisfactory explanation of the text, which he holds to be corrupt.
Job_30:14. As through a wide breach (כְּפֶרֶץ an elliptical comparison, like כַּגַנָּב Job_30:5) they draw nigh [come on]; under the crash they roll onwards, i, e., of course to storm completely the fortress; comp. Job_16:14. The “crash,” שׁוֹאָָה, is that of the falling ruins of the walls [breached by the assault] not that, e. g., of a roaring torrent, as Hitzig explains (Zeitschr. der D.—M. G., IX. 741), who at the same time attempts to give to פֶּרֶץ the unheard of signification, “forest stream.” [Targ. also; “like the force of the far-extending waves of the sea,” after which probably E. V., “as a wide breaking-in of waters.” But the fig. is evidently that of an inrushing army.—E.]
Job_30:15. Terrors are turned against me;i. e., sudden death-terrors; comp. Job_18:11; Job_18:14; Job_27:20; they pursue like the storm, (like an all-devastating hurricane) my dignity (נְדִבָתִי) [not “soul,” E. V., probably after the analogy of כָּבֹוד frequently in Psalms] that, viz., which was described in Job_29:20 seq. The 3d sing. fem. תִּרְדּף referring to the plur. בַּלָּהוֹת as in Job_14:19; Job_27:20, and often.—And (in consequence of all that) like a cloud my prosperity is gone;i. e., it has vanished as quickly and completely—leaving no trace—as a cloud vanishes on the face of heaven. Comp. Job_7:9; Isa_44:22. [Paronomasia between עָב and עָֽבְרָה: “my prosperity like a vapor has vanished”].
6. Continuation. Second Strophe: The unspeakable misery of the sufferer: Job_30:10-23.—And now (the third וְעַתָּה, comp. Job_30:1; Job_30:8) my soul is poured out within me, dissolving in anguish and complaint, flowing forth in tears [“since the outward man is, as it were, dissolved in the gently flowing tears (Isa_15:3) his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestations and results of an inward action.” Del.] On עָלַי, “with me, in me,” comp. Job_10:1; Psa_42:5 [E. V., too literally—“upon me”].—Days of suffering hold me fast, i. e., in their power, they will not depart from me with their evil effects [“עֳנִי with its verb, and the rest of its derivatives is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah.” Del.]
Job_30:17. The night pierces my bones.—[“The night has been personified already, Job_3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night, (the restless night, Job_7:3 seq., in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it increases) pierces his bones from him.” Del.] Or a translation which is equally possible, “by night my bones are pierced” [E. V., etc.], inasmuch as נִקַּר can be Niph. as well as Piel. מֵעָלַי, lit. “away from me,” i. e., “so that they are detached from me.”—And my gnawers sleep not;i. e., either “my gnawing pains,” or “my worms, the maggots in my ulcers;” comp. רמָּה. Job_7:5 [“and which in the extra biblical tradition of Job’s disease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Job’s monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposed petrified worms of Job.” Del.] In any case עֹקְרַי is to be explained after עקר Job_30:3. The signification “veins” (Blumenth), or “nerves, sinews” (LXX., νεῦρα, Parchon, Kimchi) [E. V.] is without support.
Job_30:18. By omnipotence my garment is distorted;i. e., by God’s fearful power I am so emaciated that my garment hangs about me loose and flapping, no longer looking like an article of clothing (comp. Job_19:20). This is the only interpretation (Ewald, Delitzsch, Dillm., Kamphausen, [E. V., Con., Words., Ren.] etc.), that agrees with the contents of the second member, not that of the LXX., who read יִתְפּשֹׁ instead of יתחפשׂ, and understood God to be the subject: πολλῃ ἰσχύι ἐπελάβετο μου τῆς στολῆς; nor that of Hirzel: “by omnipotence my garment is exchanged,” i. e., for a sack; nor that of Schult. and Schlott.: “it (i. e., the suffering, the pain) is changed into [become] my garment,” etc. [with the idea of disguise, disfigurement].—It girds me round like the collar of my [closely-fitting] coat;i. e., my garment, which nowhere fits me at all, clings to my body as closely and tightly as a shirt-collar fastens around the neck. [“יַאַֽזְרֵנִי, cingit me, is not merely the falling together of the outer garment, which was formerly filled out by the members of the body, but its appearance when the sick man wraps himself in it; then it girds him, fits close to him like his shirt-collar.” Del.] The LXX. already translate כְּפִי כֻתָּנְתִּי correctly: ὥσπερ τὸ περιστόμιον τοῠ χιτῶνός μου (Vulg. quasi capitium tunicæ) [E. V.].—To render כְּפִי “as,” or “in proportion to” yields no rational sense (comp. also Exo_28:32).
Job_30:19. He (God) hath cast me into the mire (a sign of the deepest humiliation, comp. Job_16:15) so that I am become like dust and ashes (in consequence of the earth-like, dirty appearance of my skin, comp. Job_7:5, a theme to which he recurs again at the close of the chapter, Job_30:30)
Job_30:20-23. A plaintive appeal to God, entreating help, but entreating it without a hope of being heard by God.—I stand there (praying) and Thou lookest fixedly at me, viz., without hearing me. This is the only interpretation of the second member which agrees well with the first, not that of Ewald: “if I remain standing, then Thou turnest Thy attention to me,” in order to oppose. [Ewald preferring the reading ותתכנן]. It is absolutely impossible with the Vulg., Saad., Gesen., Umbreit, Welte, [E. V., Ber.] to carry over the לֹא of the first member to ותתבנן—“I stand up, and Thou regardest me not.” [“The effect of לֹא cannot be repeated in the second member, after a change of subject, and in a clause which is dependent on the action of that subject.” Con.”]
Job_30:21. Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me.—אַכְזָבsævus, comp. Job_41:2 [10], also the softened אֹיֵב in the derivative passage, Isa_63:10.—On שׂטם in b, [with the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me], comp. Job_16:9.
Job_30:22, Raising me upon a stormy wind (as on a chariot, comp. 2Ki_2:11) [not exactly “to the wind” (E. V., Con., Words., etc.), as though Job were made the sport of the wind, ludibrium ventis, but flung upon it, and whirled by it down from the heights of his prosperity.—E.]. Thou causest me to be borne away (comp. Job_27:21), and makest me to dissolve in the crash of the storm.—The last word is to be read after the K’thibh, with Ewald, Olsh., Del., etc., תְּשֻׁוָּה, and to be regarded as an alternate form of תְּשׁוּאָה, or תְּשֻׁאָה (comp. Job_36:29), and hence as being essentially synonymous with שׁוֹאָה, Pro_1:27, “tempest,” and as to its construction an accus. of motion, like מָוֶת in the following verse. [Ges., Umbr., Noyes, Carey, read תְּשַׁוֶּה, “Thou terrifiest me,” a verb unknown in Heb., and even in Chaldee used only in Ithpeal. See Delitzsch.] The K’ri תֻּשִׁיָּה (of which the LXX. have made תְּשׁוּעָה) would give a meaning less in harmony with a: “Thou causest well-being to dissolve for me” [E. V.: “Thou dissolvest my substance.” But the other rendering is a far more suitable close to the whole description, which is fearfully magnificent, besides being entitled to the ordinary preference for the K’thibh].
Job_30:23. I know that Thou wilt bring me to death (or “bring me back”—השיב in the sense of שׁוּב, Job_1:21) [“death being represented as essentially one with the dust of death, or even with non-existence,” Delitzsch, who, however, denies that שׁוּב always and inexorably includes an “again”], into the house of assembly for all living.—The latter expression, which is to be understood in the sense of Job_3:17 seq., is in apposition to מָוֶת, and this is used here as a synonym of שְׁאוֹל, as in Job_28:22.
Conclusion: Third Strophe: Job_30:24-31 : The diappointment of all his hopes.
Job_30:24. But still doth not one stretch out the hand in falling?—אַךְ here an adversative particle, as in Job_16:7; לֹא, however, interrogative for הֲלֹא, comp. Job_2:10 b. The view that בְּעִי is compounded of בְּ and עִי, “ruin, fall, destruction” (comp. Mic_1:6, also the more frequent plur., עִיִּים, ruins), is favored by the parallel expression בְּפִידוֹ in the second member. שָׁלַח יָד finally, in the sense of stretching out the hands in supplication, prayer, is at least indirectly supported by Exo_17:11 seq., and similar passages (such as Exo_9:29; 1Ki_8:38; Isa_1:15; Isa_65:2, etc.).—Or in his overthrow (will one not lift up) a cry on that account?—The interrogative הֲלאֹ=לֹא extends its influence still over the second member. The suffix in בְּפִידוֹ refers back to the indefinite subject in יִשְׁלַח, and belongs therefore to the same one overtaken by the fall, and threatened with destruction (פִּיד as in Job_12:5). Respecting לָהֶן “on that account, therefore,” see Ewald, § 217, d; and on שַׁוְעָה = שׁוַּע, “a cry,” comp. Job_36:19 a.—It is possible that instead of the harsh expression לָהֶן שׁוַּע we should read something like לֹא יְשַׁוֵּעַ (according to Dillmann’s conjecture). On the whole the explanation here propounded of this verse, which was variously misunderstood by the ancient versions and expositors, gives the only meaning suited to the context, for which reason the leading modern commentators (Ewald, Hirzel, Delitzsch, Dillmann, and on the whole Hahn, etc.) adhere to it. [Delitzsch thus explains the connection: “He knows that he is being hurried forth to meet death; he knows it, and has also already made himself so familiar with this thought, that the sooner he sees an end put to this his sorrowful life, the better—nevertheless does one not stretch out one’s hand when one is falling? … or in his downfall raise a cry for help?” As Dillmann remarks, this meaning is striking in itself (besides being simple and natural), and is in admirable harmony with the context. The E. V., after some of the Rabbis, takes עִי in the sense of “grave,” although the meaning of its rendering is obscure. It would seem to be that God will not stretch out His hand, in the way of deliverance, to the grave, although when He begins to destroy, men cry out for mercy. Wordsworth translates: “But only will He (God) not stretch out His hand (to help, see Pro_31:20; Hab_3:10) upon me, who am like a desolation or a ruin? And will not crying therefore (reach Him) in His destruction of me?”—Others (Ges., Con., Noyes, Carey, take בְּעִי (from בָּעָה) to mean “prayer:” “Yea, there is no prayer, when He stretches out the hand; nor when He destroys can they cry for help,” which is not so well suited to the connection, and is against the parallelism which makes it probable that בְּ before עִי is a preposition as before פּיד.—E.]
Job_30:25. Or did I not weep for him that was in trouble? lit. for “the hard of day,” for “him that is afflicted by a day” (a day of calamity). On b comp. Job_19:12; Job_19:15 seq. The ἄπ. λεγ. עָגַם, “to be troubled, grieved,” is not different in sense from אָגַם, Isa_19:10.
Job_30:26. For I hoped for good, and there came evil, etc.—For the thought comp. Isa_59:9; Jer_14:19. Respecting וַאֲיַחֲלָה (Imperf. cons. Piel), comp. Ewald, § 232, h; the strengthening ־ָה in the final vowel as in Job_1:15.
Job_30:27. In regard to the “boiling” (רתח as in Job_41:23 [31]) of the bowels, comp. Lam_1:20; Lam_2:11; Isa_16:11; Jer_31:20, etc. [“My bowels boiled,” E. V., does not quite express the Pual רֻתְּחוּ, “are made to boil,” the result of an external cause.] On קִדֵּם, “to encounter any one, to fall upon him” [E. V. “prevent” obsolete], comp. Psa_18:6 [6].
Job_30:28. I go along blackened, without the heat of the sun, i. e. not by the heat of the sun, not as one that is burnt by the heat of the sun. Since חַמָּה (comp. Son_6:10; Isa_30:26) denotes the sun as regards its heat, בְּלֹא ח׳ (instead of which the Pesh. and Vulg. read בְּלֹא חֵמָה) is not to be explained “without the sun-light=in inconsolable darkness” (so Hahn, Delitzsch, Kamp.) [and probably E. V.: “I went mourning without the sun”]; which is all the less probable in that קֹדֵר can scarcely denote anything else than the dirty appearance of a mourner, covered with dust and ashes (comp. Job_7:5), such a blackening of the skin accordingly as would present an obvious contrast with that produced by the heat of the sun. On הִלֵּךְ comp. Job_24:10.—I stand up in the assembly, complaining aloud, giving free expression to my pain on account of my sufferings. קָהָל here indeed not of the popular assembly in the gates—for the time was long since passed, when he, the leper, might take his place there (comp. Job_29:7 seq.)—but the assembly of mourners, who surrounded him in, or near his house, and who, we are to understand, were by no means limited to the three friends. The opinion of Hirzel and Dillmann, that בַּקָּהָל means publice, is without support; בְּקָהָל, Pro_26:26 argues against this signification, rather than for it, for there in fact the language does refer to an assembly of the people, not to any other gathering.
Job_30:29. I am become a brother to jackals [Vulg., E. V.: “dragons’], a companion of ostriches [E. V. here as elsewhere incorrectly “owls”], i. e. in respect to the loud, mournful howling of these animals of the desert (see Mic_1:8). The reference is not so well taken to their solitariness, although this also may be taken into the account; for the life of a leper, shut off from all intercourse with the public, and put out of the city, must at all times be comparatively deserted, notwithstanding all the groups of sympathizing visitors, who might occasionally gather about him. [See note in Delitzsch 2:171; also Smith’s Bib. Diet. “Dragon,” “Ostrich.”]
Job_30:30. My skin, being black, peels off from me: lit. “is become black from me.” מֵעָלַי as in Job_30:17; the blackness of the skin (produced by the heat of the disease) as in Job_30:19 [where, however, it is referred rather to the dirt adhering to it]; comp. Job_7:5.—Respecting חרה from חרר, “to glow, to be hot,” comp. Eze_24:11; Isa_24:6.
Job_30:31 forms a comprehensive close to the whole preceding description: And so my harp (comp. Job_21:12) was turned to mourning, and my pipe (comp. the same passage) to tones of lamentation; lit. “to the voice of the weeping.” Job’s former cheerfulness and joyousness (comp. Job_29:24) appears here under the striking emblem of the tones of musical instruments sounding forth clearly and joyously, but now become mute. Similar descriptions in Psa_30:12 [11]; Lam_5:15; Amo_8:10, etc. [“Thus the second part of the monologue closes. … It is Job’s last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job_30:31, die away so melodiously. One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto flebile.” Delitzsch].
Third Division: Job’s asseveration of his innocence in presence of the God of the future: Job 31.
First Strophe: Job_31:1-8. The avoidance of all sinful lust, which he had constantly practiced.—A covenant have I made with mine eyes, and how should I fix my gaze on a maiden?i. e., with adulterous intent (comp. πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτήν, Mat_5:28; comp. Sir_9:6). The whole verse affirms that Job had not once violated the marriage covenant in which he lived (and which, Job_2:9—comp. Job_19:17—shows to have been monogamous) by adulterous inclinations, to say nothing of unchaste actions. In respect to the significance of this utterance of a godly man in the patriarchal age, in connection with the history of morals and civilization, comp. below “Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks.” The words כָּרַת בְּרִית לִעֵינַיִם (לְ instead of אֶת־ or עִס־) are literally rendered: “to prescribe, to dictate a covenant to the eyes. Job appears accordingly as the superior, prescribing to his organ of vision its conduct, dictating to it all the conditions of the agreement. It is unnecessary, and even erroneous, to translate the verbs as pluperfects (“I had made a covenant—… how should I have looked upon,” etc.—so e.g., Umbreit, Hahn, Vaih.), for Job would by no means describe these principles of chastity, which he observed, as something belonging merely to the earlier past.
Job_31:2-4 continue the reflections, beginning with Job_31:1 b, which had restrained him from unchaste lusts, and this in the form of three questions, of which the first (Job_31:2) is answered by the second and third (Job_31:3-4).—And (—thus did I think—) what would be the dispensation of Eloah from above?—חֵלֶק is the portion assigned by God, the dispensation of His just retribution; comp. Job_20:29; Job_27:13, where also may be found the parallel נַחֲלָה, “inheritance.” On מִמַּעַל, “from above,” comp. Job_16:19; Job_25:2; and in particular such New Testament passages as Rom_1:18 (ἀπ’ ουρανοῦ), Jam_1:17 (ἄνωθων), etc.
Job_31:3 seq. The answer to that question itself given in the form of a question. On אֵיד comp. above on Job_30:12; on עַוָּל, Job_18:21; on נֶכֶד “calamity,” Oba_1:12.
Job_31:4. Doth not He (הוּא, referring back to אֱלוֹהַּ, Job_31:2) [and emphatic: He—doth He not see, etc.] see my ways, and doth He not count all my steps?—Comp. Psa_139:2 seq. It was accordingly the thought of God as the omniscient heavenly Judge, which influenced Job to avoid most rigidly even such sinful desires and thoughts as were merely internal!
