PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositor's Bible: The Book of Job
Watson, Robert A. (Robert Alexander) · 116,929 words · 160 reading sections
_A Fresh Attempt To Convict._
Zophar rises to eloquence in declaring the unsearchableness of Divine wisdom. "_Canst thou find the depths of Eloah? Canst thou reach to the end of Shaddai? Heights of heaven! What canst thou do? Deeper than Sheol! What canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, Broader is it than the sea._" …
700 wordsSECTION 62_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
The closing words of Zophar's speech point to the finality of death, and bear the meaning that if Job were to die now of his disease the whole question of his character would be closed. It is important to note this, because it enters into Job's mind and affects his expressions of desire. Never again does he cry for rel…
767 wordsSECTION 63_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
Here, however, it is necessary to consider in what way the limitations of Hebrew thought must have been felt by one who, turning from the popular creed, sought a view more in harmony with fact. Now-a-days the word _nature_ is often made to stand for a force or combination of forces conceived of as either entirely or pa…
664 wordsSECTION 64_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
What does he say? God is in the deceived and in the deceiver; they are both products of nature, that is, creatures of God. He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them. Cities arise and become populous. The great metropolis is filled with its myriads, "among whom are six-score thousand that cannot discern between thei…
685 wordsSECTION 65_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
* * * * * Very bold is this whole position, and very reverent also, if you will think of it; far more honouring to God than any attempt of the friends who, as Job says, appear to hold the Almighty no better than a petty chief, so insecure in His position that He must be grateful to any one who will justify His deeds. …
710 wordsSECTION 66_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
"_But ye are patchers of lies, Physicians of nought are ye all. Oh that ye would only keep silence, And it should be your wisdom._" (_chap. xiii._ 4, 5). Job sets them down with a current proverb--"Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise." He begs them to be silent. They shall now hear his rebuke. …
715 wordsSECTION 67_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
"_Why do I take my flesh in my teeth, And put my life in my hand?_" Why do I incur this danger, do you say? Never mind. It is not your affair. For bare existence I care nothing. To escape with mere consciousness for a while is no object to me, as I now am. With my life in my hand I hasten to God. "_Lo! He will slay …
668 wordsSECTION 68_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
"_How many are mine iniquities and sins? Make me to know my transgression and my sin._" We are not to understand here that Job confesses great transgressions, nor, contrariwise, that he denies infirmity and error in himself. There are no doubt failures of his youth which remain in memory, sins of desire, errors of ig…
652 wordsSECTION 69_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
"_For even a tree hath hope; If it be hewn down it will sprout anew, The young shoot thereof will not fail. If in the earth its root wax old, Or in the ground its stock should die, Yet at the scent of water it will spring, And shoot forth boughs like a new plant. But a man: he dies and is cut off; Yea, when men…
677 wordsSECTION 70_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
Next we must keep it in view that Job does not appear as a thinker building on himself alone, depending on his own religious experience. Centuries and ages of thought are behind these beliefs which are ascribed to him, even the ideas which seem to start up freshly as the result of original discovery. Imagine a man thin…
870 wordsSECTION 71_Beyond Fact And Fear To God._
What difficulty there was in his effort we know. To the common thought of the time when this book was written, say that of Hezekiah, the state of the dead was not extinction indeed, but an existence of extreme tenuity and feebleness. In Sheol there was nothing active. The hollow ghost of the man was conceived of as nei…
662 wordsSECTION 72_The Tradition Of A Pure Race._
ELIPHAZ SPEAKS. CHAP. xv. The first colloquy has made clear severance between the old Theology and the facts of human life. No positive reconciliation is effected as yet between reality and faith, no new reading of Divine providence has been offered. The author allows the friends on the one hand, Job on the other, to …
859 wordsSECTION 73_The Tradition Of A Pure Race._
The first part of the address, extending to verse 13, is an expostulation with Job, whom in irony he calls "wise." Should a wise man use empty unprofitable talk, filling his bosom, as it were, with the east wind, peculiarly blustering and arid? Yet what Job says is not only unprofitable, it is profane. "_Thou doest aw…
665 wordsSECTION 74_The Tradition Of A Pure Race._
After all it is man's reason against man's reason. The answer will only come in the judgment of the Highest. "_With us is he who is both grey-haired and very old, Older in days than thy father._" Not Eliphaz himself surely. That would be to claim too great antiquity. Besides, it seems a little wanting in sense. More…
1,117 wordsSECTION 75_The Tradition Of A Pure Race._
