Psalms 31:20(v21)In the shelter of your presence you will hide them from the plotting of man. You will keep them secretly in a dwelling away from the strife…
Psalms 33:19(v20)to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine.
Psalms 121:7-8(v24)Yahweh will keep you from all evil. He will keep your soul. Yahweh will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and…
Leviticus 26:6(v23)“ ‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land,…
Psalms 112:2(v25)His offspring will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed.
Show all 53 cross-references
Ezekiel 34:25(v22)“ ‘I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land. They will dwell securely in the…
Psalms 91:10(v24)no evil shall happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
Daniel 6:22(v23)My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; because as before him innocence was found in me; and…
Psalms 72:16(v25)Abundance of grain shall be throughout the land. Its fruit sways like Lebanon. Let it flourish, thriving like the grass of the field.
Isaiah 35:9(v22)No lion will be there, nor will any ravenous animal go up on it. They will not be found there; but the redeemed will walk there.
Hosea 13:14(v20)I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction?…
Genesis 45:7(v20)God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
Deuteronomy 28:4(v25)You shall be blessed in the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your animals, the increase of your livestock, and…
Psalms 37:19(v20)They shall not be disappointed in the time of evil. In the days of famine they shall be satisfied.
Psalms 91:5-7(v21)You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of…
Psalms 91:12-13(v23)They will bear you up in their hands, so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will…
Psalms 91:13(v22)You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot.
Isaiah 11:6-9(v23)The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf…
Hosea 2:18(vv22–23)In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of…
Genesis 15:5(v25)Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So…
1 Kings 17:6(v20)The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.
Job 8:6(v24)If you were pure and upright, surely now he would awaken for you, and make the habitation of your righteousness prosperous.
Job 42:13-16(v25)He had also seven sons and three daughters. He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of…
Proverbs 10:3(v20)Yahweh will not allow the soul of the righteous to go hungry, but he thrusts away the desire of the wicked.
Proverbs 12:18(v21)There is one who speaks rashly like the piercing of a sword, but the tongue of the wise heals.
Leviticus 26:9(v25)“ ‘I will have respect for you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
Deuteronomy 28:6(v24)You shall be blessed when you come in, and you shall be blessed when you go out.
Psalms 55:21(v21)His mouth was smooth as butter, but his heart was war. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.
Psalms 127:3-5(v25)Behold, children are a heritage of Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children…
Psalms 128:3-6(v25)Your wife will be as a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house, your children like olive plants around your table. Behold, thus…
Isaiah 4:5-6(v24)Yahweh will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming…
Jeremiah 18:18(v21)Then they said, “Come! Let’s devise plans against Jeremiah; for the law won’t perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the…
Habakkuk 3:17(v20)For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are…
Job 18:6(v24)The light will be dark in his tent. His lamp above him will be put out.
Job 18:21(v24)Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God.”
Psalms 27:3(v20)Though an army should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then I will be confident.
Psalms 57:4(v21)My soul is among lions. I lie among those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a…
Psalms 107:4(v24)They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in.
Isaiah 44:3-4(v25)For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on…
Isaiah 54:17(v21)No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the…
Ezekiel 14:15-16(v23)“If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it is made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of…
Romans 8:38-39(v23)For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor…
James 3:5-8(v21)So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest! And the tongue is a…
Psalms 25:13(v24)His soul will dwell at ease. His offspring will inherit the land.
Psalms 144:10(v20)You are he who gives salvation to kings, who rescues David, his servant, from the deadly sword.
Matthew 24:6(v20)You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren’t troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.
1 Samuel 30:3(v24)When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters were taken…
Job 18:15(v24)There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur will be scattered on his habitation.
Job 21:7-9(v24)“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power? Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring…
Psalms 107:40(v24)He pours contempt on princes, and causes them to wander in a trackless waste.
Isaiah 33:16(v20)he will dwell on high. His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks. His bread will be supplied. His waters will be sure.
Isaiah 65:25(v22)The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. Dust will be the serpent’s food. They will not hurt nor…
Psalms 49:7(v20)none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him.
53 distinct cross-references across this passage (54 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv22–24Whereas the wicked lament in their troubles, thou shalt…
Whereas the wicked lament in their troubles, thou shalt have occasion to rejoice.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv20–25Job 5:20 In famine he shall redeem thee from…
Job 5:20 In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.
Ver. 20. In famine he shall redeem thee from death] They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger, Lam 4:9. Famine, therefore, is here set as the first and greatest of the six ensuing evils, the forest of God’s judgments, Eze 6:11 Jer 24:10; the certain harbinger of death, as here. From this so great a death God delivered Abraham, Gen 12:12-20; Isaac, Gen 26:6-12; Jacob and his family, Gen 47:11-12; the poor widow, 1Ki 17:9-16; the Israelites in the wilderness by quails; the Rochellers by a miraculous shoal of shellfish, cast up into their town in a strait siege, &c. There is a promise that the lions shall lack and suffer hunger, but so shall not any such as seek the Lord, Psa 34:10. There shall be special provision made for such, and God shall redeem them from this evil by a wonderful separation, as he did in another case, Exo 8:22 : either he will send them in meat or take away their stomachs, as she once said. Fides famem non formidat, Faith feareth no famine; having trusted God for a crown, she will not distrust him for a crust.
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And in war from the power of the sword] Here is the saints’ safety, or their writ of protection. True it is, that the sword devoureth one as well as another, 2Sa 11:25, and pale death cutteth its way oftentimes through a wood of men, out of the mouth of a murdering piece, without distinction. But though the saints, with Josiah, be slain in battle, yet they die in peace, 2Ki 23:29, with Job 22:20, for their eyes see not the evil that God bringeth upon others that outlive them, as it followeth there. Besides, they are gathered to their fathers, who enjoyed peace. Redeemed they are from the power or hands of the sword, which may kill them, but cannot hurt them; take away their head, but not their crown, αποκτειναι δυναται, βχαφαι δε ου.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv20–25In famine; which Job might be thought to fear,…
In famine; which Job might be thought to fear, as being so poor that he needed his friends’ contributions for his relief.
