Welcome counsel.
Among the happy circumstances of Job's sunny days of prosperity, he recalls the welcome that was accorded to his words of advice. Too often advice is more freely offered than thankfully received. Let us, then, consider the quality, the utility, and the acceptance of welcome counsel.
I. THE QUALITY OF WELCOME COUNSEL. What conditions must be fulfilled to make advice worthy of acceptation?
1. It must be full of knowledge. A glib tongue is ready enough to offer gratuitous advice, but we want to ascertain whether a full mind is inspiring it. Religious teachers must know for themselves before they can safely lead others. The doubt that is pardonable in the private person may be fatal to the public instructor.
2. It must be based on experience. Evidently Job was a man of wide experience. He spoke out of the fulness of his own observation of the world. Armchair counsellors are not much valued. An apprenticeship must be served to the affairs on which we would give advice.
3. It must be accompanied by practical wisdom. Knowledge and experience may find a man very foolish, and leave him so. We have to learn how to apply our acquisitions. We need practical tact in dealing with men and affairs.
4. It must be offered in sympathy. It is very little good to give preaching advice. We must talk to a man as a brother. We must let people see that we care for them, and that we are truly studying their good. A suspicion that the advice is not disinterested vitiates it entirely.
II. THE UTILITY OF WELCOME COUNSEL. Bushels of advice have to be thrown on one side as so much burdensome rubbish. Nevertheless, the rare value of really good advice is beyond all reckoning.
1. Right living is supremely important. Counsel deals with life rather than with opinions. It touches conduct. Now, as Matthew Arnold quaintly says, "conduct is three parts of life." Anything that really helps conduct must be valuable.
2. Right living is not easy. We are often perplexed and in uncertainty. Our prejudices and interests warp our judgments.
3. External advice brings new light. It may not be better than what we already possess; but it is an addition. The wise counsellor helps us to look at our affairs from a fresh point of view. At the same time, he comes with a certain calmness and detachment that enable him to take a fair view of the situation.
III. THE ACCEPTANCE OF WELCOME ADVICE.
1. It needs humility to receive it. We are all ready to receive the advice that concurs with our previous opinions; but that advice is scarcely needed. The difficulty is to accept the advice that contradicts our notions or wishes. Pride resents it; yet it may be most needful to us.
2. It should be taken with discrimination. Well-meant advice may be very foolish; even wise advice is not infallible. We have to select what commends itself to our judgment.
3. It ought not to supersede independent thought and choice. We may be advised by counsellors; but we have no business to let ourselves be ruled by them. After all, it is we and not they who will be responsible for what we do. Let us, then, preserve independence of judgment, and cultivate strength of will.
4. It deserves to be treated with gratitude. For the sake of its value. Also because, if it is worth much, it must have cost our counsellor time and pains. Too often giving advice is a very thankless task. N.B.—All earthly counsel is useful only in so far as it follows the heavenly, of which it is a type. The most welcome counsel should be that which comes through the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.—W.F.A.
Job_30:1-31
EXPOSITION
The contrast is now completed. Having drawn the portrait of himself as he was, rich, honoured, blessed with children, flourishing, in favour with both God and man, Job now presents himself to us as he is, despised of men (verses 1-10), afflicted of God (verse 11), a prey to vague terrors (verse 15), tortured with bodily pains (verses 17, 18), cast off by God (verses 19, 20), with nothing but death to look for (verses 23-31). The chapter is the most touching in the whole book.
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. As Job had been speaking last of the honour in which he was once held, he beans his contrast by chewing how at present he is disgraced and derided. Men who are outcasts and solitary themselves, poor dwellers in caves (verse 6), who have much ado to keep body and soul together (verses 3, 4), and not men only' but youths, mere boys, scoff at him, make him a song and a byword (verse 9). nay, "spare not to spit in his face" (verse 10). There seem to have been in his vicinity weak and debased tribes, generally contemned and looked down upon, regarded as thieves (verse 5) by their neighbours, and considered to be of base and vile origin (verse 8), who saw in Job's calamities a rare opportunity for insulting and triumphing over a member of the superior race which had crushed them, and thus tasting, to a certain extent, the sweetness of revenge. Whose fathers I would have disdained (rather, I disdained) to have set with the dogs of my flock. Job had not thought their fathers worthy of employing even as the lowest class of herdsmen, those reckoned on a par with the sheep-dogs.
