Job 38

Elihu, in fact, supplies just what Job had repeatedly called for, a confutation of his opinions, not effected by an overwhelming display of Divine power, but by rational and human argument; such a confutation as would not, like the arguments of the other opponents, rest upon false, bigoted, or hypocritical assertions, but would befit a truthful and candid reasoner. The reasonings of Elihu, moreover, are really needed for the full development of the subject-matter of the book. Cook.

Elihu is himself such a “messenger” as he describes (33:23, 24), “an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness.” He had been selected from all others and sent of God to expound to Job the Divine will and purpose in this mysterious dispensation, and to make known to him his duty in the case. And this was with the result that he had foreshown. “Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” Elihu acts the part of a Divinely commissioned and effectual instructor, a teacher who is the instrument of salvation to his suffering and needy friend. He fulfils in a lower sense the very function of the great teacher and prophet of the Lord, in response to whose prevalent vindication the same reply is given, “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” Only the ransom is then no longer limited to the figurative sense in which Elihu uses it of the sufferer’s own improved spiritual state as an adequate ground or reason for his release from further endurance. The great Teacher has provided a ransom in the strict and proper sense for the release of His people, now and forever, from the bondage that oppresses them.

Elihu’s task, of removing misapprehensions from Job’s mind and correcting his mistakes, is now fulfilled. But it was not given him to accomplish for Job the full and blessed effects of his temptation. This work the LORD reserved for Himself, to be performed by Him in His own Person. Elihu is but His messenger sent before His face to prepare His way before Him. And now even while he is speaking the rumbling is heard of distant thunder; heavy masses of cloud begin to darken the sky, and the advancing tempest betokens the Lord’s approach. W. H. G.

1. THEN the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said

2. Who is this that darkeneth counsel By words without knowledge?

3. Gird up now thy loins like a man; For I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.

4. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.

5. Who determined the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who stretched the line upon it?

6. Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner stone thereof;

7. When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

8. Or who shut up the sea with doors, When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb;

9. When I made the cloud the garment thereof, And thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,

10. And marked out for it my bound, And set bars and doors,

11. And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

12. Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, And caused the dayspring to know its place;

13. That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, And the wicked be shaken out of it?

14. It is changed as clay under the seal; And all things stand forth as a garment;

15. And from the wicked their light is withholden, And the high arm is broken.

16. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep?

17. Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee?

Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death?

18. Hast thou comprehended the earth in its breadth?

Declare, if thou knowest it all.

19. Where is the way to the dwelling of light,

And as for darkness, where is the place thereof;

20. That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof,

And that thou shouldest discern the paths to the house thereof?

21. Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born,

And the number of thy days is great!

22. Hast thou entered the treasuries of the snow,

Or hast thou seen the treasuries of the hall,

23. Which I have reserved against the time of trouble,

Against the day of battle and war?

24. By what way is the light parted,

Or the east wind scattered upon the earth?

25. Who hath cleft a channel for the water- flood,

Or a way for the lightning of the thunder;

26. To cause it to rain on a land where no man is;

On the wilderness, wherein there is no man;

THE thirty-eighth chapter of Job may almost be called a poetical parallel to the prose of the Mosaic account. The first of Genesis is evi- dently in view, and some marks of its order may be traced. God is represented as speaking out of the thunder cloud, and challenging Job’s ignorance in a series of questions clothed in the highest garb of poetry—such poetry as we find nowhere else in all the remains of classical an- tiquity. T. Lewis.—The Almighty’s speech, in this and the following chapters, is by much the finest part of the noblest and most ancient poem in the world. Longinus has a chapter on interrogations, which shows that they contribute much to the sublime. This speech of the Almighty is made up of them. Interrogation seems indeed the proper style of Majesty in- censed. It differs from other manner of re- proof, as bidding a person execute himself does from a common execution; for he that asks the guilty a proper question makes him, in effect, pass sentence on himself. Dr. Young.

The design of this appearance of the Almighty is not to vindicate the injured character of Job. Neither is the design of this speech to decide the controversy in the dialogues about the ways of

27. To satisfy the waste and desolate ground; And to cause the tender grass to spring forth?

28. Hath the rain a father?

Or who hath begotten the drops of dew?

29. Out of whose womb came the ice?

And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?

30. The waters hide themselves and become like stone,

And the face of the deep is frozen.

31. Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion?

32. Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season?

Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train?

33. Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?

Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth?

34. Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds,

That abundance of waters may cover thee?

35. Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go,

And say unto thee, Here we are?

36. Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts?

Or who hath given understanding to the mind?

37. Who can number the clouds by wisdom?

Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,

38. When the dust runneth into a mass,

And the clods cleave fast together?

providence, for the decision of that dispute was reserved for the subsequent history. The scope of the speech is to humble Job; and to teach others, by his example, to acquiesce implicitly in the disposals of God, from an unbounded con- fidence in His wisdom, equity, and goodness. Scott.—Job had been instructed and strength- ened by the intensity of the struggle which had been forced upon him. He was now in a state of readiness to welcome a new Divine communi- cation; and this had been brought about by the trials through which he had passed. Satan meant to have sundered him from the Lord; he, in fact, opened the way for larger and fuller impartations of Divine knowledge and grace. He had but prepared the way of the Lord, who was now to come to Job with a nearness and fulness of manifestation as never before. W. H. G.

The discourse expatiates on the mighty works of God, the vastness and variety of creation. At first sight it appears a not very direct or suitable answer to difficulties about providence; but it was really the very best teaching for Job, be- cause it expanded his thought beyond the limits of his own trouble, impressed him with a vivid sense of the Divine wisdom and majesty, and thus rebuked his disposition to complain and remonstrate, as if God were a man like himself. D. F.—When the Almighty at length speaks, in answer to Job’s repeated challenge, it is not to argue, it is not to answer, but to unfold the glory and wonder of creation in a series of living pictures, “to point, with mighty but tender irony, to the arch of the rainbow and the fountains of the dawn, and to amaze, to startle, to humble the dust and ashes of mortality with the miracles of His power; to convince them that man is nothing-perfect, and that God is All-complete.” But it is not only to convict man of his inability to comprehend the movements of the Divine mind that Job is catechised on his knowledge of the laws of nature, on the diffusion of light, the formation of rain, or the marvels of the treasure-house of ice and snow. It is not merely to convince him of the nothingness of his puny strength that, after he has “girt his loins like a man,” he is confronted one by one with inferior creatures which yet defy his dominion and laugh at his pretension and pride, so that the “lord of creation” is left “encircled with a universal chorus of contempt.” He is to learn that “God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor our ways as His ways;” but at the same time he is to learn that in the outward manifestation of Himself in nature there is enough to confirm the testimony of conscience to a moral order, founded on perfect justice and directed by perfect wisdom. Aglen. And what is the Divine revelation? Just the unending miracle that passes before our eyes every day. In the heavens above, in the earth beneath, in the great events of creation and phenomena of nature, in the myriad life that fills land and air and ocean, we are made to see that there is Wisdom and Power sufficient for everything, to make every creature fulfil its part in one infinite purpose and will. No esoteric disclosure for some exceptionally favored disciple, but what every one may lift up his eyes and see. No apologies for mysterious dealings, nor little systems of men corrected, but the perpetual self-justifying course of a harmonious universe. Is it not sublimer so? Would we desire the God of the ages to measure reasoning with mortals, and argue out a case? J. F. G.—The intellectual solution of problems can never be the question between Jehovah and His servants; the question is the state of their hearts toward Himself. He asks of Job, “Who am I?” and “What art thou?” In a series of splendid pictures from inanimate creation and the world of animal life He makes all the glory of His being to pass before Job. A. B. D.—The whole address is but the unfolding of the thought, I am the infinite and all-perfect God. And this truth is set before his mind by a series of appeals to the grandeur of God’s works, by which His perfections are so strikingly displayed in contrast with the utter insignificance of man. Job is made to feel at once who it is that is speaking to him; and how completely he had stepped out of his province, and of what incredible arrogance and presumption he had been guilty in venturing to pass his judgment upon the doings of the Most High. W. H. G.

Jehovah appears; twice He overwhelms Job with the majesty of His words. In the first discourse He treats of this question: Thou who pretendest to be able to judge My ways, canst thou understand this universe? The second turns upon this: Wilt thou try to govern the world in My place, and to do so better than I? This is the development of the second of the two subjects treated by Elihu, but with a more magnificent richness of language, and a more triumphant power. Godet.—The Lord’s answer to Job out of the storm contains two questions: First (38:1; 40:5), Shall mortal man contend with God? Second (40:6; 42:6), Shall man charge God with wrong in His rule of the world? The two questions, however, are hardly kept apart, for the first implies the second, inasmuch as a man’s contention with God will naturally be because of His unjust treatment of himself.