From death; from that terrible kind of death.
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These things he utters with more confidence, partly because the rewards or punishments of this life were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament according to their good or bad behaviour than now they are; and partly because it was his particular opinion, that great afflictions were the constant fruits and certain evidences of a man’s wickedness; and consequently, that great mercies and deliverances should infallibly follow upon true repentance and godliness.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv20–25In famine he shall redeem thee from death,.... In…
In famine he shall redeem thee from death,.... In a time of extreme want of provisions, God so cares for his own dear people, that they shall not be starved to death by the famine; so in the famine in Egypt, which the Targum takes notice of, in the times of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, and the patriarchs, there was food provided for them, so that they and their families were sustained, and perished not for lack of the necessaries of life: God sometimes goes out of his ordinary way, and works wonders for his poor and needy in distress, when they cry unto him; see Isa 41:17,
and in war from the power of the sword; or, "from the hands of the sword" (f): from swords in hand, when drawn, and men are ready to push with them with all their force; as he delivered and preserved Abraham from the sword of the four kings, when he waged war with them, Gen 14:20; and the Israelites, in the war of Amalek, in the times of Moses, Exo 17:8, which the Targum here refers to; and David from the harmful sword of Goliath, Sa1 17:46, and others with whom he was concerned in war: and so the Lord covers the heads of his people in the day of battle oftentimes, when multitudes fall on their right hand and on their left.
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(f) "de manu gladii", V. L. "e manibus gladii", Pagninus & Montanus, &c.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv20, 22, 23, 24, 25He shall - These things he utters with more…
He shall - These things he utters with more confidence, because the rewards or punishments of this life, were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament according to their good or bad behaviour, than they are now: and because it was his opinion, that great afflictions were the certain evidences of wickedness; and consequently, that great deliverances would infallibly follow upon true repentance.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv20–25Verse 20. In famine he shall redeem thee] The…
Verse 20. In famine he shall redeem thee] The Chaldee, which understands this chapter as speaking of the troubles and deliverances of the Israelites in Egypt and the wilderness, renders this verse as follows: "In the famine of Egypt he redeemed thee from death; and in the war of Amalek, from the slaying of the sword."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv20, 21, 23, 24, 25Job 5:20. In famine he shall redeem thee from…
Job 5:20. In famine he shall redeem thee from death — From that terrible kind of death. Eliphaz might think that Job feared perishing by want, as being so poor, that he needed the contributions of his friends for his relief. And in war from the sword — These things he utters with more confidence, because the rewards or punishments of this life were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament, according to their good or bad behaviour, than they are now: and, because it was his opinion, that great afflictions were the certain evidences of wickedness; and, consequently, that great deliverances would infallibly follow upon true repentance.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv20–25In famine he shall redeem thee - That is,…
In famine he shall redeem thee - That is, will deliver thee from death. On the meaning of the word “redeem,” see the notes at Isa 43:1, Isa 43:3.
From the power of the sword - Margin, as in Hebrew “hands.” That is, he should not be slain by armed men. A mouth is often attributed to the sword in the Scriptures, because it devours; “hands” are attributed to it here, because it is by the hand that we perform an undertaking, and the sword is personified, and represented as acting as a conscious agent; compare Eze 35:5, margin. The meaning is that God would protect those who put their trust in him, in times of calamity and war. Doubtless Eliphaz had seen instances enough of this kind to lead him to this general conclusion, where the pious poor had been protected in a remarkable manner, and where signal deliverances had been vouchsafed to the righteous in danger.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv21, 23, 24Scourge. Ecclesiasticus (xxvi. 9., and xxviii. 21.) has the…
CHAPTER V.
Scourge. Ecclesiasticus (xxvi. 9., and xxviii. 21.) has the same expression. See James iii. 6. (Calmet) --- Calamity, from robbers, as the Hebrew shod, (Haydock) intimates. The word is rendered destruction, vastitate, ver. 22. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv20–25power-- (Jer 5:12). Hebrew, "hands."
power-- (Jer 5:12). Hebrew, "hands."
of the sword-- (Eze 35:5, Margin). Hands are given to the sword personified as a living agent.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv20–2420. The power of the sword — Literally, The…
20. The power of the sword — Literally, The hands of the sword. The Scriptures attribute hands to other destructive agencies: to the tongue, Pro_18:21; to the flame, Isa_47:14; to lions, Dan_6:27; and to the grave, Psa_49:15; as if, poetically, their destructive power could be accounted for only by their being endowed with man’s most formidable members of destruction.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv23–2523. When man is at peace with God he…
23. When man is at peace with God he is at peace with all God’s creation, he has a league with all nature and every creature: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” Rom_8:28.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv20–25(20) He shall redeem thee.—It is rather, he hath…
(20) He shall redeem thee.—It is rather, he hath redeemed thee, as though the speaker could appeal to Job’s own experience in the matter which itself became a ground of confident hope for the future.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv20–25In famine he shall redeem thee from death. Famine…
In famine he shall redeem thee from death. Famine appears throughout the whole of Scripture as one of God"s severest chastisements. (Lev_26:19, 20 Deu_28:22-24 2Sa_21:1 2Sa_24:13 2Ki_8:1 Psa_105:16 Isa_14:30 Jer_24:10 Rev_18:8) Ezekiel speaks of "the sword, the famine"the noisome beast, and the pestilence," as God"s "four sore judgments". (Eze_14:21) Miraculous deliverances from famine are related in Gen_41:29-36 1Ki_17:10-16 2Ki_7:1-16. And in war from the power of the sword. In war God protects whom he will, and they seem to have charmed lives. They are covered with his feathers, and safe under his wings. (Psa_91:4)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv21, 24Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the…
Job_5:21
Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue.