Job_31:5-8. The first in the series of the many adjurations, beginning with אִם, in which Job continues the assertion of his innocence to the close of the discourse.—If I have walked [had intercourse] with falsehood (שָׁוְא here as a synonym of the following מִרְמָה, not simply “vanity” [E. V.] but “falsehood, a false nature, lying”) and my foot hath hastened to deceit.—וַתַּֽחַשׁ from a verb חָשָׁה, not found elsewhere; and signifying not “to be silent,” but “to hasten” (like חוּשׁ) is an alternate form of the more common חוּשׁ (comp. וַיַּֽעַט, 1Sa_15:19, from a root עָטָה, synonymous with עִיט).
Job_31:6. Parenthetic demand upon God, that He should be willing to prove the truth of Job’s utterances (not the consequent of the hypothetic antecedent in the preceding verse, as Delitzsch [E. V.], would make it).—Let Him (God) weigh me in a just balance; or “in the balance of justice,” the same emblem of the decisive Divine judgment to which the inscription in the case of Belshazzar refers (Dan_5:25), and which appears in the proverbial language of the Arabs as “the balance of works;” in like manner among the Greeks as an attribute, of Themis, or Dike, etc.
Job_31:7. Continuation of the asseveratory antecedent in Job_31:5, introduced by an Imperf. of the Past—expressing the continuousness of the actions described—interchanging with the Perf. (as again below in Job_31:13; Job_31:16-20, etc.)—If my steps turned aside from the way, i. e., from the right way, prescribed by God (comp. Job_23:11), which is forsaken when, as the thought is expressed in b, one “walks after his own eyes,” i. e., allows himself to be swayed by the lusts of the eye (comp. Jer_18:12;. 1Jn_2:16).—And a spot cleaved to my hands, to wit, a spot of immoral actions, especially such as are avaricious. Comp. Psa_7:4 [3] seq.; Deu_13:17, etc.—מאוּם instead of the usual form מוּם (comp. Job_11:15), found also Dan_1:4.
Job_31:8. Consequent: then shall I sow and another eat;i. e., the fruits of my labor shall be enjoyed by another, instead of myself (because I have stained it by the fraudulent, appropriation of the property of others); the same thought as above in oh. Job_27:16 seq.; comp. Lev_26:16; Deu_28:33; Amo_5:11, etc.—And may my products be rooted out!צֶאֱצָאִים used here not of children, offspring [E. V.] (as in Job_5:25; Job_21:8; Job_27:14), but according to a of the growth of the soil as planted by the owner, which so far as it shall not fall into the hands of others shall be destroyed (comp. Isa_34:1; Isa_42:5).
9. Continuation. Second Strophe: Job_31:9-15. The righteousness which he had exercised in all the affairs of his domestic life.—If my heart has been befooled on account of [or enticed towards] a woman;i. e., a married woman,—for the sins of which Job here acquits his conscience are those of the more flagrant sort, like David’s transgression with Bathsheba, cot simple acts of unchastity, such as were described above in Job_31:1.—As to b, comp. Job_24:15, and particularly Pro_7:7 seq.
Job_31:10. Consequent: Then let my wife grind for another;i. e., not simply grind with the hand-mill for him as his slave (Exo_11:5; Isa_47:2; Mat_24:41), but according to the testimony of the Ancient Versions (LXX., Vulg., Targ.) and the Jewish expositors—it refers to sexual intercourse in concubinage—this obscene sense being still more distinctly expressed in b.—אֲחֵרִין, Aram. plur. as in Job_4:2; Job_24:22.
Job_31:11-12. Energetic expression of detestation for the sin of adultery just mentioned.—For such a thing (הוּא) [this] would be an infamous act, and that (הִיא) a sin [crime to be brought] before the judges.—So according to the K’thibh, which with הוּא points back to that which is mentioned in Job_31:9, but with הִיא points back to זִמָּה, “transgression, deed of infamy” [“the usual Thora-word for the shameless, subtle encroachments of sensual desires,” Del.], while the K’ri unnecessarily reads הוּא in both instances—עָוֹן פְּלִילִים would be, so written (with עָוֹן in the absol. state) = crimen, et crimen quidem judicum (comp. Gesen., § 116 [§ 114]. Rem.). Still the conjecture is natural that, we are to read either, as in Job_31:28עָוֹן פְּלִילִיcr. judiciale, or, עֲוֹן פְּלִילִים, cr. judicum. The meaning of the expression is furthermore similar to ἔνοχος τῇ κρίσει, Mat_5:21 seq.
Job_31:12. For it would be a fire which would devour even to the abyss, i. e., which would not rest before it had brought me, consumed by a wicked adulterous passion, to merited punishment in the abyss of hell; comp. Pro_6:27 seq.; Psa 7:26 seq.; Sir_9:8; Jam_3:6, and in respect to אֲבַדּוֹן see above Job_26:6; Job_28:22,—and which would root out all my increase, i. e., burn out the roots beneath it. The בְּ before כָּל־תְּבוּאָתִי may be expressed by the translation: “and which should undertake the act of outrooting upon my whole produce,” (Delitzsch) [Beth objecti, corresponding to the Greek genitive expressing not an entire full coincidence, hut an action about and upon the object. See Ewald, § 217].
Job_31:13 seq. A new adjuration touching the humane friendliness of Job’s conduct toward his house-slaves. If I despised the right of my servant, of my maid—if those who were often treated as absolutely without any rights, certainly not on the basis of the Mosaic law (comp. Exo_21:1 seq., 20 seq.). Job, the patriarchal saint, appears accordingly in this respect also as a fore-runner of the theocratic spirit; comp. Abraham’s relations to Eliezer, Gen_15:2; Gen_24:2 seq.
Job_31:14. What should I do when God arose?etc. Umbreit, Stickel, Vaih., Welte, Delitzsch [E. V. Con., Carey, Noy., Words., Merx], correctly construe this verse as the apodosis of the preceding, here exceptionally introduced by וְ, not as a parenthetic clause, which would then have no consequent after it (Ewald, Hirzel, Dillmann), [Schlottmann, Renan, Rod., Elz.]. In respect to the “rising up” of God, to wit, for judgment, comp. Job_19:25; on פקד to “inquire into,” comp. Psa_17:3; on הֵשִּׁיב, “to reply,” Job_13:22.
Job_31:15. In the womb did not my Maker make him (also), and did not One (אֶחָד, one and the same God) fashion us in the belly?וַיְכוּנֶּנּוּ, syncopated Pilel-form, with suffix of the 1st pers. plur., for וַיְכוֹנְנֶנּוּ (Ewald, § 81, a; comp. § 250, a). For the thought comp. on the one side, Job_10:8-12; on the other side the use made of the identity of creation and community of origin on the part of masters and servants as a motive for the humane treatment of the latter by the former in Eph_6:9 (also Mal_2:10). [The position of בבטן gives some emphasis to the thought that the womb is the common source of our earthly life, or as Delitzsch expresses it, that God has fashioned us in the womb “in an equally animal way,” a thought “which smites down all pride.”—E.].
Continuation. Third Strophe; Job_31:16-23 : His righteous and merciful conduct toward his neighbors, or in the sphere of civil life (comp. above Job_29:12-17). After the first hypothetic antecedent, in Job_31:16, follows immediately the parenthesis, in Job_31:18, then three new antecedent passages, beginning with אִם (or ֹאִס־לֹא), until finally, in Job_31:22, the common consequent of these four antecedents is stated. If I refused to the poor their desire [or, if I held back the poor from their desire] (מנע construed otherwise than in Job_22:7; comp. Ecc_2:10; Num_24:11); and caused the widow’s eyes to fail—from looking out with yearning for help; comp. Job_11:20; Job_17:5; and in particular on כִּלַּה comp. Lev_26:16; 1Sa_2:33.
Job_31:18. Parenthesis, repudiating the thought that he could have treated widows or orphans so cruelly as he had just described—introduced by כִּי in the signification—“nay, rather” comp. Psa_130:4; Mic_6:4, and often). Nay indeed from my youth he grew up to me as to a father, viz., the orphan; the position of the subjects in respect to those of Job_31:16 and Job_31:17 is chiastic [inverted]. The suffix in גְּדֵלַנִיּ has the force of a dative (Ewald, § 315, b), and כְּאָבis an elliptical comparison for כְּמוֹ־לְאָב. The conjecture of Olshausen, who would read גִּדְּלַנִי “he honored [magnified] me,” is unnecessary. And from the womb I was her guide.—Occasioned by the parallel expression מִנְּעוּרַי in a, the meaning of which it is intended to intensify, the phrase מִבֶּטֶן אַמִּי, “from my mother’s womb,” i. e. from my birth, presents itself as a strong hyperbole, designed to show that Job’s humane and friendly treatment of widows and orphans began with his earliest youth; he had drank it in so to speak with his mother’s milk. [“So far back as he can remember, he was wont to behave like a father to the orphan, and like a child to the widow.” Del.].
Job_31:19. If I saw the forsaken one [or: one perishing] without clothing, etc.אוֹבֵד as in Job_29:13; מִבְּלִי, as in Job_24:7. The second member וְאֵין וגו׳ forms a second object to אֶרְאֶה, lit. “and (saw) the not-being of the poor with covering.”
Job_31:20. In respect to the blessing pronounced by the grateful poor (the blessing described as proceeding from his warmed hips and loins, which in a truly poetic manner are named instead of himself) comp. Job_29:13.
Job_31:21. If I shook my hand over the orphan (with intent of doing violence, comp. Isa_11:15; Isa_19:16) [“as a preparation for a crushing stroke”], because I saw my help in the gate (i. e. before the tribunal, comp. Job_29:7)—a reference to the bribery which he had practiced upon the judges, or to any other abuse of his great influence for the perversion of justice.
Job_31:22. Consequent, corresponding immediately to Job_31:21, but having a wider reference to all the antecedents from Job_31:16 on, even though the sins described in the former ones of the number were not specially committed by the hand, or arm. Then let my shoulder fall from its shoulder-blade.—כָּתֵף signifies shoulder, or upper arm, even as אֶזְרֹעַ in b designates the arm. שְׁכֶם is the nape, which supports the upper arm, or shoulder (together with the shoulder-blades); קָנֶה “a pipe,” but used to denote the shoulder-joint to which the arm is attached; less probably the hollow bone of the arm itself (against Delitzsch). Concerning the הraphatum in the suffixes שִׁבְמָה and קָנָה, comp. Ewald, § 21, f; 247, d.
Job_31:23. Assigning the reason for what precedes, sustaining the same relation to Job_31:22, as Job_31:11 seq. to Job_31:10. For the destruction of God (comp. Job_31:3) is a terror for me (אֵלַי meaning “in mine eyes,” comp. Ecc_9:13), and before His majesty (מִן compar.; שְׂאֵת as in Job_13:11) I am powerless—I can do nothing, I possess no power of resistance. Job emphasizes thus strongly his fear and entire impotence before God, in order to show that it would be morally impossible for him to be guilty of such practices, as those last described. The hypothetic rendering of the verse: “for terror might [or ought to] come upon me, the destruction of God” (Del., Kamph.) is impossible.
11. Continuation. Fourth Strophe: Job_31:24-32. Job’s conscientiousness in the discharge of his more secret obligations to God and his neighbor. Within this strophe, Job_31:24-28 constitute first of all one adjuration by itself, consisting of three antecedents with אִם, to which Job_31:28 is related as a common consequent. (According to the assumption of Ewald, Dillmann, Hahn, etc., that Job_31:28 is only a parenthesis, and that a consequent does not follow within the present strophe, the discourse would be too clumsy). Job here expresses his detestation of two new species of sins: avarice (Job_31:24-25), and the idolatry of the Sabian astrology, which are here closely united together as the worship of the glittering metal, and that of the glittering stars; comp. Col_3:6.
Job_31:24. If I set up gold for my confidence, etc. On “gold” and “fine gold” comp. Job_28:16; on כֶּסֶל and מִבְטָח, Job_8:14. Respecting the masc. כַּבִּיר used as a neuter in Job_31:25 b, of that which is great, considerable in number or amount, comp. Ew., § 172, b.
Job_31:26. If I saw the sunlight (אוֹר, “the light” simply, or “the light of this world,” Joh_11:9; used also of the sun in Job_37:21; Hab_3:4; comp. the Greek φάος, Odyss. III. 355, and often), how it shines (כִּי as in Job_22:12), and the moon walking in splendor. יָקָר a prefixed accus. of nearer specification to הֹלֵךְ hence used as an adverb, splendide (Ewald, § 279, a). [“יָרֵחַ is the moon as a wanderer (from רח = ארח) i.e., night-wanderer, noctivaga. … The two words יָקָר הֹלֵךְ describe with exceeding beauty the solemn majestic wandering of the moon.” Del.]
Job_31:28. And my heart was secretly beguiled, so that I threw to them (to these stars, having reference to the heathen divinities represented by them; hence the צְבָא הַשָׁמַיִם, Deu_4:19) a kiss by the hand (lit. “so that I touched—with a kiss—my hand to my mouth;” respecting this sign of adoratio, or προσκύνησις, comp. 1Ki_19:18; Hos_13:2; also Plin. H. N. XXVIII., 2, Job 5 : Inter adorandum dexteram ad osculum referimus et totum corpus circumagimus; and Lucian περὶ ὅρχήσεως, who represents the worshippers of the rising sun in Western Asia and Greece as performing their devotion by kissing the hand (τὴν χεῖρα κύσαντες). In the case of Job it was the worship of the stars as practiced by the Aramæans and Arabians (the Himjarites in particular among the latter worshipping the sun and moon [Urotal and Alilat] as their chief divinities) which might from time to time present itself to him in the form of a temptation to apostatize from one invisible God; comp. L. Krehl, Die Religion der vorislamitischen Araber, 1863; L. Diestel, Der monotheismus des ältesten Heidenthums, Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, 1860, p. 709 seq. Against Ewald’s assumption that there is here an allusion to the Parsee worship of the sun, and that for that reason our book could not have been written before the 7th Cent. B. C, it may be said, that the kissing of the hand does not appear in the Zoroastrian ritual of prayer, and also that the sun and moon are represented in the Avesta as genii created by Ahuramazda, and consequently not as being themselves gods to be worshipped. Equally arbitrary with this derivation of the passage from the Zend religion by Ewald, is Dillmann’s assertion, that it was only from the time of King Ahaz, and still more under Manasseh, that the adoration of the “host of heaven” began properly to exercise a seductive influence on the people of Israel, and that it was only from that point on that it could be regarded as a sign of particular religious purity “that one had never, not even in secret, yielded to this temptation.” As though our poet did not know perfectly well what traits he ought to introduce into the picture of his hero, who is consistently represented as belonging to the patriarchal age! Comp. against this unnecessary assumption of an anachronism, of which the poet had been guilty, in the history of civilization or religion, the Introduction, § 6, II., f.
Job_31:28. Consequent, (see above): This also were a crime to be punished; lit. “a judicial crime, one belonging to the judge;” comp. on Job_31:11; and respecting the thought, Exo_17:2 seq.—Because I should have denied the God above (Job_31:2); lit. “I should have denied [acted falsely] in respect to the God above; כִּחֵשׁ לְ means here the same with כִחֵשׁ בְּ elsewhere (Job_8:18; Isa_59:13).
Job_31:29-30. A new asseveration with an oath repudiating the suspicion that he had exhibited toward his enemies any hate or malice. For this hypothetic antecedent, as well as for all those which follow, beginning with אִם down to Job_31:38, the special consequent is wanting; not until Job_31:38 seq. does this series of antapodota [antecedents or protases] reach its end. The consequent in Job_31:40, however, is, in respect of its contents, suited only to the antecedent passage immediately preceding, in Job_31:38-39, and not also to the verses preceding those.
Job_31:30; Job_31:32; Job_31:35-37 are accordingly mere parentheses.—If I rejoiced over [or in] the destruction (פִּיד as in Job_30:24) of him that hated me.—That the love of our enemies was already required as a duty under the Old Dispensation is shown by Exo_23:4; Lev_19:18 (the latter passage not without a characteristic limitation), but still more particularly by the Chokmah-literature, e. g.Pro_20:22; Pro_24:17 seq.; Pro_25:21 seq.
Job_31:31. Yet I did not (וְלֹא with an adversative meaning for the copula) allow my palate (which is introduced here as the instrument of speech, as in Job_6:30 [where, however, it is rather the instrument of tasting, and so is used for the faculty of moral discrimination]) to sin, by a curse to ask for his life;i. e. by cursing to wish for his death.
Job_31:31 seq. He has also continually shown himself generous and hospitable towards his neighbor.—If the people of my tent (i. e. my household associates, my domestics) were not obliged to say: where would there be one who has not been satisfied with his flesh? lit. “who gives one not satisfied with his flesh?” מִי יִתֵּן as in Job_14:4; נִשְׂבָּע, Partic. Niph. in the accus. depending on מי יתן (comp. also Job_31:35, and above Job_29:2).—בְּשָׂרוֹ here means the same with טִבְחָתוֹ, 1Sa_25:11, the flesh of his slaughtered cattle. The figurative expression: “to eat any body’s flesh” in the sense of backbiting, calumniating (Job_19:22) is not to be found here.
