Job 9
Butler1. THEN Job answered and said,
2. Of a truth I know that it is so : But how can man be just with God ?
3. If he be pleased to contend with him, He cannot answer him one of a thousand.
4. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength : Who hath hardened himself against him, and prospered ?
5. Which removeth the mountains, and they know it not, When he overturneth them in his anger.
6. Which shaketh the earth out of her place, And the pillars thereof tremble.
7. Which commaadeth the sun, and it riseth not ; And sealeth up the stars.
8. Which alone stretcheth out the heavens, And treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
9. Which maketh the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south.
10. Which doeth great things past finding out ; Yea, marvellous things without number.
11. Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not : He passeth on also, but I perceive him not.
12. Behold, he seizeth the prey, who can hinder him ? Who will say unto him, What doest thou ?
13. God will not withdraw his anger ; The helpers of Rahab do stoop under him.
14. How much less shall I answer him, And choose out my words to reason with him ?
15. Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer ; I would make supplication to mine adversary.
16. If I had called, and he had answered me : Yet would I not believe that he hearkened unto my voice.
17. For he [or, he who] breaketh me with a tem- pest, And multiplieth my wounds without cause.
18. He will not suffer me to take my breath, But filleth me with bitterness.
Chap. 9. Starting with the question, How can man substantiate his innocence in the face of God’s overpowering might (vs. 2, 3), Job passes on to a delineation of this Divine power, which he conceives as a terrible, irresistible Force, which moves mountains and shifts the earth from its place ; which dictates to the sun that he shine not ; which made the mighty con-
19. If we speak of strength, lo, he is mighty ! And if of judgment, who will appoint me a time ? [or, Lo, here am I, saith he ; and if of judgment, who, etc.]
20. Though I be righteous, mine own mouth shall condemn me : Though I be perfect, it shall prove me per- verse.
21. Though I be perfect, I will not regard my- self ; I despise my life.
22. It is all one ; therefore I say, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
23. If the scourge slay suddenly, He will mock at the trial of the innocent.
24. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked : He covereth the faces of the judges thereof ; If it be not he, who then is it ?
25. Now my days are swifter than a post . They flee away, they see no good.
26. They are passed away as the swift ships : As the eagle that swoopeth on the prey.
27. If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad countenance, and be of good cheer :
28. I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me inno- cent.
29. I shall be condemned ; Why then do I labour in vain ?
30. If I wash myself with snow water, And make my hands never so clean ;
31. Yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch, And mine own clothes shall abhor me.
32. For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, That we should come together in judgment.
33. There is no daysman betwixt us, That might lay his hand upon us both.
34. Let him take his rod away from me, And let not his terror make me afraid :
35. Then would I speak, and not fear him ; For I am not so in myself.
stellations of the sky, and whose workings are beyond the compass of the human mind to grasp (vs. 4-10). Then, passing from the material world to creatures, he imagines this Power com- ing, say, upon himself unseen, beyond intelli- gence (v. 11), irresistible, irresponsible (v. 12), and cites as an instance good for all the memorable defeat of the abettors of Rahab, the helpers of Rahab succumbed to him, how then should I answer him? (vs. 13, 14.) What Job describes is a meeting of God and man, that the latter may uphold his innocence against Him, or perhaps any meeting of God and man; and such a meeting has Job to face in the attempt to establish his innocence. He must be overpowered and fail though guiltless—if I were innocent I could not assert my innocence, I must fall down and supplicate my omnipotent Opponent (v. 15). This feeling of helplessness before a crushing power altogether overmasters Job and rouses him to a recklessness which is that of despair, and going back upon his words, if I were innocent, he cries, I am innocent, innocent and guilty He destroys alike; the earth is given into the hands of the wicked, He covers the faces of the judges thereof—if it is not He, who then is it? (vs. 16-24).
But now, the paroxysm being over, Job proceeds more calmly to speak of his own condition, which is but an illustration of what is everywhere seen, but sorrow and perplexity now prevail over indignation. He describes the pitiful brevity of his life (vs. 25, 26). And with a touching pathos he tells how he sometimes resolves to leave off his sad countenance and brighten up, but the thought that God has resolved not to hold him innocent again crushes him, he has to be guilty, and all his efforts to show himself to be clear are vain (vs. 27-31). And he rounds off his speech with a reference to that with which he began, the central difficulty: God is not a man that man might answer Him; there is no umpire between Him and man to impose his authority on both; but if He would lift His afflicting rod from Job and not afflight him with His majesty, he would speak without fear, for his conscience is void of offence (vs. 32-35). A. B. D.
