PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositor's Bible: The Book of Job
Watson, Robert A. (Robert Alexander) · 116,929 words · 160 reading sections
_The Author And His Work._
BY ROBERT A. WATSON, D.D., AUTHOR OF "JUDGES AND RUTH," "GOSPELS OF YESTERDAY," ETC. NEW YORK FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LAFAYETTE PLACE 1900 I. PAGE THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORK 3 The Book of Job is the first great poem of the soul in its mundane conflict, facing the inexorable of sorrow, change, pain, and death, a…
908 wordsSECTION 2_The Author And His Work._
A phenomenon in Hebrew thought and faith--to what age does it belong? No record or reminiscence of the author is left from which the least hint of time may be gathered. He, who by his marvellous poem struck a chord of thought deep and powerful enough to vibrate still and stir the modern heart, is uncelebrated, nameless…
775 wordsSECTION 3_The Author And His Work._
The scheme of the book helps to fix the time of the composition. A drama so elaborate could not have been produced until literature had become an art. Such complexity of structure as we find in Psalm cxix. shows that by the time of its composition much attention was paid to form. It is no longer the pure lyric cry of t…
987 wordsSECTION 4_The Author And His Work._
It has now become almost clear that the book belongs either to the period (favoured by Ewald, Renan, and others) immediately following the captivity of the northern tribes, or to the time of the captivity of Judah (fixed upon by Dr. A. B. Davidson, Professor Cheyne, and others). We must still, however, seek further lig…
795 wordsSECTION 5_The Author And His Work._
Now, it has been alleged that through the Book of Job there runs a constant but covert reference to the troubles of the Jewish Church in the Captivity, and especially that Job himself represents the suffering flock of God. It is not proposed to give up entirely the individual problem, but along with that, superseding t…
757 wordsSECTION 6_The Author And His Work._
Yes: the creed of Hebraism had ceased to guide thought and lead the soul to strength. The Hokhma literature of Proverbs, which had become fashionable in Solomon's time, possessed no dogmatic vigour, fell often to the level of moral platitude, as the same kind of literature does with us, and had little help for the soul…
727 wordsSECTION 7_The Opening Scene On Earth._
CHAP. i. 1-5. The land of Uz appears to have been a general name for the great Syro-Arabian desert. It is described vaguely as lying "east of Palestine and north of Edom," or as "corresponding to the _Arabia Deserta_ of classical geography, at all events so much of it as lies north of the 30th parallel of latitude." I…
959 wordsSECTION 8_The Opening Scene On Earth._
The question whether such a man as Job ever lived has been variously answered, one Hebrew rabbi, for example, affirming that he was a mere parable. But Ezekiel names him along with Noah and Daniel, James in his epistle says, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job"; and the opening words of this book, "There was a man in…
688 wordsSECTION 9_The Opening Scene On Earth._
For the religion of Job, sincere and deep, disclosing itself in these offerings to the Most High, is, above his fatherly affection and sympathy, the distinction with which the poet shows him invested. He is a fearer of the One Living and True God, the Supremely Holy. In the course of the drama the speeches of Job often…
870 wordsSECTION 10_The Opening Scene On Earth._
The book which returned thus to the religion of Teman found an honourable place in the roll of sacred Scriptures. Although the canon was fixed by Hebrews at a time when the narrowness of the post-exilic age drew toward Pharisaism, and the law and the temple were regarded with veneration far greater than in the time of …
815 wordsSECTION 11_The Opening Scene On Earth._
Now let us judge this life from a point of view which the writer may have taken, which at any rate it becomes us to take, with our knowledge of what gives manhood its true dignity and perfectness. Obedience to God, self-control and self-culture, the observance of religious forms, brotherliness and compassion, uprightne…
724 wordsSECTION 12_The Opening Scene In Heaven._
The modern analogue in literature is the philosophic novel. But Job is far more intense, more operatic, as Ewald says, and the elements are even simpler. Isolation is secured. Life is bared to its elements. The personality is entangled in disaster with the least possible machinery or incident. The dramatising altogethe…