Job_31:32. The stranger did not pass the night without; I opened my doors to the traveller.—לָאֹרַח might of itself signify—“towards the street” (Stickel, Delitzsch). But since this qualification would be superfluous, אֹרַח is rather to be taken as = אִישׁ אֹרַח or אֹרֵחַ. As to the thought, comp. the accounts of the hospitality of Abraham at Mamre, of Lot at Sodom, of the old man at Gibeah (Gen_18:19; comp. Heb_13:2; Jdg_19:15 seq.); also the many popular anecdotes among the Arabs of divine punishments inflicted on the inhospitable (“to open a guest-chamber” is in Arabic the same as to establish one’s own household), and the eulogies of the hospitality of the departed in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Comp. Wetzstein in Delitzsch [2:193], Brugsch, Die egypt. Gräberwelt, 1868, p. 32 seq.; L. Stern, Das egypt. Todtengericht, in “Ausland,” 1870, p. 1081 seq.
12. Conclusion: Fifth Strophe: Job_31:33-40—Job is not consciously guilty even of the hypocritical concealment of his sins, nor of secret misdeeds—a final series of asseverations, which is not only related to the preceding enumeration (as though the same were incomplete, and might be supposed to have been silent in regard to some of Job’s transgressions), but which simply links itself to all the preceding assertions of his innocence, and concludes the same.
Job_31:33. If I covered after the manner of men my wickedness;כְּאָדָם, after the way of the world, as people generally do; comp. Psa_82:7 and Hos_6:7; for even in the latter passage this explanation is more natural than that which implies a reference to Gen_3:8 : “as Adam (Targum, Schult., Rosenm., Hitzig, Umbr., v. Hofm., Del.) [E. V., Good, Lee, Con., Schlott., Words., Carey, etc.; and comp. Pusey on Hos_6:7. Conant observes of the rendering ut homo that “there is little force in this. On the contrary there is pertinency and point in the reference to a striking and well-known example of this offense, as a notable illustration of its guilt.” Such a reference to primeval history in a book that belongs to the literature of the Chokmah is, as Delitzsch remarks, not at all surprising. And certainly the extra-Israelitish cast of the book is no objection to the recognition of so widely prevalent a tradition as that of the Fall in the monotheistic East.]—Hiding (לִטְמוֹן, Ew. § 280, d) in my bosom my iniquity.—חֹב is a poetic equivalent of חֵיק, found only here (but much more common in Aram.).
Job_31:34, closely connected with the preceding verse, declares the motive which might hare influenced Job to hide his sins, viz. the fear of men.—Because I feared the great multitude.—הָמוֹן here as fem., comp. Ew. § 174, b; עָרַץ here (otherwise than in Job_13:25) intransitive “to be afraid,” with accus. of the thing feared. On b and c comp. Job_24:16. The “tribes” [מִשְׁפָּחוֹת] whose contempt he fears (בּוּז as in Job_12:5; Job_12:21) are the nobler families, his own peers in rank, to be excluded from social intercourse with whom because of infamous crimes would cause him apprehension. With his “holding his peace,” and “not going forth at his door” (in c)—signs betraying an evil conscience, Brentius strikingly compares the example of Demosthenes, who (according to Plutarch, Demosth, 25) on one occasion made a sore throat a pretext for not speaking, whereas in truth he had been bribed, and who was put to the blush by an exclamation from one of the people: “He is not suffering from a sore throat, but from a sore purse (οὐχ ὑπὸ συνάγχης α̇λλ’ ὑπ’ ἀργυρἀγχης εἰλῆφθαι). [E. V. renders the verse interrogatively: “did I fear?” etc.; i. e. “if I covered my transgression, etc., was it because I feared the multitude?” The objection to this rendering, however, is that it is less in harmony with the adjuratory tone of the context. Not a few commentators render this verse as the imprecation corresponding to Job_31:22 : “Then let me dread the great assembly,” etc. So Schultens, Con., Noyes, Wemyss, Carey, Good, Lee, Barnes, Elzas.—(Patrick makes 34c the apodosis: “Then let me hold my peace, and go not forth,” etc.). It seems more natural however to regard the “dread of the great assembly,” and the contempt of the great families of the land, as causes of the cowardly hypocrisy of Job_31:33, rather than as its consequences.—Moreover, what the discourse loses as regards completeness of structure, it gains in impressiveness and energy by the frequent parentheses and breaks, which characterize this final strophe according to the view taken in the comm., and adopted by Ewald, Dillmann, Delitzsch, Schlottm., Rodwell, Wordsworth, Renan.—E.]
Job_31:35-37. The longest of the parentheses which interrupt the asseverations of our chapter, a shorter parenthesis being again incorporated even with this (Job_31:35 b).—O that I had one who would hear me! to wit, in this assertion of my innocence. In this exclamation, as also in the following Job has God in view, for whose judicial interposition in his behalf he accordingly longs here again (as previously, Job_13:16. seq.)—Behold my signature (lit. “my sign”)—let the Almighty answer me.—The meaning of this exclamation which finds its way into this tumult of feeling can only be this: “There is the document of my defense, with my signature! Here I present my written vindication—let the Almighty examine it (comp. Job_31:6), and deliver His sentence!” תָּוִי means lit. “my mark, my signature” [not “my desire,” (E. V., after Targ. and Vulg.), as though it were connected with תאוה]; comp. the commentators on Eze_9:4.—The cross-form of this sign (ת = †), which has there a typical significance, would have no significance in this passage. Rather is it the case that Tav here, in accordance with a conventional, proverbial way of speaking (as tiwa among the Arabs signifies any branded sign, whether or not it be precisely in the form of a cross), has acquired by synedoche the meaning—“a written document with signature attached, a writing subscribed, and for that reason legally valid;” and that Job means by this writing all that he has hitherto said in his own justification, the sum total of his foregoing asseverations of innocence, that it is therefore an apologetic document, a judicial vindication, to which he refers by this little word הו—this appears from the contrast with the accusation or indictment of his opponent, which is immediately mentioned in c. The supposition that Job was ignorant of writing, and for that reason was compelled to put a simple † for his signature can be inferred from the passage only by an inappropriate perversion of the proverbial and figurative meaning of the language. Moreover Job_19:23 seq. can be made to lend only an apparent support to this supposition.—And (that I had) the writing which mine adversary has written!—Grammatically this third member—וספד וגו׳—is connected with the first as a second accus. to מִי יִתֵּן; but according to its logical import, it is conditioned by the second member; or, which is the same thing, b is simply a grammatical parenthesis, but at the same time it serves to advance the thought. The “writing of the adversary” can only be the written charge, in which Job’s adversary, i. e., God (not the three friends, as Delitzsch explains, against the context) has laid down and fixed upon against him. This charge of God’s he wishes to see over against his written defense, for which he is at once ready, or rather which he has already actually prepared. Most earnestly does he yearn to know what God, whom he must otherwise hold for a persecutor of innocence, really has against him. It is only from this interpretation of the words (adopted by Ew., Hirz., Heiligst., Vaih., Dillm.) [Schlott., Noy., Car., Con., Rodw., Bar., Lee, all agreeing as to sense, but with slight variations as to construction] that any available sense is obtained,—not from taking the third member as dependent on הֶן in the second, in which case סֵפֶר must denote either the “witness of God to Job’s innocence written in his consciousness” (Hahn, and similarly Arnh., Stickel), or the charge preferred against Job by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Del.) neither of which explanations is suitable, for the following verses show that Job is here speaking of something which he does not yet have, but only wishes for.—In respect to the use of writing, which is here again presupposed in judicial proceedings, comp. on Job_13:26.
Job_31:36-37 declare what Job would do with that charge of his divine adversary, for which he here longs; he would wear it as a trophy, or as a distinguishing badge of honor “on his shoulders” (comp. Isa_9:5; Isa_22:22), and bind it around as an ornament for his head, lit., “as crowns,” i. e., as a crown consisting of diadems rising each out of the other (עֲתָרוֹת—comp. Rev_19:12);—comp. on the one side Job_29:14; Isa_61:10; on the other side Col_2:14 (the handwriting which was blotted out by Christ through His being lifted up on the cross).—And further: The number of my steps would I declare to Him;i. e., before Him, the Divine Adversary (who however is at the same time conceived of as Judge, as in Job_16:21) would I conceal none of my actions, but rather would I courageously confess all to Him (הִגִּיד as in Psa_38:19; respecting the construction with a double accus., comp. above Job_26:4).—Like a prince would I draw near to Him;i. e., draw nigh to Him with a firm stately step (קֵּרֵב intens. of Kal, comp. Eze_36:8), as becomes a prince, not an accused person conscious of guilt; hence with a princely free and proud consciousness, not with that of a poor sinner.
Job_31:38-40 follow up the general assertion, that his conscience was not burdened with secret sins, with a more particular example of his freedom from covert blood-guiltiness. He knows himself to be innocent in particular of the wickedness of removing boundaries by violence, and of the heaven-crying guilt of secret murder, such as he might possibly have committed (after Ahab’s example, 1Ki_21:1 seq.; comp. above Job_24:2; Isa_5:8) in order to acquire a piece of land belonging to a weaker neighbor. That Job should close this series of asseverations of innocence with the mention of so heinous a crime will appear strange only so long as we do not realize just how his opponents thus far had judged in respect to the nature and occasion of his suffering in consequence of their narrow-minded, external theory of retribution. Their judgment indisputably was—and Eliphaz had once, at least, expressed it very openly and decidedly (see Job_22:6-9):—Because Job has to endure such extraordinary suffering, it must be that he is burdened with some grievous sin, some old secret bloody deed of murder, rapine, etc.! It is into this way of thinking of theirs that Job enters when he concludes his answer with the mention of just such a case, one which might seem sufficiently probable according to a human estimate of the circumstances, and so intentionally reserves to the end the solemn repudiation of that suspicion, which might very easily cleave to him, and which, if well-founded, must have affected him most destructively. The whole discourse—which indeed in its last division (Job 31) is essentially a self-vindication of the harshly and grievously accused sufferer—thus acquires an emphatic ending, which by the significant assonances that occur in the closing imprecation, Job_31:40, reaches a very high degree of impressiveness, and produces a thrilling effect on those who heard and read it. This rhetorical artistic design in the close of the discourse is ignored, whether (with Hirzel and Heiligst.) we assume that it was the poet’s purpose, that Job’s discourse, which with Job_31:38 seq., had taken a new start in further continuation of the series of asseverations touching his innocence, should seem to be interrupted by the sudden appearance of Jehovah (Job 38.), which takes place with striking effect (comp. Introd., § 10, No. 1, and ad. 1); or assume a transposition of Job_31:38-40 out of their original connection, as was done by the Capuchin Bolducius (1637), who would remove the three verses back so as to follow Job_31:8; by Kennicott and Eichhorn, who would place them after Job_31:25; by Stuhlmann, who assigned their position before Job_31:35, and latterly by Delitzsch, who leaves undetermined the place, where they originally belonged.
Job_31:38. If my field cries out concerning me (for vengeance, on account of the wicked treatment of its owner; comp. Job_16:18; Hab_2:11), and all together its furrows weep (a striking poetic representation of the figure of crying out against one).
Job_31:39. If I have eaten its strength (i. e. its fruit, its products, comp. Gen_4:12) without payment, and have blown out the soul of its owner, i. e. by any kind of violence, by direct or indirect murder, have “caused him to expire;” comp. Job_11:20; and the proverbial saying: “to snuff out the candle of one’s life.”
Job_31:40. Consequent, and emphatic close: Briars must (then) spring up (for me) instead of wheat, and stinking weeds instead of barley (the strong word בָּאְשָׁה only here, “odious weeds, darnel”). As to meaning, Job_31:8 is similar; but the present formula of imprecation is incomparably harsher and stronger than that former one, as is shown by the doubled assonance, first the alliteration חטה and חוח, and then the rhyme שׂערה and באשׁה.—The short clause: “the words of Job are ended,” which the Masoretes have inappropriately drawn into the network of the poetic accentuation, could scarcely have proceeded from the poet himself (as Carey and Hahn think, of whom the former is inclined even to regard them as Job’s own final dixi), but stand on the same plane of critical value, and even of antiquity with the inscription at the end of the second book of Psalms (Ps. 72:64), or with the closing words of Jer_51:64. The LXX. have changed the words to καὶ· ἐπαύσατο Ἰὼβ ῥήμασιν, in order to bring them into connection with the historical introductory verses in prose which follow (Job 32.). But according to their Hebrew construction they do not seem to incline at all to such a connection. Jerome already recognized their character as an annotation of later origin; they found their way into his translation only by subsequent interpolation.—All Heb. MSS. indeed, as well as the ancient oriental versions (Targ., Pesh., etc.), exhibit the addition, which must be accordingly of very high antiquity.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Measured by the Old Testament standard, the height of the moral consciousness which Job occupies in this splendid final monologue deserves our wonder, and is even incomparable. He says much, and says it boldly, in behalf of the purity of his heart and life. He affirms this with such ardor and fulness of expression, that at times he seems to forget himself, and to contradict his former confessions touching his participation in the universal depravity of the race, as found in ch.Job_13:26; Job_14:4 (see e. g. ch Job_29:14; Job_31:5-7; Job_31:35 seq.). He even relapses at one time into that tone of presumptuous accusation of God as the merciless persecutor of innocence, and seems to find the only divine motive for his grievous lot to be a supposed pleasure by God in the infliction of torture, a one-sided exercise of His activity as a God of power, without any co-operation from His righteousness and love (Job 30, especially Job_30:11 seq., Job_30:18; Job_30:20 seq.). But if in this there is to be recognized a remainder of the unsubdued presumption of the natural man in him, and a lack of proper depth, sharpness and clearness in his consciousness of sin, such as is possible only under the New Dispensation, he occupies a high place notwithstanding in the roll of Old Testament saints. He appears still, and that even in the protestation of innocence which he makes in his own behalf in this his last discourse, as a genuine prince in the midst of the heroes of faith and spiritual worthies of the time before Christ, as one who, when he suffered, had the right to be regarded as an innocent sufferer, and to meet with indignation every suspicion which implied that he was making expiation for secret sins, as the wicked must do.
2. This moral exaltation of Job is seen already in the way in which in Job 29. he describes his former prosperity. Among all the good things of the past which he longs to have back, he gives the pre-eminence to the fellowship and blessing of God, the fountain of all other good (Job_29:2 seq.). In describing the distinguished estimation in which he was then held among men, it is not the external honor as such which he makes most prominent, but the beneficent influence, which, by virtue of that distinction he was able to exert, the works of love, of righteousness and of mercy, in which he was then able to seek and to find his happiness, as the father and guide of many (Job_29:12-17). In the midst of his bitterest complaints on account of the greatness of his losses and the depth of his misery, there come groanings that he can no more do as he was wont to do—weep with the distressed, and mourn with the needy, in order to bring them comfort, counsel and help (Job_30:25). And what a noble horror of the sins of falsehood, of lying and deception, of adulterous unchastity, of cruelty towards servants and all those needing help in any way, sounds forth through the asseverations of his innocence in the 31st chapter! With what penetrative truth and beauty does he grasp the two forms of idolatry, the worship of gold on the part of the avaricious, and the worship of the stars by the superstitious heathen, as two ways—only in appearance far removed from each other, but in truth most closely united together—of denying the one true and living God (Job_30:24-28)! How decidedly he maintains the necessity of showing love even to one’s enemies, to say nothing of one’s fellow-men in general, known or unknown, neighbors or foreigners (Job_30:29 seq.)! With what indignation does he repel the suspicion of secret, hypocritically concealed sins and deeds of violence, again solemnly appealing in the same connection to God to be a witness to the purity of his conscience and to be a judge of the innocence of his heart (Job 30:33 seq.)! The man who could thus bear witness to his innocence could be a virtuous man of no ordinary sort. He was far from being one of the common class of righteous men known in ancient times. Such an one, far from being subject to the curse of wicked slander and calumny, could not be reckoned among ordinary sinners, or as a crafty hypocrite.