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The scourge of the tongue
I. The scourge. The scourge of the tongue.
1. There is the lying tongue. It perverts facts. It turns the lame out of the way and misleads the blind.
2. There is the cursing tongue.
3. There is the obscene tongue.
4. There is the scolding tongue. What martyrs have some members of a family become! A scolding tongue withers and blights everything it comes across, just like the lightning withers and blasts the tree it strikes. It is as a goad to an ox, the mosquito to the traveller, the thorn eating into the gangrened flesh.
II. The deliverance. Thou shall be hid from the scourge of the tongue. It is one of the peculiarities of Gods promises that He does not undertake to remove evils. We shall be hid--
1. By the direct influence of Divine power. God will restrain the evil speaker and the rage of the ungodly.
2. By the sanctifying influence of Divine grace. There axe some creatures who when water is poured on them repel the same by the nature of their skin or feathers. So the heart which is prepared by grace, casts aside and rejects the evil word, or the cruel insinuation, or the boisterous abuse; these things have no power over it.
3. By the resignation of a chastened spirit. The chastened spirit of the Christian disarms the shafts of the evil tongue, and, bending before the furious blast, is spared the poignant stings of malice.
4. By the prospect of future freedom. The nauseous taste of medicine is little heeded when the anticipated end is considered, which is restored health and renewed strength. So in the view of future glory and entire sanctification, the present bitterness will be little regarded. (J. J. S. Bird.)
The scourge of the tongue
Some folks lay themselves out to be as unpleasant as they can and say disagreeable things. They are the wasps of human intercourse. The candid friends whom Canning so abhorred, the people who speak their mind, but have a mind that were far better not spoken. (H. O. Mackey.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn vv23–24
Job
THE PEACEABLE FRUITS OF SORROWS RIGHTLY BORNE
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‘ALL THINGS ARE YOURS’
Jdg 5:20. - Job 5:23.
These two poetical fragments present the same truth on opposite sides. The first of them comes from Deborah’s triumphant chant. The singer identifies God with the cause of Israel, and declares that heaven itself fought against those who fought against God’s people. There may be an allusion to the tempest which Jewish tradition tells us burst over the ranks of the enemy, or there may be some trace of ancient astrological notions, or the words may simply be an elevated way of saying that Heaven fought for Israel. The silent stars, as they swept on their paths through the sky, advanced like an avenging host embattled against the foes of Israel and of God. All things fight against the man who fights against God.
The other text gives the other side of the same truth. One of Job’s friends is rubbing salt into his wounds by insisting on the commonplace, which needs a great many explanations and limitations before it can be accepted as true, that sin is the cause of sorrow, and that righteousness brings happiness; and in the course of trying to establish this heartless thesis to a heavy heart he breaks into a strain of the loftiest poetry in describing the blessedness of the righteous. All things, animate and inanimate, are upon his side. The ground, which Genesis tells us is ‘cursed for his sake,’ becomes his ally, and the very creatures whom man’s sin set at enmity against him are at peace with him. All things are the friends and servants of him who is the friend and servant of God.
I. So, putting these two texts together, we have first the great conviction to which religion clings, that God being on our side all things are for us, and not against us.
Now, that is the standing faith of the Old Testament, which no doubt was more easily held in those days, because, if we accept its teaching, we shall recognise that Israel lived under a system in so far supernatural as that moral goodness and material prosperity were a great deal more closely and indissolubly connected than they are to-day. So, many a psalmist and many a prophet breaks out into apostrophes, warranted by the whole history of Israel, and declaring how blessed are the men who, apart from all other defences and sources of prosperity, have God for their help and Him for their hope.
But we are not to dismiss this conviction as belonging only to a system where the supernatural comes in, as it does in the Old Testament history, and as antiquated under a dispensation such as that in which we live. For the New Testament is not a whit behind the Old in insisting upon this truth. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ ‘Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?’ The New Testament is committed to the same conviction as that to which the faith of Old Testament saints clung as the sheet anchor of their lives.
That conviction cannot be struck out of the creed of any man, who believes in the God to whom the Old and the New Testament alike bear witness. For it rests upon this plain principle, that all this great universe is not a chaos, but a cosmos, that all these forces and creatures are not a rabble, but an ordered host.
What is the meaning of that great Name by which, from of old, God in His relations to the whole universe has been described-the ‘Lord of Hosts’? Who are the ‘hosts’ of which He is ‘the Lord,’ and to whom, as the centurion said, He says to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goeth; and to another, ‘Come!’ and he cometh; and to another, ‘Do this!’ and he doeth it? Who are ‘the hosts’? Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who ‘excel in strength,’ because they ‘hearken to the voice of His word’, but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. ‘All are Thy servants; they continue this day’-angels, stars, creatures of earth-’ according to Thine ordinances.’
And if it be true that the All is an ordered whole, which is obedient to the touch and to the will of that divine Commander, then all His servants must be on the same side, and cannot turn their arms against each other. As an old hymn says with another reference-
‘All the servants of our King
In heaven and earth are one,’
and none of them can injure, wound, or slay a fellow-servant. If all are travelling in the same direction there can be no collision. If all are enlisted under the same standard they can never turn their weapons against each other. If God sways all things, then all things which God sways must be on the side of the men that are on the side of God. ‘Thou shalt make a league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.’
II. Note the difficulties arising from experience, in the way of holding fast by this conviction of faith.
The grim facts of the world, seen from their lowest level, seem to shatter it to atoms. Talk about ‘the stars in their courses fighting’ for or against anybody! In one aspect it is superstition, in another aspect it is a dream and an illusion. The prose truth is that they shine down silent, pitiless, cold, indifferent, on battlefields or on peaceful homes; and the moonlight is as pure when it falls upon broken hearts as when it falls upon glad ones. Nature is utterly indifferent to the moral or the religious character of its victims. It goes on its way unswerving and pitiless; and whether the man who stands in its path is good or bad matters not. If he gets into a typhoon he will be wrecked; if he tumbles over Niagara he will be drowned. And what becomes of all the talk about an embattled universe on the side of goodness, in the face of the plain facts of life-of nature’s indifference, nature’s cruelty which has led some men to believe in two sovereign powers, one beneficent and one malicious, and has led others to say, ‘God is a superfluous hypothesis, and to believe in Him brings more enigmas than it solves,’ and has led still others to say, ‘Why, if there is a God, does it look as if either He was not all-powerful, or was not all-merciful?’ Nature has but ambiguous evidence to give in support of this conviction.