Yes, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? Men, who had no such strength in their hands as to yield an employer any profit—poor, weak creatures, in whom old age (rather, manly vigour) was perished. An effete race seems to be pointed at, without strength or stamina, nerveless, spiritless, "destined to early decay and premature death;" but how they had sunk into such a condition is not apparent. Too often such remanents are merely tribes physically weak, whom more powerful ones have starved and stunted, driving them into the least productive regions, and in every way making life hard for them.
For want and famine they were solitary; rather, they were gaunt (see the Revised Version). Compare the descriptions given to us of the native races of Central Africa by Sir S. Baker, Speke, Grant, Stanley, and others. Fleeing into the wilderness; rather, gnawing the wilderness; i.e. feeding on such dry and sapless roots and fruits as the wilderness produces. In former time desolate and waste; or, on the eve of wasteness and desolation.
Who cut up mallows by the bushes. One of the plants on which they feed is the malluch, not really a "mallow," but probably the Atriplex halimus, which is "a shrub from four to five feet high, with many thick branches; the leaves are rather sour to the taste; the flowers are purple, and very small; it grows on the sea-coast in Greece, Arabia, Syria, etc; and belongs to the natural order Chenopodiace". And juniper roots for their meat. Most moderns regard the rothen as the Genista monosperma, which is a kind of broom. It is a leguminous plant, having a white flower. and grows plentifully in the Sinaitic desert, in Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. The root is very bitter, and would only be used as food under extreme pressure, but the fruit is readily eaten by sheep, and the roots would, no doubt, yield some nourishment.
They were driven forth from among men. Weak races retreat before strong ones, who occupy their lands, and whose will they do not dare to dispute. They are not intentionally "driven out," for the strong raecs would gladly make them their drudges; but they retire into the most inaccessible regions, as the primitive population has done in India and elsewhere. They cried after them as after a thief. Outcast tribes naturally, and almost necessarily, become robber-tribes. Deprived of their productive lands, and driven into rocky deserts, want makes them thieves and marauders. Then those who have made them what they are vilify and decry them.
To dwell in the cliffs of. the valleys; of in the clefts (Revised Version). Western Asia is full of rocky regions, seamed with deep gorges and clefts, the walls of which rise abruptly or in terraces, and are themselves pierced with caves and cracks. The tract about Petra is, perhaps, the most remarkable of these regions; hut there are many others which closely resemble it. These places afford refuges to weak and outcast tribes, who hide in them, either in caves of the earth, or in the rocks. The Greeks called these unfortunates "Troglodytes", the Hebrews "Horim," from חוֹר "a hole."
Among the bushes they brayed. The sounds which came from their mouths sounded to Job less like articulate speech than like the braying of asses. Compare what Herodotus says of his Troglodytes: "Their language is unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats." Under the nettles (or, wild vetches) they were gathered together; rather, huddled together.
They were children of fools. The physical degeneracy whereof Job has been speaking is accompanied in most instances by extreme mental incapacity. Some of the degraded races cannot count beyond four or five; others have not more than two or three hundred words in their vocabulary. They are all of low intellect, though occasionally extremely artful and cunning. Yea, children of base men; literally, children of no name. Their race had never made for itself any name, but was unknown and insignificant. They were viler than the earth; rather, they were scourged out of the land. This must not be understood literally. It is a rhetorical repetition of what had been already said in verse 5. The expression may be compared with the tale in Herodotus, that when the Scythian slaves rebelled and took up arms, the Scythians scourged them into subjection (Herod; 4.3, 4).
And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword (see above, Job 17:6; and comp. Psalms 69:12).
They abhor me, they flee far from me; rather, they abhor me, they stoat aloof from me (see the Revised Version). And spare not to spit in my face. This has generally been taken literally, as it seems to have been by the LXX. But it, perhaps, means no more than that they did not refrain from spitting in Job's presence.