The object of the Lord’s answer is twofold, to rebuke Job, and to heal him—to bring home to his heart the blameworthiness of his words and demeanor toward God, and to lift him up out of his perplexities into peace. The two things hardly differ; at least both are effected by the same means—namely, by God’s causing all His glory to pass before Job. . . . The trial has been successfully borne; for though Job has sinned under it, his sin has not been of the kind predicted by the Adversary; he has continued to cleave to God, and even sounded deeps of faith profounder than ever he had reached before (ch. 19), and tasted the sweets of righteousness with a keener delight than during his former godly life (17:9). At the point at which we are now arrived the sole object of interest is Job’s mind in its relations to God. Though the trial has been successfully borne upon the whole, Job has not come out of it scathless. His demeanor toward God, especially in presuming to contend with Him, has been at many points profoundly blameworthy. It might be supposed at first that the simplest way of restoring

Job to peace would have been to reveal to him that his afflictions were not due to his sin, but were the trial of his righteousness, and in this way solve the problem that perplexed him. But the elements of blameworthiness in Job’s conduct forbade this simple treatment. The disease had spread in his mind, and developed moral symptoms which required a broader remedy. Besides, it is God who now speaks to Job; and in His teaching of men He never moves in the region of the mere understanding, but always in that of the religious life. He may remove perplexities regarding His providence and ways from men’s minds, but He does not do so by the immediate communication of intellectual light, but by flushing all the channels of thought and life with a deeper sense of Himself. This is the meaning of God’s manifestation to Job out of the storm. He brings Himself and His full glory near to Job, and fills his mind with such a sense of Him as he had never had before—“Now mine eye seeth thee” (42 : 5). At this sight of God Job is humbled and lays his hand upon his mouth in silence; such thoughts of God as he had never had before fill his heart; his former knowledge of Him was like that learned from hearsay, dim and imperfect, now he saw Him eye to eye, and he repents his former words and demeanor in dust and ashes. A. B. D.

The mind of Job had been prepared for the Theophany, or manifestation, first by the careful review of his past life and of the principles which lay at the foundation of his religious creed; and then by the discourses of Elihu, in which the loving purposes of Divine interpositions were for the first time distinctly enunciated. All that he now needs is a personal revelation, to be brought face to face with Him whom in the midst of his great misery he had ventured to arraign. The Lord God does not, strictly speaking, reason with His creatures; but He does more, He reproves Job, and brings before his mind a vast and most comprehensive picture of His providential administration of the universe. The discourse contains the deepest and highest view which the mind of a patriarch, under Divine teaching, could conceive of the mysteries of existence. Job learned thoroughly the lesson, which in his better nature he had all along adopted as the living principle of his faith, that although the special object which God may have in any one of His works may be wholly undiscoverable, if not incomprehensible to man, yet that they each and all display a manifold wisdom, an all-pervading and all-controlling Providence, an adaptation of means to ends, which are inseparably connected with absolute goodness, and should teach man to submit, without a question, without struggles or reluctance, to whatever He, the Almighty Maker and King, may ordain or permit.

Chaps. 38, 39. The first discourse is arranged in seven sections, each complete in itself. First, the creation of the earth, sea and light (38 : 1-15). The mysteries of creation, the depths of ocean and of sheol, the sources of light and darkness, of snow, hail, lightning, storm, of rain, dew, ice, and frost (vs. 16-30); the government of the stars, of heaven and earth, of lightning and cloud, and the wisdom thereto required (vs. 31-38); the sustenance of animals, the lion and raven (vs. 38-41). Their generation, the gazelle and hind (39 : 1-4). The comparison of wild and tame animals, the wild ass, the oryx (vs. 5-12); the peculiar characteristics of the ostrich, the war-horse, the hawk, and the eagle (vs. 13-30). Cook.

The awful and overpowering phenomena of nature and of life were revealed to Job. He is carried back to the regions of earth and sea and light, and with each question comes, as it were, a lightning flash of poetic beauty. We hear the angelic host, the morning stars, the stars of dawn, fitly hailing the dawn of life in a newborn world, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy;” or the wild and capricious sea subjected to law and order—“Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed;” or we see the sudden sunrise in a land of briefest twilight flash on the dark earth, and its scenery coming out sharp and clear as the shapeless clay receives the impress of a seal. The sunshine even there hath a glorious birth. Where wast thou, said the Voice, when these things had their birth? and then his brain is made dizzy by challenges to penetrate now the homes of light and darkness; now the regions of stored and accumulated snows; now the clouds feeding here the streams that, swift or slow, mould the mountains and shape the earth; now falling on the broad desert steppes in beneficent and fertilizing rain; now the realms of ice, the frozen seas; now the majestic heavens and the laws that move the stars. “Where is thy hand? what is thy knowledge among these things?” he is asked. And then he—and Job is here the type of all our race, though the language used to him is couched, of course, in a form suited to his day and generation—is bidden to look upon the forms of wild, untamed, untamable life that filled, in those early days, so vast a portion of the earth’s surface. He is called to look upon those kingly lions that needed not the aid of man; on the wild ravens whose cry to the poet’s ear went up as a very prayer to the Father of all life; and the rock goats and the wild ass, creatures so strong, so vigorous, so rude, so free, rejoicing in a noble liberty, scorning, he is told, the multitudes of the city, neither regarding the cry of the driver; then on the mighty and primeval buffalo, unfortunately rendered by the meaningless heraldic unicorn, whom none can train to draw the plough, none force to carry home the garnered wheat; then the sullen ostrich, so dull to natural feeling, so hardened against her young ones, yet able to put to scorn the steed and its rider. Then the words, “Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?” usher in the stirring, the splendid description of the horse, not, as with the Greek poet, the servant of man, but in the form known to Hebrew or Arab or Egyptian, as the fiery, neighing, snorting war-horse of the Arabians, “who saith among the trumpets, Ha! Ha! who smelleth the battle afar off.” And the list of pictures which began with the king of beasts ends with that of the queen of birds, who builds her nest upon the rock. The language, we all feel, reaches the very high-water mark of poetic beauty. Nothing in the world can exceed its dignity, its force, its majesty, or the freshness of its pictures of nature and of life. Dean Bradley.

38:1. The Lord answered Job. Granting the human elements of the story, in all their human and natural grandeur, the supernatural seems but its fitting complement. It is true that to those who are eye-witnesses of the event the miracle is the attestation of the doctrine; but for minds that read or contemplate it the converse holds: it is the glory of the truth that makes the miracle easy of belief. T. Lewis.

Out of the whirlwind. Rather, out of the storm. Jehovah, even when condescending to speak with men, must veil Himself in the storm cloud in which He descends and approaches the earth. Even when He is nearest us, clouds and darkness are round about Him. His revelation of Himself to Job, at least, was partly to rebuke him, for he had sinned against His majesty, and He veils Himself in terrors. A. B. D.

3. Gird up now thy loins. Job had expressed strong confidence in respect to the righteousness of his cause, and great bravery of soul in declaring his readiness to meet God in judgment, and now God meets him and challenges him to bring all his boasted manhood to the hearing. Curry.

4-38. A survey of the inanimate creation, the wonders of earth and sky—the earth (vs. 4-18; the heavens (vs. 18-38). A. B. D.

4-11. Earth and sea.

4. Where wast thou? The sentiment conveyed in these striking interrogations is that He alone who made the world is capable of judging how it ought to be governed. This and the three following verses speak of the creation of the earth; and in terms of architecture which denote exact proportion, nice arrangement, and durable solidity. Scott.

Laid the foundations of the earth. There was a time when this planet did not exist; a time when our sun was not lighted, nor any world of our system launched. There was a time when no star twinkled in the abyss of space, and no seraph winged his flaming path through the vast empyrean. There was a time when sound was sleeping and light was still unborn. But even then this silent, orbless immensity was full of a latent joy, for it was full of God. Shrouded in their own light inaccessible, filled with mutual delight and complacency, and exchanging communion high and sweet, the Father, Son, and Spirit rejoiced together, and the bosom of Godhead was an ocean of bright, unfathomed blessedness. And so from eternity to eternity the Creator might have continued the silent hiding-place of His own power, the radiant retreat of His own sanctity, the glorious abyss of His own joyful all-sufficiency. Even then God was love. And that love welled so deep and rose so high that at last it overflowed. Creation is the brimming over of the Creator’s love, the emanations of that exuberant goodness which must needs relieve its excess of joy by making blessed beings to see and share it. Hamilton.

