Job 15

Job 15:1-16

Vol. 1 arguments little avoid. Eliphas still sticks clap to the principles upon which he had condemned Job, and, 1. He represents him for justifying himself, and charges him with many things which he unfairly inferred from his disavow, ver. 2—13. 2. He persuades him to humble himself before God, ver. 14—15. 3. He tells him of the useful estate of the wicked, that harden their hearts against God, ver. 17—35.

1. THEN answered Eliphas the Temanite, and said, 2. Should a wife man utter + vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the eaft wind? 3. Should he reason with + unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? 4. Yea, thou g’cafest off fear, and restrained prayer before God. 5. Ev’ thy mouth h’uttereth thine iniquity, and thou chooseth the tongue of the crafty. 6. Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips restiny against thee. 7. Art thou the first man that was born? or ‘wall thou made before the hills? 8. ‘Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? 9. ‘What knoweth thou that we know not? ‘what understandeth thou, which is not in us? 10. With us are both the gray-headed, and very aged men, much elder than thy father. 11. Are the confessions of God small with thee? is there any secret thing with thee? 12. Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thine eyes wink at, 13. That thou turneth thy spirit against God, and letteth such words go out of thy mouth? 14. ‘What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15. Behold, ‘he putteth no truth in his faints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his fights. 16. ‘How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

Job’s friends had all spoken in turn, and Eliphas, who had opened the dispute, undertakes again to reply, much offended that Job produced to controvert their arguments, and from his own words endeavouring to produce sundry accusations, in confirmation of the point he so strenuously denied.

1. He reproaches him with folly and emptiness in his arguments, whereby he had for ever forfeited the character of a woman, v. 2, 3. His reasoning were vain, and his words blustering as the eaft wind, yet without solidity, unprofitable, and useless. Note, (1.) It is much easier to treat an adversary with contempt, than to answer him. (2.) Unprofitable talk deserves censure: they that must give an account of every idle word, need keep well the door of their lips.

2. He charges him with great impiety, as crafting off the fear of God, and refraining prayer before him, v. 4. Since the principles he advanced, according to Eliphas’s opinion, made all religion void. If the tabernaries of raiders professed, if just men were laughed to form, and God defray the perfect and the wicked, then, saith he, what use is it to fear him, or to pray to him, who laughed at the trial of the innocent? Such speeches Eliphas regards as deep iniquity, and the crafty ghoffes of piety, v. 5. with which Job covered his words, but could not conceal the hypocrisy within. His own lips, v. 7. spoke his condemnation, and no need was there for further proof. Note, (1.) It is too common for angry disputants to deflect the arguments of their adversaries, and to charge them with inferences from them, not only never dreamt of, but utterly abhorred. (2.) They that eaft off God’s fear, will not think of prayer; and they who restrain prayer, can have no fear of God before them;

Before Christ and such a prayetless and careless state is the sure proof of a man’s iniquity, and the forerunner of eternal ruin.

3. He arraigns him of arrogance and self-concern, as if his claim to an equality of understanding, they will: 2. was to be interpreted a monopoly of wisdom. Art thou the first man that was born? or before Adam? that all knowledge and experience must center in thee? Yea, art thou wise as God, pretending to be from everlasting! Wait thou made before the hills? or, did God confide with thee in his glorious works, and communicate to thee his great designs? May thou board the secret of God? and deft thou arrogate and restrain wisdom to thyself? What humanity thou that we know not? respecting age, those others; respecting numbers, and the current of antiquity, all are on our side: such as are both the gray-headed, and very aged men, made older than thy father. Note, (1.) Nothing is easier than to triumph over our adversary, by making him speak what he never meant, and thus confining our own suppositions. (2.) There are secret things which belong unto God, to pretend to fathom which, proves not our wisdom, but our pride and folly. (3.) Many appeal to antiquity, who would find it often hard to support their pretensions; not that error supported by antiquity is a bit the better for being the older: God’s word is the only sure guide. (4.) Grey heads are not always oracles: whatever veneration is due to them, truth is too great a fact; but to make to any man.

4. He accuses him of contemning the comforts of his friends, and the confessions of God, when those were the very things he wanted, and for want of which his complaint was bitter; but because he declared them miserable conductors, they would infer, as they spoke for God, that it was a slight put upon him. Are the confessions of God small with thee? despoiled and frightened. Is there any secret thing with thee? any charm that others know not of, to support thee; or any secret sin, that, being indulged, prevents the entrance of divine comforts? Note, (1.) Many speak in God’s name, whom he never sent, and would interest him in their quarrel, though he disowns any relation to them. (2.) The confessions of God are what an afflicted soul values above all things; with these every trial is lightened; without them, every burden grievous. (3.) Allowed his mercifully curs off the sources of true comfort.

5. He charges upon him insistence against God. Why death thou heart carry thee away? like an unruly horse, that refuses bit or bridle; and what do thine eyes wind at? Why so contemptuous of us? Or what is thy aim and intention in those hard speeches of thine, that thou turnest thy spirit against God, as if daring to contend with him, and letest such words go out of thy mouth? arraigning his wisdom, justice, and providence. It must be owned, Job had given some hands for this charge, elop. ix. 12. 8. 3. xiii. 22—27. but Eriphas draws a sudden temptation into a settled annuity and opposition against God, exaggerates the evil, and makes no allowance for his heavy afflictions, nor any account of the expressions of unfeigned piety, which he constantly mingles with his most impatient complaints.