Job’s reply to Bildad is in terms more quiet than his previous utterances, but there is the same spirit essentially at work, which at length brings him to the point of condemning God that he may justify himself. Though fully conscious of his integrity—though he feels that the sins for which his friends deem him to be punished cannot be laid to his charge, yet what would it avail him to contest the matter with One so high and so wise; and since God has, by this visitation of His judgment, passed, as his friends allege, sentence upon him, he could not dispute it with any effect. Job’s answer, therefore, as a whole, although it finely sets forth the power and majesty of God, is still censurable, as it implies that the question between the afflicted and the Lord of providence is not one of right, but of might. It seems to us that Job has by this time been so far touched by the arguments of his friends as to conceive that the rule of Divine government may indeed be such as they describe—that the Lord has, in fact, countersigned their judgment upon him; but as he is still unconscious, somewhat self-righteously unconscious, of any cause in his conduct for this judgment upon him, he inclines to regard it as an act of arbitrary power, if not of oppression, to which certainly he has not yet brought himself to submit with unmurmuring acquiescence.
It has been alleged that there are apparent inconsistencies in the language of Job, on this and other occasions. But the answer is, that he is represented as torn by contending emotions. Fear and hope, despair and confidence, the spirit of submission and of bold complaint, by turns have possession of his mind, and as either predominates it gives a character to his language. Truth, in the exhibition of opposite feelings and passions, requires some inconsistencies in language and sentiment. Yet, perhaps, more inconsistency has been found than really exists. Here, for instance, he begins by acknowledging that no man can be just with God, yet ends by protesting his innocence. Here is an apparent but no real inconsistency. He knows that he is not free from sin, but he contends that he is innocent of the secret crime charged against him by his friends—that he is free from the uncommon guilt which, as they suspect, can alone account for the uncommon judgments which have befallen him. Kitto.
2. Job agrees with Bildad in his principle, that God never perverts judgment. ‘It is so of a truth, that wickedness brings men to ruin, and the godly are taken under God’s special protection. These are truths which I subscribe to; but how can any man make good his part with God?’ In His sight shall no flesh living be justified (Psalm 143:2). How should man be just with God? H.—The question here asked is the most important ever propounded by man: ‘How shall sinful man be regarded and treated as righteous by his Maker?’ Man is conscious that he is a sinner. He feels that he must be regarded as such by God. Yet his happiness here and hereafter, his peace and his hope, depend on his being treated as if he were righteous, or regarded as just before God. This inquiry has led to all forms of religion among men; and it has never been satisfactorily answered except in the Christian revelation, where a way is disclosed by which God ‘may be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth.’ The question asked by Job implies that such is the evidence and the extent of human guilt that man can never justify himself. This is clear and indisputable. Man cannot justify himself by the deeds of the law, and he can be justified only by that system which God has revealed in the Gospel, where a conscious sinner may be treated as if he were righteous through the merits of another. Barnes.
Perhaps in nothing else does the human mind realize the personality of God so vividly as in suffering the mordant stings of conscience when in bondage to remorse. We cannot feel guilty for having violated an impersonal law. What is impersonal law to me more than any other dead thing? This living soul of mine is its superior. It is God, the infinite and holy Person, against whom sin seems to have been flung in insult. That which seemed but an error at first, deepens into an outrage. Toward this outraged God it is that sorrow wells up from the broken spirit. Not law, but the Law-giver, is then the only thing in the universe with which the guilty one has to do. The great unanswered question of the ages, “How shall man be just with God?” looms up as the only question in the universe that needs an answer. A. Phelps. —One commanding subject pervades the Scriptures, and rises to view on every page—this recurring theme, toward which all instructions and histories tend, is the great and anxious question of condemnation or acquittal at the bar of God, when the irreversible sentence shall come to be pronounced. “How shall man be just with God?” is the inquiry, ever and again urged upon the conscience of him who reads the Bible with a humble and teachable desire to find therein the way of life. In subserviency to this leading intention the themes which run through the sacred writings, and which distinguish those writings by an immense dissimilarity from all the remains of polytheistic literature, are those of guilt, shame, contrition, love, joy, gratitude, and affectionate obedience. And, moreover, in conformity with this same intention the Divine Being is revealed—if not exclusively, yet chiefly, as the party in the great controversy which sin has occasioned. The intercourse, therefore, which is opened between heaven and earth is almost confined to the momentous transactions of reconciliation and renewed friendship. When the Hearer of prayer invites interlocution with man, it is not, as perhaps in Eden, for the purposes of free and discursive converse, but for conference on a special business. “Come now, let us reason together, saith the Almighty; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” I. T.