6,7. The creation of the earth is likened to the rearing of a great edifice, whose extent was determined by line, whose pillars were sunk in their bases, and its corner-stone laid with shoutings and songs of rejoicing among the heavenly hosts. The stars and the angels are here, as usual, conjoined, and the morning stars are named as the brightest and most glorious, as also because the earth rose into existence at the morning dawn. A B. D.

Here the imagination is directed to the building of a temple; and then there is brought in that other poetical imagery, than which nothing can be conceived more glorious or more animating, although drawn from one of the customs of the earth: “When the stars of the morning sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The metaphor itself is derived from the songs and processions which in all ages have been used at the commencement, or laying the corner-stone of great public buildings. As in Zech. 4 : 7 : “They shall bring forth the corner-stone with shoutings, Grace, grace, unto it ;” or, Ezra 3 : 10, where it is said : “They laid the foundations of the temple of the Lord, and the priests stood with their trumpets, and the sons of Asaph with their loud sounding cymbals, and all the people sang aloud in great triumph, and the voice was heard afar.” And so the Hosts of Heaven tone jubilee when earth’s corner-stone was laid, the beginning of this new temple in which there are to be such rich displays of the Divine glory. T. Lewis.

7. Those luminous worlds which adorn the vault of heaven are called morning stars, because to the sacred poet it appeared morning when God founded the earth. The songs of praise with which they greeted the morn of creation were that silent yet eloquent language with which, according to Psalms 19 : 1, they still declare the glory of their Creator. Equally clear is it that the expression, “sons of God,” refers to the angels who surround the throne of God to execute His behests (Job 1 : 6 ; Psalms 29 : 1 ; 89 : 6 ; 103 : 21). They are called angels in virtue of their office as messengers ; sons of God in virtue of their nature. These titles point to their superiority over weak and sinful man as being the holy inhabitants of heaven, the messengers of Omnipotence, and the reflection of Divine Majesty. . . . Let it be borne in mind that angels are always called the sons of God, but not of Jehovah. The term Elohim designates the Divine Being as the fulness and source of life, of power, of blessedness, of holiness, of glory, and majesty. The term Jehovah describes Him as merciful and gracious, as the Saviour and Redeemer who humbled Himself in order to deliver fallen man from His ruin and to draw him upward. The sons of Elohim are, therefore, those in whom shines forth, and who are the media of His power and glory. The sons of Jehovah are those who receive and are the vehicles of His redeeming mercy. In this sense Israel is called the first-born son of Jehovah (Ex. 4 : 22). Kurtz.

“Sons of God.” Sons they are, as all other intelligent creatures are, by creation. This is the first and obvious manner of sonship ; but they are sons of God emphatically, as being dutiful, obedient, affectionate sons ; sons who know their relation to their Father and act according to it ; sons who in act and spirit, in desire and love, exhibit the lines and features of the character of their Father ; who imitate because they love Him, and love Him the more as, by imitating, they obtain a deeper and more intimate knowledge of Him. They are the elder brothers of God’s family ; elder in creation, elder in obedience, elder in present privilege—elder sons who are ever with Him and yet feel no jealousy, but rather loyal joy in heaven when any of the younger outcast prodigals of the same blood returns. We hear of no self-originated schemes, whether of mercy or wisdom, among them. They are servants of God who do His pleasure ; excellent indeed in strength and far surpassing us in knowledge and power, but yet loyally keeping within the bounds of their appointed service, not venturing to press into secret knowledge, however much they desire to look into it, finding their sufficient joy and fulness of nature in filling up the measure of their prescribed duty. Stoughton.

The angels rejoiced at the laying of the foundation-stone of the earth, the natural temple of God’s glory. And the angels sang hymns of joy at the laying of the foundation-stone of the temple of the new creation in the nativity of Christ. And there will be a universal hallelujah of angels and saints at the building of the New Jerusalem of the glorified in heaven. Wordsworth.—The Scriptures mention three occasions in which the angelic orders evinced sympathetic joy. The first was on the creation of man and his world. “Then the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The second, when the Son of God became man. “A multitude of the heavenly host was with the angel praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.” The third is the occasion mentioned by Jesus : “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” From collating these three occasions we would be led, naturally enough, to the inference that there is some high, mysterious importance attached by the universe of purely spiritual beings to the calling into existence of this new and peculiar order of being, the compound creature man ; a creature not after the angelic order of a separate, individual, immaterial existence, but capable, through the connection of his spirit with matter, of communicating the power of an endless life to a whole race of beings propagated from him. Hence possibly the concern at the failure of the experiment in his trial ; and therefore the joy and praising God at the near completion of the scheme for his restoration ; hence the special joy at every instance of the success of that scheme in the repentance and return of the sinner. S. R.

8-11. This refers to Gen. 1:9. It is a magnificent realization of the mighty rush of the waters when the mountains were upheaved. The words “gathered together” in Genesis expresses a rapid, simultaneous motion. The ocean is here personified as a new-born giant, shut in, confined, wrapt and swaddled in the first outburst of its might. Cook.—The figures in these verses are very splendid. First, the ocean is represented as an infant giant, breaking forth from the womb. Then the infant ocean was swathed in clouds, and thick clouds were its swaddling bands. Finally, the new-born monster must be tamed by almighty power, and an impassable bound set to its proud fury. A. B. D.

11. And said, Hitherto shalt thou come. There is a character of great magnificence in all that precedes; but this is signally sublime. We are struck with admiration to see the vast and ungovernable ocean receiving commands and punctually obeying them; to find it, like a managed horse, raging, tossing, and foaming but by the rule and direction of its Master. Dr. Young.—The sea is God’s, for He made it, He restrains it; He says to it, Here shall thy proud waves be stayed. This may be considered as an act of God’s power over the sea; though it is so vast a body, and though its motion is sometimes extremely violent, yet God has it under check; its waves rise no higher, its tides roll no further than God permits; and it is mentioned as a reason why we should stand in awe of God (Jer. 5:22), and yet why we should encourage ourselves in Him; for He that stops the noise of the sea, even the noise of her waves, can, when He pleases, still the tumult of the people (Psalm 65:7). It is also to be looked upon as an act of God’s mercy to the world of mankind, and an instance of His patience toward that provoking race; though He could easily cover the earth again with the waters of the sea. H.

The Lord has hitherto appointed limits in the natural world; and in the time to come that world will not deviate from His rule, according to which temporary disturbances are ever becoming of less significance. He has hitherto set limits to every outbreak of human passions; to all the complications that have arisen from men’s conflicting dispositions and wishes, up to the present time; He has thrown over the kingdom of grace, the defence that He promised to Him whom He set on His right hand; and He will do so still in the future. Through all the sufferings of the Christian Church, she has fought her way to a blessed liberation from the bondage of human authority, and to a clearer light of truth. And so it will be with all the troubles that may be before us in the future. God the Lord will set bounds and limits to them with the same result as before, and not without an equal blessing; and we may indulge the special hope that the Church of God, although passing through many forms of strife and division, will, as the salt of the earth, be ever attaining a closer likeness to the perfection of Him in whom, as the express image of God, there can be nothing discordant, but all is holy unity and blessed peace. Schleiermacher.

13. Ends of the earth. Literally, skirts or wings of the earth. The figure is beautiful; the dawn as it pours forth along the whole horizon, on both sides of the beholder, lays hold of the borders of the earth, over which night lay like a covering; and seizing this covering by its extremities it shakes the wicked out of it. The wicked flee from the light. The dawn is not a physical phenomenon merely, it is a moral agent. A. B. D.

12-15. These very remarkable figures occur only in this passage. They represent vividly two effects of light, the one moral—evil-doers are discomfited by it; the other physical—earth assumes new form and beauty. The earth is represented as a vast expanse, the light seizes at one rush its extremities, and causes, so to speak, a concussion or shock by which the children of darkness are panic-struck, and, as it were, shaken off its surface. In chap. 24 Job represented the evildoers as working with impunity in darkness; here he is told that the light, which they hate and dread, has a direct mission to overthrow them. Cook.

