Job 10

As an illustration of the divine power, he now describes the appearance and effects which attend an earthquake; when “He shaketh the earth out of its place; the pillars thereof tremble, and the mountains are removed: when the sun and stars are sealed up in the gloom of darkness, and the sea is lifted mountains high.” He adverts also to the display of the divine power in the heavenly bodies above us, and speaks of the works of God as unsearchable and his wonders as innumerable; and yet himself passes unseen by—“seen only in his works.” Such is the majesty of God. “Though I were righteous, yet would I not answer: I would make supplication to my judge. Though perfect, I would not seem to know it,”

but rather submit, and throw myself on the mercy of my God. This one thing, however, I have said, and still maintain, “He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.” This is the same doctrine afore maintained by Solomon, that in the present life “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked.” ((Ecclesiastes 8:2).) This is so far from being the language of infidelity, that it is the grand moral argument for a future judgment. Such we conceive to be the import of a following verse, (24) “The earth is given into the hands of the wicked:” but their reign is an temporary. “He (God) covereth the faces of the judges thereof; and sends them to the bar of another world.

To cover one’s own face, is the expression of grief, or shame; but to have the face covered, (as Haman’s was, Esther vii. 8.) is the signal for execution. And if God himself did not this, “Who and where is he that could?” Job then goes on to lament the shortness of his time, and the little prospect of a restoration to peace and comfort. Though not “a wicked man,” in their sense of the term, which would imply that he were a hypocrite; yet he confesses that it would be in vain to attempt to justify himself before God, though he was far from acknowledging the charges which his friends had brought against him. Job, as Dr. Chalmers remarks, in his reasonings throughout this chapter, “is evidently oppressed by a feeling of want, without the full understanding of an adequate or appropriate remedy.”

He talks of washing in “snow-water,” as a purifier then greatly esteemed: but this could neither purify the heart, nor the conscience. “Thou wouldest plunge me in the ditch;” that is, a glance of thy scrutinizing eye would instantly discover my mind to be full of impurity, and my consciousness of the filthiness of my moral garments, would make me abhorrent in my own eyes. Viewing, then, the distance between himself and his Maker, no less in purity than in greatness, he is tempted to despair of being brought near to God; “For he is not a man as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment.” He goes on to lament that he had no mediator to take his part; no umpire; no middle person, to lay his hand on both parties, and procure a reconciliation.

“Happily we have such a Mediator, an advocate, one that “can speak well,” and argue the cause for us; and though he cannot plead our righteousness, he can plead his own on our behalf, which is infinitely better. Job himself recollected this Redeemer, and rejoiced in him. Chap. X. Ver. 1—22. Job proceeds with his argument and complaint.—It is impossible to understand Job’s strain of arguing, without we bear in mind his extreme agony of body and mind, which was evidently such as to confuse his thoughts, and deprive him of self-possession; and consequently often to involve him in inconsistency. Sometimes he shrinks into nothing, as it were, in the presence of his Maker, and confesses himself a sinner: at others, he remonstrates with him on his conduct, as in the chapter before us; and from the wisdom displayed in his formation, as being fashioned by the hands of the great Potter, he argues that he should have been treated with more care and tenderness, “Is it good (says he) that thou shouldest despise the work (the labour) of thine own hand, where the light is as darkness,

colt of the wild ass.” Applying this to Job, Zophar exhorts him to repentance, from a consideration of the dangers of hypocrisy, and the advantages of repentance. Arguments, these, doubtless good and just, but in this case misapplied, because they proceed on the false premises that Job was a wicked man, and suffering the judgments of the Almighty for his crimes; whereas these heavy afflictions, instead of judgments on his hypocrisy, were the trials of his faith. “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the rod is very pitiful;” i.e. full of pity, and of tender mercy. (James 5:11).

Notes on the verses

Chap. X. Ver. 1. My soul is weary of (“loathes”) my life: I will leave my comments upon myself.—That is, I will indulge my grief, and not seek Ver. 10. Hast thou not poured, &c.— Can the modern discoveries in anatomy qualify a poet to give a more just account of the principles of an embryo, and of the several stages of its growth, to a perfect fetus?” Scott (the poet.) + n Ps. 139. 13. The assured blessing of repentance. 1 Zophar reproveth Job for justifying himself. 6 God’s wisdom is unsearchable. 13 On answered Zophar the Naamathite, 4 and said, 2 Should not the multitude of words be * an- * fan 1 ” He should have remembered, however, that creation is a work of no difficulty with the Almighty; and that the formation of a worm or of a world is the same thing to him who “speaks and it is done: who commands, and it is established.”

((Psalms 33:9).) He can this day, if he please, tread down a whole race of creatures, and to-morrow call forth a new generation from their dust; and that with infinitely greater ease than the potter moulds his clay, first into one form, and then into another. But when Job intimates that he had been thus curiously formed, and carefully preserved, only to be a monument of wretchedness and wo; a mark, at which to shoot the arrows of affliction: a wild beast, to be hunted and destroyed; then he charges God foolishly, through ignorance of his designs; and into the same error, when we attempt to penetrate the secret counsels of the Almighty. But God is as well the moral Governor of the world as its Creator; and “he seeth not”

partially and imperfectly, “as man seeth.” His eye marks, and his memory records, every deviation from the most perfect rectitude; and Job therefore, deeply sensible of this, exclaims, “Do not condemn me;” confessing that there was ground for condemnation, and pleading for mercy at the hands of God. 1. Dr. Watts has, upon these words, some very judicious observations, from which we shall, in a few words, endeavour to extract the essence. 1. That God is the most suitable being for a good man in trouble to apply to; and therefore Job resolves to “trust in him, even though he slay” him. ((Job 13:15).) 2. In all his justifications of his own character, still he confesses himself a sinner in the sight of God.

In the very moment that he says, “Thou knowest that I am not wicked,” he says also, “Do not condemn me:” implying, as he elsewhere expresses it, “I have sinned; what shall I do unto Ver. 13. These things hast thou hid, &c.—That is, these troubles have been kept for me in thy secret counsels, to make me a spectacle of wretchedness and wo.— With thee—means, in the secret counsels of God, (Job 21:14). Ver. 16. Thou showest thyself marvellous.—Makest me a butt to shoot at, in order to display thy superior power and skill.;.: Ver. 17. Thou renewest thy witnesses (or testimonies) against me.— Every trial of his patience he considered as a fresh witness brought against him.— Changes and war.—Rather, “Conflict.”: Ver.

22. Without any order.—That is, a perfect chaos. See Gen. 1. 2.— Where the light is as darkness.—“Where the noontide is as utter extinction.” Dr. Good. (Where death projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life: without any order, having no arrangement, no distinction of inhabitants; the poor and the rich are there, the king and the beggar, their bodies in equal corruption and disgrace:—where the light is as darkness, a palpable obscure space and place, with only such a light or capability of distinction as renders “darkness visible.”)—Bagster.