God’s government must be absolutely perfect, or it is no government at all. The slightest imperfection would be as really fatal to its stability as the gravest fault. The only hold which it has upon the blessed angel lies in its spotless purity. This is a point which short-sighted man is very apt to overlook or deny. “Why cannot I be saved on the mere ground of my sincere repentance? Why the need of this complicated and unintelligible doctrine of the Atonement?” For the reason that your happiness and that of every other created being are bound up in the maintenance of God’s attributes untarnished, in the preservation of perfect order in His kingdom. What could you do if you could not bow down before God with the deepest reverence? The paying of this homage is essential to your happiness. Yet you could not do this if you had the least suspicion that He had failed to perform His word. Now, He would fail to perform it most notoriously if He did not punish sin—or, in other words, if He should admit sinners into His favor, on the mere ground that they were sorry for their offence. There is no deep mystery here. It is one of the plainest things which can be stated to a reasonable being. Now, redeeming love, while it accomplishes its specific work, not only does no dishonor to the character of God, but sheds a brighter lustre upon it. Instead of violating the sanctity of the Divine law, it places its perfection in new lights. Instead of endangering the loyalty of the pure spirits in heaven, it calls forth fresh songs of admiration and praise. While ample provision is made for the recovery of man, new reasons are seen for worshipping the Almighty, and for rejoicing that man was made in the Divine image. B. B. E.
“The Word made flesh” is the revealed solution of the difficulty. It is the story of the Son of God, clothed in our nature, tabernacling in the world. It is the tale of His life of suffering and His death of agony. It is human nature, illustrating by a course of unswerving obedience and spotless innocence the excellence, and so magnifying the righteousness of the broken law. It is the picture of “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It carries us with Him every step of a painful pilgrimage. It shows Him to us as He struggles in the garden with His anticipations of coming woe, as He agonizes on the cross, carrying on there a mysterious conflict and enduring an incomprehensible anguish, and expiring amid the throes of convulsive pain with which all nature sympathized. We feel, while we read the tale, that we are communing with a singular being; singular in the constitution of His person as harmonizing and embracing the Divine and the human; singular in all His experience, singular in His conflicts, and singular in His death; and while we study the exhibition we are told that in view of it God can be just and yet forgive; that on the ground of the doing and the suffering of Jesus Christ pardon, full and free, may be extended to sin, to any sin, to all sin. This is the simple narrative, the answer which the Bible gives to the question, “Can a man be just with God?” E. Mason.
3. If a man should wish to plead his own cause he will not be able to meet one out of a thousand charges which infinite wisdom might adduce, and infinite power would punish. Job thus admits a relative and inherent injustice or sinfulness in himself, but only that which he has in common with his fellow men, thereby answering the insinuations of his false friends, and in reality vindicating himself from the charge of special guilt, supposed to be brought to light and demonstrated by his terrible punishment. Cook.—How shall he be justified by his works who hath not one perfectly good action among a thousand sins? He that would be justified by his works must not have one ill action among all his actions. One fly in the box of ointment corrupts all; one defect makes a sinner, but many good actions cannot make one righteous. Caryl.
4. Who hath hardened himself and prospered? No human soul is ever in exactly the same state or on the same plane after the truth is heard—better or worse, softer or harder, higher or lower, always. There is a hardening process which is involuntary, and which consists simply in the repetition of the same impression. To handle tools makes a callous hand; no event, however startling, could impress us a second time as it did the first; and so by handling truth carelessly we get callous of mind, and an unheeded warning or invitation of Providence or grace can never arouse us a second time as it did at first. No spiritual impression can ever repeat itself in the same form or by the same means. A conviction resisted becomes ultimately a conviction lost; a heart refusing to respond to love becomes at last insensible to love; a conscience disobeyed becomes by and by silent; a will choosing evil becomes finally incapable of any other choice. This is the law of involuntary and perhaps unconscious hardening. There is also a voluntary process of hardening. We may cultivate insensibility to want and woe—wilfully resist the truth, shut our eyes to light and turn the very message of life into a sentence of death. We may buy the “marble heart” if we will, and buy it cheap. We may sear conscience as with a hot iron, and it will cost but little pain to make it painless. A. T. Pierson.
