Job 3:26

I was not in safety,.... This cannot refer to the time of his prosperity; for he certainly then was in safety, God having set an hedge about him, so that none of his enemies, nor even Satan himself,

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came. I was not in safety ... yet trouble came - referring, not to his former state but to the beginning of his troubles.

The three expressions note the same thing, which also was signified in the next foregoing verse, to wit, that even in his prosperous days he never was secure or at rest from the torment of fear and anxiety. Others, I did not misbehave myself in prosperity, abusing it by presumption, and security, and voluptuousness, whereby I might have provoked God thus to afflict me; but I lived soberly and circumspectly, walking humbly with God, and working out my salvation with fear and trembling, little expecting that God would be so fierce an enemy against me. Yet trouble came, Heb. and trouble came, as I feared it would. So between fear and calamity my whole life hath been miserable, and I had reason to repent of it.

Job 3:26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.Ver. 26. I was not in safety] i.e. I counted not myself simply the safer and happier man, because of creature comforts; but knowing their uncertainty, I held at a distance, and hung loose to them all. Neither had I rest] I set not up my rest here, as did Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 4:4, and that rich fool, Luke 12:20, and the purple whore, who sitteth and saith, I shall see no sorrow. Once indeed Job said (but not so well), "I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand," Job 29:18. And so (by a like error, which was quickly confuted) David said in his prosperity, "I shall never be moved," Psalms 30:6-7. But for the main and the most part Job was otherwise minded. A godly man may be master of and busied about these paltrements of this present world, but not satisfied in them as adequate objects: he looks upon them all in their greatest lustre, as Hiram did on the cities Solomon had given him, which he called Chabul, that is, land of dirt. He minds the things above most of all. Yet trouble came] Although I ever kept myself within the bounds of humility and modesty, and so took the safest and wisest course to secure that I had, and to gain a settled estate; yet all is gone, and I am left a mirror of misery. What can any one make of this? This is a riddle to me; here I am gravelled and benighted.

Verse 26. I was not in safety] If this verse be read interrogatively, it will give a good and easy sense: Was I not in safety? Had I not rest? Was I not in comfort? Yet trouble came. It is well known that, previously to this attack of Satan, Job was in great prosperity and peace. Mr. Good translates, I had no peace; yea, I had no rest. Yea, I had no respite, as the trouble came on; and refers the whole to the quick succession of the series of heavy evils by which he was tried. There is a similar thought in the Psalmist: Deep crieth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts; all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me; Psalms 42:7. One evil treads on the heels of another. IN this chapter Job's conflict begins. Now, and not before, Satan appears to have access to his mind. When he deprived him of his property, and, what was still dearer, of his sons and his daughters, the hope of his family, he bore all with the most exemplary patience, and the deepest resignation to the Divine will. When his adversary was permitted to touch his body, and afflict it in the most grievous and distressing manner, rendered still more intolerable by his being previously deprived of all the comforts and necessaries of life; still he held fast his integrity; no complaint, no murmur was heard. From the Lord's hand he received his temporal good; and from that hand he received his temporal evil, the privation of that good. Satan was, therefore, baffled in all his attempts; Job continued to be a perfect and upright man, fearing God, and avoiding evil. This was Job's triumph, or rather the triumph of Divine grace; and Satan's defeat and confusion. It is indeed very seldom that God permits Satan to waste the substance or afflict the body of any man; but at all times this malevolent spirit may have access to the mind of any man, and inject doubts, fears, diffidence, perplexities, and even unbelief. And here is the spiritual conflict. Now, their wrestling is not with flesh and blood - with men like themselves, nor about secular affairs; but they have to contend with angels, principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places. In such cases Satan is often permitted to diffuse darkness into the understanding, and envelope the heavens with clouds. Hence are engendered false views of God and his providence, of men, of the spiritual world, and particularly of the person's own state and circumstances. Every thing is distorted, and all seen through a false medium. Indescribable distractions and uneasiness are hereby induced; the mind is like a troubled sea, tossed by a tempest that seems to confound both heaven and earth.

20–26. Why does God continue life to the wretched, who long for death? The vision of the peacefulness of death passes away, and Job awakens again to the consciousness of his real condition, and his words, which had sunk into calmness as he contemplated the peace of death, now seem to rise again like the storm after a lull, Wherefore gives He light to him that is in misery? He does not name though he alludes to God, and the indirect reference though partly due to reverence betrays a rising alienation in his heart. His question is one of anguish and impatience. His own condition throws its gloom over all human life, and he puts the question first generally, Job 3:20-22; there are many like him seeking death and unable to find it, who would exult for joy if they could find the grave. Then he comes to the individual, Job 3:23, meaning himself, Wherefore gives He life to the man whose way is hid? the man who cannot see and cannot move, who can discover no solution of the riddle of his life, and find no course of action to relieve himself, who lies in the grasp of a calamity which has too surely come from God, and which has introduced confusion among all the principles of religion which he has hitherto held and into the relation to God in which he has hitherto stood, Job 3:23. And finally he adds some touches to the picture of his misery, his constant moaning, and the unbroken succession of troubles that afflict him, which come so thick that he has no respite from one before another overtakes him, Job 3:24-26.

I was not in safety - That is, I have, or I had no peace. שׁלה shâlâh Septuagint, οὔτεεἰρήνευσα oute eirēneusa - “I had no peace.” The sense is, that his mind had been disturbed with fearful

26. I was not in safety — I was not at rest, nor was 1 secure; I rested not, yet trouble came. The common interpretation of this passage is, trouble came upon trouble, without any intermission or respite between them.