14. It is changed as clay under the seal. As plastic clay receives and retains the figures of the seal, so the earth, under the sun’s illumination, seems to receive new forms of life and beauty. The righteous rejoice in the light, but the wicked slink away at its coming. Curry.—The objects of the earth stand forth, when the morning sun has lighted them up, like a beautiful garment embroidered with bright tissue and variegated colors. Wordsworth.—During the darkness of the night the earth is a perfect blank, in which state it resembles clay that has no impression. By the morning light falling upon the earth, innumerable objects make their appearance upon it; it is then changed, like clay which has received the stamp of the seal. Such appears to be the meaning of this elegant simile. Sealing upon clay is still practised in the East. When the corn-granary at Grand Cairo belonging to the Sultan is full, the inspectors, says Norden, having shut the door, put on their seal upon a handful of clay, which they make use of instead of wax. Scott.

15. And from the wicked their light is withholden. By a bold figure the wicked are here said to be deprived of their light when the morning has dispelled the darkness; for darkness is light to them, whose “high arm” is said to be “broken,” because in the morning they lose their boldness and hide themselves through fear, but in the night they are daring and resolute. Rosenmüller.

16-19. The impossibility of knowing the origin, end, object, or course of creation is shown by reference to the depths of ocean, to the unseen world, to the extent of earth, and to the alternations of light and darkness. Modern science continually extends the sphere of our knowledge, but leaves those limits untouched; in fact, the wider the sphere of our vision the vaster the regions of the unknown brought home to our consciousness. Cook.

17. The gates of death. Isaiah calls them “the gates of sheol”—that is, the entrance into the region of the dead, the world of departed souls. The general receptacle of departed spirits was called in Hebrew Sheol, and in Greek Hades; and is defined by Job, “The house of assembly for all living” (30:23). Scott.—The gates of the shadow of death! Rightly considered, there is surely something exceedingly awful in this expression. Death here, Shadow or Skeleton, is the King of Terrors, because we know him not till we get beyond, within those unseen portals whence this vast, wide, creeping, desolating shadow issues and enshrouds us. Death! Its shadow covers the world, darkens it, and fills all hearts with gloomy fears and forebodings. All their lifetime, through fear of death, men are subject unto bondage. Its shadow is here, but its substance and its power are the power of an endless life, life in death, and death in life, conflicting forever. The reality of death is in eternity. And that death is called in Scripture the second death. This is that of which the first death is but the shadow. Salvation from that is, indeed, salvation. Cheever.

19. Where is the way where light dwelleth? This question differs from that in vs. 12-15. That related to the morning and its benefit to mankind; this to settling the precise boundary of light and darkness—that is, day and night. One half of the earth is enlightened, the other half is in darkness at the same instant. Job is now asked whether he was witness to that operation of creation by which the limits of light and darkness were fixed, and knew the extent both of one and the other. The question is put in figurative language. Light and Darkness are represented as persons; each has its separate dwelling-place and peculiar jurisdiction; the bounds of one never encroach on those of the other. Scott.—20, 21. Job is asked if he knows the way to the dwelling-place of light and darkness, so that he might take them back to the place of their abode. The words “thou knowest” refer to the question (v. 19), Which is the way? Job knows the way to the place of light (v. 21), for he was born contemporary with it; he is as old as the day-spring which morning by morning has overspread the earth since creation’s dawn. A. B. D.

Science has taken many a step of progress; she has explored phenomenon after phenomenon, but has she really arrived at those ultimate truths to which all these questions point? Is she really any nearer to them than in the days of Job; or, is she not still on the outside in respect to the ineffable facts, or first workings of nature, that this sublime challenge has preeminently in view? Does she truly “know where light dwelleth”? Can she even explain one of its most common phenomena? The sciolist may talk of science having “rendered obsolete the language of the Bible,” but it required the far deeper science and deeper philosophy of a Humboldt to observe, “that, though in the present state of our physical knowledge, many of these questions propounded to Job may be expressed under more scientific definitions, yet it can scarcely be said that we can answer them more satisfactorily.” T. Lewis.—The Bible frequently refers to natural facts as illustrations of spiritual truths, asserting thereby an analogy between the natural and spiritual worlds. Where it does this, the accuracy of its references is remarkable—unexampled in so far as I know in any other literature. We find, both in the shorter references to nature, and in such larger and more elaborate compositions as the concluding chapters of Job, a treatment of nature worthy of a revelation from God, and whose minute accuracy is constantly being confirmed by the researches of scientific travellers. Dawson.

22. Treasuries of the snow. The best treasures of nature are the truths it teaches concerning God and ourselves. In the production of the snow is disclosed the power and skill of the Great Creator. In a moment He changes the vapor of the atmosphere into myriads of crystal gems. Every snowflake is as perfectly crystallized as a diamond. Captain Scoresby has delineated ninety-six different forms of crystals, and says: “The extreme beauty and endless variety of objects revealed by the microscope in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are fully equalled, if not surpassed, in both beauty and variety, by the crystals of snow;” and there are 27,000 of these crystals in every square inch of the carpet which covers the earth. From the snow, too, we learn that God loves beauty. The earth’s winter garment might have been as warm without being as fairy-like and radiant as it is. Its exquisite texture and dazzling whiteness repeat, in winter, the lesson of the summer flowers. And in the snow we read the goodness of our God. “He giveth snow like wool,” says the Psalmist. Yes, it is the wool of the clouds, cast lovingly over the slumbering vegetation to protect it from the fierceness of the winter storm. The farther north we go, the deeper the snow; the feathery blanket is made thicker. Anon.

Two things about the snow we do not often think of connecting together. One is silentness, and the other is power. The strongest things in the world are the most silent. The snow is strong and silent. Your lives would be stronger if they were silent. Another thing about snow is that it joins together two things not always together—beauty and usefulness. The snow, which we talk of as cold, is the thing that keeps the life and warmth in the roots in the earth. It keeps out the cold and keeps in the moisture. T. T. Shore.—And the snow is God’s own symbol of the regenerated heart. “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” “Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Anon.

23. Snow and hail are represented as having been created and laid up in great storehouses in the heavens or above them, from whence God draws them forth for the moral ends of His government. The idea may be suggested by observation of the vast masses in which snow falls. Job, no doubt (so it is ironically assumed), has inspected these treasuries, or was present when at creation the Almighty filled them! A. B. D.

24. The light, the east wind. The origin of the force by which “the light” diffuses itself through space is among the many things upon which physical science, even in our day, sheds no light. The blowing of “the wind,” even when apparently regulated by times and seasons, though known as a fact, is unknown in respect to its cause; and Christ’s words to Nicodemus (John 3:8) are as true of the present day as they were of the time when they were first spoken. Curry.

25-41. Hitherto, God had put such questions to Job as were proper to convince him of his ignorance and shortsightedness. Now he comes in the same manner to show his impotency and weakness. As it is but little that he knows and, therefore, he ought not to arraign the Divine counsels, so it is but little that he can do and, therefore, he ought not to oppose the proceedings of Providence. Let him consider what great things God does and try whether he can do the like, or whether he thinks himself an equal match for Him. God has thunder, and lightning, and rain, and frost, at command, but Job has not, and therefore let him not dare to compare with God or to contest with Him. H.

26,27. To cause it to rain. As God by His power sends His “rain” upon the earth, so also, in His sovereign wisdom, He causes it to fall where it may please Him, and not as man’s wisdom might determine. God’s care, even in the earth, is not confined to man. The wilderness where is no man, and the desolate places are all cared for by Him, and by considering these things Job might learn humility and submission. Curry.—Man is not, as he might think, the only object of God’s regard. God is great and His providence very wide. His goodness is over all His works. He satisfies with rain the thirsty wilderness where no man is, that the tender grass may be refreshed. A. B. D.

28-30. These questions refer not to the analysis of phenomena or of natural laws, but to the inner principles of which science now professes to know nothing. Cook.—Vs. 25-27 refer to the rain as it falls and to its effect upon the earth; these verses to the more secret action of the vapor as it is condensed into rain and dewdrops and frozen into snow and hail, and how the fluid water is solidified into ice, making the face of the deep like stone. Here, too, the mysteries of nature elude man’s wisdom, but God knows and performs it all. Curry.—There has been great lack of attention to the momentous fact that so much of this language of generation or of evolution, or production by birth (one thing coming out of another), is employed in Scripture. (See Psalms 90:2; Prov. 8:22; Gen. 1:2.) It is all so different from those ideas of mechanical or magical creation which distinguish so many pagan (and also the Mohammedan) mythologies. It is a Divine evolution, through an outgoing word, and the term should not be given up to the naturalists, who discard the idea of semination, and thereby make it an eternal, uninterfered-with, self-evolving of the higher as lying hid in the lower—in the lowest even—from an infinite eternity. T. Lewis.