It is remarkable that there is not a single word of personal confession in any speech made by the friends. They are concerned merely to state a creed supposed to be honouring to God, a full justification from their point of view of His dealings with men. The sovereignty of God must be vindicated by attributing this ent…
715 wordsSECTION 76_The Tradition Of A Pure Race._
How does Eliphaz distinguish or imagine the Almighty distinguishing between men in general, who are all bad and offensive in their badness, and this particular "wicked man"? Distinction there must be. What is it? One must assume, for the reasoner is no fool, that the settled temper and habit of a life are meant. Revolt…
710 wordsSECTION 77'_My Witness In Heaven._'
JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. xvi., xvii. If it were comforting to be told of misery and misfortune, to hear the doom of insolent evil-doers described again and again in varying terms, then Job should have been comforted. But his friends had lost sight of their errand, and he had to recall them to it. "_I have heard many such t…
739 wordsSECTION 78'_My Witness In Heaven._'
"_Certainly, now, He hath wearied me out. Thou hast made desolate my company; Thou hast taken hold of me, And it is a witness against me; And my leanness riseth up against me Bearing witness to my face._" He is exhausted; he has come to the last stage. The circle of his family and friends in which he once stood e…
790 wordsSECTION 79'_My Witness In Heaven._'
"_O Earth, cover not my blood, And let my cry have no resting-place! Even now, lo! my witness is in heaven, And He that voucheth for me is on high. My friends scorn me: Mine eye sheds tears unto God-- That he would right a man against God, And a son of man against his friend._" Now--in the present stage of bein…
688 wordsSECTION 80'_My Witness In Heaven._'
The demand for immediate vindication still urged is inseparable from the circumstances. "_For when a few years are come I shall go the way whence I shall not return. My spirit is consumed, my days extinct; The grave is ready for me. Surely there are mockeries with me And mine eyes lodgeth in their provocation. P…
853 wordsSECTION 81'_My Witness In Heaven._'
"_If I wait till Sheol is my house; Till I have spread my couch in darkness: If I shall have said to corruption, My father art thou, To the worm, My mother and my sister-- Where then were my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, When once there is rest in the dust._" How…
703 wordsSECTION 82'_My Witness In Heaven._'
There are many evident resemblances which have been already studied and would repay further attention; but the questions occur, how far the author of the Book of Job refused Egyptian influences, and why, in the face of a solution of his problem apparently thrust upon him with the authority of ages, he yet exerted himse…
333 wordsSECTION 83_A Scheme Of World-Rule._
[2] See Renouf's Hibbert Lecture, also "The Unknown God," by C. Loring Brace. BILDAD SPEAKS. CHAP. xviii. Composed in the orderly parallelism of the finished _mashal_, this speech of Bildad stands out in its strength and subtlety and, no less, in its cruel rigour quite distinct among those addressed to Job. It is the…
791 wordsSECTION 84_A Scheme Of World-Rule._
Bildad opens the attack by charging Job with hunting for words--an accusation of a general kind apparently referring to the strong expressions he had used in describing his sufferings at the hand of God and from the criticism of men. He then calls Job to understand his own errors, that he may be in a position to receiv…
713 wordsSECTION 85_A Scheme Of World-Rule._
This cold prediction of the death of the godless from the very malady that has attacked Job is cruel indeed, especially from the lips of one who formerly promised health and felicity in this world as the result of penitence. We may say that Bildad has found it his duty to preach the terrors of God, and the duty appears…
523 wordsSECTION 86"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
JOB SPEAKS. CHAP. xix. With simple strong art sustained by exuberant eloquence the author has now thrown his hero upon our sympathies, blending a strain of expectancy with tender emotion. In shame and pain, sick almost to death, baffled in his attempts to overcome the seeming indifference of Heaven, the sufferer lies …
775 wordsSECTION 87"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
That inspiration should thus work within bounds, conscious of itself, yet restrained by human ignorance, may be questioned. The apprehension of transcendent truth not yet proved by argument, the authoritative statement of such truth for the guidance and confirmation of faith, lastly, complete independence of ordinary c…
730 wordsSECTION 88"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
"_Behold, of wrong I cry, but I am not heard; I cry for help, but there is no judgment._" Day after day, night after night, pains and fears increase: death draws nearer. He cannot move out of the net of misery. As one neglected, outlawed, he has to bear his inexplicable doom, his way fenced in so that he cannot pass,…
888 wordsSECTION 89"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
Urgent is the appeal. It is in vain. Not a hand is stretched out, not one grim face relaxes. The man has made his last attempt. He is now like a pressed animal between the hunter and the chasm. And why is the author so rigorous in his picture of the friends? It is made to all appearance quite inhuman, and cannot be so …
798 wordsSECTION 90"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
* * * * * We must go back in the book to find the beginning of the hope now seized. Already Job has been looking forth beyond the region of this little life. What has he seen? First and always, Eloah. That name and what it represents do not fail him. He has had terrible experiences, and all of them must have been app…