Because he hath loosed my cord. "He," in this passage, can only be God; and thus Job turns here to some extent from his human persecutors to his great Afflicter, the Almighty. God has "loosened his cord," i.e. has relaxed his vital fibre, taken away his strength, reduced him to helplessness. Hence, and hence only, do the persecutors dare to crowd around him and insult him. And afflicted me. God has afflicted him with blow after blow—with impoverishment (Job 1:14-17), with bereavement (Job 1:18, Job 1:19), with a sore malady (Job 2:7). They have also let loose the bridle before me. This has given his persecutors the courage to east aside all restraint, and lead him with insult after insult (verses 1, 9, 10).
Upon my right hand rise the youth; literally, the brood; i.e. the rabble—a crowd of half-grown youths and boys, such as collects in almost any town to hoot and insult a respectable person who is in trouble and helpless. In the East such gatherings are very common and exceedingly annoying. They push away my feet; i.e. they try to throw me down as I walk. They raise up against me the ways of their destruction. They place obstacles in my way, impede my steps, thwart me in every way that they find possible.
They mar my path; i.e. interfere with and frustrate whatever I am bent on doing. They set forward my calamity, Professor Lee translates, "They profit by my ruin." They have no helper. If the text is sound, we must understand, "They do all this, they dare all this, even though they have no powerful men to aid them." But it is suspected that there is some corruption in the passage, and that the original gave the sense which is found in the Vulgate," There is none to help me."
They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters; i.e. with a force like that of water when it has burst through a bank or dam. In the desolation they relied themselves upon me. Like the waves of the sea, which follow one after another.
Terrors are turned upon me Job seems to pass here from his human persecutors to his internal sufferings of mind and body. "Terrors' take hold upon him. He experiences in his sleep horrible dreams and visions (see Job 7:14), and even in his waking hours he is haunted by fears. The "terrors of God do set themselves in array against him" (Job 6:4). God seems to him as One that watches, and "tries him every moment" (Job 7:18), seeking occasion against him, and never leaving him an instant's peace (Job 7:19). These terrors, he says, pursue my soul as the wind; literally, pursue mine honour, or my dignity. They flutter the calm composure that befits a godly man, disturb it, shake it, and for a time at any rate, cause terrors and shrinkings of soul. Under these circumstances, my welfare passeth away as a cloud. It is not only my happiness, but my real welfare, that is gone. Body and soul are equally in suffering—the one shaken with fears and disturbed with doubts and apprehensions; the other smitten with a sore disease, so that there is no soundness in it.
And now my soul is poured out upon me (comp. Psalms 42:4). My very soul seems to be gone out of me. "I faint and swoon away, because of my fears" (Lee). The days of affliction have taken hold upon me. All my prosperity is gone, and I am come to "the days of affliction." These "take hold on me," and, as it were, possess me.
My bones are pierced in me in the night season. In Elephantiasis anaesthetics' says Dr. Erasmus Wilson, "when the integument is insensible, there are deep-seated burning pains, sometimes of a bone or joint, and sometimes of the vertebral column. These pains are greatest at night; they prevent sleep, and give rise to restless,less and frightful dreams". And my sinews take no rest; rather, my gnawings, or my gnawing pains (see the Revised Version; and comp. Job 30:3, where the same word is properly rendered by "gnawing [the wilderness]").
By the great force of my disease is my garment changed; or, disfigured. The purulent discharge from his ulcers disfigured and made filthy his garment, which stiffened as the discharge dried, and clung to his frame. It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. The whole garment clung to his body as closely as it is usual for a mall's collar, or "neck-hole" (Professor Lee), to cling about his throat.
He (i.e. God) hath cast me into the mire. "The mire" here is the lowest depth of misery and degradation (comp. Psalms 40:2; Psalms 69:2, Psalms 69:14). Job feels himself cast into it by God, but nevertheless does not forsake him nor cease to call upon him (verses 20-23). And I am become like dust and ashes; i.e. unclean, impure, offensive to my fellow-men, an object of dislike and disdain.