28. The formation of the dew is represented in Scripture as the work of God and not of man; and its descending to refresh and fertilize the earth is mentioned as His peculiar gift, and in opposition to human means of rendering the earth more fruitful. And the prophet Micah declares that “the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.” R. Dixon.

31-38. He is now asked whether he has power over the heavenly bodies to direct their motions, control their action upon the earth, and prevent the seasons and weather which they are apt to produce. Scott.—From the upper atmosphere—the region of clouds and vapor—the scene is now removed to the firmament, or place of the stars, and this whole section refers to the direction of the regular movements of the heavenly bodies and their influence upon the earth. The term “Pleiades” is commonly understood to indicate the well-known seven stars—a group of seven small stars (only six visible to the naked eye) in the neck of the constellation Taurus. Curry.—The word correctly rendered Pleiades denotes a “heap” or “group” (see 9:9), and probably was intended merely to describe the appearance of that beautiful constellation, which, as well as Orion, in Syria is far more brilliant, and remains longer above the horizon, being at an altitude seventeen degrees higher than in our climate. Cook.

It is a curious fact that the revelations of science have led astronomers of our own day to the discovery that the sun is not the dead centre of motion, around which comets sweep and planets whirl; but that it, with its splendid retinue of worlds and satellites, is revolving through the realms of space at the rate of millions of miles in a year, and in obedience to some influence situated precisely in the direction of the star Aleyone, one of the Pleiades. We do not know how far off in the immensities of space that centre of revolving cycles and epicycles may be; nor have our oldest observers or nicest instruments been able to tell us how far off in the skies that beautiful cluster of stars is hung, whose influences man can never bind. In this question alone, and the answer to it, is involved both the recognition and exposition of the whole theory of gravitation. Maury.—

It was the impressive conclusion of M. Maedler that this visible universe of suns and their systems is moving around some grand centre in a ceaseless and, to us, mysterious march. Guided by analogy, Herschel reached this inference; and since that time definite reasoning has confirmed it. M. Maedler’s conclusion that the star, Aleyone, one of the Pleiades, the well-known seven stars, represents the common centre of the cosmical system, has in its support such concurrent approval that it may be accepted. Not only is the language of Job very definite, but its precision is beginning to be recognized as in harmony with scientific discovery. The more we learn of the mechanism of the heavens, the more significant does Job’s inquiry become. For many centuries mystery so shrouded the question, “Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?” that men concluded it was meaningless. It is now intelligible. The word rendered Pleiades—Chimah in the original—while held by some to represent a “heap” or “group,” is said by others to mean literally a hinge, that around which other bodies turn or move. The phrase legitimately suggests the idea of a controlling power which connects with this centre the circling march of the universe. W. Fraser.

The isolated group of the “Seven Stars,” from the singularity of its appearance, has been distinguished and designated by an appropriate name from the earliest ages. The learned priests of Belus carefully observed its risings and settings nearly two thousand years before the Christian era. By the Greeks it was called Pleiades, from the word pleein, to sail, because it indicated the time when the sailor might hope to undertake a voyage with safety; and also Vergiliæ, from ver, the spring, because it ushered in the mild vernal weather favorable to farming and pastoral employments. The Greek poets associated it with that beautiful mythology which in its purest form peopled the air, the woods, and the waters with imaginary beings, and made the sky itself a concave mirror from which came back exaggerated ideal reflections of humanity. The Seven Stars were supposed to be the seven daughters of Atlas, by Pleione—one of the Oceanides—placed in the heavens after death.

But an interest deeper than any derived from mythical association or classical allusion is connected with this group of stars by the use made of it in Scripture. In the apparently simple and passing allusion to it in Job lies hid the germ of one of the greatest of physical truths—a germ lying dormant and concealed in the pages of

Scripture for ages, but now brought into air and sunlight by the discoveries of science. The question recently began to be raised among astronomers, “Does the sun stand still, or does it move round some other object in space, carrying its train of planets and their satellites along with it in its orbit?” Attention being thus specially directed to this subject, it was soon found that the sun had an appreciable motion, which tended in the direction of the constellation of Hercules—a lily-shaped group of small stars underneath the Plough in the northwestern quarter of the heavens. This motion of the sun—while it gave a higher meaning to the grand description contained in the nineteenth Psalm, showing it to be no mere popular language or poetical metaphor, but a strict astronomical truth—also accounted in the most accurate manner for several curious discrepancies in regard to the positions of the stars observed on comparing ancient and modern catalogues, which were formerly inexplicable. Toward the constellation of Hercules the stars seem to be opening out; while at the opposite point of the sky their mutual distances are apparently diminishing—as if they were drifting away from the goal of the sun’s course. When this great physical truth was established beyond the possibility of doubt, the next subject of investigation was the point or centre round which the sun performed this marvellous revolution; and after a series of elaborate observations and most ingenious calculations this intricate problem was also satisfactorily solved—one of the greatest triumphs of human genius. M. Maedler, of Dorpat, found that Alcyone, the brightest star of the Pleiades, is the centre of gravity of our vast solar system—the luminous hinge in the heavens round which our sun and his attendant planets are moving through space. The very complexity and isolation of the system of the Pleiades, exhibiting seven distinct orbs closely compressed to the naked eye, but nine or ten times that number when seen through a telescope—forming a grand mechanism, whose individuals are united with each other more closely than with the general mass of stars, indicate the amazing attractive energy that must be concentrated in that spot. Vast as is the distance which separates our sun from this central group—a distance thirty-four millions of times greater than the distance between the sun and our earth—yet so tremendous is the force exerted by Alcyone that it draws our system irresistibly around it at the rate of 422,000 miles a day, in an orbit which it will take nineteen millions of years to complete. With this new explanation, how remarkably striking and appropriate does the original word for Pleiades appear! What a lofty significance does the question of the Almighty receive from this interpretation! “Caust thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?” Canst thou arrest or in any degree modify that attractive influence which it exerts upon our sun and all its planetary worlds, whirling them round its pivot in an orbit of such inconceivable dimensions, and with a velocity so utterly bewildering? In this vast and complex arrangement not one wheel jars or creaks—not a single discordant sound disturbs the deep, solemn quietude of the midnight sky. Smoothly and silently each star performs its sublime revolutions. Although composed of so many bodies—differing in size, form, and consistence—they are all exquisitely poised in space in relation to one another, and to their common centre; their antagonistic forces are so nicely adjusted as to curb every orb in its destined path, and to preserve the safety and harmony of the whole. Moons revolve around planets, comets and planets around the sun, the sun around Alcyone, and Alcyone round some other unknown sun, hid far away in some unexplored depths of our galaxy; and grand beyond conception, this cluster of systems around the great centre of ten thousand centres—the white throne of the Eternal and the Infinite; and all with a rhythm so perfect that we might almost believe in the old poetic fable of “The Music of the Spheres.” In this vision of orbits and revolutions, more awful and stupendous than Ezekiel’s vision of wheels within wheels, we see seated on the throne above the firmament, not a blind chance or a passionless fate, but one like unto the Son of Man—He whom John saw in Patmos, holding the mystery of the seven stars in His right hand—possessed of infinite love as well as infinite power—binding and loosing the sweet influences of Pleiades solely for the order and good of His creation.

Man’s lifetime is a mere moment—nay, the history of our race, with all its great and varied events, is but a handbreadth compared with the duration of the orbit of our system. During the 6000 years of our existence on the earth, we have traversed thousands of millions of miles; and yet all that time we have obtained no new view of the heavens. All things have continued as they were; the same stars and constellations, in nearly the same positions in the sky, gleam down upon us which appeared to the shepherds on the midnight plains of Chaldea in the time of Job. So vast is the orbit of our system that from the creation of man to the present day, we have described but an infinitesimal arc of it.

Our annual progress, though expressed by one hundred and fifty millions of miles, would appear, if viewed from the nearest fixed star, as little more than one third of a second of space. We know not how long our race may exist in this world; but if it be destined to outlive the completion of this vast course, strange and unimagined glories will be revealed to future generations. The heavens of our time will wax old and disappear; constellations with which we are now familiar will give place to unknown combinations; and ever as our system rolls on through space it will pass into new collocations; new suns and systems will advance, open out their splendors, and fill the sky with their glory, and then recede—so that when time shall be no more, the human race in prospect and retrospect of this vast aerial journey will have a higher conception than is now possible of the boundless domains and the inexhaustible riches of the Infinite God.