5-13. In this grand description of God’s majesty Job’s immediate object is to establish the utter hopelessness of attempts to explain and vindicate His ways. Cook.—When Job has occasion to mention the wisdom and power of God he forgets his complaints, dwells with delight and expatiates with a flood of eloquence upon that noble subject. H.
8. It is of the greatest consequence that such a being as God should have images prepared to express Him and set Him before the mind of man in all the grandeur of His attributes. These He has provided in the heavens and the sea, which are the two great images of His vastness and power; the one remote, addressing itself to cultivated reason and science; the other nigh to mere sense, and physically efficient, a liquid symbol of the infinitude of God. Every kind of vastness—immensity, infinity, eternity, mystery, omnipotence—has its type in the sea. H. B.
Who alone stretcheth out the heavens. Outside our solar system there are constellations where every luminous point may be, and probably is, the centre of a system of its own, filled with vast and varied being. Beyond these visible stars, which seem like the first milestones in trackless space, there is the faint light called the Milky Way, which, by the aid of the telescope, can be resolved into masses of stars so distant from us that a ray of light from them would require thousands of years to reach us. The Milky Way is with good reason supposed to be the outer bound of that great stellary congregation to which all the visible stars belong, including our own sun. But in the depths of space, immeasurably beyond the Milky Way, there are systems and groups of systems as large as or larger than the whole field of creation already noticed. Our own galaxy is but a unit among many more. Beyond it there are others so distant that, as Sir John Herschel states, “the rays of light from some remoter nebulæ must have been two millions of years on their way.” In the presence of such conceptions thought is powerless. If we can realize all this as the product of one mind, how does it magnify our idea of it! How great the Being who not only comprehends all these worlds at a glance, but who made them, sustains them, and more than
fills them! “Behold the heaven, and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee.” Ker.
9. When he saith, “which maketh the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades,” Job means, which makes them appear or do their office; for the discourse is not about Creation, but about Providence; so that the meaning is only this, God orders the times of their rising and setting to distinguish the seasons of the year, and to produce their several effects in every season. Caryl. —He ordereth and disposeth them, as the word “maketh” is sometimes used in Scripture. Poole. — The names Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades are of late invention in comparison with the Hebrew Ash, Cesil and Cimah. What is here intended is to point out to us that all the constellations of heaven obey God in their several seasons. To the same purpose is that which venerable Bede delivers in his comment on this text: “By these constellations, which are more celebrated than almost all the stars in the firmament of heaven, it is signified that the whole system of the heavenly bodies is under the governance of God.” Chappelow.
9,10. The limit of the star-depths has not yet been found; no one has “stretched the line upon it.” But men have climbed out eagerly upon the farthest stars to get shadows and angles of measurement beyond. Thus far, however, a dim haze in the constellation of Orion seems to mark the outer rim of the visible universe. So distant is it that its light is thought to require at least fifty thousand years to reach us. Mean-time our sun has been discovered to be moving through space with the system of which our earth is one, and according to all analogy is believed to be making a “circuit” in the heaven, as David described it in the nineteenth Psalm. But about what centre? for that centre, when found, would seem the centre of all worlds. The independent studies of the German Mädler converging upon Alcyone, the brightest of the Pleiades, he has with great skill maintained that the pivot of the universe is there. As this conclusion has not been shown incredible, and as no other definite opinion has been ventured, it seems reasonable to say that the best astronomic conjecture of to-day would, to measure the visible universe, set its centre in the Pleiades, and stretching a radius to Orion, swing round through that the outer circle of the worlds. But in so doing the astronomer points us back to the words of Him who “answered Job out of the whirlwind,” who, emphasizing the depth of Divine mystery and the range of Divine omnipotence, blends with the question, “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?” the challenge,
“Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” If, indeed, the Pleiades be at the centre, and Orion at the outer rim of stellar space (and it is curious that the term translated “Pleiades” means in Chaldaic “the pivot,” and that “Orion” means in Greek “the border,” or “bound”), how better than in these words could the science of today express the range of Omnipotence! But our growing knowledge assures us that the absolute limits have not yet been reached, nor the contents even of the near world measured. The stars within the range of natural vision must always have seemed easily numerable, being not more than 1500 in any hemisphere. The famous catalogue of Hipparchus found 1022 the limit. But under the telescopic eye they swarm in increasing myriads, so that, as Herschel says, they lie upon the heavens like “glittering dust.” Professor Nichol says of the distant nebula of Orion, long thought to be unresolvable: “It would seem that if all other clusters hitherto gauged were collected and compressed into one, they would not surpass this mighty group, in which every wisp, every wrinkle is a sand heap of stars.” The dust of the earth, the sand of the sea thus alone seem adequate to symbolize the innumerable host of heaven now brought to view. And as deeper vision breaks up nebulae into stars, rank after rank of new worlds wheeling into view, but brings new nebulae again, we pause bewildered, as in presence of the Infinite. When we are further told that even with telescopic help we never see the body of the stars, but only their light—that so limited are our faculties at the best that, according to Professor Tyndall, two thirds of the sun rays are lost to us, because they fail to enter the channel of vision—and that, according to Professor Huxley, “the noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due to the dulness of our hearing,” and could we catch the “murmurs of these tiny maelstroms” (the life movements in the cells of the trees), “we should be stunned as with the rear of a great city”—do we not recognize the thought of Job, as rendered in Dr. Conant’s excellent version, “Who doeth great things, unsearchable; things wonderful, without number.” J. B. Thomas.