3. That, however, which exalts Job higher than all this is that which is said by him in the beginning of Job 31. (Job_31:1 seq.; comp. Job_31:7) in respect to his avoidance on principle even of all sins of thought, and impure lusts of the heart. “A covenant have I made for my eyes, and how should I fix my gaze on a maiden?” He who shows such earnestness as this in obeying the law of chastity, in avoiding all sinful lust, in extirpating even the slightest germs of sin in the play of thought, and in the look of the eyes—he strives after a holiness which is in fact better and more complete than the law of the Old Dispensation, with its prohibitions of coveting that which belongs to another (Exo_20:17; Deu_5:21), could teach. He shows himself to be on the way which leads directly to that pure as well as complete righteousness and godlikeness, which has for its final aim purity of heart as the foundation and condition of one day beholding God, and which, in its activity towards men, takes the form of that perfect love which seeks nothing but good and blessing even for enemies, and devotes itself wholly and unreservedly to the kingdom of God—on the way, in short, to that holiness and purity of heart which Christ teaches and prescribes in the Sermon on the Mount. The fact that Job gives utterance to such high and clear conceptions of rectitude, virtue and holiness, is of especial interest for the reason that not one of the fundamental principles recognized by him is referred expressly to the Sinaitic law; but, on the contrary, the extra-Israelitish pre-Mosaic patriarchal character of his religious and ethical consciousness and activity is preserved throughout, and with conscious consistency by the poet in the description before us (comp. above on Job_31:24-27). In the strict accuracy with which this representation mirrors the characteristic features of the inner, as well as of the outer life of the patriarchal age, and in the fidelity with which the East cherishes and preserves the traditions of the primeval world in general, these utterances of a man who survived in the recollections of posterity as a moral pattern of the ætas patriar-charum, acquire indirectly even an apologetic importance which is not insignificant, in so far as it proves the impossibility of conceiving historically of the moral civilization of the patriarchs otherwise than as resting on the foundation of positive revelation. Comp. Delitzsch [II. 172 seq.]: “Job is not an Israelite, he is without the pale of the positive, Sinaitic revelation; his religion is the old patriarchal religion, which even in the present day is called din Ibrahim (the religion of Abraham, or din el-bedu (the religion of the steppe) as the religion of those Arabs who are not Moslem, or at least influenced by the penetrating Islamism, and is called by Mejânîshî el hanîfîje, as the patriarchally orthodox religion. As little as this religion, even in the present day, is acquainted with the specific Mohammedan commandments, so little knew Job of the specifically Israelitish. On the contrary, his confession, which he lays down in this third monologue, coincides remarkably with the ten “commandments of piety (el-felâh) peculiar to the dîn Ibrahîm, although it differs in this respect, that it does not give the prominence to submission to the dispensations of God, that teslîm which, as the whole of this didactic poem teaches by its issue, is the study of the perfectly pious; also bravery in defense of holy property and rights is wanting, which among the wandering tribes is accounted as an essential part of the hebbet er-rîh (inspiration of the Divine Being) i.e. active piety, and to which it is similarly related, as to the binding notion of ‘honor’ which was coined by the western chivalry of the middle ages. Job begins with the duty of chastity. Consistently with the prologue, which the drama itself nowhere belies, he is living in monogamy, as at the present day the orthodox Arabs, averse to Islamism, are not addicted to Moslem polygamy. With the confession of having maintained this marriage (although, to infer from the prologue, it was not an over-happy, deeply sympathetic one) sacred, and restrained himself not only from every adulterous act, but also from adulterous desires, his confessions begin. Here, in the middle of the Old Testament, without the pale of the Old Testament νόμος, we meet just that moral strictness and depth, with which the Preacher on the Mount (Mat_5:27 seq.) opposes the spirit to the letter of the seventh commandment.” As Biblical parallels to the strict observance of the law of monogamic chastity in the patriarchal age, as the passage before us affirms it of Job, may be mentioned Isaac and Joseph, as also Moses and Aaron.
4. The fact that Job towards the end of his monologue (not quite at the end of it—see above on Job_31:38 seq.) repeats his previously uttered wish for a judicial interposition of God in his behalf is significant in so far as in this demand the triumph of his consciousness of innocence, by virtue of which he knows that he is secured against all dangers of defeat, expresses itself most strongly and clearly; and in this same connection the practical goal of his apologetic testimony hitherto is evident in his pressing on to the conclusion of the entire action. This conclusion of the action does not indeed follow immediately, inasmuch as a human teacher of wisdom next makes his appearance as the harbinger of Jehovah’s appearance,—preparing the way for it. This however takes place exactly in the way, and with the result which Job himself has wished and hoped for—the trial to which God finally condescends at Job’s repeated request, being such as yields for its result not a clean victory for Job, but rather a thorough humiliation of the pride and presumption, hitherto unknown to himself. But even this incongruity between Job’s desire and the way in which God grants it, corresponds perfectly to the poet’s plan, and is a most brilliant evidence of the purity and loftiness of his religious and moral way of thinking, in which a conscience so wonderfully delicate and enlightened as that which Job had disclosed in these his closing discourses nevertheless appears as in need of repentance, and unable to secure from God a verdict of unconditional justification. In like manner as Christ declared to that young man who boasted that he had kept all the commandments of the law from his youth up, that one thing was lacking, even to give up all his earthly possessions, and to secure an imperishable treasure in heaven (Mar_10:17, and the parallel passages), our poet first introduces Elihu, as a representative of the highest that human wisdom can teach and accomplish apart from a divine revelation, and then the revealing voice of God Himself, crying out to his hero a humiliating—“One thing thou lackest!” This one thing which Job yet lacked in order to be acknowledged by God as His well-beloved servant, and to be received again into His favor, is to humble himself beneath God’s mighty hand, willingly to accept all His dispensations as wise, gracious, and just, to be thoroughly delivered from that sinful self-exaltation, in which he had dared to find fault with God, and to be enraged against His alleged severity. This was the last thing belonging to him which he must give up, the last remnant of earthly impure dross, from which the gold of his heart must be set free, in order that he might become partaker of the divine grace of justification. In order really and completely to comprehend the divine wisdom, which in Job 28. he had so strikingly described as a precious treasure in heaven transcending all earthly jewels, in order actually to travel the hidden way to her, with that accurate knowledge of it which he had there portrayed, this one thing was still lacking to him:—the humble acknowledgment that even in his case God had acted altogether justly, altogether lovingly, altogether as a Father. To the possession of this one precious pearl he was led forward by Elihu and Jehovah through the two remaining stages in the solution of the problem.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
In unfolding the rich contents of the three preceding chapters according to their connection with the entire structure of the poem, and in assigning to these contents their true position in the inner progress of the action, it will be well to bestow special attention on the parallel just now indicated (Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 4) between Job and the rich young man. Job, earnestly and honestly striving after the kingdom of God, after an eternal fellowship of the life with God, with this in view receiving and enumerating all the moral treasures of his spirit and of his life, who notwithstanding his wealth in such treasures is discovered to be not yet just before God;—or, more briefly: Job, the Old Testament seeker after happiness, contemplating himself in the mirror of the law (Job, the prototype of that rich man, to whose perfection one thing was yet lacking);—such might be the statement of the theme of a comprehensive meditation on the material before us, according to its relations to that which precedes, and to that which follows. The length of the discourse indeed would necessitate a division into several parts, of which any one could not very well exceed the limits of one of the three chapters. The practical expositor will find the richest yield of fruitful hortatory motives in the two bright pictures which constitute the opening and the close of the long soliloquy (Job 29, 31), whereas the gloomy night-piece which they enclose (Job 30) seems in this respect relatively poor, and when compared with the similar descriptive lamentations in Job’s previous discourses, exhibits scarcely anything that is essentially new.
Particular Passages
Job_29:2 seq. Cocceius: Job indeed in this place seems not so much to desire his former happiness, as to contrast the pleasure of a good conscience and of a friendship with God formed in youth, with his present fearful sufferings… He wishes for his former condition, adorned as it was with tokens of divine favor, not for the sake of those tokens, to wit, plenteousness and sweetness of life, but for the sake of that of which they were the seal… He distinguishes between his own chief good, and the things connected with it. …He brings forward his riches as a testimony of the past, not as a necessity of the present. For he knew that even a beggar can delight in God.—V. Gerlach: That which constitutes the kernel of the description here again is the constant nearness of God, the consciousness of His approbation, the certainty of His guidance; this is accompanied by the happy recollection that he had employed the honor which God had granted to him, the riches which He had bestowed on him, only to bless others: in short his position was that of a princely, royal representative of God on earth.
Job_29:18 seq. Cramer: On earth there is nothing that endures; if it goes well with any one, let him suspect that it may go ill with him (Sir. 2:26).—V. Gerlach: In Job’s allusion to the ancient legend of the phœnix, there lies a certain irony: I had hoped in respect to the permanence of my happiness that which was most incredible, most impossible, etc.
Job_30:1 seq. Brentius: From all these things (enumerated in the preceding chapter), Job’s authority is eulogized, that we may learn with what honor God sometimes distinguishes the pious. But in this chapter we are taught with what a cross He afflicts them that they may be tried; for it behooves the godly to be proved on the right hand and on the left, as Paul says 2Co_6:7 (comp. Php_4:12). But this is written for our instruction, that we may learn that nothing in the whole world, however excellent, endures, but that all things go to ruin; for both the heavens and the earth will perish, how much more carnal glory, authority and happiness (Isaiah 40).—Idem (on Job_30:12): Temptation is two-fold, on the right hand, and on the left. We are tempted on the right when fleshly joys, health, riches, majesty, glory abound—a temptation which, as it is most agreeable to the flesh, so also is it most dangerous. … We are tempted on the left by crosses, afflictions and evils of whatever sort, more safely, however, and with less danger, for we are more readily taught by the cross than destroyed by it.—Zeyss: To be the objects of extreme contempt and ridicule from the world is to pious believers a great tribulation, and inflicts deep wounds on their hearts, but even in this they must become like Christ their head (Heb_12:3)!—Idem (on Job_30:15): When God afflicts His children in the body, or by some other grievous outward calamity, this is seldom unaccompanied by inward trials, anguish, fear and terror; it. is with them, as with the Apostle—without fightings, within fears (2Co_7:5).
Job_31:1 seq. Oecolampadius: He sets before our eyes one who is absolutely righteous in every particular; for a man will not escape the wrath of God, if he is merciful to the wretched, while at the same time he pollutes himself with various lusts and crimes. He accordingly indulges in holy boasting that he had been blameless in the law, that he had kept his members from abominable sins, and devoted himself to the service of righteousness, keeping his eyes from lusting after a woman, his tongue from guile and falsehood, his hands and feet from cruelty, violence, revenge and rapacity. For he who puts such a watch upon his senses, he will easily be perfected in all things.—Starke: Forasmuch as it is through the eyes, for the most part, that whatsoever excites the lust finds its way into the heart, Job naturally begins with his watchfulness over this sense; from which it may be seen that he understood the divine law far better than the Pharisees in the time of Christ (Mat_5:27 seq.).
Job_31:16 seq. Starke: He who does good to the poor will not remain unblessed (Psa_41:2 [1] seq.). Clothing the naked is a deed of mercy (Isa_58:7 seq.) which Christ will hereafter praise on the last day (Mat_25:36).
Job_31:24 seq. Oecolampadius: See what a chain of virtues he links together, and what innocence he preserves through all things! It is not those only who acquire riches by plunder and lawlessness who incur God’s wrath, but those even who trust in riches honestly acquired, and who prefer them to God, so that they become their idol and their mammon. … The pious and grateful man would say: I have received from God; but they whose God is gold, have no God.—Starke: It was a proof of great constancy on the part of Job to serve the true God faithfully in the midst of idolaters, and to be most solicitous to show the more subtle idolatry of avarice as well as the more gross idolatry of sun and stars.
Job_31:35 seq. Osiander: Even godly people have flesh and blood, and often say things of which they must afterwards repent, and which they themselves cannot praise.—Wohlfarth: “I will, I can render an account before the Lord”—thus speaks Job in the consciousness that he has never committed a gross sin—nay, has even shunned most carefully the minor and more secret offenses. Was he, however, quite so sure of this? Was he in truth so absolutely blameless before God, to whom we must confess: “Lord, when I have done all things, I am still an unprofitable servant! Who can mark the number of his transgressions?” etc. There belongs in truth more to this than a man generally believes when he calls God as a witness.
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 Monologue
Job’s Monologue
FIRST PART, chap. 29.
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1. Some interval may have elapsed since the close of the tribute to wisdom, during which fond memory had dwelt upon years of prosperity and bliss, recalling the care and friendship of God, domestic joys, and the highest love and veneration of his people. But the remembrance of these, instead of lighting up the present, according to a strange law of the mind, served rather to deepen the gloom. He feels that his present wretched condition is but an instance of the mysteriousness of God’s ways which he adduces in elucidation of the preceding chapter, and thus “continues his parable.” Job seemingly intimates that he thought his righteousness a claim upon God; and that he thence postulated a kind of right to temporal prosperity: which sentiment would have been in keeping with the temporal idea of religion prevailing in ancient times — an idea that led to the trial of Job. But now he rises to the mature conception that God’s favour is in itself a sufficient reward, and that this is the greatest of blessings to be desired — an important stage in the transition to the unravelment of the entanglement. While apparently unconscious of the presence of the friends, in the kindest and most courteous spirit he refutes some of their cruel charges, and displays the noblest traits of character. “The commemoration of former blessings,” says the Oriental proverb, cited by Ali Hazin, “is the possession of the wretched.”
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) Job continued his parable.—In this chapter he recounts…
XXIX.
(1) Job continued his parable.—In this chapter he recounts wistfully his past happiness. In his case it was indeed not without cause, though in point of fact he was then passing through a time of trial which was itself bringing fast on his time of deliverance, and which was to make his name famous throughout the world and in all time. And in most similar cases we have need to bear in mind the words of Solomon (Ecc_7:10): “Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”
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. 1-25. From these deep musings upon the nature…
Vers. 1-25. From these deep musings upon the nature of true wisdom, and the contrast between the ingenuity and cleverness of man and the infinite knowledge of God, Job turns to another contrast, which he pursues through two chapters (ch. 29 and 30) the contrast between what he was and what he is between his condition in the period of his prosperity and that to which he has been reduced by his afflictions. The present chapter is concerned only with the former period; and gives a graphic description of the life led, in Job"s time and country, by a great chieftain, the head of a tribe, not of mere nomads, but of persons who had attained to a considerable amount of civilization. The picture is one primitive in its features, but not rude or coarse. It is entirely un-Jewish, and has its nearest parallel in some of the early Egyptian records, as the Stele of Beka, and the Instructions of Amen-em-hat ("Records of the Past," vol. 2. pp. 11-16; vol. 10. pp. 7-10). Moreover Job continued his parable, and said. (see the comment on Job_27:1)
Vers. 1-25. Job"s second parable: 1. Regretful memories of bygone days.
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I DAYS OF RELIGIOUS HAPPINESS. In tender elegiac strains Job resumes his monologue of sorrow, casting a pathetic glance upon "the times of yore," already faded in the far past and gone beyond recall; not the days of his youth (Authorized Version), hut the autumn season of his mature manhood, when, like a field that the Lord had blessed, (Gen_27:27) groaning beneath the exuberance of its harvest fruits, he was loaded with an abundance of good things. (Psa_103:1-5) Heaven"s blessings were so many and so varied, so ripe and so ready, that it seemed to him like a very time of vintage for his soul. But, alas! these bright days of golden sunshine were departed, carrying with them all the treasures of felicity they had brought; and of these that which by its loss now struck the keenest pang of anguish into his melancholy soul was the blessed fellowship, the familiar, confiding, unreserved intercourse which he then enjoyed with Eloah, who, in the threefold capacity of Guardian, Guide, and Friend, was a habitual Visitor at his tent.