Then, if we turn to what we call Providence and its mysteries, the very book of Job, from which my second text is taken, is one of the earliest attempts to grapple with the difficulty and to untie the knot; and I suppose everybody will admit that, whatever may be the solution which is suggested by that enigmatical book, the solution is by no means a complete one, though it is as complete as the state of religious knowledge at the time at which the book was written made possible to be attained. The seventy-third psalm shows that even in that old time when, as I have said, supernatural sanctions were introduced into the ordinary dealings of life, the difficulties that cropped up were great enough to bring a devout heart to a stand, and to make the Psalmist say, ‘My feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped.’ Providence, with all its depths and mysteries, often to our aching hearts seems in our own lives to contradict the conviction, and when we look out over the sadness of humanity, still more does it seem impossible for us to hold fast by the faith ‘that all which we behold is full of blessings.’
I doubt not that there are many of ourselves whose lives, shadowed, darkened, hemmed in, perplexed, or made solitary for ever, seem to them to be hard to reconcile with this cheerful faith upon which I am trying to insist. Brethren, cling to it even in the darkness. Be sure of this, that amongst all our mercies there are none more truly merciful than those which come to us shrouded in dark garments, and in questionable shapes. Let nothing rob us of the confidence that ‘all things work together for good.’
III. I come, lastly, to consider the higher form in which this conviction is true for ever.
I have said that the facts of life seem often to us, and are felt often by some of us, to shatter it to atoms; to riddle it through and through with shot. But, if we bring the Pattern-life to bear upon the illumination of all life, and if we learn the lessons of the Cradle and the Cross, and rise to the view of human life which emerges from the example of Jesus Christ, then we get back the old conviction, transfigured indeed, but firmer than ever. We have to alter the point of view. Everything always depends on the point of view. We have to alter one or two definitions. Definitions come first in geometry and in everything else. Get them right, and you will get your theorems and problems right.
So, looking at life in the light of Christ, we have to give new contents to the two words ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and a new meaning to the two words ‘for’ and ‘against.’ And when we do that, then the difficulties straighten themselves out, and there are not any more knots, but all is plain; and the old faith of the Old Testament, which reposed very largely upon abnormal and extraordinary conditions of life, comes back in a still nobler form, as possible to be held by us amidst the commonplace of our daily existence.
For everything is my friend, is for me and not against me, that helps me nearer to God. To live for Him, to live with Him, to be conscious ever of communion with Himself, to feel the touch of His hand on my hand, and the pressure of His breast against mine, at all moments of my life, is my true and the highest good. And if it is true that the ‘river of the water of life’ which ‘flows from the Throne of God’ is the only draught that can ever satisfy the immortal thirst of a soul, then whatever drives me away from the cisterns and to the fountain, is on my side. Better to dwell in a ‘dry and thirsty land, where no water is,’ if it makes me long for the water that rises at the gate of the true Bethlehem-the house of bread-than to dwell in a land flowing with milk and honey, and well watered in every part! If the cup that I would fain lift to my lips has poison in it, or if its sweetness is making me lose my relish for the pure and tasteless river that flows from the Throne of God, there can be no truer friend than that calamity, as men call it, which strikes the cup from my hands, and shivers the glass before I have raised it to my lips. Everything is my friend that helps me towards God.
Everything is my friend that leads me to submission and obedience. The joy of life, and the perfection of human nature, is an absolutely submitted will, identified with the divine, both in regard to doing and to enduring. And whatever tends to make my will flexible, so that it corresponds to all the sinuosities, so to speak, of the divine will, and fits into all its bends and turns, is a blessing to me. Raw hides, stiff with dirt and blood, are put into a bath of bitter infusion of oak-bark. What for? For the same end as, when they are taken out, they are scraped with sharp steels,-that they may become flexible. When that is done the useless hide is worth something.
‘Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.’
And whatever helps me to that is my friend.
Everything is a friend to the man that loves God, in a far sweeter and deeper sense than it can ever be to any other. Like a sudden burst of sunshine upon a gloomy landscape, the light of union with God and friendship with Him flooding my daily life flashes it all up into brightness. The dark ribbon of the river that went creeping through the black copses, when the sun glints upon it, gleams up into links of silver, and the trees by its bank blaze out into green and gold. Brethren! ‘Who follows pleasure follows pain’; who follows God finds pleasure following him. There can be no surer way to set the world against me than to try to make it for me, and to make it my all They tell us that if you want to count those stars that ‘like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid’ make up the Pleiades, the surest way to see the greatest number of them is to look a little on one side of them. Look away from the joys and friendships of creatural things right up to God, and you will see these sparkling and dancing in the skies, as you never see them when you gaze at them only. Make them second and they are good and on your side. Make them first, and they will turn to be your enemies and fight against you.
This conviction will be established still more irrefragably and wonderfully in that future. Nothing lasts but goodness. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ To oppose it is like stretching a piece of pack-thread across the rails before the express comes; or putting up some thin wooden partition on the beach on one of the Western Hebrides, exposed to the whole roll of the Atlantic, which will be battered into ruin by the first winter’s storm. Such is the end of all those who set themselves against God.
But there comes a future in which, as dim hints tell us, these texts of ours shall receive a fulfilment beyond that realised in the present condition of things. ‘Then comes the statelier Eden back to man,’ and in a renewed and redeemed earth ‘they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain’; and the ancient story will be repeated in higher form. The servants shall be like the Lord who, when He had conquered temptation, ‘was with the wild beasts’ that forgot their enmity, and ‘angels ministered unto Him.’ That scene in the desert may serve as a prophecy of the future when, under conditions of which we know nothing, all God’s servants shall, even more markedly and manifestly than here, help each other; and every man that loves God will find a friend in every creature.
