058. Prayer Of Job.

Prayer Of Job. The Prayer as recorded.—Job 1:20-21. The book of Job has been regarded by some writers as a mere fiction or parable, but this notion, has been refuted by eminent divines; and the opinion now entertained by most Bible readers, is that so ably presented by Dr. Kitto, who says: “We have the testimony of the sacred writers themselves to the reality of Job’s person and history. We are told in the fourteenth chapter of Ezekiel that though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in such a place they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness; from the context, and the manner in which this is introduced the characters here named seem to be taken as real; for first Job is joined with Noah and Daniel, who were certainly real characters; and these are spoken of as real and living men. In the New Testament are allusions to the patience of Job and his character as one belonging to a real person. St. Paul and James both speak of him.

We cannot suppose the Holy Spirit would make a reference to a feigned history for an example of faith and patience and its ultimate reward, if the person, the faith, and its recompense, were alike unreal.” The prayers of Job must not then be regarded as fanciful pieces of composition, but as the “thanksgivings, complaints, and communings of one, human like ourselves,” whose submission, faith, and patience, through the grace of God, acquired by prayer, made him triumphant over bodily weakness, over calamity, and the trials of a “vale of tears.” He was an eminent saint of God, although we often see in reading his history an evident struggling of the human and mortal with the spiritual. The afflictions of Job were heavier and the circumstances more aggravated than usually fall to the lot of mankind; his cup was indeed full of deep and bitter sorrow, but it was the Lord who had mingled it; in the manner in which he drank it we see the strength of his faith and submission. One messenger after another had borne to Job the evil tidings of his swift and sudden trials, and when the last great sorrow, the loss of all his numerous family, is communicated to him, he is bowed to the earth with “the weight of the heavy heart in his bosom,” and breaks forth in words that will live as long as time and sorrow last, and while a God of love and justice reigns.