1. As a Guardian. Then Eloah preserved, or protected, him, as Satan, in the cloning of the fundamental controversy of the poem, complained, (Job_1:10) and as Eliphaz, (Job_5:11-21 Job_22:25) followed by Zophar, (Job_11:18) assured him God would again do, if he returned in penitential submission to Eloah"s ways. This Divine guardianship must not be limited to the setting up of a fence around the patriarch"s estate, but extended to that of which it was a symbol, the casting of a shield around the patriarch"s soul. In the happy days of old Job nestled beneath the shadow of the Almighty"s wings, (Rth_2:12 Psa_91:1) body, soul, and spirit, feeling himself secure against calamity of every sort, inward or outward, spiritual or material. What God was to Job he likewise proved himself to be to David and other Old Testament saints, and to-day offers himself to be to all Christ"s believing followers a Defender against the charges of the Law, of conscience, or of Satan; (Psa_32:1-5 Psa_65:3 Psa_85:2, 3 Isa_44:22 Rom_8:1, Rom_8:31, Rom_8:33) a Protector against the ills and temptations of life. (Psa_46:1 Psa_48:3 Psa_121:3 Pro_3:6, Pro_3:23, 24 Isa_54:14 17 Zec_9:8 2Th_3:3 1Pe_3:13)
2. As a Guide. Job also recollects that, in the bright days whose departure he laments, Eloah"s candle (or lamp) shone above his head, enabling him to walk with perfect safety even in nights of thickest darkness. The allusion probably is to the custom of suspending lamps in rooms or tents over the head (Carey); and the meaning is that, while rejoicing in Heaven"s favour and fellowship, Job"s feet never stumbled in the path of duty. If perplexities arose around or before him, through Divine grace he was always able to resolve them, threading his way through the deepest intricacies, and moving straight on in an even path. This was no doubt owing partly to the circumstance that his consciousness of inward peace and sincerity permitted him to make the best possible use of his natural faculties, and partly to the fact that he enjoyed the special illumination of Heaven. If piety does not confer new powers, it enables old ones to be turned to the best advantage Then the singleness of aim which a good man possesses largely facilitates the discovery of light in times of darkness. And, finally, saints have special promises guaranteeing providential guidance when placed in situations of perplexity m" peril. (Psa_25:8, 9 37:23)
3. As a Friend. More particularly Job mentions that, in the times of blessedness referred to, "the secret," or favour (Cox), or blessed fellowship (Delitzsch), or counsel (Fry) of Eloah was upon his tent. Whether Job was honored like Abraham to receive theophanies, (Gen_18:1, Gen_18:2) so that he might actually speak of God being a Visitor at his tent (Carey), the language (literally, "in the seat or cushion of God being at my tent") obviously points to an intercourse of the most friendly and familiar kind between him and God such a dwelling together as Eliphaz affirmed should take place (Job_22:21) if Job and God were to be at peace. The friendship here depicted as having existed between Job and Eloah was realized in the case of Abraham and Jehovah, (2Ch_20:7 Isa_41:8 Jam_2:23) and is in a certain sense still realized in the experience of Christians and the Saviour. (Joh_15:15) As one result of this friendly intercourse between Eloah and Job, Job became acquainted with Eloah"s counsel or secret purpose, as Abraham was informed of Jehovah"s determination concerning Sodom, (Gen_18:17) as the prophets generally were afterwards instructed about the mind of God, (Amo_3:7) as "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him", (Psa_25:14 Pro_3:32) and as on believers is conferred an unction from the Holy One, enabling them to know all things, (1Jn_2:20, 27 5:20) but more particularly the mind of Christ. (Joh_16:13-15 1Co_2:16)
II DAYS OF DOMESTIC FELICITY. It is a special mark of piety in Job that, enumerating his lost blessings, he begins with what the worldly or wicked man would have plied last, viz. the Divine friendship. As to David (Psa_63:3) and to Asaph, (Psa_73:25) so to Job the favour and fellowship of God constituted the principal ingredient in his full cup of blessing. But next to fellowship with a God of mercy and salvation, no earthly happiness can be compared to a home illumined by the sunshine of genuine religion, and gladdened by the cheery voices of loving and obedient children. Job cannot recall the time when the Almighty was still with him (ver. 5) without remembering that then also his children (his young men, his boys) were about him a numerous, happy, loving, united, and, it may be hoped, a pious family. (Job_1:1-5; vide homiletics) It is contrary to religion for a good man, or any man, to prize his wife and children above his Saviour and his God; (Mat_10:37) it is contrary to nature to behold them taken from his side by the hand of death without weeping; (Gen 23:2Jo Gen_11:31, Gen 11:33, Gen 11:35) it is contrary to neither nature nor religion to cherish them with loudest affection, and to mourn for their death with sincere lamentation.
III DAYS OF MATERIAL PROSPERITY. Guarded by Divine care and guided by Divine light, like Jacob in Padan-aram, (Gen_31:5, Gen_31:7, Gen_31:11, Gen_31:12, Gen_31:42) Job attained to extensive wealth, the poetic imagery employed (ver. 6) to depict it meaning, when converted into unadorned prose, that his flocks became so abundant, and their yield of milk so rich and plentiful, that he might almost be said to wash his steps in butter, which among the Arabs was mostly a liquid preparation, and that everywhere throughout his domain the crags were clothed with olive trees so prolific that the very rocks appeared to pour forth oil It was another mark of Job"s fervent piety and well-balanced judgment that he preferred his children to his flocks and trees, giving these latter only the third place in his esteem, and that he ascribed his material prosperity, no less than his domestic felicity, to the circumstance that then the Almighty was with him. So did Jacob when serving with Laban, (Gen_31:5) and Joseph when ruling for Pharaoh, (Gen_45:8) recognize God as the Author of their temporal advancement. So does Scripture habitually trace to God every blessing which the saint enjoys. (Psa_75:6, 7 Jam_1:17)
IV DAYS OF CIVIC HONOUR. A saint of eminent piety, the father of a numerous family, and the proprietor of vast possessions, Job had likewise been the chief magistrate, or supreme dispenser of law and justice, in his clan. Passing beyond the bounds of his own private domain, and entering the adjacent city, when he took his seat among the elders in the broad way, i.e. in the open space usually reserved in Oriental cities, either in front of the gate, (2Ch_32:6 Neh_8:1, Neh_8:8, Neh_8:16) or in the vaulted recesses beneath the archway, (Gen_19:1 1Ki_22:10) for the transaction of business, (Rth_4:1) the dispensing of justice, (Pro_31:23) or the conducting of other negotiations, he was saluted with marked tokens of respect. The younger men, conscious of his greatness, retired into the background; the old men amongst the counselors received him standing; the voice of the greatest magnate amongst them was silent until he had uttered his opinion. A remarkable testimony to the high esteem in which Job was held for his personal qualities and commanding abilities.
V DAYS OF PUBLIC PHILANTHROPY. What Eliphaz once admitted, (Job_4:3, Job_4:4) Job is now constrained to avow, that his whole by-past career had been one of unwearied benevolence. In his magisterial capacity he had:
1. Espoused the cause of the poor and needy. In conspicuous contradiction to Eliphaz, who had charged him (Job_22:5-9) with intolerable oppression and cruelty, with robbing the poor, and inhumanly suffering the naked and hungry to perish, he had taken, it might be said, the whole family of the unfortunate under his protection. When a poor man oppressed by his neighbour had cried out for help, when an orphan had poured into his ear a tale or pitiful distress, when a miserable outcast half-dead through cold and nakedness, or through hunger and thirst, had found the way to his door, when a broken-hearted widow had appealed to him for assistance, he had had an ear for every cry, a heart for every sorrow, and a hand for every need. Job"s sympathies had inclined him to feel for the defenceless and the poor. And in this Job had shown himself to be a good man, (Psa_40:1) and an eminent type of Christ. (Psa_72:4 Mat_8:16, Mat_8:17) Nay, Job had considered no care or trouble too much to expend on behalf of his clients. He had both taken pains to understand their complaint, and had not been satisfied till he had rectified their grievance. And with such skill, energy, and perseverance had he conducted their causes, that he commonly carried them forward to success, delivering the poor and fatherless who cried to him (ver. 12), causing the widow"s heart to sing for joy (ver. 13), breaking the jaws of the wicked and plucking the spoil out of his teeth (ver. 17). And in all that Job had said or done in his magisterial capacity he had:
2. Acted with the most scrupulous regard to justice. He had not met chicanery and oppression by resorting to the same dishonest weapons. If he had stood forth for justice to the poor, he had not attempted to withhold it from the rich. So unchallengeably just had been his decisions, and so unimpeachable the principles of equity by which these were guided, that he felt himself entitled to say he had literally clothed himself in righteousness, and assumed integrity as a robe and turban; in this, again, typifying strikingly the Lord Jesus Christ. (Psa_72:2 Psa_96:13) And so successful had Job been in his determination to combine "mercy and truth, righteousness and peace in his magisterial capacity, that he had:
3. Gained the good opinion and respect of all. Unlike Aristides, whom his fellow-countrymen ostracized because they could not longer bear to hear him called the "just" the fellow-citizens of Job had saluted him on every side with words and looks of commendation and esteem (ver. 11).
VI DAYS OF UNANTICIPATED EVIL. Pious, rich, honoured, useful, trusted, revered, Job was unconscious of a single gloomy foreboding. All round him, above him, before him, the prospect was clear and exhilarating. Not a speck of cloud lay upon the bright horizon that encompassed him. Job had no thought but that he should live a long, prosperous, and honoured life, multiplying his days like the sand, or like the phoenix, the fabulous bird of Egyptian mythology, or, perhaps, like the. palm tree, and at last dying calmly in his nest, i.e. like Abraham, (Gen_25:8) m the bosom of his family. Two things contributed to foster such a pleasing anticipation in the mind of Job.
1. The apparent stability of his outward or material prosperity. Comparing himself to a tree planted by the rivers of waters a frequent biblical emblem of a good man (Psa_1:3 Psa_92:12 Jer_17:8) he had hoped that, since his roots were open to the waters, whence they could always draw a plentiful supply of moisture, and since his branches were nightly laden with dew (ver. 19), nothing ever would or even could occur to interrupt the outward course of his temporal greatness. The sources of his wealth appeared so permanent and inexhaustible that he never imagined they could either be diminished or dried up. His honours were so fresh upon him (cf. "Henry VIII," Ac 3. sc. 2) that he dreamt not of their decline. And his manly vigour, his capability of warding off danger, represented by the bow which he carried in his hand, was so full and so easily renewed that he feared not an overthrow to his unexampled fortune, or an eclipse to the shining splendour of his honourable name.
2. The unlimited extent of his authority and influence. The autobiographical fragment introduced in vers. 21-25 is not designed as a continuation or resumption of the theme treated of above (vers. 7, 8), but is intended to explain how dark forebodings never crossed the mind of Job when reposing in the brilliant sunshine of his earthly glory. The profound veneration in which his countrymen held him, causing them with patient silence and eager expectation to wait for his counsel (vers. 21, 23); the awful respect in which they held his words, regarding them as final on every subject they handled (ver. 22); the effect which his decisions never failed to produce upon those who heard them, his speech distilling upon them with reviving and enlivening influences, and being welcome to their hearts as the early and the latter rains (ver. 23); the influence he wielded over them by his kindly manners, his very smile being regarded as an act of gracious condescension which they could hardly believe was meant for them, but which, nevertheless, they were loth to lose, and which seemed to have a talismanic power in dispelling their sadness (ver. 24); and the unquestioning, nay, joyous, submission with which they hailed his instructions, his position among them being at once that of a monarch and a friend (ver. 25); all these considerations rendered it difficult for Job to think that ever for him an evil day should dawn.
Learn:
1. The propriety and profit of recalling and reviewing the past.
2. In enumerating blessings, much depends upon assigning to each its exact place in the order of importance.
3. To a good man the things of God ever stand in the front rank.
4. Having flint obtained Heaven"s favour, a man may legitimately aspire to acquire the riches of the world and the good opinions of his fellow-men.
5. An upright and useful life seldom fails to meet its recompense, even upon earth.
6. He whom God has enriched with wealth, ability, and influence should devote them to the service of the poor and needy.
7. The blessings of those whom a good man relieves are greater riches than accumulated gold and silver.
8. The retrospect of a well-spent life is a great consolation in the season of adversity.
9. It is dangerous to look for permanence in anything on earth.
10. It is well when great men can combine love with authority, and sympathy with power.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-25. Wistful retrospect of past happy days.
I PICTURES OF MEMORY; HAPPINESS FOUNDED ON THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD. (Vers. 1-10)
1. Friendship with God the source of happiness. (Vers. 1-5) This is beautifully indicated in figurative expressions. He thinks of the days when God"s light beamed upon his brow, by God"s light he walked through the darkness; the days of his ripe and mellow age (rather than of his "youth"), when the secret, i.e. the intimacy, of the Almighty was a shelter and a blessing to his home. The word "secret" means "intimacy," confidential intercourse. (see Job_19:19 Psa_25:14 Psa_55:15 Pro_3:32) God was near to him, and the next greatest blessing to that favour of God, viz. the blessing of children, was granted to him. (Compare on the blessing of children, Psa_127:3, sqq.; Psa_128:3) The outward blessings of life are chiefly to be valued as signs of the deeper, the inward good; the constant nearness of God, the consciousness of his approval, the certainty of his guidance.
2. Features of outward happiness. (Vers. 6-10)
(1) Abundance of means. Here the favorite Oriental figures are employed. He bathed his steps in butter, and the rock at his side gushed with streams of oil. (comp. Deu_32:13)
(2) Respect and dignity. When he went to the gate of the city, the great public place of assembly in Oriental cities, corresponding to the agora of the Greeks, the forum of the Romans, and the market-place of Our old towns; (Job_5:4 Job_31:21 Pro_1:21 Pro_8:3) when he placed his seat in the market the wide open place close by the gates the young men retired in reverential respect before him, and the old men rose and remained standing until he had taken his seat; while princes ceased their conversation, laying the hand upon the mouth; (Job_21:5) the voice of persons of consideration was hushed, their tongue cleaving to the roof of their mouth. The possession of the respect of others is one of the noblest kinds of wealth, as the consciousness of being despised, looked down upon, scouted, and flouted is an element of the deepest misery. Out of the dark present Job looks back to those sunny days. His life is "in the sere and yellow leaf," and his is "the crown of sorrow," the "remembering happier things." "It is the pensive autumn feeling, the sensation of half-sadness that we experience when the longest day of the year is past, and every day that follows is shorter, and the light fainter, and the feebler shadows tell that Nature is hastening with gigantic footsteps to her winter grave." As Christians, we should learn to look forward, and forget the past, in so far as its recollection paralyzes or depresses. (Php_3:13, 14) (Read F. W. Robertson"s sermon on this: "Christian Progress by Oblivion of the Past.") "Not backward are our glances bent, But onwards to our Father"s home. The past is gone for ever; but there is a present and a future which is still our own.
II THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS IN GOODNESS. (Vers. 11-17) His benevolence and his strict integrity were mediately the cause of his prosperity. For although God is the one and only Cause of all things, the gracious Author of our bliss, yet his dispensations are not arbitrary. Blessing is conditioned by faith; and faith is proved by conduct. Job"s public and private life was known and seen and elicited approval from all. He was the succourer of the poor and the helpless orphan; the blessing of the forlorn and the wretched was breathed forth on his behalf. He had clothed himself with rectitude. (compare for this figure, Isa_11:5 Isa_51:9 Isa_59:17 Psa_132:9) It was to him like a robe and a turban. He was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; a father to the needy. He searched out the cause of unknown men, to help them as surety or otherwise if their cause was good. He put down men of violence and oppression, and recovered their ill-gotten booty from them, as one snatches the prey from the jaws of the wild beast. Despite the mournful mood of Job, what solace is there not, even in the greatest affliction, through the memory of having been permitted to do some good and reap some reward of affection from others in the world? And, looking to the sequel of the story, let us remember that God is not unrighteous to forget the labour of love. Every cause has its effect; every act of benevolence will be followed in due time by its bright flowers of peace and joy in the conscience and the memory. Go on, then, in the work of doing good, steadfast and immovable in the work of the Lord. Be like fountains watering the earth and spreading fertility. "Subdue discord, mutiny, widespread despair by manfulness, justice, mercy, and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as hell; let light be, and there is instead a green, flowery world. Oh, it is great, and there is no other greatness! To make some work of God"s creation a little more fruitful, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, more manful, happier, more blessed; it is a work for God! (Carlyle).
III THE MEMORY OF BRIGHT HOPES; THE RESPECT AND INFLUENCE IN FORMER DAYS. (Vers. 18-25)
1. Everything in that happy period pointed with seeming prophetic power to a long life" to a blessed old age. He thought within himself that he should end his days in his nest. in the besom of his family, in peace and security; and like the sand (or the days of the phoenix) would be their number. If the word be taken as denoting the phoenix, then the allusion is to the legend of the bird living five hundred years, then burning in its nest, and rising from the ashes. Peace and prosperity bred in his mind great hopes. Like a well-watered tree, he thought his life would spread, the refreshing dew resting by night upon its branches, and that his honour would ever freshly remain with him; that his bow the symbol of lusty manhood and strength (1Sa_2:4 Psa_46:9 Psa_76:3 Jer_49:35 Jer_51:56) would renew itself in his hand. We learn here, in passing, the lesson not to build on the constancy of earthly things, not to lay up treasures of hope here. If it be well with us now, let us be prepared for reverses. (RAPC Sir 11:25) This lesson comes back to us from many a saying of the ancient world, mixed no doubt with much of superstition, and ignorance of the nature of God, but still in the main expressed with the truth of experience. "There is nothing secure in the world, no glory, no prosperity. The gods toss all life into confusion, mix everything with its reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more worship and reverence" (Euripides, "Hec.," 957). "God hath power to change the lowly for the lofty; he weakens the distinguished, he brings the obscure to the light; Fortune with shrill sound here removes the towering crest, and here she sets it up" (Horace, "Od.," 1:35). The brief sum of life"s days forbids us to cherish a long hope (ibid., 1:4). We must learn in a Christian sense to "pluck the day, and have the smallest confidence in what is to come" (ibid., 1:11). What the morrow may bring we should shun to inquire, and count as a gain every day that may be given us (ibid., 1:9). "Too late is the life of to-morrow; live to-day!" (Martial).
2. A further picture of the social esteem and respect in which his past days had been spent. The members of his tribe or clan all looked up to him, listened in silence to his address, and had nothing to add alter he had spoken. His speech fell upon them like the refreshing rain for which the thirsty pastures long the late rain which in March or April blesses the ripening crops. (comp. Deu_11:14 Jer_3:3 Jer_5:24 Joe_2:23 Hos_6:3) His cheerful smile dismissed men"s rising fears, the light of his countenance was like the sun dispelling the clouds of doubt or alarm. He sat in the midst of the assembly of his tribe, guiding, commanding, directing, like a king in the midst of his battle-host; or, as if this picture were too warlike and remote from the peaceful scenes of the patriarch"s life, he sat among them as a general consoler, a comforter of the mourners. Thus"Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, Sucks at his breast, and turns the past to pain? But we have a power over this "bosom-spring," and may cheer or sadden ourselves with retrospect, according as we take the golden key of faith or the iron key of despondency wherewith to unlock the door of the past. Do not these bright memories of a well-spent past afford solace to the afflicted hero, though they also touch the nerves to pain? Let it be ours so to use memory that it still yield instructive joy and hope. As we turn over her mixed records, let us say to ourselves, "The joys we have possessed are ever ours out of the reach of chance and change. Let past years, so far as they are marked with the greatness of God, with acts of piety, works of love, breed in us perpetual benedictions. J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-25. A mournful reflection upon a happy past.