If we take Him for our Commander, and enlist ourselves in that embattled host, then all weathers will be good; ‘stormy winds, fulfilling His word,’ will blow us to our port; ‘the wilderness will rejoice and blossom as the rose’; and the whole universe will be radiant with the light of His presence, and ringing with the music of His voice. But if we elect to join the other army-for there is another army, and men have wills that enable them to lift themselves up against God, the Ruler of all things-then the old story, from which my first text is taken, will fulfil itself again in regard to us-’the stars in their courses will fight against’ us; and Sisera, lying stiff and stark, with Jael’s tent-peg through his temples, and the swollen corpses being swirled down to the stormy sea by ‘that ancient river, the river Kishon,’ will be a grim parable of the end of the men that set themselves against God, and so have the universe against them. ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn v20redeem (See Scofield "Exo 14:30"), See Scofield "Isa 59:20".
redeem (See Scofield "Exo 14:30"), See Scofield "Isa 59:20".
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv20, 23General Information:
General Information:
The shift in pronoun from "he" to "you" which began in Job 5:19 continues through the end of Eliphaz's speech in Job 5:27.
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In famine he will ransom you
Here rescuing is spoken of as if it were ransoming, buying back. AT: "In famine God will rescue you from danger" (See: Metaphor)
the hands of the sword
Here "hands" probably represents the people who attack with weapons, including swords. AT: "violent people" or "people who attack you" (See: Synecdoche)
of destruction
Here "destruction" refers to the danger of being destroyed by enemies. AT: "that any enemy will destroy you" (See: Abstract Nouns)
You will laugh at destruction and famine
Here "laugh" represents that the person is not afraid. AT: "You will not be afraid of any danger of destruction or famine" (See: Symbolic Language)
beasts of the earth
This refers to wild animals. AT: "wild animals" (See: Metaphor)
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv22–24 Whereas the wicked lament in their troubles, thou shalt…
Whereas the wicked lament in their troubles, thou shalt have occasion to rejoice.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv20–25 Job 5:20 In famine he shall redeem thee from…
Job 5:20 In famine he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.
Ver. 20. In famine he shall redeem thee from death] They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger, Lam 4:9. Famine, therefore, is here set as the first and greatest of the six ensuing evils, the forest of God’s judgments, Eze 6:11 Jer 24:10; the certain harbinger of death, as here. From this so great a death God delivered Abraham, Gen 12:12-20; Isaac, Gen 26:6-12; Jacob and his family, Gen 47:11-12; the poor widow, 1Ki 17:9-16; the Israelites in the wilderness by quails; the Rochellers by a miraculous shoal of shellfish, cast up into their town in a strait siege, &c. There is a promise that the lions shall lack and suffer hunger, but so shall not any such as seek the Lord, Psa 34:10. There shall be special provision made for such, and God shall redeem them from this evil by a wonderful separation, as he did in another case, Exo 8:22 : either he will send them in meat or take away their stomachs, as she once said. Fides famem non formidat, Faith feareth no famine; having trusted God for a crown, she will not distrust him for a crust.
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And in war from the power of the sword] Here is the saints’ safety, or their writ of protection. True it is, that the sword devoureth one as well as another, 2Sa 11:25, and pale death cutteth its way oftentimes through a wood of men, out of the mouth of a murdering piece, without distinction. But though the saints, with Josiah, be slain in battle, yet they die in peace, 2Ki 23:29, with Job 22:20, for their eyes see not the evil that God bringeth upon others that outlive them, as it followeth there. Besides, they are gathered to their fathers, who enjoyed peace. Redeemed they are from the power or hands of the sword, which may kill them, but cannot hurt them; take away their head, but not their crown, αποκτειναι δυναται, βχαφαι δε ου.
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 Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv20–25 In famine; which Job might be thought to fear,…
In famine; which Job might be thought to fear, as being so poor that he needed his friends’ contributions for his relief.
From death; from that terrible kind of death.
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These things he utters with more confidence, partly because the rewards or punishments of this life were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament according to their good or bad behaviour than now they are; and partly because it was his particular opinion, that great afflictions were the constant fruits and certain evidences of a man’s wickedness; and consequently, that great mercies and deliverances should infallibly follow upon true repentance and godliness.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv20–25 In famine he shall redeem thee from death,.... In…
In famine he shall redeem thee from death,.... In a time of extreme want of provisions, God so cares for his own dear people, that they shall not be starved to death by the famine; so in the famine in Egypt, which the Targum takes notice of, in the times of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, and the patriarchs, there was food provided for them, so that they and their families were sustained, and perished not for lack of the necessaries of life: God sometimes goes out of his ordinary way, and works wonders for his poor and needy in distress, when they cry unto him; see Isa 41:17,
and in war from the power of the sword; or, "from the hands of the sword" (f): from swords in hand, when drawn, and men are ready to push with them with all their force; as he delivered and preserved Abraham from the sword of the four kings, when he waged war with them, Gen 14:20; and the Israelites, in the war of Amalek, in the times of Moses, Exo 17:8, which the Targum here refers to; and David from the harmful sword of Goliath, Sa1 17:46, and others with whom he was concerned in war: and so the Lord covers the heads of his people in the day of battle oftentimes, when multitudes fall on their right hand and on their left.
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(f) "de manu gladii", V. L. "e manibus gladii", Pagninus & Montanus, &c.
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 On vv20, 22, 23, 24, 25 He shall - These things he utters with more…
He shall - These things he utters with more confidence, because the rewards or punishments of this life, were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament according to their good or bad behaviour, than they are now: and because it was his opinion, that great afflictions were the certain evidences of wickedness; and consequently, that great deliverances would infallibly follow upon true repentance.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv20–25 Verse 20. In famine he shall redeem thee] The…
Verse 20. In famine he shall redeem thee] The Chaldee, which understands this chapter as speaking of the troubles and deliverances of the Israelites in Egypt and the wilderness, renders this verse as follows: "In the famine of Egypt he redeemed thee from death; and in the war of Amalek, from the slaying of the sword."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv20, 21, 23, 24, 25 Job 5:20. In famine he shall redeem thee from…
Job 5:20. In famine he shall redeem thee from death — From that terrible kind of death. Eliphaz might think that Job feared perishing by want, as being so poor, that he needed the contributions of his friends for his relief. And in war from the sword — These things he utters with more confidence, because the rewards or punishments of this life were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament, according to their good or bad behaviour, than they are now: and, because it was his opinion, that great afflictions were the certain evidences of wickedness; and, consequently, that great deliverances would infallibly follow upon true repentance.
