Caird (E.), Lay Sermons and Addresses, 285.
Dawson (G.), The Aiothentic Gospel, 264.
Donne (J.), Works, iv. 637.
HallXN.), Gethsemane, 237.
Halsey (J.), The Spirit of Truth, 79.
Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv. 117.
Pusey (E. B.), Sermons from Advent to Whitsuntide, 91.
„ „ Selected Occasional Sermons, 41.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxi. (1875), No. 1244.
„ „ Grace Triumphant, 300.
Voysey (C), Sermons, iii. 17. Christian World Pulpit, xliv. 184 (Munger), 369 (Farraf) ; Ixxiii. 372
(Sparrow) ; Ixxv. 189 (Abey). Church of Encjland Pulpit, xxxvii. 97 (Farrar).
36
Trust Inextinguishable.
Though he slay me, yet will I wait for him. — Job xiii. 15.
1. These words, in their strange mixture of faith and unfaith, of trust and mistrust may be taken as summing up the argument of Job in the book called by his name. That book is one of the most remarkable in the Bible, not merely for its great literary qualities, for the imaginative grandeur of its pictures of nature, and the boldness and directness of its expression of the facts of human life, and the emotions they excite in us, but above all for the vivid way in which it brings before us what we may call the great perennial debate between man's soul and God. It describes the struggle between the doubts that beset man as to the exist- ence of any Divine justice or goodness and the faith that sustains him against such doubts, and ultimately enables him to triumph over them.
This book has special reference to a stage in the development of the creed of Israel when the belief in a simple justice of rewards and punishments — the belief that goodness is directly followed by success and happiness, and ill-doing by failure and misery — began to be shaken by the experience of life. It was observed that the facts of human existence did not support the idea of any such immediate distribution of rewards and punish- ments, and the minds of men began to be distressed and per- plexed by the problem, whether the whole conception of God as a righteous Judge was to be abandoned, or whether, on the other hand, a deeper justice could be discerned in the apparent in- justice, and the old faith could be widened and elevated so as to overcome the new flifficulties raised against it. And the intensity of the conflict was made greater by the fact that as yet there was no thought of a future life, or at least of a future life that had
any joy or energy in it.
37
SS TRUST INEXTINGUISHABLE
Yet — and this is the characteristic feature of the poem — through all his doubt and distress, through all his suffering and the agony of mind it produces, Job is exhibited as maintaining his faith in God ; and in the end his integrity is vindicated by God against those who have denied it merely on the ground of his misfortunes. The aim of the writer, therefore, is to show that there is a point of view from which the difiiculties in question may be removed, or transcended, that they are not fatal to faith but only trials of it, from which it may emerge purer and stronger than ever.
2. In the verses preceding the text Job resolves to appeal to God. But he knows how terrible will be the risk of this great enterprise. " I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand ! " he cries, — a fine proverbial expression for running all hazards even to the last, of which Shakespeare gives a noble variation in King Henry viii., when describing the people of England under oppressions which break the sides of loyalty, as
Compell'd by hunger And lack of other means, in desperate manner Daring the event to the teeth.
Then comes our text. And first about its meaning. We have so fine a rendering in our Authorized Version that we cannot surrender it without pain. And, indeed, many competent scholars refuse to surrender it. They still read the verse, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." But properly translated and rightly understood, it means something quite different. In the Eevised Version there is a rendering differing from the accepted one — " Though he slay me, yet will I wait for him," it reads. But with their usual timidity the Revisers have thrown the really correct translation into the margin, and the passage ought to stand, as it there stands, "Behold, he will slay me; I wait for him ; I will maintain my ways (or, I will argue my cause) before him." So that instead of being the utterance of a resigned soul, submissively accepting chastisement, it is rather the utterance of a soul that, conscious of its own integrity, is prepared to face the worst that Providence can inflict, and resolved to vindicate itself against any suggestion of ill desert. " Behold, He will slay me. Well, I wait for Him in the calm assurance of the purity of my
JOB XIII. 15 39
motives and the probity of my life. I will accept the blow, because I can do no other, but I will assert my blameiessness."
^ What Cheyne has happily called " an inspired mistransla- tion " has to be given up. For many reasons, one regrets this, and yet I personally believe that the Eevised Translation expresses a mightier faith than even the sacredly familiar trans- lation of the Authorized Version — " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." Here I unhesitatingly affirm that " waiting for " God in these circumstances is a higher type of faith than " trusting in " Him.