Job 21
DOYLYVer. 2. Hear diligently my speech.] Let me prevail with you to attend to my discourse: do me this kindness, and it shall serve instead of those consolations which I promised myself from you. Bp. Patrick.
- As for me, is my complaint to man? If I had only to do with man in this my misery, and had no other to make my complaint to, I should have just reason to be utterly dejected; but now, I have a God to make my moan unto. Bp. Hall.
&c.] There he lies quietly in the earth, and none disturbs his ashes. He suffers nothing but what all men shall suffer after him, as innumerable have suffered before him. See then how ill you discharge the office of comforters, whose answers have so little truth in them!
For you maintain, that prosperity is the inseparable companion of piety; when every one can tell you, that none flourish more than the wicked, and that calamities are common to all mankind. Bp. Patrick.
The liveliness of Eastern poetry here represents the dead as having the same perceptions as if they were alive in their sepulchres: “He shall watch in the heap” of earth or stones that cover him; for such, the margin of our translation tells us, is the more exact import of the Hebrew: “the clods” around him, like those in some pleasant valley, or on the border of some torrent, “shall be sweet unto him;” alluding probably to the manner of ornamenting their sepulchres, by planting on or about them flowers and odoriferous herbs or shrubs. Harmer.
Chap. XXII. Job having constantly affirmed, in opposition to his friends, that God equally afflicts the righteous and the wicked; and having intimated, chap. xxii. 4, that his complaint was not to man but to God, Eliphas asks him, whether God hath any interest in refusing to bring him to that trial which he is so ready to call for. If, Eliphas adds, God declines Job’s challenge, it can be for no other reason, but that He is already fully aware of Job’s misconduct, and needs not to investigate the matter. This seems to be the intent of the whole chapter, which may be divided into two distinct parts: the first is reprehensory; for Eliphas reproves Job severely to the end of ver. 20: the second is hortatory, Eliphas earnestly moving Job to repentance by many promises, and by assurances that his repentance will not be in vain, from ver. 20 to the end of the chapter. Bp. Stock, Caryl.
Ver. 3. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty, that thou art righteous? If thou art as upright as thou pretended to be, still God is not indebted to thee for thy righteousness. Clark.
These words teach us that man, by doing good, cannot be profitable to God; that there is no accession of happiness to the Almighty, when we are righteous and walk in integrity; but that the advantage is all to ourselves. If God gives us laws, and commands us to observe them, He only does it for our good; and if
Job 21:5
5—13. Mark me, and be astonished, &c.] As Job well knew, that this account of the prosperity of the wicked, however necessary to his argument, would have something shocking in it to the ears of those to whom it was addressed, the delicacy with which he introduces it is inimitable. Ver. 5—7, as if he had said, That thus it is in fact, is plain. It is with awe and reverence I speak it. But as for you, I am persuaded, that you will never be able upon your principles to account for it. Peters.
Job 21:7
7—13. Wherefore do the wicked &c.] We have here a lively description of worldly felicity, drawn from the manners of Arabia, and adapted to the mode of wealth and sensual gratification in ancient times. Scott.
Job 21:12
12.—the organ.] The instrument here spoken of seems to have resembled the modern organ, so far as it consisted of a number of pipes set close, or joined together. We can hardly imagine it was very like the modern organ; it appears rather, from Esek. xxxiii.
Job 21:18
- They are as stubble before the wind.] In order to perceive the beauty and propriety of these images, we should recollect the practice in the East of threshing their corn in the open field, so that, if the wind happen to rise, the shattered straw and chaff are easily carried away. Scott.
Job 21:24
- His breasts are full of milk.] Rather, “his pastures are full of milk;” that is, of flocks and herds; he dies in opulence. Scott. Or, “his bowels” or intestines “are full of,” or abound with, “fat.” Parkhurst.
Job 21:27
- Behold, I know your thoughts.] I know what you would insinuate by the speeches which you make, such as this which follows, ver. 28, “For ye say, &c.” As if you should say, What is become of the house of Job, who lived like a prince? or what, in general, is the portion of the wicked? Does not a great and sure destruction overtake them? This is evidently the meaning of the question. The answer follows immediately, ver. 29, 30. Now if they were meant of a temporal destruction, it directly confirms the insinuation of the
Before CHRIST about 1520. slenteth away. punishment of his iniquity. very perfection, or, in the strength of his perfection. palls. The wicked are judged in another world. Man’s goodness profiteth not God. Before CHRIST about 1520. tent of the takerunies of the wicked?
Job 21:30
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- the day of destruction - the day of wrath.] By the “day of destruction” and the “day of wrath,” it will appear from the context, that no other can be meant than the future day of judgment; which to the wicked and ungodly is every where represented in Scripture as a day of wrath, a day of destruction. “They shall be punished (says St. Paul) with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power,” 2 Thess. i. 9. And so St. Peter (2 Pet. iii. 7.) calls the day of judgment, “the day of perdition of ungodly men.” And it is remarkable, that where Job declares to his friends, that he had been all along withheld from sinning by a pious awe of the Divine justice, (meaning, probably, the thought of a future judgment,) he uses a similar expression, chap. xxxi. 23, “Destruction from God was a terror to me.” The Hebrew word, as well as that in our translation, is the same that is used here.
To understand it of a temporal destruction, is to suppose Job to cut the neck of his own argument at once, and to fall in with the meaning of his friends. Peters.
33, 34. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, draw after him, as there are innumerable before him.