Job to Eliphaz: 1. Apologies and prayers.
I. A DESPERATE MAN'S DEFENCE.
1. Job's calamities surveyed.
2. Job's grief justified.
II. A MISERABLE MAN'S PRAYER.
1. Job's urgent request. "Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!" (verse 8)—that thing being death (cf. Job 3:21). Job longed for death as a release from his sufferings (Job 3:13); Elijah, under a sense of weariness and disappointment (1 Kings 19:4); Jonah, in a fit of rage and self-conceit (Jonah 4:8); St. Paul, through ardent longing for heaven (Philippians 1:23); Christ, through vehement desire after man's salvation (Luke 12:50).
2. Job's pitiful entreaty. "Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off" (verse 9). That Job does not think of taking his own life, although often strongly tempted to do so by his peculiar malady (Job 7:15, Job 7:16), although death was the paramount desire of his heart, and although he professed himself free from anxiety about the future, was a proof, not only of Job's regard for the sanctity of life, and of his clear recognition of God's proprietorship in that life, but also of his own moral integrity, and of the intensity with which he still shrank from the perpetration of known sin.
3. Job's melancholy plea. "Then should I yet have comfort" (verse 10). The mere anticipation of a speedy dissolution would not only cause him to forget his misery, it would thrill him with extreme delight; yea, if God would but assure him that every stroke was hastening his end, he would bear without a murmur the most unsparing affliction that might be laid upon him.
4. Job's twofold motive.
Learn:
1. Though religion requires sufferers to submit to God's chastisements, it does not oblige them to yield to man's unjust accusations. Job sinned not in replying to Eliphaz.
2. It is extremely hard to hold the balance evenly between the soul's calamities and the heart's griefs, whether in ourselves or others. Job blamed Eliphaz for not justly weighing his sufferings and his sorrow, while practically Eliphaz censured Job for a like offence.
3. Though it is a sore trial to a good man in affliction to miss the sympathy of friends, it is incomparably more painful and distressing to lone the sense of God's favour, not to speak of experiencing the frowns of God's anger. Shaddai's arrows and Eloah's terrors were infinitely harder for Job to bear than Eliphaz's insinuations.
4. The best of men are "poore sillie creatures' when God presseth them with judgments, quite incompetent to bear the shock of outward calamity unless God shall hold them up. Job's standing upright in the midst of such a tempest of tribulation as swept around him was a proof, not of man's strength, but of God's grace.
5. It is no sin to long for death, provided we wait God's time for its coming. Job, though urgent for release from his sufferings, would not be released by any hand but God's.
6. The best way to overcome the fear of death is to have a comfortable outlook into the future. Job was not afraid of dying, because not afraid of meeting God.
7. The best preparation for both death and eternity is not to conceal from our vision, but to hide within our hearts, the words of the Holy One.