655 wordsSECTION 91"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
For the inspired writer of these words, declaring the faith which had sprung up within him; for us also who desire to share his faith and to be assured of the future vindication, three barriers stand in the way, and these have successively to be passed. First is the difficulty of believing that the Most High need trou…
660 wordsSECTION 92"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
I answer all these questions together. And the answer lies in the very existence of the idea of justice, our knowledge of justice, our desire for it, the fragmentariness of our history till right has been done to us by others, by us to others, by man to God, and God to man--the full right, whatever that may involve. W…
692 wordsSECTION 93"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
Advance to the most important facts of mind, the moral ideas which enter into every department of thought, the inductions through which we find our place in another range than the physical. Does the fidelity already traced now cease? Is man at this point beyond the law of faithfulness, beyond the invariable correlation…
751 wordsSECTION 94"_My Redeemer Liveth._"
"_I know it: my Redeemer liveth, And afterward on the dust He will stand up; And without my flesh I shall see Eloah._" By slow cycles of change the vast scheme of Divine providence draws toward a glorious consummation. The believer waits for it, seeing One who has gone before him and will come after him, the Alpha a…
322 wordsSECTION 95_Ignorant Criticism Of Life._
ZOPHAR SPEAKS. CHAP. xx. The great saying that quickens our faith and carries thought into a higher world conveyed no Divine meaning to the man from Naamah. The author must have intended to pour scorn on the hide-bound intelligence and rude bigotry of Zophar, to show him dwarfed by self-content and zeal not according …
886 wordsSECTION 96_Ignorant Criticism Of Life._
It will be said that if things were rightly ordered, Christian ideas prevailing in business, in legislation and social intercourse, the best people would certainly be in the highest places and have the best of life, and that, meanwhile, the improvement of the world depends on some approximation to this state of affairs…
765 wordsSECTION 97_Ignorant Criticism Of Life._
Sooth to say, there is no reasoning, nothing but affirmation. He discusses no doubtful case, enters into no careful discrimination of the virtuous who enjoy from the godless who perish, makes no attempt to explain the temporary success granted to the wicked. The man he describes is one who has acquired wealth by unlawf…
737 wordsSECTION 98_Ignorant Criticism Of Life._
"_He shall flee from the iron weapon, And the bow of brass shall pierce him through. He draweth it forth; it cometh out of his body: Yea, the glittering shaft cometh out of his gall. Terrors are upon him, All darkness is laid up for his treasures; A fire not blown shall consume him, It shall devour him that is l…
491 wordsSECTION 99_Are The Ways Of The Lord Equal?_
JOB SPEAKS. CHAP. xxi. With less of personal distress and a more collected mind than before Job begins a reply to Zophar. His brave hope of vindication has fortified his soul and is not without effect upon his bodily state. The quietness of tone in this final address of the second colloquy contrasts with his former ag…
656 wordsSECTION 100_Are The Ways Of The Lord Equal?_
Contrast the picture here with those which Bildad and Zophar painted--and where lies the truth? Sufficiently on Job's side to make one who is profoundly interested in the question of Divine righteousness stand appalled. There was an error of judgment inseparable from that early stage of human education in which vigour …
1,178 wordsSECTION 101_Are The Ways Of The Lord Equal?_
And with respect to the high position and success bad men are allowed to enjoy, another writer, Bushnell, well points out that permission of their opulence and power by God aids the development of moral ideas. "It is simply letting society and man be what they are, to show what they are." The retributive stroke, swift …
655 wordsSECTION 102_Are The Ways Of The Lord Equal?_
One in a thousand, Job may admit, has the light extinguished in his tent and is swept out of the world. But is it the rule or the exception that such visible judgment falls even on the robber chief? The first psalm has it that the wicked are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away." The words of that chant may have…
791 wordsSECTION 103_Are The Ways Of The Lord Equal?_
And society accepts his estimate of himself, counts him happy,--pays him honour at his death. The scene at his funeral confutes the specious interpretation of providence that has been so often used as a weapon against Job. Perhaps Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar know something of obsequies paid to a prosperous tyrant, so p…
470 wordsSECTION 104_Dogmatic And Moral Error._
[3] Emerson, Essay III. "Compensation." [4] Bushnell, "Moral Uses of Dark Things." ELIPHAZ SPEAKS. CHAP. xxii. The second colloquy has practically exhausted the subject of debate between Job and his friends. The three have really nothing more to say in the way of argument or awful example. It is only Eliphaz who tri…
697 wordsSECTION 105_Dogmatic And Moral Error._
One must say that Eliphaz opens a question of the greatest interest both in theology or the knowledge of God, and in religion or the right feelings of man toward God. If man as the highest energy, the finest blossoming and most articulate voice of the creation, is of no consequence to his Creator, if it makes no differ…
