Job 27

1. AND Job again took up his parable, and said,

2. As God liveth, who hath taken away my right;

And the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul;

3 (For my life is yet whole in me,

And the spirit of God is in my nostrils :)

4. Surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness,

Neither shall my tongue utter deceit.

5. God forbid that I should justify you:

Till I die I will not put away mine integrity from me.

6. My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go:

My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

7. Let mine enemy be as the wicked,

And let him that riseth up against me be as the unrighteous.

8. For what is the hope of the godless, though he get him gain,

When God taketh away his soul?

9. Will God hear his cry,

When trouble cometh upon him?

10. Will he delight himself in the Almighty,

And call upon God at all times?

11. I will teach you concerning the hand of God;

That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.

12. Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it;

Why then are ye become altogether vain?

13. This is the portion of a wicked man with God,

And the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty.

14. If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword;

And his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.

15. Those that remain of him shall be buried in death,

And his widows shall make no lamentation.

16. Though he heap up silver as the dust,

And prepare raiment as the clay;

17. He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on,

And the innocent shall divide the silver.

18. He buildeth his house as the moth,

And as a booth which the keeper maketh.

19. He lieth down rich, but he shall not be gathered;

He openeth his eyes, and he is not.

20. Terrors overtake him like waters;

A tempest stealeth him away in the night.

21. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth;

And it sweepeth him out of his place.

22. For God shall hurl at him, and not spare:

He would fain flee out of his hand.

23. Men shall clap their hands at him,

And shall hiss him out of his place.

CHAP. 27 consists of two main parts: First (vs. 1-6), a solemn protestation before God by Job of his innocence; And second (vs. 7-23), a picture of the condition of the wicked man, in two divisions, his dreary and desolate condition of mind, having no hope in God, when death or afflictions overtake him (vs. 7-10); and the terrible external destruction that befalls him at the hand of God (vs. 11-23). A. B. D.—Under this second part he declares fully and plainly what he really believes touching the principles of God’s providential government; and directly repudiates the argument which he had previously urged, both as a real matter of trouble and perplexity to himself and as a conclusive answer to his opponent’s charges. He does not even now assert that the righteous man will necessarily be prosperous, a statement which he could not reconcile with the facts of his own experience; but he states that the real portion of the wicked, that which is reserved for one and all as their heritage, is final and complete extermination; his children will be cut off, his wealth be the sport of the innocent, his house overthrown, his life filled with incessant terrors and ended by a storm, his memory accursed. Vigorously as Job had maintained the proposition which he here recalls, it is evident throughout that the conviction of God’s righteousness lay far deeper; the current of thought which carried him away was but superficial, and yields to the mighty tide of feeling, when the depths of his heart are brought into motion. He was naturally unwilling to leave the question, which he here disposes of, on so unsatisfactory a footing. Job, doubtless, shared the universal conviction that notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, which are quite sufficient to put a stop to uncharitable judgments and applications to individual cases, God judges the wicked even in this life, and sooner or later awards to each his portion. Cook.

2. To what Job has yet to say, which may be regarded as a summary of his views and life, he prefixes the most solemn form of the Hebrew oath, “As God liveth.” So sure is he of the integrity that the friends have so attacked, and of his true interpretation of God’s workings. J. F. G.—Hitherto Job has used no oath; now for the first time he swears by the living God, his “Witness” and “Redeemer.” This oath expresses his faith and also his conviction that his judgment is not as yet complete; “God hath taken it away” is an expression carefully chosen to imply “withholding” not “perversion.” Job thus, as throughout this discourse, corrects his former assertions; he holds fast the conviction that his afflictions are not a punishment due for his offences, but he no longer charges God with injustice; even for that expression which he still uses, modified as it is, he suggests an excuse in the pardonable bitterness of a soul filled with anguish. Cook.

3. According to most modern expositors we take v. 3 as a parenthetical confirmatory clause, by which Job gives the ground of his solemn affirmation that he is still in possession of his full consciousness, and cannot help feeling and expressing the contradiction between his lot of suffering which brands him as an evil-doer, and his moral integrity. D.

5,6. He summons Jehovah to attest his integrity. He will not be guilty of the iniquity and deceit of admitting that he is guilty when he knows himself to be innocent. Job thus fulfils God’s declaration in the second chapter. “Still he holdeth fast his integrity.” V.—Good and holy men in Scripture do everywhere, with great confidence and assurance, appeal to God concerning the integrity and sincerity of their hearts toward Him. It would not be modesty, but impudence, in any man to declare that he suspects himself of hypocrisy; good men have always abhorred the thought of it. This was a brave and generous speech of Job. After he had lost all, and he had a great deal to lose; when he was forsaken of all other comfort, even the charitable opinion of his best friends concerning his sincerity; what was it that bore up his spirit? nothing but the conscience of his own integrity. With what resolution and constancy of mind he asserts and maintains it. Archbishop Tillotson.

8-10. The mention of the wicked (v. 7) gives occasion to introduce the subject again, and to settle it according to the insight of truth. Against their intemperate and one-sided portrayals he has already answered negatively, what the fate of the wicked is not; now, free from the heat of controversy, he will give his view of what their fate is. J. F. G.—The comfortless state of the ungodly man, who has no trust in God, is described in three conditions of his history: First, when he is at the moment of death, when God “cutteth him off” and “draweth out his soul” (v. 8); second, when calamity overtakes him (v. 9); and in general, in his whole life (v. 10). A. B. D.