10. Marvellous things without number. On the earth we find things mysteriously small; in the heavens things mysteriously large. Here we have not merely inanimate atoms that are inconceivably minute, but also living beings furnished with all the organs of sense in the highest perfection, and yet barely visible as so organized under a microscope magnifying two hundred and fifty thousand times. And how far may even these living infinitesimals be from the last minims of animated nature! On the other hand, peering up through the night, we discover a world to which our earth is almost a nothing—twelve thousand million times greater—also a system of worlds within which could be packed away, at average star-distances from one another, the cube of that number of such spheres—nay, a system that actually embraces within its glorious rotund the whole materialism and spiritualism of the universe. . . . When the motion of spheres revolving in orbits about their common centre of gravity is seen to be incessant as well as universal; when it means the transfer through space of huge worlds and huger systems of worlds at the rate of 50,000 and even 1,200,000 miles an hour; where such a motion as this is combined with a thousand other motions woven together inextricably and yet never interfering with one another and separately calculable—as when a moon moves on its axis, also around its planet, also around the sun, also around the sun’s centre of revolution, and so on indefinitely; when each of these motions has superimposed on itself myriads of other motions called perturbations, struggling toward all points of the compass, we find ourselves as much lost in this vast wilderness of motions as ever was traveller in new lands or babes in a wood. So many questions can be asked about them that science cannot answer, nor hope to answer. What endless mazes! How the shuttles fly through the heavens in all directions, weaving out, we know not how, law and order and stability! Who can disentangle the threads that make up the wondrous web? Astronomy is helpless and hopeless in the presence of such labyrinths. Burr.
The telescope reveals a system in every star. The microscope discloses a world in every atom. The one announces that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity. The other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbor within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one declares the insignificance of the world I tread upon. The other redeems it from all its insignificance; for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one suggests that beyond and above all that is visible to man there may lie fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along and carry the impress of the Almighty’s hand to the remotest scenes of the universe. The other suggests that within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore there may be a region of invisibles; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all His attributes, where He can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidences of His glory. Then I can no longer resist the conclusion that it would be a transgression of sound argument, as well as a daring of impiety, to draw a limit around the doings of this unsearchable God; and should a professed revelation from heaven tell me of an act of condescension in behalf of some separate world, so wonderful that angels desired to look into it, and the eternal Son had to move from His seat of glory to carry it into accomplishment, all I ask is the evidence of such a revelation; for, let it tell me as much as it may of God letting Himself down for the benefit of one single province of His dominions, this is no more than what I see lying scattered in numberless examples before me, and meeting me in every walk of observation; and now that the microscope has unveiled the wonders of another region, I see strewed around me, with a profusion which baffles my every attempt to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no one portion of the universe of God too minute for His notice nor too humble for the visitations of His care. T. C.
14. Much less shall I. If all powers of earth and heaven are unable to stand against Him, how then could I?
15. My adversary, the person who contends with me in judgment. Job means that, were he conscious of perfect innocence, the might and wisdom of his adversary would leave him no option but supplication. Cook.—Though he vindicated his own integrity to his friends, and would not yield that he was a hypocrite and a wicked man, as they suggested, yet he would never plead it as his righteousness before God. I will never venture upon the covenant of innocency, nor think to come off by virtue of that. Job knew so much of God, and knew so much of himself, that he durst not insist upon his own justification before God. H.