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 On vv20–25 In famine he shall redeem thee - That is,…
In famine he shall redeem thee - That is, will deliver thee from death. On the meaning of the word “redeem,” see the notes at Isa 43:1, Isa 43:3.
From the power of the sword - Margin, as in Hebrew “hands.” That is, he should not be slain by armed men. A mouth is often attributed to the sword in the Scriptures, because it devours; “hands” are attributed to it here, because it is by the hand that we perform an undertaking, and the sword is personified, and represented as acting as a conscious agent; compare Eze 35:5, margin. The meaning is that God would protect those who put their trust in him, in times of calamity and war. Doubtless Eliphaz had seen instances enough of this kind to lead him to this general conclusion, where the pious poor had been protected in a remarkable manner, and where signal deliverances had been vouchsafed to the righteous in danger.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv21, 23, 24 Scourge. Ecclesiasticus (xxvi. 9., and xxviii. 21.) has the…
CHAPTER V.
Scourge. Ecclesiasticus (xxvi. 9., and xxviii. 21.) has the same expression. See James iii. 6. (Calmet) --- Calamity, from robbers, as the Hebrew shod, (Haydock) intimates. The word is rendered destruction, vastitate, ver. 22. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv20–25 power-- (Jer 5:12). Hebrew, "hands."
power-- (Jer 5:12). Hebrew, "hands."
of the sword-- (Eze 35:5, Margin). Hands are given to the sword personified as a living agent.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv20–24 20. The power of the sword — Literally, The…
20. The power of the sword — Literally, The hands of the sword. The Scriptures attribute hands to other destructive agencies: to the tongue, Pro_18:21; to the flame, Isa_47:14; to lions, Dan_6:27; and to the grave, Psa_49:15; as if, poetically, their destructive power could be accounted for only by their being endowed with man’s most formidable members of destruction.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv23–25 23. When man is at peace with God he…
23. When man is at peace with God he is at peace with all God’s creation, he has a league with all nature and every creature: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God,” Rom_8:28.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv20–25 (20) He shall redeem thee.—It is rather, he hath…
(20) He shall redeem thee.—It is rather, he hath redeemed thee, as though the speaker could appeal to Job’s own experience in the matter which itself became a ground of confident hope for the future.
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 On vv20–25 In famine he shall redeem thee from death. Famine…
In famine he shall redeem thee from death. Famine appears throughout the whole of Scripture as one of God"s severest chastisements. (Lev_26:19, 20 Deu_28:22-24 2Sa_21:1 2Sa_24:13 2Ki_8:1 Psa_105:16 Isa_14:30 Jer_24:10 Rev_18:8) Ezekiel speaks of "the sword, the famine"the noisome beast, and the pestilence," as God"s "four sore judgments". (Eze_14:21) Miraculous deliverances from famine are related in Gen_41:29-36 1Ki_17:10-16 2Ki_7:1-16. And in war from the power of the sword. In war God protects whom he will, and they seem to have charmed lives. They are covered with his feathers, and safe under his wings. (Psa_91:4)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv21, 24 Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the…
Job_5:21
Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue.
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The scourge of the tongue
I. The scourge. The scourge of the tongue.
1. There is the lying tongue. It perverts facts. It turns the lame out of the way and misleads the blind.
2. There is the cursing tongue.
3. There is the obscene tongue.
4. There is the scolding tongue. What martyrs have some members of a family become! A scolding tongue withers and blights everything it comes across, just like the lightning withers and blasts the tree it strikes. It is as a goad to an ox, the mosquito to the traveller, the thorn eating into the gangrened flesh.
II. The deliverance. Thou shall be hid from the scourge of the tongue. It is one of the peculiarities of Gods promises that He does not undertake to remove evils. We shall be hid--
1. By the direct influence of Divine power. God will restrain the evil speaker and the rage of the ungodly.
2. By the sanctifying influence of Divine grace. There axe some creatures who when water is poured on them repel the same by the nature of their skin or feathers. So the heart which is prepared by grace, casts aside and rejects the evil word, or the cruel insinuation, or the boisterous abuse; these things have no power over it.
3. By the resignation of a chastened spirit. The chastened spirit of the Christian disarms the shafts of the evil tongue, and, bending before the furious blast, is spared the poignant stings of malice.
4. By the prospect of future freedom. The nauseous taste of medicine is little heeded when the anticipated end is considered, which is restored health and renewed strength. So in the view of future glory and entire sanctification, the present bitterness will be little regarded. (J. J. S. Bird.)
The scourge of the tongue
Some folks lay themselves out to be as unpleasant as they can and say disagreeable things. They are the wasps of human intercourse. The candid friends whom Canning so abhorred, the people who speak their mind, but have a mind that were far better not spoken. (H. O. Mackey.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv23–24
Job
THE PEACEABLE FRUITS OF SORROWS RIGHTLY BORNE
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‘ALL THINGS ARE YOURS’
Jdg 5:20. - Job 5:23.
These two poetical fragments present the same truth on opposite sides. The first of them comes from Deborah’s triumphant chant. The singer identifies God with the cause of Israel, and declares that heaven itself fought against those who fought against God’s people. There may be an allusion to the tempest which Jewish tradition tells us burst over the ranks of the enemy, or there may be some trace of ancient astrological notions, or the words may simply be an elevated way of saying that Heaven fought for Israel. The silent stars, as they swept on their paths through the sky, advanced like an avenging host embattled against the foes of Israel and of God. All things fight against the man who fights against God.