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me. It is the worst of all calamities to be God-forsaken, as Job believed himself to be, because he had no immediate answer to his prayers. The bitterest cry upon the cross was "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" But no good man is ever really God-forsaken, and no rightful and earnest prayers are ever really unheard. Job "had need of patience" (Hebrews 10:36), patient as he was (James 5:11). He should have trusted God more, and complained less. I stand up, and thou regardest me not; rather, I stand up, as the manner of the Jews usually was in prayer (Luke 18:11), and thou lookest at me (see the Revised Version). Job's complaint is that, when he stands up and stretches out his hands to God in prayer, God simply looks on, does nothing, gives him no help.
Thou art become cruel to me; literally, thou art turned to be cruel to me. In other words, "Thou art changed to me, and art become cruel to me." Job never forgets that for long years God was gracious and kind to him, "made him and fashioned him together round about," "clothed him with skin and flesh, and fenced him with bones and sinews," "granted him life and favour, and by his visitation preserved his spirit" (Job 10:9-12); but the recollection brings, perhaps, as much of pain. as of pleasure with it. One of our poets says—
"Joy's recollection is no longer joy;
But sorrow's memory is a sorrow still."
At any rate, the contrast between past joy and present suffering adds a pang to tile latter. With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me; literally, with the might of thy hand dost thou persecute me (see the Revised Version). "Haec noster irreverentius" (Schultens); comp. Job 19:6-13.
Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou tensest me to ride upon it; i.e. thou makest me to be storm-tossed. I am as it were a straw caught up by a whirlwind, and borne hither and thither in the wide regions of space, unknowing whither I go. I am treated as I have described the wicked man to be treated (Job 27:20, Job 27:21). And dissolvest my substance. "Dissolvest me entirely" (Professor Lee); dissolvest me in the storms (Revised Version).
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death. Job has all along expressed his conviction that he has nothing to look for but death. He feels within himself the seeds of a mortal malady; for such, practically, was elephantiasis in Job's time. He is devoid of any expectation of recovery. Death must come upon him, he thinks, ere long; and then God will bring him to the house appointed for all living. This, as he has already explained (Job 10:21, Job 10:22), is "the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." It is a melancholy prospect; but we must regard it as cheered by the hope of an ultimate resurrection, such as seems indicated, if not absolutely proclaimed, in Job 19:25-27 (see the comment on that passage).
Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. This is one of the most obscure passages in the entire Book of Job, and scarcely any two independent commentators understand it alike. To give all the different renderings, and discuss them, would be an almost endless task, and one over-wearisome to the reader. It will, per-Imps, suffice to select the one which to the present writer appears the most satisfactory. This is the rendering of Professor Stanley Leathes, who suggests the following: "Howbeit God will not put forth his hand to bring a man to death and the grave, when there is earnest prayer for them, not even when he himself hath caused the calamity." The same writer further explains the passage as follows: "I know that thou wilt dissolve and destroy me, and bring me to the grave (verse 23), though thou wilt not do so when I pray to thee to release me by death from my sufferings. Thou wilt surely do so [some time or other], but not in my time, or according to my will, but only in thine own appointed time, and as thou seest fit."
Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? i.e. do I claim a sympathy which I do not deserve? When men wept and entreated me, did not I do my best to give them the aid which they requested? Did not I weep for them, and intercede with God for them? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? (comp. Job 29:12-17; Job 31:16-22).
When I looked for flood, then evil came unto me. Job was "looking for good," expecting fully the continuance of his great wealth and prosperity, when the sudden shock of calamity fell upon him It was wholly unexpected, and therefore the harder to bear. And when I waited for light, there came darkness. This may refer to periods, after his calamities began, when he had hopes that his prayers would be answered, and a rest or pause, an interval of repose, be granted him (Job 9:34; Job 10:20), but when his hopes were disappointed, and the darkness closed in upon him thicker and murkier than ever.
My bowels boiled, and rested not; rather, boil and rest not (see the Revised Version). It is his present condition of which Job speaks from verse 27 to verse 31. His "entrails," i.e. his whole innermost nature, is disturbed, tormented, thrown into confusion. The days of affliction prevented me; rather, are come upon me (comp. verse 16).
