Esther 8

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. VIII.—This world is but a changing scene. The favour even of kings is precarious; and riches make to themselves wings, and fly away. Men often lay up wealth, little thinking to whom it shall at last pertain, whether to a friend or a foe. The ten thousand talents, which were lately offered as the price of the Jews’ blood, now become the property of them whose lives were marked out for a prey. How just is the judgment of God; and with what care should we make sure those riches which will not be left behind, but will go with us into another world! Surely then the lives and interests of God’s people ought to lie the nearest to our hearts! And no advancement must make us to forget our poor relations. It is proper to present our petitions to God or men with earnestness, and attended with the utmost modesty. Though we have justice on our side, it becomes us, as inferiors, to use entreaty. Men’s mischief often survives them. They murder, even after their death, by the laws which they have made, the projects which they have set on foot, and the writings and sentiments which they have propagated. But absurd and entangling are those laws which have pride for their source and basis. And there is great need to hasten the relief when men’s lives are in danger: for when we have done wrong we cannot too quickly prevent the mischievous consequences of it. God quickly turns his people’s mourning into joy. And his alarming providences in their favour, effectually determine others to join them. The book of Job was perhaps written by Elihu, or Moses, or rather by Job himself; and the first two chapters, and part of the last, by Moses or Samuel. It is, for the substance of it, a true history of real facts. Job is represented as really existent as Noah or Daniel; Ezek. xiv. 14. 20; and as a patient sufferer who obtained a joyful deliverance; Jam. v. 11. It is an ancient history. The length of Jobs’ life; the rare use of the divine name of JEHOVAH, and frequent use of SHADDAI, or Almighty and All-sufficient; the remarkable remains of religion in the land of Uz and the places about; the mentioning of no other idolatry but that of worshipping the sun and moon; the never making any plain allusion to the dividing of the Red sea, or to the appearance of God to the Israelites in the wilderness, which lay at no great distance from the land of Uz; strongly tempt one to think that Job’s distress might be about the time when Moses lived in the land of Midian, or perhaps an hundred years before. We have here (1) The history of Job’s sufferings, and his remarkable patience under them, issuing in a sad mixture of human weakness, in his cursing the day of his birth, chap. i. ii. iii. (2) A hot dispute between him and Eliphaz, Bildud, and Zophar, his friends, Whether remarkable judgments be certain tokens of the wickedness of those upon whom they are inflicted. The aim of Job is to bewail his own affliction, complain of its weight, justify himself from gross wickedness or hypocrisy, and prove that wicked men often prosper in this world, while the godly are exposed to manifold calamities. The scope of his friends is to prove, that no good man is subjected to extraordinary calamities, but that the most wicked men ordinarily are; and hence to condemn Job as an hypocrite, because of his uncommon troubles; iv—xxxi. (3) A decision of the dispute; first by Elihu, another of Job’s friends, and then by God himself. The aim of Elihu is to leave Job’s state undetermined, or even to admit it to be good; and only to charge him with his misbehaviour under his trouble as too arrogant and self-justifying, especially when he had to do with a God of infinite sovereignty, greatness, power, wisdom, and justice. The scope of Jehovah’s speech is to convince Job of his meanness, and of his own infinite power, greatness, and extensive influence; and thereby lead him into a sense of his iniquity, in insisting so much upon his own justification, and complaining so unguardedly of the providence of God:—and at last he justifies him, in opposition to his three friends, in his character and sentiments; xxxii—xlii. (4) The whole issues in Job’s great honour and redoubled prosperity; xlii. In this book we have at once a most noted encouragement to patience, and a system of the most ancient believers’ apprehensions and faith concerning the wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and sovereignty, of God; and concerning his works of creation and providence; concerning the original and actual corruption of mankind; concerning redemption by Christ, and the usefulness of good works; and, in fine, concerning the resurrection of the dead and eternal life. 60 65 6 E