6. He insinuates, that he justified himself as a man of sinless perfection, than which, nothing was farther from Job’s thoughts, for elop. xiv. 4. and therefore, from the glaring proof of man’s corruption, would infer Job’s fathom in his self-viadication. What is more that he should be clean? and he which is here of a woman, that he should be righteous? If the saints in glory are in his light imperfects, and the bright heavens, and the bulbs that inhabit them, are not clean in his light, how much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? as naturally disposed to it, as the appetite craves for food, and swallows it as greedily and plentiful, as those who are parched with thirst do the cooling draught. Note, (1.) Man is naturally disposed to evil, and only evil, and that continually. (2.) Indulgence in his makes our bestial appetites only the more craving. (3.) As both our nature and our ways are unclear before God, we can never in his sight presume to be justified. (4.) Sin is the abominable thing God hates, and will affareth punish, unless the soul be wafted in that blood of Jesus, which alone can make us clean.

7. I will shew thee, hear me, and that which I have seen, I will declare, 18. Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it: 19. Thou whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them. 20. The wicked man traveleth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. 21. * A dreadful sound is in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. 22. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is wanted for of the sword. 23. He wandreth abroad for bread, feast, where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. 25. For he streeteth out his hand against God, and strengtheth himself against the

Almighty. 26. He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bodies of his bucklers: 27. Because he covereth his face with fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks. 28. And he develeth in desolate cities, and in booths which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. 29. He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. 30. He shall not depart out of darkness, the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall be go away. 31. Let not him that is decreed truth in vanity: for vanity shall he his recompence. 32. It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green. 33. He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall calf off his flower as the olive. 34. For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. 35. They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepared deceit.

Job 15:17-35

Eliphas proceeds with his arguments, which are as weak as his reproaches were unjust. He infills the wicked are always miserable, and Job’s sufferings therefore are a sufficient proof of his guilt.

1. He bepleats Job’s attention; I will shew thee, hear me, something worth notice, and not such unprofitable talk as he had declared his to be, v. 3. He had claimed antiquity for his voucher, v. 10. and professes to speak not more his own sentiments, than the traditions of the wifes and hell of men, who were great as they were good, v. 19. and no stranger passed among them, either to share their blessings, or, as robbers, to plunder them; but their prosperity, the reward of their piety, was uninterrupted: in which he seems to glance at Job, unlike them in prosperity, and therefore unlike them in piety. Note, Experience is the wifes teacher.

2. He declares the wicked man, and his constant misery, wherein, though he speaks in a third person throughout, it is easy to see the application is designed for Job himself. He draws the character of the wicked man, v. 25—28. as daring in iniquity, fearless of God’s threatenings, mocking as his wrath as a bugbear, and, as a combatant in arms, rushing on the thick bodies of his buckles, as if defying his power, v. 3g. 16. In oath and luxury he riots, fed to the full, fattened as an ox in a rich pallure, gratifying every lust, and misinflating to the craving of a pampered appetite, v. 3g. By oppression he enlarges his habitation, and having seized the houses of others, makes desolations around him, as if he would dwell alone in the earth, to enjoy the fruits of his ill-gotten abundance, v. 28—35. Note, (1.) God is patient towards daring sinners, but these time of ruin is at hand. (2.) Sensual appetite is the soul’s ruin, and fleshly indulgence supplies the conscience against all fear of God, or sense of danger.

3. The misery of the wicked man is largely described. His mischievous devices cost him much painful thought, his conscience feels at times the pangs of guilt, and short is the reign of iniquity, v. 20. Terror haunts him, a dreadful sound is in his ears, a fearful looking for of judgment. In the midst of his prosperity, some calamity sweeps away his wealth, directs embitters all his portion, or death feasts him as his prey, v. 21. In his afflictions he sinks under defiant, and in hell it will be the consummation of his misery. The sword of vengeance hangs tremble over him, slamming each moment to fall, v. 22. Reduced to beggary, he wanders, summed with hunger, and more give unto him. The day of death approaching scares him, and still more the dreadful darkness that obscures his prospect beyond the grave, v. 23. Incrating troubles expected diforte him, eternal anguish in his wise dismay, and unable to resist, as a man before an armed hoff, he falls a prey to his own fears, v. 24. Poor in the midst of his abundance, his covetousness and caking care with-holds from him enjoyment; or, consumed on his lusts, he waftes quickly his ill-gotten wealth: at least, his possessions are transitory and vanishing as a dream, v. 29. His afflictive dissensions are without any prospect of an end; his children, like withered branches struck with lightning, die around him; and, at last, himself is cut off by the blasts of God’s dispassion, v. 30. Deceived by Satan to trust in present vanishes, he shails a lie in his right hand: let others see and dread such fatal delusion, v. 31. An immature death shall seize him, before the time his vain hope suggested; and, like a dry flick, all his wealth, family, and friends, shall perish before him, or forsake him, v. 32. Stopped by the temple of wrath, like the unripe grape, or the flower of the olive, he shall see the desolation of all that was dear to him, v. 33. Though hand join in hand, the congregation of the hypocrites shall be desolate: vain will be their pretexts of religion, when God comes to detect and punish them; his fire will consume the tabernacles of the wicked morphines, where bribery and corruption dwelt, v. 34. Thus shall the mischief, craft, and fathom of the wicked return upon his own head, and

The following and vanity, vexation, and ruin be his only portion, v. 35. Throughout all this description he seems to keep Job in his eyes; whose loafers, calamities, afflictions in his children, family, substance and person, he would intimate ground him to be this wicked man, this oppressor and hypocrite. Note. (1.) It is true the curse of God is upon the houses of the wicked, and sometimes, though not always, visible in this world. (2.) The happiest former has inward terrors, which all his enjoyments cannot soothe or chafy away. (3.) A dying hour, and judgment day at farthest, will verily all that is here asserted of the wicked, and more.