Job had lived in honour and great respect. He was "the greatest of all the men of the East." The Divine testimony concerning him was, "There is none like him in the earth." Job"s was an enviable condition, and his own words indicate how sensible he was of it. In his mournful utterance, made as he looks back upon a dead past, we see wherein consisted his happiness; and we learn what arc the elemental conditions of the highest felicity in human life at least at that period of the world"s history. Nor can we think of loftier conditions to-day. The conditions of happiness on the loss of which Job mournfully reflected are
I THE ASSURED FAVOUR OF JEHOVAH. The proof of this to Job was in his abounding prosperity.
II DOMESTIC FELICITY. If the joy of home be destroyed, all joy must wither.
III THE RESPECT OF SURROUNDING SOCIETY. It is always painful to a right-minded man not to be held in respect by his fellow-men; and although it may minister to pride in the unwary, it is to the prudent a source of the greatest satisfaction, especially when it is subordinated to the honour that cometh from God only.
IV THE HONOURABLE REGARD EVEN OF THE GREAT. The very princes and nobles held silence when he spake. He who is so highly honoured cannot but honour himself. Happy the man whose self-respect so ripens.
V THE EXERCISE OF CHARITY, without which the heart would become selfish.
VI THE RESPONSIVE BLESSINGS OF MEN, sweet as nard of great price.
VII CONSCIOUSNESS OF INTEGRITY AND RIGHTEOUSNESS a conscience void of offence.
VIII THE EXERCISE OF HIS POWER AND WEALTH FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE NEEDY AND OPPRESSED. Every kind act leaves a fragrance on the hand of him who does it.
IX THE POSSESSION OF HOPE. It might be said the hope of the permanence of these precious possessions.
X A CAUSE OF BLESSING TO OTHERS. In these lies the secret of the truest happiness, but many deserve them not, and having them are not able to retain their integrity and simplicity. Hence how often are they withdrawn! The absence of these Job is called to mourn. To hold fast his integrity in the loss as truly as amidst the possession of these things marks the true greatness and goodness of the man, and ultimately brings him the highest honour. R.G.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain
XXIV.
AS A PRINCE BEFORE THE KING
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JOB 29-31
JOB SPEAKS
FROM the pain and desolation to which he has become inured as a pitiable second state of existence, Job looks back to the years of prosperity and health which in long succession he once enjoyed. This parable or review of the past ends his contention. Honour and blessedness are apparently denied him forever. With what has been he compares his present misery and proceeds to a bold and noble vindication of his character alike from secret and from flagrant sins.
In the whole circle of Jobs lamentations this chant is perhaps the most affecting. The language is very beautiful, in the finest style of the poet, and the minor cadences of the music are such as many of us can sympathise with. When the years of youth go by and strength wanes, the Eden we once dwelt in seems passing fair. Of those beyond middle life there are few who do not set their early memories in sharp contrast to the ways they now travel, looking back to a happy valley and long bright summers that are left behind. And even in opening manhood and womanhood the troubles of life often fall, as we may think, prematurely, coming between the mind and the remembered joy of burdenless existence.
How changed are they!-how changed am I!
The early spring of life is gone, Gone is each youthful vanity, -
But what with years, oh what is won?
I know not-but while standing now
Where opened first the heart of youth,
I recollect how high would glow
Its thoughts of Glory, Faith, and Truth-
"How full it was of good and great,
How true to heaven, how warm to men.
Alas! I scarce forbear to hate
The colder breast I bring again."
First in the years past Job sees by the light of memory the blessedness he had when the Almighty was felt to be his preserver and his strength. Though now God appears to have become an enemy he will not deny that once he had a very different experience. Then nature was friendly, no harm came to him; he was not afraid of the pestilence that walketh in darkness nor the destruction that wasteth at noon day, for the Almighty was his refuge and fortress. To refuse this tribute of gratitude is far from the mind of Job, and the expression of it is a sign that now at length he is come to a better mind. He seems on the way fully to recover his trust.
The elements of his former happiness are recounted in detail. God watched over him with constant care, the lamp of Divine love shone on high and lighted up the darkness, so that even in the night he could travel by a way he knew not and feel secure. Days of strength and pleasure were those when the secret of God, the sense of intimate fellowship with God, was on his tent, when his children were about him, that beautiful band of sons and daughters who were his pride. Then his steps were bathed in abundance, butter provided by innumerable kine, rivers of oil which seemed to flow from the rock, where terrace above terrace the olives grew luxuriantly and yielded their fruit without fail.
Chiefly Job remembers with gratitude to God the esteem in which he was held by all about him. Nature was friendly and not less friendly were men. When he went into the city and took his seat in the "broad place" within the gate, he was acknowledged chief of the council and court of judgment. The young men withdrew and stood aside, yea the elders, already seated in the place of assembly, stood up to receive him as their superior in position and wisdom. Discussion was suspended that he might hear and decide. And the reasons for this respect are given. In the society thus with idyllic touches represented, two qualities were highly esteemed-regard for the poor and wisdom in counsel. Then, as now, the problem of poverty caused great concern to the elders of cities. Though the population of an Arabian town could not be great, there were many widows and fatherless children, families reduced to beggary by disease or the failure of their poor means of livelihood, blind and lame persons utterly dependent on charity, besides wandering strangers and the vagrants of the desert. By his princely munificence to these Job had earned the gratitude of the whole region. Need was met poverty relieved, justice done in every case. He recounts what he did, not in boastfulness, but as one who rejoiced in the ability God had given him to aid suffering fellow creatures. Those were indeed royal times for the generous-hearted man. Full of public spirit, his ear and hand always open, giving freely out of his abundance, he commended himself to the affectionate regard of the whole valley. The ready way of almsgiving was that alone by which relief was provided for the destitute, and Job was never appealed to in vain.
"The ear that heard me blessed me,
The eye that saw bare witness to me,
Because I delivered the poor that cried,
And the fatherless who had no helper.
The blessing of him that was ready to die came upon me,
And I caused the widows heart to sing with joy."
So far Job rejoices in the recollection of what he had been able to do for the distressed and needy in those days when the lamp of God shone over him. He proceeds to speak of his service as magistrate or judge.
"I put on righteousness and it indued itself with me,
My justice was as a robe and a diadem;
I was eyes to the blind
And feet was I to the lame."
With righteousness in his heart so that all he said and did revealed it and wearing judgment as a turban, he sat and administered justice among the people. Those who had lost their sight and were unable to find the men that had wronged them came to him and he was as eyes to them, following up every clue to the crime that had been committed. The lame who could not pursue their enemies appealed to him and he took up their cause. The poor, suffering under oppression, found him a protector, father. Yea, "the cause of him that I knew not I searched out." On behalf of total strangers as well as of neighbours he set in motion the machinery of justice.
"And I brake the jaws of the wicked
And plucked the spoil from his teeth."
None were so formidable, so daring and lion-like, but he faced them, brought them to judgment, and compelled them to give up what they had taken by fraud and violence.
In those days, Job confesses, he had the dream that as he was prosperous, powerful, helpful to others by the grace of God, so he would continue. Why should any trouble fall on one who used power conscientiously for his neighbours? Would not Eloah sustain the man who was as a god to others?
"Then I said, I shall die in my nest,
And I shall multiply my days as the Phoenix;
My root shall spread out by the waters,
And the dew shall be all night on my branch:
My glory shall be fresh in me,
And my bow shall be renewed in my hand."
A fine touch of the dream life which ran on from year to year, bright and blessed as if it would flow forever. Death and disaster were far away. He would renew his life like the Phoenix, attain to the age of the antediluvian fathers, and have his glory or life strong in him for uncounted years. So illusion flattered him, the very image he uses pointing to the futility of the hope.
The closing strophe of the chapter proceeds with even stronger touch and more abundant colour to represent his dignity. Men listened to him and waited. Like a refreshing rain upon thirsty ground-and how thirsty the desert could be!-his counsel fell on their ears. He smiled upon them when they had no confidence, laughed away their trouble, the light of his countenance never dimmed by their apprehensions. Even when all about him were in dismay his hearty hopeful outlook was unclouded. Trusting God, he knew his own strength and gave freely of it.
"I chose out their way, and sat as a chief,
And dwelt as a king in the crowd,
As one that comforteth the mourners."
Looked up to with this great esteem, acknowledged leader in virtue of his overflowing goodness and cheerfulness, he seemed to make sunshine for the whole community. Such was the past. All that had been is gone, apparently forever.
How inexpressibly strange that power so splendid, mental, physical, and moral strength used in the service of less favoured men should be destroyed by Eloah! It is like blotting out the sun from heaven and leaving a world in darkness. And most strange of all is the way in which low men assist the ruin that has been wrought.
The thirtieth chapter begins with this. Job is derided by the miserable and base whose fathers he would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock. He paints these people, gaunt with hunger and vice, herding in the wilderness where alone they are suffered to exist, plucking mallows or salt wort among the bushes and digging up the roots of broom for food. Men hunted them into the desert, crying after them as thieves, and they dwelt in the clefts of the wadies, in caves and amongst rocks. Like wild asses they brayed in the scrub and flung themselves down among the nettles. Children they were of fools, base-born, men who had dishonoured their humanity and been whipped out of the land. Such are they whose song and by word Job is now become. These, even these abhor him and spit in his face. He makes the contrast deep and dreadful as to his own experience and the moral confusion that has followed Eloahs strange work. For good there is evil, for light and order there is darkness. Does God desire this, ordain it?
One is inclined to ask whether the abounding compassion and humaneness of the Book of Job fail at this point. These wretched creatures who make their lair like wild beasts among the nettles, outcasts, branded as thieves, a wandering base-born race, are still men. Their fathers may have fallen into the vices of abject poverty. But why should Job say that he would have disdained to set them with the dogs of his flock? In a previous speech (chapter 24) he described victims of oppression who had no covering in the cold and were drenched with the rain of the mountains, clinging to the rock for shelter; and of them he spoke gently, sympathetically. But here he seems to go beyond compassion.
Perhaps one might say the tone he takes now is pardonable, or almost pardonable, because these wretched beings, whom he may have treated kindly once, have seized the occasion of his misery and disease to insult him to his face. While the words appear hard, the uselessness of the pariah may be the mare point. Yet a little of the pride of birth clings to Job. In this respect he is not perfect; here his prosperous life needs a check. The Almighty must speak to him out of the tempest that he may feel himself and find "the blessedness of being little."
These outcasts throw off all restraint and behave with disgraceful rudeness in his presence.
Upon my right hand rise the low brood,
They push away my feet,
And cast up against me their ways of destruction;
They mar my path,
And force on my calamity-
They who have no helper.
They come in as through a wide breach,
In the desolation they roll themselves upon me.
The various images, of a besieging army, of those who wantonly break up paths made with difficulty, of a breach in the embankment of a river, are to show that Job is now accounted one of the meanest, whom any man may treat with in dignity. He was once the idol of the populace; "now none so poor to do him reverence." And this persecution by base men is only a sign of deeper abasement. As a horde of terrors sent by God he feels the reproaches and sorrows of his state.
"Terrors are turned upon me;
They chase away mine honour as the wind.
And my welfare passeth as a cloud.
And now my soul is poured out in me
The days of affliction have taken hold upon me."
Thought shifts naturally to the awful disease which has caused his body to swell and to become black as with dust and ashes. And this leads him to his final vehement complaint against Eloah. How can He so abase and destroy His servant?
I cry unto Thee and Thou dost not hear me;
I stand up, and Thou lookest at me.
Thou art turned to be cruel unto me:
With the might of Thine hand Thou persecutest me.
Thou liftest me up to the wind,
Thou causest me to ride on it;
And Thou dissolvest me in the storm.
For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death,
And to the house appointed for all living.
Yet in overthrow doth not one stretch out his hand?
In destruction, doth he not because of this utter a cry?
Standing up in his wretchedness he is fully visible to the Divine eye, still no prayer moves Eloah the terrible from His purpose. It seems to be finally appointed that in dishonour Job shall die. Yet, destined to this fate, his hope a mockery, shall he not stretch out his hand, cry aloud as life falls to the grave in ruin? How differently is God treating him from the way in which he treated those who were in trouble! He is asking in vain that pity which he himself had often shown. Why should this be? How can it be, and Eloah remain the Just and Living One? Pained without and within, unable to refrain from crying out when people gather about him, a brother to jackals whose howlings are heard all night, a companion to the grieving ostrich, his bones burned by raging fever, his harp turned to wailing and his lute into the voice of them that weep, he can scarce believe himself the same man that once walked in honour and gladness in the sight of earth and heaven.
Thus the full measure of complaint is again poured out, unchecked by thought that dignity of life comes more with suffering patiently endured than with pleasure. Job does not know that out of trouble like his a man may rise more human, more noble, his harp furnished with new strings of deeper feeling, a finer light of sympathy shining in his soul. Consistently, throughout, the author keeps this thought in the background, showing hopeless sorrow, affliction, unrelieved by any sense of spiritual gain, pressing with heaviest and most weary weight upon a good mans life. The only help Job has is the consciousness of virtue, and that does not check his complaint. The antinomies of life, the past as compared with the present, Divine favour exchanged for cruel persecution, well doing followed by most grievous pain and dishonour, are to stand at the last full in view. Then He who has justice in His keeping shall appear. God Himself shall declare and claim His supremacy and His design.
This purpose of the author achieved, the last passage of Jobs address-chapter 31-rings bold and clear like the chant of a victor, not serene indeed in the presence of death, for this is not the Hebrew temper and cannot be ascribed by the writer to his hero, yet with firm ground beneath his feet, a clear conscience of truth lighting up his soul. The language is that of an innocent man before his accusers and his judge, yea of a prince in presence of the King. Out of the darkness into which he has been cast by false arguments and accusations, out of the trouble into which his own doubt has brought him, Job seems to rise with a new sense of moral strength and even of restored physical power. No more in reckless challenge of heaven and earth to do their worst, but with a fine strain of earnest desire to be clear with men and God, he takes up and denies one by one every possible charge of secret and open sin. Is the language he uses more emphatic than any man has a right to employ? If he speaks the truth, why should his words be thought too bold? The Almighty Judge desires no man falsely to accuse himself, will have no man leave an unfounded suspicion resting upon his character. It is not evangelical meekness to plead guilty to sins never committed. Job feels it part of his integrity to maintain his integrity; and here he vindicates himself not in general terms but in detail, with a decision which cannot be mistaken. Afterwards, when the Almighty has spoken, he acknowledges the ignorance and error which have entered into his judgment, making the confession we must all make even after years of faith.
I.
From the taint of lustful and base desire he first clears himself. He has been pure in life, innocent even of wandering looks which might have drawn him into uncleanness. He has made a covenant with his eyes and kept it. Sin of this kind, he knew, always brings retribution, and no indulgence of his ever caused sorrow and dishonour. Regarding the particular form of evil in question he asks:-
"For what is the portion from God above,
And the heritage of the Almighty from on high?
Is it not calamity to the unrighteous
And disaster to them that work iniquity?"
Grouped along with this "lust of the flesh" is the "lust of the eyes," covetous desire. The itching palm to which money clings, false dealing for the sake of gain, crafty intrigues for the acquisition of a plot of ground or some animal-such things were far from him. He claims to be weighed in a strict balance, and pledges himself that as to this he will not be found wanting. So thoroughly is he occupied with this defence that he speaks as if still able to sow a crop and look for the harvest. He would expect to have the produce snatched from his hand if the vanity of greed and getting had led him astray. Returning then to the more offensive suspicion that he had laid wait treacherously at his neighbours door, he uses the most vigorous words to show at once his detestation of such offence and the result he believes it always to have. It is an enormity, a nefarious thing to be punished by the judges. More than that, it is a fire that consumes to Abaddon, wasting a mans strength and substance so that they are swallowed as by the devouring abyss. As to this, Jobs reading of life is perfectly sound. Wherever society exists at all, custom and justice are made to bear as heavily as possible on those who invade the foundation of society and the rights of other men. Yet the keenness with which immorality of the particular kind is watched fans the flame of lust. Nature appears to be engaged against itself; it may be charged with the offence, it certainly joins in bringing the punishment.
II.
Another possible imputation was that as a master or employer he had been harsh to his underlings. Common enough it was for those in power to treat their dependants with cruelty. Servants were often slaves; their rights as men and women were denied. Regarding this, the words put into the mouth of Job are finely humane, even prophetic:-
"If I despised the cause of my man-servant or maid
When they contended with me
What then shall I do when God riseth up?
