signed by God's name, ., . i
And I leave them where they are, for I know that where-
soe'er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
4 In spite of death Job holds that in some way he will witness his own vindication. By the phrase, " mine own eyes shall behold, not those of another," he does not, of course, mean to assert that no one but himself will be cognizant of his vindica- tion • but that, come when it may, he himself must be cognizant of it; that, even though it should come when men account him dead! he shall be alive unto God and to the action of God on his behalf.
5. Job pants for this manifestation, until he almost faints. The words " my reins consume me " are an exclamation, meaning, "I faint." The reins are the seat of the deepest feelings and experiences, especially of those toward God. Job began with expressing his assurance that he should see God, but as he proceeds, so vivid is his hope that it becomes almost reality, the intensity of this thought creates an ecstatic condition of mind, m which the vision of God seems almost realized, and he faints in ^ the presence of it.
^ There is a deep pathos in the way in which Job assures himself of his personal participation in the commg triumph of moral truth. He says, with pathetic repetition and fond emphasis, "I shall see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Then, as though overcome by the glorious vision, he ejaculates, " My reins are consumed within me. Parallel to this are the words of the hymn—
1 thirst, I faint, I die, to prove The greatness of redeeming love,
The love of Christ to me.^
» Walt Whitman.
2 J. Thomas, Myrtle Street Puljnt, ii, 57.
JOB XIX. 25-27 St,
IT.
Job's Eaith.
"I know that my redeemer liveth." It seems clear that iu expressing himself thus Job attains to the thought of a future life, a life of blessedness in the presence of God. But this is not an easy thought for him. It is new and unfamiliar and strange. It is a vision that breaks upon him for a moment and then dis- appears. If he could only have held it fast, if he could have planted his foot upon it, then his trouble had been gone, the mental perplexity would have disappeared, and he would have been able to rest in patience till the great vision came. But he gets only a passing glimpse of the truth ; the clouds soon gather, and he is plunged back again into his fear and perplexity.
1. Job represents humanity struggling into the light of a larger faith. Great moral truths are never discovered by nations or races, but by individual men. And yet even the wisest and most forward-looking men but rarely discover a truth much in advance of the thoughts and yearnings of their own race, in their own generation. As a rule, the new truth is iu tlie air of the time ; many have some dim consciousness or presentiment of it, and are groping after it, if haply they may find it. And at last one man, one happy man, prepared for the achievement by the peculiar bent of his nature, or gifted with the vision and the faculty Divine, or driven onward by peculiar personal experiences into untrodden regions of thought, grasps the present and widely- diffused but evasive truth, and compels it into a definite and permanent form.
(1) Of this comiTion process of discovery we probably have an illustration in the case of Job. There are many indications that, both in the patriarchal age, i.e. the time of Job himself, and in the Solomonic age, i.e. the time of the Poet to whom we owe this divina commedia, the thought of a better and more enduring life, a strictly moral life, hidden from men by the darkness of death, was in the atmosphere; that the best and highest minds were reaching after it and yearning for it. And in Job this general thought took form, this common yearning rose to articulate
^
84 I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH
expression, this widespread hope became a living and vitalizing faith. His personal experience, the wrongs and calamities he endured, the doubts and conflicts these miseries bred in his heart, prepared and qualified him to become the interpreter of the general heart of his time, to discover the truth which alone could satisfy it. It was simply impossible for him, since he believed the great Euler of men to be just and unchangeable, to conclude that the God whom he had done nothing to offend was really hostile to him, though He seemed hostile, or that He would ; always continue to seem hostile to him, never acknowledging his integrity. And as he had lost all hope of being redeemed and vindicated in this life, as therefore he could no longer admit the present to be a strictly retributive life, he was compelled to look for, till he discovered, a retributive life beyond " the bourn." Fading out of this world, he looks for, and finds, a juster and a better world to come.
Then what this world to thee, my heart ? Its gifts nor feed thee nor can bless. Thou hast no owner's part In all its fleetingness.