701 wordsSECTION 13_The Opening Scene In Heaven._
The enormous size of this figure is matched by its hideousness; the misery of the arch-fiend, for all its horror, is grotesque: "At six eyes he wept; the tears Adown three faces rolled in bloody foam." Passing to Milton, we find sublimity in his pictures of the fallen legions, and it culminates in the vision of thei…
910 wordsSECTION 14_The Opening Scene In Heaven._
Evidently we have here a personification of the doubting, misbelieving, misreading spirit which, in our day, we limit to men and call pessimism. Now Koheleth gives so finished an expression to this temper that we can hardly be wrong in going back some distance of time for its growth; and the state of Israel before the …
782 wordsSECTION 15_The Opening Scene In Heaven._
And this thought of a Divine purpose to confound the falsehoods of scepticism answers another inquiry which may readily occur. From the first the Almighty knows and asserts the virtue of His servant,--that he is one who fears God and eschews evil. But why, then, does He condescend to ask of Satan, "Hast thou considered…
822 wordsSECTION 16_The Opening Scene In Heaven._
Striking is the thought that, while the prophets Amos and Hosea were fiercely or plaintively assailing the luxury of Israel and the lives of the nobles, among those very men who excited their holy wrath may have been the author of the Book of Job. Dr. Robertson Smith has shown that from the "gala days" of Jeroboam II. …
749 wordsSECTION 17_The Opening Scene In Heaven._
If we look further, we find that the very error which has so long impoverished religion prevails in philanthropy and politics, prevails there at the present time to an alarming extent. The favourite aim of social meliorists is to secure happiness for all. While life is the main thing, everywhere and always, strength an…
791 wordsSECTION 18_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
At this point, however, we must pause. The question that has just arisen can only be answered after a survey of human life in its relation to God, and especially after an examination of the meaning of the term _evil_ as applied to our experiences. We have certain clear principles to begin with: that "God cannot be temp…
662 wordsSECTION 19_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
We have entirely refused the supposition that the Almighty forgot His righteousness and grace in putting the wealth and happiness of Job into the hands of Satan. The trials we now see falling one after the other are not sent because the Adversary has suggested them, but because it is right and wise, for the glory of Go…
677 wordsSECTION 20_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
The author of the Book of Job does not enter into the problem of pain and affliction with the same deliberate attempt to exhaust the subject as Paley has made; but he has the problem before him. And in considering the trial of Job as an example of the suffering and sorrow of man in this world of change, we find a stron…
865 wordsSECTION 21_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
It is not difficult, of course, to see how the idea of pain and the idea of moral evil have been linked together. It is by the thought that suffering is punishment for evil done; and that the suffering is therefore itself evil. Pain was simply penalty inflicted by an offended heavenly power. The evil of a man's doings …
940 wordsSECTION 22_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
And if it is asked how from this point of view we are to find the punishment of sin, the answer is that happiness as well as suffering is punishment to him whose sin and the unbelief that accompanies it pervert his view of truth, and blind him to the spiritual life and the will of God. The pleasures of a wrong-doer who…
652 wordsSECTION 23_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
Observe, it is not denied that joy is and will be desired, that suffering and pain are and will remain experiences from which human nature must recoil. The desire and the aversion are wrought into our constitution; and just because we feel them our whole mortal discipline has its value. In the experience of them lies t…
669 wordsSECTION 24_The Shadow Of God'S Hand._
And now the forces of nature and the wild tribes of the desert gather about the happy settlement of the man of Uz. With dramatic suddenness and cumulative terror stroke after stroke descends. Job is seen before the door of his dwelling. The morning broke calm and cloudless, the bright sunshine of Arabia filling with br…