And when He visiteth what shall I answer Him?
Did not He that made me in the womb make him?
And did not One fashion us in the womb?"
The rights of those who toiled for him were sacred, not as created by any human law which for so many hours service might compel so much stipulated hire, but as conferred by God. Jobs servants were men and women with an indefeasible claim to just and considerate treatment. It was accidental, so to speak, that Job was rich and they poor, that he was master and they under him. Their bodies were fashioned like his, their minds had the same capacity of thought, of emotion, of pleasure and pain. At this point there is no hardness of tone or pride of birth and place. These are well doing people to whom as head of the clan Job stands in place of a father.
And his principle, to treat them as their inheritance of the same life from the same Creator gave them a right to be dealt with, is prophetic, setting forth the duties of all who have power to those who toil for them. Men are often used like beasts of burden. No tyranny on earth is so hateful as many employers, driving on their huge concerns at the utmost speed, dare to exercise through representatives or underlings. The simple patriarchal life which brought employer and employed into direct personal relations knew little of the antagonism of class interests and the bitterness of feeling which often menaces revolution. None of this will cease till simplicity be resumed and the customs which keep men in touch with each other, even though they fail to acknowledge themselves members of the one family of God. When the servant who has done his best is, after years of exhausting labour, dismissed without a hearing by some subordinate set there to consider what are called the "interests" of the employer-is the latter free from blame? The question of Job, "What then shall I do when God riseth up, and when He visiteth what shall I answer Him?" strikes a note of equity and brotherliness many so-called Christians seem never to have heard.
III.
To the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the perishing, Job next refers. Beyond the circle of his own servants there were needy persons whom he had been charged with neglecting and even oppressing. He has already made ample defence under this head. If he has lifted his hand against the fatherless, having good reason to presume that the judges would be on his side-then may his shoulder fall from the shoulder blade and his arm from the collar bone. Calamity from God was a terror to Job, and recognising the glorious authority which enforces the law of brotherly help he could not have lived in proud enjoyment and selfish contempt.
IV.
Next he repudiates the idolatry of wealth and the sin of adoring the creature instead of the Creator. Rich as he was, he can affirm that he never thought too much of his wealth, nor secretly vaunted himself in what he had gathered. His fields brought forth plentifully, but he never said to his soul, Thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He was but a steward, holding all at the will of God. Not as if abundance of possessions could give him any real worth, but with constant gratitude to his Divine Friend, he used the world as not abusing it.
And for his religion: true to those spiritual ideas which raised him far above superstition and idolatry, even when the rising sun seemed to claim homage as a fit emblem of the unseen Creator, or when the full moon shining in a clear sky seemed a very goddess of purity and peace, he had never, as others were wont to do, carried his hand to his lips. He had seen the worship of Baal and Ishtar, and there might have come to him, as to whole nations, the impulses of wonder, of delight, of religious reverence. But he can fearlessly say that he never yielded to the temptation to adore anything in heaven or earth. It would have been to deny Eloah the Supreme. Dr. Davidson reminds us here of a legend embodied in the Koran for the purpose of impressing the lesson that worship should be paid to the Lord of all creatures, "whose shall be the kingdom on the day whereon the trumpet shall be sounded." The Almighty says: "Thus did we show unto Abraham the kingdom of heaven and earth, that he might become of those who firmly believe. And when the night overshadowed him he saw a star, and he said, This is my Lord; but when it set he said, I like not those that set. And when he saw the moon rising he said, This is my Lord; but when he saw it set he said, Verily, if my Lord direct me not, I shall become one of the people who go astray. And when he saw the rising sun he said, This is my Lord; this is the greatest; but when it set he said, O my people, verily I am clear of that which ye associate with God; I direct my face unto Him who hath created the heavens and the earth." Thus from very early times to that of Mohammed monotheism was in conflict with the form of idolatry that naturally allured the inhabitants of Arabia. Job confesses the attraction, denies the sin. He speaks as if the laws of his people were strongly against sun worship, whatever might be done elsewhere.
V.
He proceeds to declare that he has never rejoiced over a fallen enemy nor sought the life of any one with a curse. He distinguishes himself very sharply from those who in the common Oriental way dealt curses without great provocation, and those even who kept them for deadly enemies. So far was this rancorous spirit from him that friends and enemies alike were welcome to his hospitality and help. Job_31:31 means that his servants could boast of being unable to find a single stranger who had not sat at his table. Their business was to furnish it every day with guests. Nor will Job allow that after the manner of men he skilfully covered transgressions. "If, guilty of some base thing, I concealed it, as men often do, because I was afraid of losing caste, afraid lest the great families would despise me" Such a thought or fear never presented itself to him. He could not thus have lived a double life. All had been above board, in the clear light of day, ruled by one law. In connection with this it is that he comes with princely appeal to the King.
"Oh that I had one to hear me!-
Behold my signature-let the Almighty answer me.
And oh that I had my Opponents charge!
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, I would bind it unto me as a crown.
I would declare unto Him the number of my steps,
As a prince would I go near unto Him."
The words are to be defended only on the ground that the Eloah to whom a challenge is here addressed is God misunderstood, God charged falsely with making unfounded accusations against His servant and punishing him as a criminal. The Almighty has not been doing so. The vicious reasoning of the friends, the mistaken creed of the age make it appear as if He had. Men say to Job, You suffer because God has found evil in you. He is requiting you according to your iniquity. They maintain that for no other reason could calamities have come upon him. So God is made to appear as the mans adversary; and Job is forced to the demonstration that he has been unjustly condemned. "Behold my signature," he says: I state my innocence; I set to my mark; I stand by my claim: I can do nothing else. Let the Almighty prove me at fault. God, you say, has a book in which His charges against me are written out. I wish I had that book! I would fasten it upon my shoulder as a badge of honour; yea, I would wear it as a crown. I would show Eloah all I have done, every step I have taken through life by day and night. I would evade nothing. In the assurance of integrity I would go to the King; as a prince I would stand in His presence. There face to face with Him whom I know to be just and righteous I would justify myself as His servant, faithful in His house.
Is it audacity, impiety? The writer of the book does not mean it to be so understood. There is not the slightest hint that he gives up his hero. Every claim made is true. Yet there is ignorance of God, and that ignorance puts Job in fault so far. He does not know Gods action though he knows his own. He ought to reason from the misunderstanding of himself and see that he may fail to understand Eloah. When he begins to see this he will believe that his sufferings have complete justification in the purpose of the Most High.
The ignorance of Job represents the ignorance of the old world. Notwithstanding the tenor of his prologue the writer is without a theory of human affliction applicable to every case, or even to the experience of Job. He can only say and repeat, God is supremely wise and righteous, and for the glory of His wisdom and righteousness He ordains all that befalls men. The problem is not solved till we see Christ, the Captain of our salvation, made perfect by suffering, and know that our earthly affliction "which is for the moment worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory."
The last verses of the chapter may seem out of place. Job speaks as a landowner who has not encroached on the fields of others but honestly acquired his estate, and as a farmer who has tilled it well. This seems a trifling matter compared with others that have been considered. Yet, as a kind of afterthought, completing the review of his life, the detail is natural.
"If my land cry out against me,
And the furrows thereof weep together,
If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money,
Or have caused the owners to lose their life:
Let thistles grow instead of wheat
And cockle instead of barley.
The words of Job are ended."
A farmer of the right kind would have great shame if poor crops or wet furrows cried against him, or if he could otherwise be accused of treating the land ill. The touch is realistic and forcible.
Still it is plain at the close that the character of Job is idealised. Much may he received as matter of veritable history; but on the whole the life is too fine, pure, saintly for even an extraordinary man. The picture is clearly typical. And it is so for the best reason. An actual life would not have set the problem fully in view. The writers aim is to rouse thought by throwing the contradictions of human experience so vividly upon a prepared canvas that all may see. Why do the righteous suffer? What does the Almighty mean? The urgent questions of the race are made as insistent as art and passion, ideal truth and sincerity, can make them. Job lying in the grime of misery, yet claiming his innocence as a prince before the Eternal King, demands on behalf of humanity the vindication of providence, the meaning of the world scheme.
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 Takes a calm retrospective view of his past experience…
JOB’S RETROSPECT
Takes a calm retrospective view of his past experience and life. Thus disproves the suspicions and accusations of his friends, and shows that his complaints were sufficiently well-grounded. The character secretly given him by God thus affirmed out of his own mouth. Does this not from a feeling of vanity and pride, but, like Paul, as compelled to it, for self-vindication. Probably resumes his speech (Job_29:1, “continued his parable”) after pausing for a reply which was not forthcoming.
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Commences in a tone of lamentation as he looks back upon his former happiness and prosperity, now apparently for ever fled. Job_29:2.—“O that I were,” &c. Natural to look back with regret from a state of protracted suffering and depression to one of happiness and comfort, and to long, however vainly, for its return. The believer, in a state of spiritual darkness under the loss of God’s sensible presence, often unable to refrain from similar language. “How sweet the hours I once enjoyed.” &c. Better and safer to long for the return of spiritual than of temporal prosperity and comfort.
I. Job’s past happiness (Job_29:2-11). Embraced—
1. His enjoyment of the Divine favour and fellowship. Job_29:2-4.—“O that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me! when His candle (or lamp—symbol of favour and blessing, chap. Job_18:6; Psa_18:28; Psa_132:17) shined upon (or over) my head (the lamp in Arab tents and dwellings being usually suspended from the top or ceiling, and kept burning all night), and when by his light I walked through darkness” (by his protection and guidance escaping dangers, and overcoming difficulties and trials—like the caravans travelling through the desert by night with lights burning in their front). Note—All a believer’s present comfort and blessing only candle-light compared with the future.—“As I was in the days of my youth (or full prosperity; Heb., ‘My autumn,’ the time of ripe fruits; the reference to his circumstances rather than to his age), when the secret (or intimate friendship) of God was upon (or in) my tabernacle; when the Almighty was yet with me” (present with me, or on my side; or, “when my vigour,” &c., the clause in this case belonging rather to the next head). Observe—
(1) No blessing so great or enjoyment so sweet, as that of communion with God and the friendship of our Maker. These placed by Job at the head of his list of mercies and the retrospect of his happiness. The madness of the world seen in neglecting and despising this. True wisdom in making the enjoyment of it our first concern. Its re-enjoyment by man the object of Christ’s mission into the world.
(2). The favour of God the fountain of all real blessing and true happiness. “The blessing of the Lord maketh rich,” &c.
(3) Intimate fellowship and personal friendship with God to be enjoyed in this life. Abraham the friend of God. “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” (Gen_18:17). Henceforth I call you not servants but friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you” (Joh_15:15). “The Lord God will do nothing; but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amo_3:7). “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant” (Psa_25:14; Pro_3:32).
(4) God’s presence and favour sweeten every blessing.
“Happy who walks with Him! Whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God.
His presence who made all so fair, perceiv’d,
Makes all still fairer. As with Him no scene
Is dreary, so with Him all seasons please.”
2. His enjoyment of outward mercies (Job_29:5-11). These were—
(1) Domestic comfort. Job_29:5.—“When my children (perhaps including servants) were about me.” Job’s children now dead, and his servants partly killed (ch. Job_1:15; Job_1:17), and partly fleeing from him in his affliction (chap. Job_19:15-16). Job’s home once a snug and well-feathered nest, with an abundant brood of happy young ones in it (Job_29:18). Mentions his family before his fortune. A happy home a greater treasure than a wide domain. A healthy and happy family one of the greatest of earthly comforts. A home, when what it ought to be—the sweetner of life. Mercifully preserved to man alter the Fall. Domestic happiness impaired by sin. Restored by grace. Realized in the enjoyment of God’s favour and blessing in Christ (Psa_118:15). Job’s home a happy one, because a holy one (chap. Job_1:5). “Blest, that home where God is felt.”—
(2) Outward prosperity. Job_29:6; Job_29:19-20.—“When I washed my steps with butter (cream, or thick milk), and the rock poured me out rivers of oil” (Heb. “poured out, &c., with me,” i.e., alongside of me, wherever I went—like the rock that followed Israel with its refreshing stream all through the desert). Abundance of milk and oil Oriental emblems of plenty (Deu_32:13-14). Canaan a land flowing with milk and honey. Rocky land, as in Arabia and Syria, most favourable for the cultivation of the olive. Oil a great part of Oriental produce. Job_29:19—“My root was spread out by the waters (imbibing their moisture, as Psa_1:3) and the dew (abundant in the East, and compensating for the scarcity of rain) lay all night upon my branch (or crops,—thus nourished both above and beneath the soil). My glory (reputation for wisdom, piety and justice; or simply, my prosperous estate) was ne in me (Heb., ‘with me,’ always new, like a flourishing evergreen), and my bow was renewed in my hand” (my strength always renewing itself after exhaustion, and acquiring fresh vigour (Isa_40:31), as a bow, after shooting its arrow, returns to its former position and strength).—Observe—
(1) Job’s riches ascribed by him to God’s blessing. The lamp of God’s favour was over his head before the rocks poured out oil at his feet. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich.” “The Lord giveth thee power to get wealth.”
(2) Riches a blessing when from God, with God, and to God. “When rich I enjoyed God in all; now when poor, I enjoy all in God.”
3. Public honour I respect. Job_29:7-11; Job_29:21-25—“When I went out—(from his residence which was probably in the country) to the gate through the city (or ‘up to the city,’—Oriental cities being usually on an eminence, and the city-gate the place of justice, deliberation and business, Rth_4:12; Pro_31:23); when I prepared my seat—(sending his servant before with his cushion, according to Oriental manners, to spread it for him) in the street (or broad open space in front of the gate, used both for court and market, such as is found in the remains of Persepolis and Nineveh, and still exists in eastern cities). The young men (in the forum or market-place) saw me and hid themselves (from modesty and reverence retiring back out of immediate sight); the aged men (the elders of the city composing the court or senate—Rth_4:2; Pro_31:23) arose and stood up (from respect, as to one of superior wisdom and standing). The princes (sheikhs, or chiefs of their tribes) refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth (a token of silence and expression of the greatest deference). The nobles (men of wealth and position in the country) held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth. When the ear heard me [while addressing the assembly], then it blessed me—(pronounced him blessed for the wisdom, justice, and benevolence that shone in his speech); when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me [as the friend and benefactor of my country and my race]. Job_29:21—“Unto me men gave car (listening to my opinion or counsel) and waited; and kept silence at my counsel (having nothing either to add, correct, or gainsay). After my words they spake not again (not even replying, much less contradicting,—-satisfied with the wisdom of what had been advanced); and my speech dropped upon them (as the dew, easy-flowing, pleasant and beneficial, Deu_32:2). And they waited for me as [the parched earth waits] for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as [the earth does] for the latter rain” (the rain in those eastern countries falling at two seasons in the year; the former rain in September or October, the latter rain in February or March). Note—Salutary instruction frequently represented in Scripture and Oriental poetry under the figure of rain and dew. Copious rain or dew the Egyptian hieroglyphic for learning and instruction. Job_29:24—“If I laughed (or smiled) on them (relaxing my gravity, and showing a token of pleasure or recognition), they believed it not (as too great an honour; or, ‘did not thereby become bold and familiar’); and the light (smile or serenity) of my countenance they cast not down—(grieving or displeasing him by their undutiful or disrespectful behaviour). I chose out their way (as their counsellor and guide; or, ‘[If] I joined their society’), and sat chief (occupied the first place, and presided in all their public deliberations), and dwelt [in my settled residence] as a king (or, ‘a very king’) in the army (or ‘troop,’ in whom his presence inspires life and courage, and to whom his word is law), as one that comforteth the mourners” [who hang upon his lips, and drink in his every word]. Observe—
(1) Goodness often the shortest as well as the safest way to greatness. God’s standing promise,—“Them that honour me I will honour” (1Sa_2:30). In wisdom’s left hand—only her left hand—are riches and honour.
(2) A good man sure, sooner or later, to gain the esteem and confidence of his fellows. A wise head, a warm heart, and a willing hand likely to secure love and respect. Christ’s promise,—“He that believeth on me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water” (Joh_7:37). Job, from his piety, benevolence, and wisdom, both the darling and the oracle of his country.
(3) A man’s noblest ambition—(i.) To excel others in virtue, piety, and benevolence. (ii.) To act as the counsellor and guide of his fellows. (iii.) To comfort the mourners while commanding the multitude.
II. Job’s character (Job_29:11-17). His reputation not without just grounds. The fruit not of his riches or power, but of his benevolent and upright character.
1. His benevolence and compassion as a private individual. Job_29:11; Job_29:13; Job_29:15-16.—“Because I delivered the poor that cried [under suffering or oppression], and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish [from want or oppression] came upon me [as his deliverer], and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy (by comforting, relieving, or delivering her). I was eyes to the blind (as an instructor, counsellor, and guide to the ignorant, inexperienced, and erring), and feet was I to the lame (doing for the weak, infirm, and helpless, what they were unable to do for themselves). I was a father to the poor (counselling, defending, and providing for them); and the cause which I knew not (or, ‘the cause of those I knew not,’ i.e., of the stranger), I searched out (or into, in order to his relief and defence—doing this as well in the capacity of a private individual as of a magistrate or judge). Observe—
(1) Job’s religion not one of mere contemplation, still less one of mere profession or outward observance. His the “pure and undefiled religion before God the Father—to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (Jas_1:27).