I went mourning without the sun; rather, I go about blackened, but not by the sun. Grief and suffering, according to Oriental notions, blackened the face (see Lamentations 4:8; Lamentations 5:10; Psalms 119:83; and below, Psalms 119:30). I stood up, and I cried in the congregation; rather, I stand up in the assembly' and cry for help (see the Revised Version). Job feels this as the most pitiable feature in his ease. He is broken down; he can no longer endure. At first he could sit in silence for seven days (Job 2:13); now he is reduced to uttering complaints and lamentations. He is a brother, not to dragons, but to jackals. His laments are like the long melancholy cries that those animals emit during the silence of the night, so well known to Eastern travellers. He adds further that he is a companion, not to owls, but to ostriches; which, like jackals, have a melancholy cry.
My skin is black upon me (see the comment on Job 30:28, Job 30:29, ad init.), and my bones are burned with heat. The "burning pains" in the bones, which characterize at least one form of elephantiasis, have been already mentioned (see the comment on Job 30:17). In ordinary elephantiasis there is often "intense pain in the lumbar region and groin," which the patient might think to be in his bones.
My harp also is turned to mourning. The result of all is that Job's harp is laid aside, either literally or figuratively. Its music is replaced by the sound of mourning (see verses 28, 29). And my organ (or rather, my pipe) into the voice of them that weep. The pipe also is no longer sounded in his presence; he hears only the voice of weeping and lamentation. Thus appropriately ends the long dirge in which he has bewailed his miserable fare.
HOMILETICS
Job's second parable: 2. A lamentation over fallen greatness.
I. THE CHARACTER OF JOB'S DERIDERS.
1. Juniors in respect of age. (Verse 1.) These were not the young princes of the city (Job 29:8), by whom he had formerly been held in reverential regard, but "the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men" (Delitzsch) dwelling in the neighbourhood. Job's inferiors in point of years, they should have treated him with honour and respect (Le 19:32), especially when they beheld his intense wretchedness and misery. That they failed to accord him such veneration as was due to seniority in age, and much more that they made him the butt of their contemptuous derision, was not only an express violation of the dictates of nature and religion, but a special mark of depravity in themselves, as well as a certain index to the social and moral degradation of the race to which they belonged. The good qualities of an advancing and the bad qualities of a retrograding people, infallibly discover themselves in the moral characteristics of the youthful portion of the community.
2. Base in respect of ancestry. (Verses 1, 8.) The foregoing inference from the ribald behaviour of the younger men Job confirms by describing them as "children of fools, yea, children of base men," literally, "of men without a name," and as men "whose sires" he "would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock." It is doubtful if Job does not in this and other expressions of this passage (verses 1-8) repay the contempt of his scornful assailants with fourfold liberality, thereby failing to evince that meekness in resenting injuries which good men should study to display, and perpetrating the same offence which he imputes to others, as well as talking about his fellow-men (God's creatures and God's children no less than himself) in a way that was scarcely excusable even in a patriarchal sage. Nevertheless, what he purposes to convey through the medium of his heated, if also poetic, language is that his revilers were the offspring of a vile, worthless, degraded, brutalized race, who had well-nigh sunk to the level of the beasts that perish.
3. Worthless in respect of service. (Verse 2.) Like their fathers whom Job would have disdained to rank with the dogs of his flock, i.e. whom he regarded as not worthy of being compared to these wise and faithful animals who watched his sheep, they (i.e. these younger vagabonds) were idle and effeminate triflers, lazy, worthless rascals, as little able to work as willing, the ethnic deterioration they were undergoing revealing itself in enervated physical constitutions no less than in depraved moral dispositions. The truth here enunciated with regard to nations and communities is also true of individuals, that sin, vice, immorality, has a tendency to impair the bodily strength, mental vigour, and moral power of such as yield to its fatal fascinations.