791 wordsSECTION 25_The Dilemma Of Faith._
Losses like these are apt to leave men distracted. When everything is swept away, with the riches those who were to inherit them, when a man is left, as Job says, naked, bereft of all that labour had won and the bounty of God had given, expressions of despair do not surprise us, nor even wild accusations of the Most Hi…
807 wordsSECTION 26_The Dilemma Of Faith._
And now he pleads that it is the way of men to care more for themselves, their own health and comfort, than for anything else. Bereavement and poverty may be like arrows that glance off from polished armour. Let disease and bodily pain attack himself, and a man will show what is really in his heart. "Skin for skin, yea…
701 wordsSECTION 27_The Dilemma Of Faith._
Time has passed sufficient for the realisation by Job of his poverty and bereavement. The sense of desolation has settled on his soul as morning after morning dawned, week after week went by, emptied of the loving voices he used to hear, and the delightful and honourable tasks that used to engage him. In sympathy with …
949 wordsSECTION 28_The Dilemma Of Faith._
But his integrity was clear to him. That stood within the region of his own consciousness. He knew that God had made him of dutiful heart and given him a constant will to be obedient. Only while he believed this could he keep hold of his life. As the one treasure saved out of the wreck, when possessions, children, heal…
690 wordsSECTION 29_The Dilemma Of Faith._
The answer of Job is one of the fine touches of the book. He does not denounce her as an instrument of Satan nor dismiss her from his presence. In the midst of his pain he is the great chief of Uz and the generous husband. "Thou speakest," he mildly says, "as one of the foolish, that is, godless, women speaketh." It is…
903 wordsSECTION 30_The Dilemma Of Faith._
The fine idealism of the poem is maintained in this new act. Men of knowledge and standing are these. They may fail; they may take a false view of their friend and his state; but their sincerity must not be doubted nor their rank as thinkers. Whether the three represent ancient culture, or rather the conceptions of the…
566 wordsSECTION 31_The Cry From The Depth._
[1] "Mark Rutherford." JOB SPEAKS. CHAP. iii. While the friends of Job sat beside him that dreary week of silence, each of them was meditating in his own way the sudden calamities which had brought the prosperous emeer to poverty, the strong man to this extremity of miserable disease. Many thoughts came and were dism…
796 wordsSECTION 32_The Cry From The Depth._
The poem may be read calmly. Let us remember that it came not calmly from the pen of the writer, but as the outburst of volcanic feeling from the deep centres of life. It is Job we hear; the language befits his despondency, his position in the drama. But surely it presents to us a real experience of one who, in the hou…
701 wordsSECTION 33_The Cry From The Depth._
"_That day, there! Darkness be it. Seek it not the High God from above; And no light stream on it. Darkness and the nether gloom reclaim it. Encamp over it the clouds; Scare it blacknesses of the day._" The idea is, Let the day of my birth be got rid of, so that no other come into being on such a day; let God pas…
711 wordsSECTION 34_The Cry From The Depth._
II. In the second strophe cursing is exchanged for wailing, fruitless reproach of a long past day for a touching chant in praise of the grave. If his birth had to be, why could he not have passed at once into the shades? The lament, though not so passionate, is full of tragic emotion. The phrases of it have been woven …
654 wordsSECTION 35_The Cry From The Depth._
"The aching craze to live ends, and life glides Lifeless--to nameless quiet, nameless joy. Blessed Nirvana, sinless, stirless rest, That change which never changes." To Christianity this idea is utterly foreign, yet it mingles with some religious teaching, and is often to be found in the weaker sorts of religious f…
667 wordsSECTION 36_The Cry From The Depth._
"_I have feared a fear; it has come upon me, And that which I dread has come to me. I have not been at ease, nor quiet, nor have I had rest; Yet trouble has come._" In his brooding soul, those seven days and nights, fear has deepened into certainty. He is a man despised. Even for those three his circumstances have …