(2) Job’s character an exemplification of “the wisdom that is from above—first pure, then peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and of good fruits.”
(3) In Job, the fear of God evinced by active love to man. To be so always.
“First daughter to the love of God
Is charity to man.”
“He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1Jn_4:20).
(4) The nature of that love which the law requires, and which verifies a man’s religion. A love not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth (1Jn_3:18). True charity is kind and seeketh not her own (1Co_13:4-5).
(5) Job’s faith, like Abraham’s, made perfect by his works (Jas_2:22).
(6) Wealth and high position no hindrance to the exercise of compassion and benevolence. Should rather be a help to it.
2. His faithfulness and justice as a magistrate. Job_29:13-14.—“The cause which I knew not I searched out (careful—
(1) that before giving sentence, he thoroughly understood the case;
(2) That none, even the stranger, should have his case neglected). I put on righteousness—(practising it in his daily conduct, and especially as a magistrate and judge), and it clothed me (or, ‘put on me,’—wholly filled me, made me righteous,—both without and within). My judgment (or upright dealing) was [to me] as a robe and a diadem” (or turban, worn as a headdress by kings and nobles, Isa_62:3; by the high priest, Zec_3:5; and even by Jewish ladies of fashion in the days of Isaiah, Isa_3:20; the flowing robe and turban still the prominent articles of a wealthy Arab’s dress). Job’s character as a magistrate the opposite of that ascribed to him by Eliphaz (chap. Job_22:5-9). Job not less just than generous. Observe—
(1) Justice and benevolence the brightest ornament either of public or private life. Wisdom an ornament of grace and a crown of glory to all her possessors. Knowledge is a youth’s diadem—Arab Proverb.
(2) Uprightness of character and life to be worn as our dress; cleaving to us and accompanying us at all times and in all places. To be our habit in both senses of the word. Patent to the eyes of the world like our outer garments.
(3) Upright conduct to be regarded as our honour. To be neither ostentatiously paraded nor pusillanimously ashamed of.
(4) A better righteousness than our own given us in Christ as our ground of confidence before God (Rom_4:2-6; Gal_6:14; Php_3:7-9).
3. His boldness in opposing the wicked and oppressive. Job_29:17.—Perhaps also belonging to his character as a magistrate. “I broke the jaws (or jaw-teeth) of the wicked (especially the rich and powerful oppressor, often represented us a beast of prey, chap. Job_4:10), and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.” The opposite of the unjust judge in the Gospel (Luk_18:3-4). Observe—
(1) A truly good man a comfort to the oppressed and a terror to the oppressor. “They that forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with him” (Pro_28:4).
(2) A good man not deterred from duty by the fear of consequences. Job did good and executed justice at the risk—i. Of being unpopular with the great. ii. Of incurring personal danger. iii. Of much trouble to himself.
III. Job’s anticipation. Job_29:18.—Perhaps continued to the end of the chapter. “Then I said [within myself, while reflecting upon my prosperity and character], I shall die in my nest (in comfort and security, neither by a violent nor untimely, but a natural and peaceful death); I shall multiply my days as the sand” (or, according to another reading, “as the Phœnix”—a fabulous bird, said to spring from a nest of myrrh made by the parent bird before his death, living to the age of a thousand years, and coming from Arabia to Egypt once in five hundred years, and then burning his father,—a hieroglyphical mode with the Egyptians of representing a particular chronological era or cycle). Natural in Job’s circumstances to cherish bright anticipations of the future. The tendency of continued prosperity and honour to beguile into false security and confidence. David’s error (Psa_30:6-7). Job’s anticipations to be soon apparently blasted. Yet in the end abundantly realized (chap. Job_42:16). Observe—
1. A good old age, and a comfortable death in the bosom of one’s family and home, among the appointments of a favouring Providence. The opposite threatened as a punishment (Isa_22:17-18; Jer_22:18-19). These, however, not proofs of pardoning mercy, nor necessarily belonging to the children of God. Ishmael, out of the covenant, dies in the midst of all his brethren; Moses; in it, dies alone on a solitary mountain (Gen_25:18; Deu_32:49-50). Best to have the circumstances of our death as well as of our life chosen for us by our heavenly Father. The everlasting covenant of God’s grace in Christ the softest and safest nest in which either to live or die (2Sa_23:5).
(2) To multiply our days a blessing; to make right use of them a greater. Days often multiplied only to multiply shame and sorrow (Isa_51:11). The longest life, if ill-spent, is short; the shortest, if well-spent, is long. Life not to be measured by the number of its days, but by the character of its deeds.
(3) Job’s anticipation, a long life and a comfortable death; that of the believer under the Gospel dispensation, an eternal blessedness reserved for him in heaven (2Co_4:18).
IV. Lessons suggested by the retrospect as a whole
1. Evidence of the statement that “the fear of the Lord is wisdom.” Job’s piety the fountain both of his happiness and honour. None ever exhibited more of the former or enjoyed more of the latter. His life and experience a verification of the truth that “length of days is in wisdom’s right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour” (Pro_3:16).
2. Proof that true piety towards God is accompanied with the purest morality and love to men. Job as much distinguished for the one as the other. The fear and love of God the only and sure guarantee of faithfulness and love to men. True piety the natural fountain both of a pure morality and a disinterested benevolence. Integrity of life and love to our neighbour only branches of that tree whose root is the love of God. Love to God the first table of the Decalogue; love to man the second. The two twin sisters of the same parent, the nature and image of God who is love. He who loves and fears God cannot be regardless of God’s will or God’s offspring.
3. An example afforded of what grace can effect in restoring and renewing fallen humanity. Job a specimen of the power of that grace of God which teaches us to “deny ungodliness, and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” His virtues not the product of fallen nature but of renewing grace. Though in the older dispensation and before the full effusion of the Holy Spirit, his character and life the fruits of that Spirit, viz., love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith (Gal_5:17). Exhibits the features of the new man created in the believer by the Holy Ghost after the image of God. The object and effect of Divine grace to produce the lineaments of Christ, the perfect man in the renewed soul. The polluted but believing Corinthians not only justified but washed and sanctified (1Co_6:11). The converted cannibals of Fiji risk health and life to communicate their blessings to the cannibals of New Guinea.
4. A pattern for Christians both in public and private life. Job’s daily life a scattering of seeds of kindness. Might have sat for the picture of the Good Samaritan. Job’s goodness, if not his greatness, within everyone’s reach. The poor always with us. No large estate required in order to be “eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the poor.” A kind word or a trifling gift often able to make the widow’s heart sing for joy. More grace provided and attainable for the exercise of Job’s virtues in the Christian dispensation than in that under which the patriarch himself lived. The follower of Jesus both required and enabled to practise every virtue and every praise that adorned Job’s character (Php_4:8).
5. The retrospect of a holy and useful life a source of pure and elevated comfort in sickness and adversity. Job’s comfort in his afflictions not in looking back on his wealth and honours, but on the way he employed them. The seeds of scattered kindness in the time of health and prosperity often bear their fruit in this life in the season of trouble and adversity. Friends made of the “Mammon of unrighteousness,” both for time and eternity (Luk_16:9). A man may be richer in the retrospect of the manner in which he spent his money than others who selfishly hoard it are in its continued possession.
6. Example of the uncertainty of earthly comforts and riches. None ever enjoyed more of these than Job, and none ever more thoroughly stripped of them. The comfortable nest in which he hoped to end his days now rifled and torn in pieces, and himself sitting, a loathsome leper, on an ash-heap. Boast not thyself of to-morrow. Madness to pursue a fleeting and neglect an enduring substance. Means and opportunities of doing good to be faithfully employed while they last. Riches not for ever, nor the crown to all generations.
7. The experience of believers in respect to the sensible enjoyment of the Divine presence and fellowship liable to fluctuation. Not only Job’s outward and temporal but his inward and spiritual comfort now in an eclipse. The sin of God’s countenance may for wise reasons be hidden behind a cloud. No proof of God’s anger that His favour is not sensibly enjoyed. The shining of the sun to be believed, though not seen. The path of a believer through the world like that of the moon among sailing clouds. Darkness and light the experience of a believer till he reaches the land where there is no more night.
8. An exemplification of the requirements of the moral law in respect to our neighbour. Love to man, verified in continual acts of varied benevolence, the characteristic of Job’s life. Such love the requirement of the second part of the Decalogue. Job’s life and character no more than is required by the law of God from each individual according to his means and opportunities. Every shortcoming of it, sin. Hence the universal character of men as transgressors of the Divine law (Rom_3:23). Job himself, with all his integrity and benevolence, still a sinner as coming short of that law. Every mouth stopped, and the whole world guilty before God (Rom_3:19). An example of perfect obedience to the law of love found only in one of Adam’s children.
9. Job exhibited in this chapter as a type of Jesus Christ the Righteous. The picture Job draws of himself only fully and perfectly realized in him who “did no sin,” and who “went about, doing good” (Isa_11:1-5; Isa_61:1-3). Christ, the second Adam, the only perfect man. His life, even more than Job’s, an exhibition of the beauty and excellence of the moral law, as well as a fulfilment of it. Christ fitted, therefore, to be our representative and head in a new covenant (Rom_5:12-19). His perfect fulfilment of the law, for our sakes—
(1) As a pattern for our imitation.
(2) As a proof that He was what He professed to be—the Son of God and Saviour of men.
(3) To give value to His death as a sacrifice and satisfaction for sin, Himself being without spot, and a sweet savour to God.
(4) As a substitution for the perfect obedience required of each individual.
(5) As the image and character to be reproduced in all who are united to Him by faith, as the members of that family of which He is the head and representative.
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 I. When our children are children, we should really…
Job 29:5
I. When our children are children, we should really have them "about us."
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II. When our children are about us, we should consider, with Job, that we are prosperous.
III. When our children are about us, we should tend them very carefully, and train them up in the way they should go.
IV. When our children are about us, we should be careful, not only to teach them, but to learn the lessons which they can teach us.
V. When our children are about us, we should anticipate the time when, as in the case of the patriarch, they will all be away.
A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 15.
References: Job 28—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., pp. 293 and 329. Job 29:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 51; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 224; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 334; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 103. Job 29:2-4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1011. Job 29:11-16.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 281. Job 29:16.—J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., pp. 264, 280. Job 29:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1649. Job 29—H. Allon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 163. Job 29-30—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. ix., p. 430. Job 29-31—A. W. Momerie, Defects of Modern Christianity, p. 140. Job 30:25.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 479. Job 31:14.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 130. Job 31—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 27; Ibid., Commentary on fob, p. 366. Job 32:1-6.—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., pp. 99, 113. Job 32:2.—E. Monro, Practical Sermons, vol. iii., p. 377. Job 32:6 -xxxiii. 33.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 173.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain These chapters form a section by themselves, in which…
These chapters form a section by themselves, in which Job reviews his life. He first of all draws a picture of his past prosperous career, when he was happy and respected (Job 29). With this he contrasts his present condition, when men he once despised now hold him in contempt, and he is in pain and sorrow and disgrace (Job 30). Finally, he reasserts his innocence of wickedness in any form (Job 31).
Job's Past Greatness and Happiness
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Job mournfully recalls the days of God's favour, and the prosperity and honour he once enjoyed. In this chapter we have the picture of a great and worthy chieftain looked up to and respected by all. It confirms the description of Job's importance in Job 1.
3. Candle] RV 'lamp'; a figure of God's favour.
4. Days of my youth] RV 'ripeness of my days.' Secret] RM' friendship.' Tabernacle] RV 'tent.'
6. A figure of prosperity: cp. Deu_33:24.
7. Through the city] RV 'unto the city.' Job went with other elders to administer justice at the city gate. Observe that Job did not live in the city; his usual abode was in his camp. But he was influential in the city, just as a great Arab prince is sometimes in our own times.
8. Hid themselves] because of the awe which Job inspired.
11. Gave witness to me] i.e. to my goodness, which it saw.
14. Lit. 'Justice clothed itself in me.' He was the very personification of justice. Diadem] RM 'turban.'
16. The cause which I knew not] RV 'the cause of him that I knew not.'
18. As the sand] RM 'as the phœnix.' This was a fabulous bird alluded to in Egyptian, Hebrew, and Arabian tradition. It was supposed to be immortal, burning itself in its nest every thousand years and renewing its life in the flames.
19, 20. The verbs should be read in the future tense.
19. By] RV 'to': cp. Psa_1:3.
Dew] cp. Pro_19:12; Deu_32:2; The dew was an emblem of prosperity in a land where rain was infrequent.
20a. The respect paid him would not fail him.
20b. His physical powers should endure: cp. Gen_49:24, 'His bow abode in strength.'
21-25. These vv. would more naturally follow Gen_49:10, and some think this was their original position.
22. Dropped upon them] as refreshing rain: cp. Deu_32:2.
23. The latter rain] the spring rains as contrasted with those of the autumn.
24. If I laughed, etc.] RM 'I smiled on them when they had no confidence,' i.e. to encourage them.
24b. They failed to remove his cheerfulness.
25. Job speaks as if he used to be the natural guide and comfort of his fellow-men.
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 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
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 1. His past prosperity and honors (Job 29:1-10)
CHAPTER 29
1. His past prosperity and honors (Job 29:1-10)
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2. The good works he did (Job 29:11-25)
Job 29:1-10. The words spoken by Job were wholesome words, showing that his mind was moving in another channel, but now he reverts to the old complaint in self-occupation, self-pity and self-vindication. What a horrible thing this old self? And before the sun can scatter his dark night, that self must be laid into the dust of self-abhorrence. And so we hear him review the past. Some 20 times he says “I” in this chapter. It reminds one of the man in Rom 7:1-25 with his “I.” Retrospect is good if it is done with praise and in humility. Not once does Job utter a word of praise. It is all spoken to remind his friends, as well as himself, what a great man he was. How often it is with the Lord’s servants, that they live in the past and then nourish a most subtle pride.
Job 29:11-25. What a prominent place he used to occupy and the good works he did! The words need no further comment; what he means is on the surface. He glories in his good character and in his good works. Self is triumphant. His friends well knew that every word he spoke of his past greatness was true and not a lie.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Job Describes his Former Prosperity
Job Describes his Former Prosperity
v. 1. Moreover, Job continued his parable, his proverbial sayings, and said,
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v. 2. Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me, sighing for the happy condition of that period of his life which now seems to belong to the remote past;
v. 3. when His candle shined upon my head, when the lamp of God’s favor illuminated Job’s pathway, and when by His light I walked through darkness, secure in the midst of the greatest dangers,
v. 4. as I was in the days of my youth, literally, "of my autumn or harvest," the days of his prime, of his ripe manhood, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle, when His friendship, His companionship hovered over Job’s tent, when he was in confidential, blessed intercourse with the Lord;
v. 5. when the Almighty was yet with me, giving Job His protection and blessing, when my children were about me, as a most highly valued blessing, Psalms 127, 128;
v. 6. when I washed my steps with butter, with the richest cream, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil, both pictures pointing to the riches of God’s kindness which were granted to Job, when he was prosperous in all his work;
v. 7. when I went out to the gate through the city, up to the city from the place of his residence in the country, when I prepared my seat in the street, when he took his place in the market, in the open space near the city gate, where the men of influence and honor, the most respected men of the community, were wont to assemble!
v. 8. The young men saw me and hid themselves, out of great reverence for Job’s wisdom and influence, and the aged arose and stood up, the very gray-headed men showing him deference in the most marked manner.
v. 9. The princes refrained talking, stopped in the middle of their speech, and laid their hand on their mouth, in reverential silence, yielding him the floor whenever he indicated that he had something to say.
v. 10. The nobles held their peace, literally, "the voice of nobles hid itself," or, "themselves," it was no longer heard, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth, awed by the presence of the wise and holy man in their midst.
v. 11. When the ear heard me, as he gave his counsel in the assembly of the people, then it blessed me, calling him happy in the possession of so much wisdom; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me, praising him for the good fortune which attended him at all times. Altogether, Job had enjoyed the greatest prosperity, honor, and dignity in the land.
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 Oh, that I were as I was in the…
Oh, that I were as I was in the past months
Job uses this exclamation to express a wish. AT: "I wish that I were as I was in past months" (See: Exclamations)
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when his lamp shined on my head
God's lamp shining on Job represents God blessing Job. AT: "when God's blessing was like a lamp shining its light on my head" (See: Metaphor)
when I walked through darkness by his light
Walking through darkness represents experiencing difficult situations. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Job
God
lamp
walk
darkness
light
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 29:1–31:40 Job contrasts his former happiness, honor, and wealth…
29:1–31:40 Job contrasts his former happiness, honor, and wealth (ch 29) with his loss of social dignity and divine friendship (ch 30). He concludes his speech with wide-ranging oaths of innocence (ch 31).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.