4. Furnished in respect of food. (Verses 3, 4.) Strangely blending pity with scorn, Job informs us that in great part the feebleness of those wretched creatures, who "could bring nothing to perfection" (Cox), and were not worth employing to do the work of a shepherd's dog, was due to the difficulty they had in finding nourishment. Lean and haggard, benumbed from want and hunger, they literally gnawed the desert, picking up such scanty sustenance as the barren steppe afforded, plucking mallows in the thicket, i.e. "the salt-wort from off the stalk" (Fry), the salt-wort, or sea-purslain,- being a tall shrubby, plant which thrives in the desert as well as on the coast, "the buds and young leaves of which" also "are gathered and eaten by the poor" (Delitzsch); and taking the roots of broom for their bread, the broom abounding in the deserts and sandy places of Egypt and Arabia, and growing to a height sufficient to afford shelter to a person sitting down. A melancholy picture of destitution, which has its counterpart not only among expiring races, effete desert tribes, and wretched Troglodytes, but also in many a centre of modern civilization. It is hardly questionable that in the lower strata of society in our large cities there are thousands for whom the physical conditions of life are as severe as those just depicted by the Poet.
5. Outcasts in respect of society. (Verse 5.) In consequence of their pilfering and marauding habits, they were banished forth from the pale of the organized community Nay, when it happened that they ventured near the precincts of civilized life, they at once became the objects of a hue and cry, men hallooing after them as they did after a thief, and chasing them away to their own miserable haunts of poverty and vice. It is clear they were the criminal classes of patriarchal times, and were regarded with much the same abhorrence as the pariahs of modern society, who wage war against all constituted authority, prey upon the industry of the virtuous and law-abiding, and as a consequence live in a perpetual state of social ostracism.
6. Troglodytes in respect of habitation. (Verse 6.) Driven beyond the pale of civilized society, they were compelled "to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys," literally, "in the horror of glens," i.e. in dismal and gloomy gorges, like the Horites (or cave-men) of Mount Seir (Genesis 14:6), betaking themselves for shelter to the caves of the earth and the holes in the rocks. According to modern scientific theory, they would exemplify man in the earliest or lowest stage of his development; according to the testimony of revelation, the Troglodytes would attest man's degeneracy from a primeval standard of perfection. And so persistent is this downward tendency in man apart from Divine grace, that almost every civilized community has its social and moral Troglodytes, who dwell in dismal valleys—its wretched outcasts, children of sin and shame, whose lurking-places are dens of infamy and haunts of vice.
7. Dehumanized in respect of nature. (Verse 7.) Having previously (Job 24:5) described these evicted aborigines as leading a gregarious life, like wild asses roaming the desert under the guidance of a leader (Job 39:5), Job recurs to the comparison to indicate, not the eager ferocity with which they scour the steppe for fodder, but how near to the brutes they have been brought by their misery, representing them as huddling themselves together under the bushes, and croaking out, in unintelligible jargon like the brayings of an ass, a doleful lamentation over their miserable condition. Herodotus compares the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians to the screeching of bats. The speech of savage races is mostly composed of "growling gutturals and sharp clicks" (Cox). As a nation advances in civilization its tongue purifies and refines. Like the cave-men of Western Asia and Ethiopia, the moral Troglodytes of society have a jargon of their own; e.g. the language of thieves.
II. THE BEHAVIOUR OF JOB'S DERIDERS.
1. Mockery and contempt. (Verses 1, 9, 10.) Physically and morally degraded, this worthless rabble of marauders, half men and half beasts, having fallen in with Job in their wanderings, were so little touched by sympathy for his misfortunes, that they turned his miseries into merry jests, and made bywords of his groans. It is a special mark of depravity when youth mocks at age (2 Kings 2:3) and laughs at affliction. The experience of Job was reproduced in the eases of David (Psalms 35:15; Psalms 69:12), Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:14, Lamentations 3:63), and Christ (Matthew 27:43; Luke 23:35).