Canst thou loose the bands of Orion? This cluster of stars—the Kesil of the ancient Chaldeans—is by far the most magnificent constellation in the heavens. The constellation of Orion is composed of four very bright stars, forming an elongated square, with three equidistant stars in a diagonal line in the middle. The two upper stars, called Betelgeux and Bellatrix, form the shoulders; in the middle, immediately above these, are three small, dim stars, close to each other, forming the cheek or head. These stars are distinctly visible only in a very clear night. The feet are composed of two very bright stars, called Rigel and Saiph; the three stars in the middle are called the belt or girdle, and from them depends a stripe of smaller stars, forming the hunter’s sword. The whole constellation, containing seventeen stars to the naked eye, but exhibiting seventy-eight under an ordinary telescope, occupies a large and conspicuous position in the eastern or southern heavens, below the Pleiades; and is often visible, owing to the brightness and magnitude of its stars, when all other constellations, with the exception of the Plough, are lost in the mistiness of night. Orion is not only the most striking and splendid constellation in the heavens; it is also one of the very few clusters that are visible in all parts of the habitable world. The equator passes through the middle of it; the glittering stars of its belt being strung, like diamonds, on its invisible line. The ubiquity of this constellation may have been one of the reasons why it was chosen to illustrate God’s argument with Job, in a book intended to be read universally wherever the human race should extend.

The three bright stars which constitute the girdle or bands of Orion never change their form; they preserve the same relative position to each other, and to the rest of the constellation from year to year, and from age to age. They present precisely the same appearance to us which they did to Job. No sooner does the constellation rise above the horizon, however long may have been the interval since we last beheld it, than these three stars appear in the old familiar position. They afford to us one of the highest types of immutability in the midst of ceaseless changes. And yet in the profound rest of these stars there is a ceaseless motion; in their apparent stability and everlasting endurance there is constant change. In vast courses, with inconceivable velocities, they are whirling round invisible centres, and ever shifting their positions in space, and ever passing into new collocations. Mysterious triplet of stars, that are ever changing, and yet never seeming to change! How wonderful must be the Power which preserves such perfect order amid all their complex arrangements, such sublime peace and everlasting permanence amid the incalculable distances to which they wander, and the bewildering velocities with which they move! What answer can Job give to the question of the Almighty? Can man whose breath is in his nostrils and who is crushed before the moth, separate these stars from one another, or alter their relative positions in the smallest degree?

There is one object of surpassing interest connected with the constellation of Orion. On examining the middle star in the sword on a clear frosty night it appears, even to the naked eye, invested with a kind of haze or indefiniteness not usually observed about stars of similar magnitude. The application of the smallest telescope reveals at once the cause, and resolves the seeming star itself into a diffused mist of light. We are gazing on the far-famed nebula of Orion, the most stupendous and magnificent object in the heavens. By that faintly luminous speck we are brought to the very outskirts of creation, to the remotest point which human vision has been able to reach amid the awful profundities of space. Though visible to the naked eye, and connected with one of our nearest constellations, it lies so immeasurably far off, separated from us by an immensity so great, that a ray of light leaving it must take fifty or sixty thousand years to reach our world. For a long time the most powerful instruments of the astronomer anxiously directed to this celestial hieroglyphic under the most favorable conditions for observation, and even in southern climes, where the skies are incomparably clearer than ours, could not decipher its real character. It provoked a profound curiosity, which it refused to gratify. So unaccountable did it seem—so utterly unlike any other object in the heavens—so different from all that had hitherto been known of collections of stars—that some of the most eminent astronomers did not hesitate to assert that it was merely an accumulation of self-shining nebulous fluid, akin to the cometic, diffused amid the interstellar spaces of our own heavens. This, however, it could not be, for, unlike a comet, it never shifted its relative position among the stars of Orion—it never came one second nearer our earth, and no remoter stars could be seen shining through it. By others, with more plausibility, it was regarded as matter in an extreme state of rarefaction and diffusion. Hence originated the famous “nebular hypothesis.” Here, they imagined, they were conducted to the very source of matter, existing at first in a gaseous diffused condition in space, gradually concentrating and becoming solid, until at last stars and worlds were produced capable of supporting organic life. This, they thought, geological testimony warranted them in supposing was the history of our own earth’s construction; and if so, why might not other bodies of the solar and stellar systems be even now going through a series of similar changes? But no sooner was the magnificent telescope of Lord Rosse directed to it, in circumstances favorable for the employment of its highest powers, than the luminous haze became resolved into myriads of sparkling particles, small as the point of a needle, and close as the grains of a handful of sand. It was found to be, not matter in an extreme state of diffusion and rarefaction, but a vast assemblage—a very blaze of stars—clusters upon clusters—systems upon systems; the molecules double stars; the ultimate particles suns with planets perchance revolving around them. Though to the naked eye apparently only a thousandth part of the visible breadth of our own sun, this faintly luminous patch contains in reality more stars than the telescope can enable us to see all over the heavens in the clearest winter night. And there are thousands of such nebulae, presenting the strangest forms and so distant from each other that light must travel a thousand years before it can pass from one to another. Some of the nebulae lying on the very verge of infinity baffle the curiosity of the astronomer and continue mere films of light even under the most powerful telescope; but analogy leads us to conclude that all nebulae are resolvable into stars, and appear as nebulae only because of their great distance. All the countless stars that glitter singly in our heavens belong to one nebula; our solar system is one of its central stars; Arcturus, Orion, the Pleiades, and all the brilliant constellations which we see on a cloudless night, form its spangled interior; while the broad, irregular zone of filmy light which girdles the heavens, called by the American Indians the “Road of Souls,” the path of the good to Paradise, is its dim and distant outskirts. And this magnificent universe spreading immediately around us on every side, would appear, if viewed from the nearest nebula, a mere filmy cloud, hardly distinguishable in the depths of the heavens. Each of the hazes that float in space is a universe by itself, a galaxy of suns and planets; each nebula is a firmament of stars, a heaven of constellations, rising tier above tier—stratum above stratum—vast beyond the utmost stretch of imagination; some so remote that the light by which we see them left them ages before the creation of man—nay, their dim illumination may inform us, “not of their present existence, but that they were, and sent forth into space the light we are now receiving at an epoch farther back into the past than the momentary epoch of our human race by above twenty millions of years.” Who, then, can gaze upon the cloudy speck in the sword of Orion without feelings of the deepest emotion? While it silences the scoff of the infidel, it increases the awe and reverence of the devout by immeasurably exalting their conception of the universe—by giving a new and profound significance to the solemn appeal to man which issued from the invisible shrine of the All-encompasser—the All-sustainer—“Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?” “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” Hugh Macmillan.

A starry night is a most potent auxiliary to Revelation in vivifying our thought of the somewhere where God dwells. These glistening worlds are places, of which we say “here” and “there.” The universe is resplendent with them. Christian astronomers conjecture, from the disclosures of the telescope, that there is a certain unique globe, the centre of all gravities in celestial space, which holds to the whole sidereal cosmos the same relation that Alcyone—the most radiant of the Pleiades—does to our solar system. They guess that around that centre of all motion, stars, and systems of stars, and firmaments of systems, are revolving in intricate and tributary splendor; and they suggest that there is the imperial capital of the universe. There is the one world which has no motion but on its own axis, itself the emblem of eternal and infinite repose. And there, as nowhere else, it may be, is concentrated the superlative glory of Jehovah’s presence. We must concede, not only that this finds no contradiction in the disclosures of the Bible, but that the reserve of inspiration is here and there broken by hints which encourage such conjectures. “Is there not something at the bottom of our hearts better than science, which invites us to believe that what would be so fitting and beautiful is also triumphantly actual?” Phelps.

32. Mazzaroth. It is right to retain this word, which is evidently the name of a constellation, but it is doubtful which constellation is meant. Many critics follow the Targum, which identifies it with the Zodiac; this would imply a change of reading or interchange of letters which, though possible, ought not to be assumed without necessity; and is open to the more serious objection that the Zodiac could scarcely be interposed between Orion and the Bear. The etymology of the word, as Dillmann observes, points to the root zahar (Arabic, zaharah, glittering star), and a constellation, or star of peculiar brightness, is certainly meant—very probably the planet Jupiter or Venus, shining with peculiar splendor at certain seasons; hence the question, Canst thou bring out Mazzaroth at its season? Or the Sirius of the Egyptians, whose “coming forth” determines the chronology of the seasons and years. Cook.

33. Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? The Bible is at one with science in affirming the constancy of natural law. God has made “a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning.” He has enacted the “ordinances of the heavens.” The uniformity of nature as under natural law, expressing the will of the unchangeable Creator, is as certain a dogma of Scripture as it is a result of science. If the Creator is perfect, His action must be uniform; anything else would be unworthy of Him. The extremest materialist can claim nothing for natural law which the Bible does not claim for the will that changes not, the power that “fainteth not, neither is weary.” Nor can even the pantheist claim any closer indwelling in nature for his mechanical, all-pervading essence than the Bible claims for its personal God. Dawson.

34-38. Clouds, lightning, and rain are alike inscrutable as to their causes and effects. Cook. —In that the phenomena—lightning and others—execute the Divine will (vs. 34, 35), they seem themselves to be endowed with wisdom and understanding no less than living creatures, whence, in fact, the mythology of many other nations regards them as Divine beings. But in the case of the Hebrews there is always a Higher One above them who (vs. 37, 38) directs them with wisdom, and in order that too much rain may never destroy the earth, counts the pitchers of heavens—the clouds—even when the rain is the strongest. Ewald. — Thunder showers were the subject in vs. 25-27. The same subject seems to be resumed here. But there the operation was the guiding of the rainy clouds through the air to the place appointed for the discharge of their contents; here a body of dark clouds is collected to form, as it were, a pavilion for the Lord of thunder. The rain is mentioned there as poured down on the desert for the benefit of wild beasts; here it is sent to mollify the hardened glebe and prepare the field for ploughing and sowing. The lightnings also are here sent forth with greater pomp and Divine majesty. What can be more humiliating than such interrogations as this? What must Job, what must any man, think of himself for daring to enter into a strife with God and to find fault with His ways; when his own ignorance is thus contrasted with His wisdom; his own weakness with His power, and his own littleness with His tremendous majesty?

35. Here we are. This surprising figure of speech, which gives intelligence and a voice to the lightnings, expresses with great sublimity the punctuality with which inanimate creatures observe the laws prescribed to them, and perform the service enjoined them by their Creator. Scott.

36. Put wisdom—given understanding. God is the Author and Giver, the Father and Fountain of all wisdom and understanding. The rational soul itself and its capacities come from Him as the God of nature, for He forms the spirit of man within him. True wisdom, with its furniture and improvement, comes from Him as the God of grace and the Father of every good and perfect gift. Shall we pretend to be wiser than God, who have all our wisdom from Him? H.

37. The clouds are compared to those earthen jars in which the Eastern people keep their water and their wine, “the bottles,” or pitchers “of heaven.” The disposing of the clouds in a proper manner for emptying themselves is denoted by the position into which a pitcher or jar is put for pouring out its contents; who can “pour out” the pitchers of heaven?

38. These showers are sent to soften the glebe and prepare it for ploughing when it has been baked and hardened by the long drought of summer. Scott.

The main thought which pervades this discourse is not so much the inability of man to search out God’s ways, as the apparent opposition between the conclusions of his understanding and the purposes which those ways indicate so indistinctly. Cook.

38: 39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lioness?

Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

40. When they couch in their dens, And abide in the covert to lie in wait?

41. Who provideth for the raven his prey, When his young ones cry unto God, And wander for lack of meat?

39: 1 Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth?

Or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve?

2. Canst thou number the months that they fulfil?

Or knowest thou the time when they bring forth?

3. They bow themselves, they bring forth their young,

They cast out their sorrows.

4. Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up in the open field;

They go forth, and return not again.

5. Who hath sent out the wild ass free?

Or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?

6. Whose house I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling place.

7. He scorneth the tumult of the city, Neither heareth he the shoutings of the driver.

8. The range of the mountains is his pasture, And he searcheth after every green thing.

9. Will the wild-ox be content to serve thee? Or will he abide by thy crib?

10. Canst thou bind the wild ox with his band in the furrow?

Or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

11. Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great?

Or wilt thou leave to him thy labour?

12. Wilt thou confide in him, that he will bring home thy seed,

And gather the corn of thy threshing floor?

13. The wings of the ostrich wave proudly;

But are they the pinions and plumage of love?

14. For she leaveth her eggs on the earth, And warmeth them in the dust,

15. And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, Or that the wild beast may trample them.

16. She dealeth hardly with her young ones, as if they were not hers:

Though her labour be in vain, she is without fear;

17. Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, Neither hath he imparted to her understanding.

18. What time she lifteth up herself on high, She scorneth the horse and his rider.

19. Hast thou given the horse his might? Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane?

20. Hast thou made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is terrible.

21. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength. He goeth out to meet the armed men.

22. He mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed; Neither turneth he back from the sword.

23. The quiver rattleth against him, The flashing spear and the javelin.

24. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage;

Neither believeth he that it is the voice of the trumpet.

25. As oft as the trumpet soundeth he saith, Aha!

And he smelleth the battle afar off, The thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

26. Doth the hawk soar by thy wisdom, And stretch her wings toward the south?

27. Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, And make her nest on high?

28. She dwelleth on the cliff and maketh her home

Upon the point of the cliff, and the strong hold.

29. From thence she spieth out the prey ; Her eyes behold it afar off.

30. Her young ones also suck up blood : And where the slain are, there is she.

39. This verse should have begun a new chapter, for we here pass to a new topic, the brute animals which inhabit the air, the land, and the water. This subject is continued with a few short interruptions unto the end of the Almighty’s speech. Those species of animals are selected in which the wisdom, power, and providential care of the Creator are most eminently displayed. The tendency of the descriptions is to raise in our minds such admiration of the Deity as will effectually extinguish discontent and silence murmurings against His dispensations. Scott.

CHAPS. 38 : 39 ; 39 : 30. THE MANIFOLDNESS OF THE DIVINE MIND AS DISPLAYED IN THE WORLD OF ANIMAL LIFE.

The instances chosen are the lion and the raven (vs. 39-41) ; the wild goats and the hinds (39 : 1-4) ; the wild ass (vs. 5-8) ; the wild ox (vs. 9-12) ; the ostrich (vs. 13-18) ; the war horse (vs. 19-25) ; the hawk and the eagle (vs. 26-30). These brilliant pictures from the animal world have the same purpose as those given before (vs. 4-38) from inanimate nature ; they make God to pass before the eye of Job. They exhibit the diversity of the animal creation, the strange dissimilarity of instinct and habit in creatures outwardly similar, the singular blending together of contradictory characteristics in the same creature, and the astonishing attributes and powers with which some of them are endowed ; and all combine to illustrate the resources of mind and breadth of thought of Him who formed them and cares for them-the manifold play of an immeasurable Intelligence and Power in the world. A. B. D.

39,40. The “lioness,” having the care of her young upon her, and thrown entirely upon herself, is for that reason especially in need of an adequate provision, and for both herself and her young ones the hand of God makes provision. Curry.—The appeal here is to the instincts with which God has endowed animals, and to the fact that He had so made them that they would secure their own food. He asks Job whether he would undertake to do what the lion did by instinct in finding his food, and by his power and skill is seizing his prey. There are in the arrangement by which all this is accomplished marks of wisdom which far surpass the skill of man to originate, and the instinct and power by which it is done are proof of the supremacy of the Most High. No one can study the subject of the instincts of animals, or become in the least acquainted with natural history without finding everywhere traces of the wisdom and goodness of God. Barnes.

41. Who providents for the raven ? The providence of God, particularly in the supplies afforded to the ravens, is divers times taken notice of in the Scriptures. It is a manifest argument of the Divine care and providence in supplying the world with food and necessaries, that the ravens, accounted as unclean, and little regarded by man, destitute of stores, and that live by what falleth here and there ; that such a bird should be provided with sufficient food-especially if that be true which Aristotle, Pliny, and Ælian report, of their want of affection and cruelty to their young ; that they expel them from their nests as soon as they can fly. Derham.—The raven is one of the commonest birds in Palestine ; by its incessant croaking it presses itself upon the attention, and is often alluded to in Scripture. The cry of its young is an appeal unto God (Job 1 : 20), and the feeling of it is proof of His universal providence, which does not overlook even the least of His creatures (Psalms 147 : 9 ; Luke 12 : 24). The lion and the raven are here associated perhaps by way of contrast, the one being the most powerful and the other one of the least of God’s creatures. Their natures, too, are most dissimilar-the silent, subtle, self-reliance of the one, crouching patiently in his lair, and the clamorous outcry and appeal of the other, wandering over the land in search of food. The raven, of course, is a general name covering the whole crow tribe. A. B. D.