16. The meaning of this verse is: If God really answered my appeal and permitted me to stand at the bar and plead my cause against
Him, I could not rely upon His hearing me; for that would involve an inconceivable condescension. Job, it must be noted, does not either renounce God or his own integrity, but he trenches on the grievous sin of imputing to Him a real disregard of justice. Such words must not be taken as a deliberate conclusion, but partly as the wanderings of a maddened and embittered spirit, partly as the struggles of a perplexed mind.
17. For. Literally, Who; but our translation preserves the sense. Job argues that God would not hearken to his supplication from the fact that He now pursues him with unceasing calamities. Cook.—Without cause. Without any extraordinary guilt which should procure such punishment. Clark.—Without cause. This consideration defines Job’s issue with the friends; and we, who know the Prologue, know that Job, on God’s own confession, has pronounced truly. This is no plea of sinlessness; Job would not make such a plea; but a complaint of multiplied wounds—punishment far beyond its desert. All sense of proportion between desert and punishment is lost in this experience. J. F. G.
17,18. Here, no doubt, he spake unadvisedly with his lips; he reflected on God’s goodness in saying that he was not suffered to take his breath, while yet he had such good use of his reason and speech as to be able to talk thus; and on His justice in saying that it was without cause. Yet it is true that, as there are many who are chargeable with more sin than the common infirmities of human nature, and yet feel no more sorrow than that of the common calamities of human life; so there are many who feel more than the common calamities of human life, and yet are conscious to themselves of no more than the common infirmities of human nature. H.
Job’s fundamental position is thoroughly false—that God is merciless, disposing of men in sheer arbitrary exercise of power, irrespective of all human worthiness or unworthiness. Could he have looked into that council chamber of heaven, he would have learned how God delights in the way of an upright man, and honors all sincere efforts to serve Him. He would have seen himself not as a victim of righteous retribution, but as a witness for God, by whom God would prove that He could inspire a character which would serve Him for nought. V.
20-24. These verses assert a great truth, but in a spirit which makes it a virtual untruth. From the certain truth that all men are guilty in God’s sight, equally unable to resist His power or to sustain His judgment, Job draws the false inference that they are all involved in one condemnation, those who in a true though relative sense are perfect, and those who are altogether wicked. Cook.
20. Though I be perfect, it shall prove me perverse. Observe hence that famous Gospel doctrine, No man can be justified before God by the works of the law. It is as noble a proof of free justification in the Old Testament as any in the New. Caryl.—Mine own mouth shall condemn me. Has the outside world been entirely fair and just in its judgments of the Church? Has it not judged Christianity by imperfect disciples, and has it not condemned these imperfect disciples because they are not what they never pretended to be? Has it not criticised half-finished work, and condemned, not only the work, but Christianity itself, because this work was not up to the sample? It is very common to hear men say that such and such a Christian is no better than the average of people outside of the Christian Church, thus condemning the genuineness of his character because he is not a perfect Christian. As Christians cannot by any possibility be perfected on the instant, the large majority must be in various stages of progress—nay, most of this large majority are not even half finished. The Christian Church itself is a piece of unfinished work, and every individual member is the same. I never knew a Christian to set himself up as a pattern. So far as I know they are very shy of pretension, and deprecate nothing more than the thought that anybody should take them for finished specimens of the work of Christianity in human life and character. J. G. Holland.
23,24. He will mock at the trial of the innocent. A fearful arraignment of the Divine government in two distinct counts: (1) If, in the course of affairs, the scourge slay the innocent, instead of saving or even pitying them He (God) laughs at their sufferings; and (2) instead of overthrowing and punishing the wicked, He gives the earth into their hands, while the judges themselves, by whom a better judgment should be meted out, are blinded so that they cannot administer justly. Curry.
23. He charges God with mocking at their perplexity, the temptation which besets them to question His goodness and wisdom. Jerome says truly: “There is in the whole book nothing harsher than this;” it is a Titanic outbreak of unutterable woe.
24. He covereth. So that they cannot discern between good and evil; the wrong is not merely committed with impunity, but altogether escapes the notice of those whose duty it is to administer justice. The second clause should be rendered: If it be not He, who then is it? Cook.—If God does not do that—well, then, who is it? Can it be denied this puzzling, shocking phenomenon must ultimately come from Him? Ewald.—Others besides Job have asked such questions. A. B. D.