What is the hope? This is the key note of Job’s portrayal of the wicked; they have no hope, no abiding future; the permanency of things is not theirs. Job can see this clearly now, having conquered his way by faith to a hope beyond this life. J. F. G.—The ungodly man, says Job, has no God to hear his cry in distress. He cannot find any consolation in God. “What can the impious hope for though he get him gain, when God taketh away his soul?” The word “gain” is literally unlawful gain, implying that such is the character of all the gain of the wicked; and the word “taketh away” is literally “draw out,” like a sword from its scabbard—a vivid image of God stripping the soul from its body as a sword is drawn out of its sheath. We see here how deeply the thought of the future retributive life has entered into Job’s mind. If there be no such life how could there be any question of what a man may hope for when God requires his soul? Even the godless man may look forward to something there. V.

9,10. Though God gives temporal blessings to the ungodly, there is still a fatal separation between Him and them. God is not near to them, to answer their cry in times of trouble, nor do they find their hearts turning toward Him in joyful confidence. Curry.—They are not anchored to God; all is precarious, unsafe, unstable. Besides, whatever else they gain, the blessing paramount, that which alone, whether now or hereafter, gives value to life—namely, delight in God and sweet dependence on His will, they miss entirely; it is to them a thing non-existent. These words furnish an expressive indication of the pure standard of Job’s righteousness; it is not merely service for reward, but delight in God, unselfish devotion to God for His own sake. The friends’ conception has been distinctly lower than this; and it is this that Job has maintained against Satan’s sneer of the beginning. And now Job’s conception of wickedness is just its opposite. To him nothing can be more deplorable than not to delight in God. J. F. G.

In comparing himself with the “ungodly,” Job is conscious that he has a God who does not leave him unheard, in whom He delights Himself, and to whom He can at all times draw near. D.—It is manifest that in these verses the speaker means to contrast his own condition of mind with that of the godless man. He has hope in God, in death and in trouble, for he delighteth himself in God at all times. A. B. D.—To the ungodly there shall be neither the hearing of his prayers nor a joyful, trustful, and loving fellowship with God. Job claims for himself both these things (13:16), and thereby leaves out of the account transient obscurations of his spirit, like that in which he mourns (19:7) that his prayer is not heard. Zöckler.—Job felt that God did hear his cry, though he could get no answer.

10. Will he delight. Job therefore delighted in the Almighty his punisher. “Always call,” he would therefore pray without ceasing; note the extreme beauty and delicacy of the term by which Job thus unconsciously, as it would seem, bears witness to his own inward faith, hope, and piety. Cook.

Will he always call upon God? Every one that knows him can make the answer for him, “No, he will not;” especially in secret, where none but God’s eye can behold him. Upon some extraordinary occasions, in extraordinary cases, he may seem very devout; but he is modest, he will not trouble God too far, nor too often. He will serve God only by fits and starts, when he himself lists. He never troubles God but when God troubles him. In health, wealth, peace he can comfort himself. He never prays but in trouble; in his affliction he will seek God. God is fain to go away and return to His place, else this man would never look after him. When God hath touched him he acquaints God with his misery, but when times grow better with him he excludes God from his mirth. Crook.

11. This verse is of great importance. It implies that Job is now going to state exactly what he believes touching the hand of God, i.e., the true character of the Divine dispensation. He will not conceal what is with the Almighty, the principle which he is assured must be present to the mind of God. This prepares us for a modification of statements which had been wrung from him, when his words flowed over from a spirit drunk with the poison of God’s arrows.

12. They, like him, knew the facts, which he is now about to state, but they misapplied them altogether when, having no cause whatever to suspect Job’s integrity, they represented his sufferings as proofs of guilt. Given two facts, God’s wrath against sin, and Job’s piety, proved by a life of consistent godliness, the only inference which they ought to have drawn from the aspect of his misery was that God’s judgments are unsearchable, and that sooner or later His “righteous servant” would be justified. Cook.

13. He now admits that in human experience there are tokens of that law of retribution which he had called in question; that ultimately the wicked do not thrive and the righteous do. His whole view of the case is tinged by his thought of a future life. To be wicked is to be miserable, not here perhaps, but at last. V.—Job’s portrayal, here beginning, is an exposition in poetic language of what we call the logic of events. It is the truth that only righteousness is well-built and permanent; the logic of wickedness is decay and destruction. Violence begets and succumbs to violence; being itself a tearing-down, it has no future to count upon. To this idea is naturally reducible all that Job here says, and all that is true in what the friends have said. J. F. G.

13-23. We have Job’s final and formal statement of the doom and heritage of the wicked. It is a doom from God; a heritage to be received from the Almighty. He shall lose what he has unjustly gathered with so much care. Though he escape for a time, he shall get his reward in due course. V.

19-23. Most terrible is the description, introduced in v. 19, of the overthrow of the sinner himself (vs. 20-23); sudden mortal terror overtaketh him like an overwhelming flood; or rather, a swift tempest from the east taketh him up and carrieth him away with an irresistible force, so that before it, as before the missiles of a strong armed warrior, he can do nothing else than flee, for in this storm the Divine power is hidden, so he flees accordingly, still pursued by the scorn and ridicule of his own place, which ought to protect him. Ewald.—To sum up all, both God and man are against the evil-doer. God casts evils upon him and makes escape impossible, and men clap their hands and hiss him out of his place. This is an awful description, and in it Job has equalled if not surpassed the friends. V.

Sin promiseth gold, and pays with dross; it promiseth bread, and pays with stones; it promiseth honor, and pays with disgrace; it promiseth a paradise, and payeth with a wilderness; it promiseth liberty, and payeth with bondage; in a word, it promiseth all manner of content,

and pays us with utter disappointment and dissatisfaction. Every step in sin is a step to misery; and the farther any man proceedeth on in sin, the farther he wanders from God, and the

farther he wanders from God the nearer he comes to misery. Every motion toward sin is a hasting into the arms and embrace of death. Caryl.