580 wordsSECTION 37_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
ELIPHAZ SPEAKS. CHAPS. iv., v. The ideas of sin and suffering against which the poem of Job was written come now dramatically into view. The belief of the three friends had always been that God, as righteous Governor of human life, gives felicity in proportion to obedience and appoints trouble in exact measure of diso…
729 wordsSECTION 38_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
Now, here is the motive of the long controversy which is the main subject of the poem. And, in tracing it, we are to see Job, although racked by pain and distraught by grief--sadly at disadvantage because he seems to be a living example of the truth of their ideas--rousing himself to the defence of his integrity and co…
761 wordsSECTION 39_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
Nevertheless the first address to Job is eloquent and poetically beautiful. No rude arguer is Eliphaz but one of the golden-mouthed, mistaken in creed but not in heart, a man whom Job might well cherish as a friend. I. The first part of his speech extends to the eleventh verse. With the respect due to sorrow, putting …
738 wordsSECTION 40_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
"_Now a word was secretly brought me, Mine ear caught the whisper thereof; In thoughts from visions of the night, When deep sleep falls upon men, A terror came on me, and trembling Which thrilled my bones to the marrow. Then a breath passed before my face, The hairs of my body rose erect. It stood still--its ap…
714 wordsSECTION 41_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
The description of man's life on earth, its brevity and dissolution, on account of which he can never exalt himself as just and clean beside God, ends with words that may be translated thus:-- "_Is not their cord torn asunder in them? They shall die, and not in wisdom._" Here the tearing up of the tent cord or the b…
715 wordsSECTION 42_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
So much for the third attempt to convict Job and bring him to confession. It is a bolt shot apparently at a venture, yet it strikes where it must wound to the quick. Here, however, made aware, perhaps by a look of anguish or a sudden gesture, that he has gone too far, Eliphaz draws back. To the general dogma that affli…
776 wordsSECTION 43_The Things Eliphaz Had Seen._
Fine, indeed, as dramatic poetry; but is it not, as reasoning, incoherent? The author does not mean it to be convincing. He who is chastened and receives the chastening may not be saved in those six troubles, yea seven. There is more of dream than fact. Eliphaz is apparently right in everything, as Dillmann says; but r…
511 wordsSECTION 44_Men False: God Overbearing._
JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. vi., vii. Worst to endure of all things is the grief that preys on a man's own heart because no channel outside self is provided for the hot stream of thought. Now that Eliphaz has spoken, Job has something to arouse him, at least to resentment. The strength of his mind revives as he finds himself c…
703 wordsSECTION 45_Men False: God Overbearing._
"Have I sinned? Yet, what have I done unto Thee, O Thou Watcher of men? Why hast Thou set me as Thy stumbling-block, So that I am a burden to myself? And why wilt Thou not pardon my transgression, And cause my sin to pass away?" But the man whose soul is eager in the search for reality must endeavour to wrest fro…
945 wordsSECTION 46_Men False: God Overbearing._
The truth, however, as shown in a previous chapter, is that suffering has no proportion to the guilt of sin, but is related in the scheme of Divine providence to life in this world, its movement, discipline, and perfecting in the individual and the race. Afflictions, pains, and griefs are appointed to the best as well …
662 wordsSECTION 47_Men False: God Overbearing._
The longing for death which now returns on Job is not so passionate as before; but his cry is quite as urgent and unqualified. As we have already seen, no motion towards suicide is at any point of the drama attributed to him. He does not, like Shakespeare's Hamlet, whose position is in some respects very similar, quest…
675 wordsSECTION 48_Men False: God Overbearing._
Why, his condition is hopeless. What can he look for but death? Speak to him of a new term; it was adding mockery to despair. But he would die still true to God, and therefore he seeks the end of conflict. If he were to live on he could not be sure of himself, especially when, with failing strength, he had to endure th…