The very confusions that are in the world are an argument for the power of God; for, seeing the world continue in the midst of such confusions, it shows there is a mighty power balancing those confusions so exactly that they cannot ruin the world. If there were not an overruling power in God, wicked men ruling would soon ruin all. There are mysteries of providence as well as of faith, and many are as much troubled to interpret what God doeth as what He hath spoken. Caryl.
In this passage Job’s spirit reaches the lowest abyss of its alienation from God. From this time onward his mind is calmer, and the moral idea of God begins to reassert its place in his thoughts. Here God appears to him as a mere omnipotent power, with a bias, if He have one, to evil and cruelty, and he speaks of Him distantly as “He.” His conception is but the reflection of his own case, as he conceived it, flung over the world, though his conception of his own case was false. In these verses Job traverses directly the maxim of his friends in regard to the discriminating righteousness of God, and the examples which he cites he might have used to demolish their theory. But he is little concerned with their theory here; later he does use his examples to drive them from the field. But here he is occupied with himself, with the impossibility of making his innocence, which he is conscious of, to appear and be admitted; for, of course, to himself and to all others his afflictions were the testimony of God to his guilt. And thus, though in the last verses his view extends to the world in general, he comes back in v. 25 to himself. A. B. D.
25-35. The rapidity with which life fleets away, and the greatness of his sorrows, make it impossible for Job to accept consolation; while the certainty of his condemnation, should he appeal for justice, makes expostulation or defence utterly useless; what he needs is an umpire, a daysman, standing between him and God, and a cessation of the infliction and terrors of Divine wrath; then he might plead his cause without fear of the result. Thus in the very depth of misery there comes (not, indeed, a hope, but) an aspiration for a Mediator. Cook.
25,26. Schultens very ingeniously suggests that Job compares the days of his prosperity in three several degrees with what we esteem the swiftest in the three elements—namely, with the quick despatches of the post by land; with the more expeditious motion of papyr-vessels by sea; and, which exceeds them both for swiftness, with the flight of the eagle in the air to his prey. Chappdow.—Swifter than a post. We must not think of any organized plan for the regular transmission of letters, but simply of the speed with which a courier charged with a special message, oral or written, travels. We suppose that Job had in view the speed of a man mounted on a swift dromedary—the animal usually employed in the regions where Job dwelt. Kitto.—How swift the motion of time!—it is always upon the wing, hastening to its period; it stays for no man. What little need have we of pastimes, and what great need to redeem time, when time runs on so fast toward eternity, which comes as time goes!
27,28. It is easy to preach patience to those that are in trouble, and to tell them they must forget their complaints and comfort themselves; but it is not so soon done as said. Fear and sorrow are tyrannizing things, not easily brought into the subjection they ought to be kept in to religion and right reason. H.
29. He forms for himself a gloomy, horrible representation of a God of absolute power, who rules and directs not according to objective standards of right, but according to the promptings of an arbitrary will subject to no restraint. It is the “just God” absolutely, in essence disjoined from all kindness and love, disposing of the destinies of men in accordance with an unconditional arbitrary decree, irrespective of all moral worthiness or unworthiness; such is the Being whom Job here delineates, and before whose hostile assaults on his person, guiltless as he knows himself to be, he recoils in shuddering anguish. Zöckler.—But his complaint of God as implacable and inexorable was by no means to be excused. It was the language of his corruption. He knew better things, and at another time would have been far from harboring any such hard thoughts of God as now broke in upon his spirit, and broke out in these passionate complaints. Good men do not always speak like themselves; but God considers their frame and the strength of their temptations; gives them leave afterward to unsay it by repentance, and will not lay it to their charge. H.
30. The thought suggested is that Job could really clear himself of guilt, but that his justification would be useless; it would not stand God’s judgment. In this, as throughout the passage, there is the recognition of a real and universal truth, but partially understood, and perverted by natural passion and infirmity. Job has a right, so far as regards his friends, to maintain his integrity; on the other hand, he is right in believing that no human being can be held innocent in God’s sight; but the former conviction is bound up with feelings which need chastening, the latter leads him to the inference that moral differences are disregarded by the Almighty. Cook.
30,31. These words are capable of a good construction. If we be ever so industrious to justify ourselves before men and to preserve our credit with them, if we keep our hands ever so clean from the pollutions of gross sin which fall under the eye of the world; yet God, who knows our hearts, can charge us with so much secret sin as will forever take off all our pretensions to purity and innocency, and make us see ourselves odious in the sight of the holy God. Paul, while a Pharisee, made his hands very clean; but when the commandment came and discovered to him his heart-sins, that plunged him in the ditch. H.