704 wordsSECTION 106_Dogmatic And Moral Error._
With the same view of the absolute sovereignty of God in creation and providence on which Eliphaz founds in this passage, Jonathan Edwards sees the necessity of escaping the conclusion to which these verses point. He argues that God's delight in the emanations of His fulness in the work of creation shows "His delight i…
841 wordsSECTION 107_Dogmatic And Moral Error._
Take a broader view of the same controversy. Is there no exaggeration in the charges thundered sometimes against poor human nature? Is it not often thought a pious duty to extort confession of sins men never dreamed of committing, so that they may be driven to a repentance that shakes life to its centre and almost unhi…
661 wordsSECTION 108_Dogmatic And Moral Error._
At last there seems to be a strain of spirituality. "Acquaint now thyself with God and be at peace." Reconciliation by faith and obedience is the theme. Eliphaz is ignorant of much; yet the greatness and majesty of God, the supreme power which must be propitiated occupy his thoughts, and he does what he can to lead his…
633 wordsSECTION 109_Where Is Eloah?_
[5] Jonathan Edwards, "Dissertation concerning the End for which God created the World," Section IV. JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. xxiii., xxiv. The obscure couplet with which Job begins appears to involve some reference to his whole condition alike of body and mind. "_Again, to-day, my plaint, my rebellion! The hand upon me …
804 wordsSECTION 110_Where Is Eloah?_
The righteous sufferers, the martyrs, what are they? Always the vanguard of humanity. Where they go and the prints of their bleeding feet are left, there is the way of improvement, of civilisation, of religion. The most successful man, preacher or journalist or statesman, is popularly supposed to be leading the world i…
722 wordsSECTION 111_Where Is Eloah?_
The author's intention plainly is to justify Job in his desire for the opportunity of pleading his cause, that is, to justify the claim of the human reason to comprehend. It is not an offence to him that much of the Divine working is profoundly difficult to interpret. He acknowledges in humility that God is greater tha…
815 wordsSECTION 112_Where Is Eloah?_
Amiel, on the other hand, would fain apply to Job a reflection which has occurred to himself in one of the moods that come to a man disappointed, impatient of his own limitations. In his journal, under date January 29th, 1866, he writes: "It is but our secret self-love which is set upon this favour from on high; such m…
691 wordsSECTION 113_Where Is Eloah?_
Natural religion ends always with a sigh. The sense of God found in the order of the universe, the dim vision of God which comes in conscience, moral life and duty, in fear and hope and love, in the longing for justice and truth--these avail much; but they leave us at the end desiring something they cannot give. The Un…
658 wordsSECTION 114_Where Is Eloah?_
Observe first, says Job, the base and cruel men who remove landmarks and claim as their own a neighbour's heritage, who drive into their pastures flocks that are not theirs, who even take away the one ass of the fatherless and the one ox the widow has for ploughing her scanty fields, who thus with a high hand overbear …
935 wordsSECTION 115_Where Is Eloah?_
The emphatic "_These_" with which verse 13 begins must be taken as referring to the murderer and adulterer immediately to be described. Quite distinct from the strong oppressors who maintain themselves in high position are these cowardly miscreants who "rebel against the light" (ver. 13), who "in the dark dig through h…
586 wordsSECTION 116Bildad Speaks. Chap. Xxv.
[6] "Consolation of Philosophy," chap. xlii. [7] Mrs. Ward's translation, p. 116. [8] "Festus," edition 1864, p. 503. The argument of the last chapter proceeded entirely on the general aspect of the question whether the evil are punished in proportion to their crimes. Job has met his friends so far as to place them …
833 wordsSECTION 117Bildad Speaks. Chap. Xxv.
But the truth stands untouched that man whose body is doomed to corruption, man who labours after the right, with the heat of moral energy in his heart, moves on a far higher plane as a servant of God than any fiery orb which pours its light through boundless space. We find ignorance of man and therefore of his Maker i…
292 wordsSECTION 118_The Outskirts Of His Ways._
JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. xxvi., xxvii. Beginning his reply Job is full of scorn and sarcasm. "_How hast thou helped one without power! How hast thou saved the strengthless arm! How hast thou counselled one void of knowledge, And plentifully declared the thing that is known!_" Well indeed hast thou spoken, O man of sing…
711 wordsSECTION 119_The Outskirts Of His Ways._
"_A bound He hath set on the face of the waters, On the confines of light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble And are astonished at His rebuke. He stilleth the sea with His power; And by His understanding He smites through Rahab: By His breath the heavens are made bright; His hand pierceth the fleeing se…
771 wordsSECTION 120_The Outskirts Of His Ways._
* * * * * According to his manner Job turns now from a subject which may be described as speculative to his own position and experience. The earlier part of chap. xxvii. is an earnest declaration in the strain he has always maintained. As vehemently as ever he renews his claim to integrity, emphasizing it with a solem…
716 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.