2. Insult and outrage. (Verse 10.) They gave open and undisguised expression to the abhorrence with which they regarded him, by fleeing far from him, or standing at a distance, and making their remarks upon him. If they ventured to come near him it was either to spit in his presence, "the greatest insult to an Oriental" (Carey), or perhaps to spit in his face (cf. Numbers 12:14; Deuteronomy 25:9), thus carrying their contempt and scorn to the lowest depth of indignity. Job had fallen low indeed to be thus outraged by the vilest dregs of society; but not lower than did Christ, who was similarly treated by the rabble of Judaea (Matthew 26:67; Matthew 27:30), as long before it bad been predicted that he should be (Isaiah 1:6). No doubt in all this Job's sufferings were typical of Christ's.
3. Hostility and violence. (Verses 12-15.) Not content with words and gestures, the young vagabonds proceeded to acts of open violence. Having found the poor fallen prince groaning in wretchedness and misery upon the ash-heap outside his house, they abstained not from direct hostility. Like a crowd of witnesses starting up on his right hand, they overwhelmed him with accusations; like an army of assailants thrusting his feet away, they disputed with him every inch of ground, compelling him to retire ever further and further back; pressing on like a tumultuous besieging host, they cast up their ways of destruction, i.e. their military causeways, against him, tearing down his path so as to render escape impossible, breaking in upon him as through a wide breach, and causing him to flee in terror before their irresistible approach, so that his nobility was dispersed like the wind, and his prosperity swept away like a cloud.
III. THE MOTIVE JOB'S DERIDERS.
1. Not Job's unkindness. It was true that these insolent vagabonds, with their fathers, had been summarily evicted from their pristine settlements—had been compelled, not without cruel oppression and intolerable hardship, to retire before the superior race who had dislodged them; it may also be that of that conquering Arab tribe Job was a conspicuous member, and might on that account be held responsible for the indignities and wrongs that had been heaped upon the wretched aborigines; but, in point of fact, Job disclaims having taken part in those ruthless acts of tyranny which caused the poor of the land to slink away and hide themselves, naked and shivering, in the dens and caves of the earth, in the holes and crevices of the rocks (Job 24:4-8), and rather indicates that he regarded their sorrowful lot with compassion, even while, with disgust and aversion, he shrank from any contact with themselves. But:
2. Their own wickedness. They simply saw that he, whom they once knew as a powerful prince, was overtaken by evil fortune, and they turned upon him accordingly. That they traced Job's calamities, as Job himself did, to the hand of God (verse 11), was unlikely. Yet the result was the same. God, according to Job—according to them, fate—had unloosed iris bow and sent a shaft through the heart of this imperious autocrat, or had loosened the cord which upheld the tent of his hitherto vigorous body, and had laid him prostrate beneath a loathsome and painful disease; and so they, casting off restraint, assailed him with unbridled arrogance, acting out, in these early times, the familiar story of the kicking ass and the dead lion,
"But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence."
('Julius Caesar,' act 3. sc. 2.)
Learn:
1. The certainty that man may decade himself beneath the level of the beasts.
2. The right of society to protect itself against the lawless and depraved.
3. The tendency of all wickedness to lead to misery even on earth.
4. The infallibility with which moral depravity perpetuates itself.
5. The instability which attends all human greatness.
6. The length to which wicked men will go in persecuting and oppressing others when God grants permission.
7. The inevitable approach of a nation's doom when its youth has become corrupt and depraved.
Job's second parable: 3. A sorrowful survey of present misery.
I. JOB'S BODILY AFFLICTION.
1. Overpowering. It was no trifling ailment that wrung from the heart of this fallen great man the exquisitely plaintive lament of the present section. The malady which had struck its fangs into his vitals was one that made his bowels boil, and rest not (verse 27); that caused his heart to melt like wax in the midst of his bowels (Psalms 22:14); yea, that dissolved his soul in tears (verse 16). Most men have reason to be thankful that the afflictions they are called to endure are not absolutely intolerable; for which the praise is due to God's mercy alone. Yet not unless the soul is suitably affected by the ills that assail the body do these latter bring forth their designed results, the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The case of Job suggests that through the union and sympathy of soul and body man possesses an almost infinite capacity for suffering pain; while the fact that pain may minister to man's improvement is a testimony to man's superiority over the creatures.