32-34. The preceding verses described how unavailing all Job’s efforts were to make out his innocence in the face of the fixed resolution of God to hold him guilty. Now Job comes back to what is the real difficulty—God is not a man like himself. A. B. D.—Take Job’s view of God, as the magnificent words (vs. 5-12) describe Him, overturning the mountains, shaking the earth, scaling the stars, striding upon the heights of the sea, and bringing this tremendous energy to bear in afflicting a poor, weak son of man, and do you wonder that he cried out for some one to stand between him and that awful power and holiness? V.
32. He is not a man, like me; this characteristic of God, removing Him from all human standards and conceptions, and making justice and mercy as between God and man mere empty names, is the ultimate root of Job’s problem. His deeply felt need, which his unexplained punishment makes palpable, is that God should be like man—that there should be some common ground of understanding between them. Thus his outreach from the depths is Messianic.
33. Nor is there any Daysman—only a negative assertion this, but noteworthy as suggesting what would solve his problem if only it were true, and especially noteworthy as originating with the human, with Job. And though only negative, yet it is to him such a fascinating idea that he broods upon it, and turns it over in his mind, and finally comes to believe and assert it. J. F. G.
Daysman. Or umpire. In some of the northern parts of England, any arbitrator, umpire, or elected judge is commonly termed a diesman or daysman. The word “day” in all idioms signifies judgment. Hammond.—
That might lay his hand upon us both. “The laying the hand, like a just umpire, on both parties,” implies a coercive power to enforce the execution of his decrees; this no one could have on the Almighty; it was therefore vain to contend with Him. Scott.—There is no prophecy of the Incarnation in these verses. But there is a cry of the human heart amidst its troubles that it might meet and see God as a man. Then man’s relation to Him might be understood and adjusted. That the cry is uttered under a misconception of God and of the meaning of His providence does not make the expression of man’s need any the less real or touching, for in our great darkness here misconceptions of God prevail so much over true conceptions of Him. A. B. D.
This complaint that there was not any daysman is, in effect, a wish that there were, and so the LXX read it: Oh, that there were a mediator between us! Job would gladly refer the matter, but no creature was capable of being a referee, and therefore he must even refer it still to God Himself, and resolve to acquiesce in His judgment. Our Lord Jesus is the blessed Daysman, who has mediated between heaven and earth, has laid His hand upon us both; to Him the Father has committed all judgment, and we must; but this matter was not then brought to so clear a light as it is now by the Gospel, which leaves no room for such a complaint as this. H.—There is, indeed, a Daysman betwixt God and man, but God Himself hath appointed Him. His own good-will and free grace moving Him thereunto, He stands engaged in the bonds of everlasting truth and faithfulness to perform what Jesus Christ, as Mediator, should ask for us. Unto Him we may safely commit our cause and our souls with that assurance of the apostle, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Christ, God-man, is umpire between God and man. What we trust Him with shall not miscarry; He will make our cause good and our persons acceptable before God in that great day. Caryl.
Job simply tells over again the old, old story of
the human heart : God is so remote, His majesty and power so transcendent, that direct approach to Him is impossible unless in something or some one the two lives and the two conditions meet and blend, so that a daysman may stand between, with one hand on weak, ignorant man, and the other touching the Divine throne itself and interpreting the one life to the other. This demand for a mediator is backed and urged by two great interlinked facts—sin and suffering. . . . Christ steps forth from the darkness which veils Calvary and says to the great host of the suffering : “ Here is suffering which is not retribution, suffering ministered by perfect love and issuing in power and purity.” We need, our great humanity needs, such a daysman, partaker of both natures, the Divine and the human, to show us suffering on its heavenly as well as on its earthly side, and to flood its earthly side with heavenly light by the revelation. The transfigured and the crucified Christ are one and the same. Suffering and glory blend in Him unto greater glory, and through Him God’s suffering servant learns that he suffers with Him that they may be glorified together. In Him we have the human experience of sorrow and its Divine interpretation. Job’s longing, therefore, is literally and fully met. To the cry that comes from that far-off wreck of earthly happiness, “ He is not a man, as I am,” we can
answer to-day, “ He is a man.” To the words, “ There is no daysman to lay his hand upon us both,” we answer, “ There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.” Vincent.