The other text gives the other side of the same truth. One of Job’s friends is rubbing salt into his wounds by insisting on the commonplace, which needs a great many explanations and limitations before it can be accepted as true, that sin is the cause of sorrow, and that righteousness brings happiness; and in the course of trying to establish this heartless thesis to a heavy heart he breaks into a strain of the loftiest poetry in describing the blessedness of the righteous. All things, animate and inanimate, are upon his side. The ground, which Genesis tells us is ‘cursed for his sake,’ becomes his ally, and the very creatures whom man’s sin set at enmity against him are at peace with him. All things are the friends and servants of him who is the friend and servant of God.
I. So, putting these two texts together, we have first the great conviction to which religion clings, that God being on our side all things are for us, and not against us.
Now, that is the standing faith of the Old Testament, which no doubt was more easily held in those days, because, if we accept its teaching, we shall recognise that Israel lived under a system in so far supernatural as that moral goodness and material prosperity were a great deal more closely and indissolubly connected than they are to-day. So, many a psalmist and many a prophet breaks out into apostrophes, warranted by the whole history of Israel, and declaring how blessed are the men who, apart from all other defences and sources of prosperity, have God for their help and Him for their hope.
But we are not to dismiss this conviction as belonging only to a system where the supernatural comes in, as it does in the Old Testament history, and as antiquated under a dispensation such as that in which we live. For the New Testament is not a whit behind the Old in insisting upon this truth. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ ‘Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?’ The New Testament is committed to the same conviction as that to which the faith of Old Testament saints clung as the sheet anchor of their lives.
That conviction cannot be struck out of the creed of any man, who believes in the God to whom the Old and the New Testament alike bear witness. For it rests upon this plain principle, that all this great universe is not a chaos, but a cosmos, that all these forces and creatures are not a rabble, but an ordered host.
What is the meaning of that great Name by which, from of old, God in His relations to the whole universe has been described-the ‘Lord of Hosts’? Who are the ‘hosts’ of which He is ‘the Lord,’ and to whom, as the centurion said, He says to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goeth; and to another, ‘Come!’ and he cometh; and to another, ‘Do this!’ and he doeth it? Who are ‘the hosts’? Not only these beings who are dimly revealed to us as rational and intelligent, who ‘excel in strength,’ because they ‘hearken to the voice of His word’, but in the ranks of that great army are also embattled all the forces of the universe, and all things living or dead. ‘All are Thy servants; they continue this day’-angels, stars, creatures of earth-’ according to Thine ordinances.’
And if it be true that the All is an ordered whole, which is obedient to the touch and to the will of that divine Commander, then all His servants must be on the same side, and cannot turn their arms against each other. As an old hymn says with another reference-
‘All the servants of our King
In heaven and earth are one,’
and none of them can injure, wound, or slay a fellow-servant. If all are travelling in the same direction there can be no collision. If all are enlisted under the same standard they can never turn their weapons against each other. If God sways all things, then all things which God sways must be on the side of the men that are on the side of God. ‘Thou shalt make a league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.’
II. Note the difficulties arising from experience, in the way of holding fast by this conviction of faith.
The grim facts of the world, seen from their lowest level, seem to shatter it to atoms. Talk about ‘the stars in their courses fighting’ for or against anybody! In one aspect it is superstition, in another aspect it is a dream and an illusion. The prose truth is that they shine down silent, pitiless, cold, indifferent, on battlefields or on peaceful homes; and the moonlight is as pure when it falls upon broken hearts as when it falls upon glad ones. Nature is utterly indifferent to the moral or the religious character of its victims. It goes on its way unswerving and pitiless; and whether the man who stands in its path is good or bad matters not. If he gets into a typhoon he will be wrecked; if he tumbles over Niagara he will be drowned. And what becomes of all the talk about an embattled universe on the side of goodness, in the face of the plain facts of life-of nature’s indifference, nature’s cruelty which has led some men to believe in two sovereign powers, one beneficent and one malicious, and has led others to say, ‘God is a superfluous hypothesis, and to believe in Him brings more enigmas than it solves,’ and has led still others to say, ‘Why, if there is a God, does it look as if either He was not all-powerful, or was not all-merciful?’ Nature has but ambiguous evidence to give in support of this conviction.
Then, if we turn to what we call Providence and its mysteries, the very book of Job, from which my second text is taken, is one of the earliest attempts to grapple with the difficulty and to untie the knot; and I suppose everybody will admit that, whatever may be the solution which is suggested by that enigmatical book, the solution is by no means a complete one, though it is as complete as the state of religious knowledge at the time at which the book was written made possible to be attained. The seventy-third psalm shows that even in that old time when, as I have said, supernatural sanctions were introduced into the ordinary dealings of life, the difficulties that cropped up were great enough to bring a devout heart to a stand, and to make the Psalmist say, ‘My feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped.’ Providence, with all its depths and mysteries, often to our aching hearts seems in our own lives to contradict the conviction, and when we look out over the sadness of humanity, still more does it seem impossible for us to hold fast by the faith ‘that all which we behold is full of blessings.’
I doubt not that there are many of ourselves whose lives, shadowed, darkened, hemmed in, perplexed, or made solitary for ever, seem to them to be hard to reconcile with this cheerful faith upon which I am trying to insist. Brethren, cling to it even in the darkness. Be sure of this, that amongst all our mercies there are none more truly merciful than those which come to us shrouded in dark garments, and in questionable shapes. Let nothing rob us of the confidence that ‘all things work together for good.’
III. I come, lastly, to consider the higher form in which this conviction is true for ever.
I have said that the facts of life seem often to us, and are felt often by some of us, to shatter it to atoms; to riddle it through and through with shot. But, if we bring the Pattern-life to bear upon the illumination of all life, and if we learn the lessons of the Cradle and the Cross, and rise to the view of human life which emerges from the example of Jesus Christ, then we get back the old conviction, transfigured indeed, but firmer than ever. We have to alter the point of view. Everything always depends on the point of view. We have to alter one or two definitions. Definitions come first in geometry and in everything else. Get them right, and you will get your theorems and problems right.