733 wordsSECTION 49_Men False: God Overbearing._
From this point he turns upon them with reproach. Had he asked them for anything, gifts out of their herds or treasure, aid in recovering his property? They knew he had requested no such service. But again and again Eliphaz had made the suggestion that he was suffering as a wrong-doer. Would they tell him then, straigh…
822 wordsSECTION 50_Men False: God Overbearing._
"_O remember, a breath is my life; Never again will mine eye see good._" Does the Almighty consider how little time is left to him? Surely a gleam might break before all grows dark! Out of sight he will be soon, yea, out of the sight of God Himself, like a cloud that melts away. His place will be down in Sheol, the r…
747 wordsSECTION 51_Men False: God Overbearing._
More daring words were never put by a pious man into the mouth of one represented as pious; and the whole passage shows how daring piety may be. The inspired writer of this book knows God too well, honours Him too profoundly to be afraid. The Eternal Father does not watch keenly for the offences of the creatures He has…
268 wordsSECTION 52_Venturesome Theology._
BILDAD SPEAKS. CHAP. viii. The first attempt to meet Job has been made by one who relies on his own experience and takes pleasure in recounting the things which he has seen. Bildad of Shuach, on the other hand, is a man who holds to the wisdom of the fathers and supports himself at all times with their answers to the …
805 wordsSECTION 53_Venturesome Theology._
Next the speaker parades his learning, the wisdom he had gathered from the past:-- "_Inquire, I pray thee, of the bygone age, And attend to the research of their fathers. (For we are but of yesterday and know nothing; A shadow, indeed, are our days upon the earth)-- Shall not they teach thee and tell thee, Bring …
823 wordsSECTION 54_The Thought Of A Daysman._
Those who attempt to explain God's ways for edification and comfort need to be very simple and genuine in their feeling with men, their effort on behalf of God. Every one who believes and thinks has something in his spiritual experience worth recounting, and may help an afflicted brother by retracing his own history. B…
675 wordsSECTION 55_The Thought Of A Daysman._
No one, that is, can call God to account. The temper of the Almighty appears to Job to be such that man must needs give up all controversy. In his heart Job is convinced still that he has wrought no evil. But he will not say so. He will anticipate the wilful condemnation of the Almighty. God would assail his life. Job …
799 wordsSECTION 56_The Thought Of A Daysman._
The strain of Job's complaint increases in bitterness. He seems to see omnipotent injustice everywhere. If a scourge (ver. 23), such as lightning, accident or disease, slayeth suddenly, there seems to be nothing but mockery of the innocent. God looks down on the wreck of human hope from the calm sky after the thunderst…
703 wordsSECTION 57_The Thought Of A Daysman._
Now, the wistful cry of Job--"There is no daysman between us"--breaking from the depths of an experience to which the best as well as the worst are exposed in this life, an experience which cannot in either case be justified or accounted for unless by the fact of immortality, is, let us say, as presented here, a purely…
676 wordsSECTION 58_The Thought Of A Daysman._
"_Were I to sin Thou wouldst mark me, And Thou wouldst not acquit me of iniquity. Were I wicked, woe unto me; Were I righteous, yet should I not lift up my head._" The supreme Power of the world has taken an aspect not of unreasoning force, but of determined ill-will to man. The only safety seems to be in lying qui…
899 wordsSECTION 59_A Fresh Attempt To Convict._
"_Show me wherefore Thou strivest with me. Is it pleasant to Thee that Thou should'st oppress, That Thou should'st despise the work of Thy hands And shine upon the counsel of the wicked? Hast Thou eyes of flesh? Or seest Thou as man seeth? Thy days--are they as the days of man? Thy years--are they as man's days,…
780 wordsSECTION 60_A Fresh Attempt To Convict._
Trying to get at the source of the belief we must confess ourselves partly at a loss. One writer suggests that there may have been in the earlier and simpler conditions of society a closer correspondence between wrong-doing and suffering than is to be seen nowadays. There may be something in this. But life is not gover…
868 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.