39 : 1. Knowest thou ? Bochart observes with truth, “Here there is no question of idle and merely speculative knowledge, but of that knowledge which belongs to God only, by which He not only knows all things, but directs and governs them.” Thus, too, Dillmann, “Observation of nature is a special characteristic of Hebrew poetry and thought.” It may be added also that “knowledge” includes here a perception of final causes, of which science says little and knows less. Cook.—Two animals uncared for by man, and who are also without the marked cunning that distinguishes some others, and largely unprovided by nature with the means of offence and defence ; and yet because God cares for them they are fed and protected. The periods of their gestation and the processes of parturition are especially named as things directed by the Divine providence, and as lying equally beyond man’s power and wisdom. Curry.

The words “knowest thou,” “dost thou mark,” and the like, though no doubt referring partly to man’s ignorance of the habits of these remote and timid creatures, carry also the question, Is it Job who presides over and determines all things connected with the life and habits of these solitary creatures? A. B. D. —The wild rock goats are timid and inoffensive animals, the same as the ibex or mountain goats of the Swiss and Tyrol Alps. They pasture together in small flocks, and are still numerous on the mountains in the peninsula of Sinai and to the east and south of the Dead Sea. They are extremely shy of man, and their senses are so acute that the huntsman finds great difficulty in approaching near enough to fire upon them. Conant.

5. The wild ass. The characteristics of this animal—its wildness, its love of the barren deserts, and its dislike to everything pertaining to civilization, and generally its savage independence of man’s help—illustrate its dependence on God alone, who gave it its habits and provides for its necessities. It is found all through the wild desert regions of Asia. Curry.—This animal forms the transition from the stag and deer genus to the ass; it is single-hoofed and long-eared; its hornless head somewhat resembles that of the gazelle, but is much larger; its hair has the dryness of the hair of the deer. It is entirely distinct from the wild ox (mahd, vs. 9-12), whose large, soft eyes are so much celebrated by the poets of the steppe. This latter is horned and double hoofed. Both kinds are remarkable for their very swift running, and it is especially affirmed of the former that no rider can overtake it. Wetzstein.

Freedom from service and liberty to range at pleasure are but the privileges of a wild ass. It is a pity that any of the children of men should covet it or value themselves on it. It is better to labor and be good for something than ramble and be good for nothing. The tame ass, that labors and is serviceable to man, has his master’s crib to go to both for shelter and food, and lives in a fruitful land; but the wild ass, that will have his liberty must have it in a barren land. He that will not labor let him not eat. He that will shall eat the labor of his hands, and have also to give to him that needs. H.

9. Wild-ox. The Hebrew word simply names an animal, “Rém,” which early translators identified with the legendary unicorn, but which modern commentators take to mean the oryx, a well-known species of gazelle. The whole passage indicates a beast resembling the ox, such as the oryx, or leucoryx, which chew the cud, have cloven feet, and are bulkier than any of their congeners. Dr. Tristram, whose authority is paramount, says, “Beyond all doubt the Reem is the Urus of Caesar—i.e., the Auerochs.” Cook.

10-12. The point of the passage lies not so much in the terrible attributes of the creature himself, as in the contrast between him and the tame ox, which he externally resembled. He was fitted for all the labor performed by the domestic animal, but was wild and untamable. Man uses the one, let him lay his hand upon the other and subdue him to his service! Who is the author of this strange diversity of disposition in creatures so like in outward form? A. B. D.

13-18. The ostrich hollows a place in the sand for her eggs, which she warms with her body at night, but often leaves them by day to be warmed in the sun. It is not said here, as some have objected, that she takes no charge of her eggs or young, but that she is wanting in the vigilance and care shown by other fowls, in the selection of a safe place for a nest, in watching over it and over her young till they can take care of themselves. Conant.—The nest of the ostrich is always in the sand, deep and round, with layers of eggs–about thirty. The “leaving” does not mean “forsaking,” but simply committing to the sand. The outer layer of eggs is generally so ill-covered that they are destroyed by jackals and wildcats. If she finds that her nest has been disturbed in her absence she will crush the eggs and abandon it altogether. Cook.

The extraordinary rapidity of the ostrich has always been celebrated, and it is well known that she can easily outstrip the fleetest horse. Its swiftness is mentioned by Xenophon, in his “Anabasis;” for, speaking of the desert of Arabia, he says that ostriches are frequently seen there; that none could overtake them, and that horsemen who pursued them were obliged soon to give over, “for they escaped far away, making use both of their feet to run, and of their wings, when expanded as a sail, to waft them along.” Dr. Shaw says, “Notwithstanding the stupidity of this animal, its Creator hath amply provided for its safety by endowing it with extraordinary swiftness, and a surprising apparatus for escaping from its enemy.” Barnes: —Its speed has been calculated at twenty-six miles an hour by Dr. Livingstone, and yet the South African ostrich is smaller than the northern species; and I have myself, in the Sahara, measured its stride, when bounding at full speed, from twenty to twenty-eight feet. Tristram.

19-25. Hast thou given the horse his might?** The animal described in vs. 19-25 is specifically the war horse of the East, more definitely that of Arabia—the locale of the Book of Job. As the companion scarcely less than the servant of man, both in his pleasures and in war, the horse has been bred and trained to the highest degree of animal perfection, and its excellences have constituted a special theme for poetical eulogy. As all these qualities belong to his nature, and are the gifts of his Creator, Job is called to find in them demonstrations of God’s greatness. The description is especially full and graphic—the quivering mane, the bounding motion (as a locust), the snorting and pawing, the fearlessness before the sword and the rattling of the quiver and spear and javelin, his swallowing the ground, his fearless response to the trumpet, with his own instinctive battle-cry as he smellet the battle from afar, with the thunder of the captains, and the shouting of the embattled hosts, all these together present a scene of intense energy, and an unusually well-filled-out picture, at once vivid and truthful. The things named in their bold, poetic imagery are also so true to nature as to obviate the need of elaborate expositions of details. Carry.

19. Clothed his neck with the quivering mane.** The point which struck those who saw for the first time the mighty war horse in battle must have been the terror of the neck with its quivering muscles and tossing mane, and the word here used denotes most probably that impression. Clothed with terror may be the best rendering; it includes the idea of a vehement and terrific movement. Cook.

21. The war horse waiting for the signal, and in his angry impatience biting the very ground. There may be hyperbole here, but so natural that the reader is scarcely conscious of it. It is at the beginning, or in an interval of the battle. The trumpets, as is usual in cavalry tactics, are giving the marshalling signals, but the time has not quite come for the signal of the grand charge. The war horse bites the ground in his impatience, and at every sound it is almost impossible to hold him. T. Lewis.

26. The instinct here referred to, which leads many of the feathered tribes to seek more congenial climates at the approach of winter is one of the clearest proofs of Divine wisdom and agency. Barnes.

27-30. High up on a mountain peak the eagle builds its eyrie, and God has given it a remarkably sharp vision, to see far into the depths below the food that is there for it and its young ones. Not only from the valley in the neighborhood of its eyrie, but often from distant plains, which lie deep below on the other side of the mountain range, it seizes its prey and rises with it even to the clouds, and bears it to its nest. Thus does God work exceeding strangely, but wondrously, apparently by contradictions, but in truth most harmoniously and wisely, in the natural world. Delitzsch.

Throughout this discourse two points are kept before Job—the infinite wisdom of God, shown in the impartation of instincts infinitely varied and marvellously satisfied, and the impossibility of discovering the regulating or central principle. Man has his own definite position—he is chief and head of creation, but when he attempts to explain God’s works by reference to his own wants he is utterly foiled. The inference which Job ought to draw is that he knows nothing save that God is unsearchable, and that man’s one duty is unquestioning submission. Cook.

The purpose of making these wonders of creation pass before Job’s eyes was to display God before him, and to heal the presumption of his heart. Every one of these wonders utters the name of God with a louder emphasis in Job’s ears. It is not any attribute of God that is dwelt upon, it is God in all the manifoldness of His being that passes before Job’s mind. That the Lord speaks at all implies that He says something that may be understood by the creature of His hand. His speaking may be indirect and in parables, but it will contain meaning. It is true that the object of the Divine speeches is to bring Job’s heart to submission, and cause him to assume his right place before the Creator. And this was necessary, for Job, as he acknowledges, had sinned against the majesty of God. But the Lord does not command Job to take this place; he induces him. And he does so by the only means that will ever induce any human spirit to put itself right with God—the revelation of Himself. This revelation given to Job was patient, broad, and manifold. A. B. D