So, looking at life in the light of Christ, we have to give new contents to the two words ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and a new meaning to the two words ‘for’ and ‘against.’ And when we do that, then the difficulties straighten themselves out, and there are not any more knots, but all is plain; and the old faith of the Old Testament, which reposed very largely upon abnormal and extraordinary conditions of life, comes back in a still nobler form, as possible to be held by us amidst the commonplace of our daily existence.
For everything is my friend, is for me and not against me, that helps me nearer to God. To live for Him, to live with Him, to be conscious ever of communion with Himself, to feel the touch of His hand on my hand, and the pressure of His breast against mine, at all moments of my life, is my true and the highest good. And if it is true that the ‘river of the water of life’ which ‘flows from the Throne of God’ is the only draught that can ever satisfy the immortal thirst of a soul, then whatever drives me away from the cisterns and to the fountain, is on my side. Better to dwell in a ‘dry and thirsty land, where no water is,’ if it makes me long for the water that rises at the gate of the true Bethlehem-the house of bread-than to dwell in a land flowing with milk and honey, and well watered in every part! If the cup that I would fain lift to my lips has poison in it, or if its sweetness is making me lose my relish for the pure and tasteless river that flows from the Throne of God, there can be no truer friend than that calamity, as men call it, which strikes the cup from my hands, and shivers the glass before I have raised it to my lips. Everything is my friend that helps me towards God.
Everything is my friend that leads me to submission and obedience. The joy of life, and the perfection of human nature, is an absolutely submitted will, identified with the divine, both in regard to doing and to enduring. And whatever tends to make my will flexible, so that it corresponds to all the sinuosities, so to speak, of the divine will, and fits into all its bends and turns, is a blessing to me. Raw hides, stiff with dirt and blood, are put into a bath of bitter infusion of oak-bark. What for? For the same end as, when they are taken out, they are scraped with sharp steels,-that they may become flexible. When that is done the useless hide is worth something.
‘Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.’
And whatever helps me to that is my friend.
Everything is a friend to the man that loves God, in a far sweeter and deeper sense than it can ever be to any other. Like a sudden burst of sunshine upon a gloomy landscape, the light of union with God and friendship with Him flooding my daily life flashes it all up into brightness. The dark ribbon of the river that went creeping through the black copses, when the sun glints upon it, gleams up into links of silver, and the trees by its bank blaze out into green and gold. Brethren! ‘Who follows pleasure follows pain’; who follows God finds pleasure following him. There can be no surer way to set the world against me than to try to make it for me, and to make it my all They tell us that if you want to count those stars that ‘like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid’ make up the Pleiades, the surest way to see the greatest number of them is to look a little on one side of them. Look away from the joys and friendships of creatural things right up to God, and you will see these sparkling and dancing in the skies, as you never see them when you gaze at them only. Make them second and they are good and on your side. Make them first, and they will turn to be your enemies and fight against you.
This conviction will be established still more irrefragably and wonderfully in that future. Nothing lasts but goodness. ‘He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ To oppose it is like stretching a piece of pack-thread across the rails before the express comes; or putting up some thin wooden partition on the beach on one of the Western Hebrides, exposed to the whole roll of the Atlantic, which will be battered into ruin by the first winter’s storm. Such is the end of all those who set themselves against God.
But there comes a future in which, as dim hints tell us, these texts of ours shall receive a fulfilment beyond that realised in the present condition of things. ‘Then comes the statelier Eden back to man,’ and in a renewed and redeemed earth ‘they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain’; and the ancient story will be repeated in higher form. The servants shall be like the Lord who, when He had conquered temptation, ‘was with the wild beasts’ that forgot their enmity, and ‘angels ministered unto Him.’ That scene in the desert may serve as a prophecy of the future when, under conditions of which we know nothing, all God’s servants shall, even more markedly and manifestly than here, help each other; and every man that loves God will find a friend in every creature.
If we take Him for our Commander, and enlist ourselves in that embattled host, then all weathers will be good; ‘stormy winds, fulfilling His word,’ will blow us to our port; ‘the wilderness will rejoice and blossom as the rose’; and the whole universe will be radiant with the light of His presence, and ringing with the music of His voice. But if we elect to join the other army-for there is another army, and men have wills that enable them to lift themselves up against God, the Ruler of all things-then the old story, from which my first text is taken, will fulfil itself again in regard to us-’the stars in their courses will fight against’ us; and Sisera, lying stiff and stark, with Jael’s tent-peg through his temples, and the swollen corpses being swirled down to the stormy sea by ‘that ancient river, the river Kishon,’ will be a grim parable of the end of the men that set themselves against God, and so have the universe against them. ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v20 redeem (See Scofield "Exo 14:30"), See Scofield "Isa 59:20".
redeem (See Scofield "Exo 14:30"), See Scofield "Isa 59:20".
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv20, 23 General Information:
General Information:
The shift in pronoun from "he" to "you" which began in Job 5:19 continues through the end of Eliphaz's speech in Job 5:27.
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In famine he will ransom you
Here rescuing is spoken of as if it were ransoming, buying back. AT: "In famine God will rescue you from danger" (See: Metaphor)
the hands of the sword
Here "hands" probably represents the people who attack with weapons, including swords. AT: "violent people" or "people who attack you" (See: Synecdoche)
of destruction
Here "destruction" refers to the danger of being destroyed by enemies. AT: "that any enemy will destroy you" (See: Abstract Nouns)
You will laugh at destruction and famine
Here "laugh" represents that the person is not afraid. AT: "You will not be afraid of any danger of destruction or famine" (See: Symbolic Language)
beasts of the earth
This refers to wild animals. AT: "wild animals" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
famine
die
sword
tongue
fear
famine
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 On vv24–25 5:24 nothing will be missing: See Deut 28:11-12; cp.…
5:24 nothing will be missing: See Deut 28:11-12; cp. Job 1:6-19.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.