The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 35

leisure of hie prosperous d&ys, were now to receive the illustration of actual experience. A series of w&ves breaks in upon his peaceful home and heart, and, in the space of a few short hours, turns the smiling scene into utter desolation. We may notice in the story the following points: the calamities of Job, and their first effect upon his mind. I. 'l'HE OALAIUTIES. Their S'IMidenness and unexpectednwi, A bricrl1t 0 holiday~ was selected by Providence for the discharge of those torrents of woe. 'l'he young people were ma.king merry in their eldest brother's house-perhaps on his birthday- when the bolt out of the blue, without a moment's warning, struck. Tho imagination is powerfully affected by such contrasts. We do not pity ourselves or others so deeply when we have had time to prepare for the storm. The shock of the blow is broken when it findB us forewamed and forearmed. Men must all suffer at some time, and at some time must die; but the terror of the unlooked-for sorrow is as great as the joy of the unlooked-for blessing. But since there is a truth in the sa.ying tha.t "the unexpected always happens," how important to secure tha.t only prepa.ration for it which is within our power-a mind like Job's, fixed in principle, beca.use fur.ed on God I TI. THERE wAB GRADATION IN THESE TROUDLEs. They bega.n in the inferior elements of life, and quickly rose to their climax in the superior. There was first the loss of property, ir. three distinct blows. First the oxen and the asses, then the sheep, and then the camels, were destroyed; and the whole of the herdsmen successively swept away. After the first loss, the instinct of Job would doubtless be to say, "'!'hank God for what is left; " and the same after the second; but the third cuts off these reflections, and strikes home the dreary conviction, " I am a ruined man I'' Who can know but those who have suffered it what it is to lose a third or two-thirds of their worldly goods-much more to lose one's all? Shakespea.re truly says that "'tis tenfold bitterer to lose than 'tis great at first to acquire." Still, a noble and loving soul, accustomed to find in affection life's choicest boon, will be consoled lly the thought," My family is left me; and their redoubled tenderness and sympathy, and ca.res and hopes for them, will still make life worth living." But even this sentiment, if it rose in the mind of the ruined man, is blighted in the bud by the terrible news that his sons and daughters have all perished by a sudden and violent death. Thus did some hidden wrath seem to exhaust its vials of concentrated fury on his devoted head ; and he who had basked so long in the sunshine is plunged into the darkness, without apparently a single beam of comfort or of hope from<without. Nay, more; that .his children should have been cut off in the blossom of their sins, in the very height of their mirth, hurried away with.out time for further expiation or prayer, seemed, after all the father's earnest piety, as if Heaven had abandoned and doomed him. III. We may notice, too, 'l'BE V.AJIJETY OF THE SOURCES OF THESE AFFLIOTIONS. The Jirst came from the hand of men, from robbers, from men of violence and deceit. The aecond fell from heaven, in the form of devouring fire. The third, again, was a I.iuman outrage; and the fourth and most dreadful again from the tempestuous violence of heaven. For a just man to be the prey of injustice, to know that bad men gain at the expense of bis loss, is a bitter experience; but to see mysterious, superhuman power, as it were, in alliance and compact with the wicked, is an awful aggravation. IV. But WHAT 1s THE EFFECT ON THE SUFFERER'S :MIND? A glorious halo indeed surrounds him in this awful moment. Now is the time to see what there is in goodness, what is the real nature of faith; now or never the accuser must be abashed, and faint hearts must take courage, and God must be glorified. We learn from Job's behaviour that a true life in God is destined to triumph over all outward change and loss, over darkness, mystery, and death. 1. Faith. He believes in God. No~ for a moment is his faith shaken. And his firl!t iWltinct is to throw himself upon bis God. He falls upon "the world's great altar-stairs which slope through darkness up to God." "Behold, he prays," and Satan already trembles for his wager. Oh, let us ever bend, reed-like, beneath the storm of Heaven-sent trial; not be broken like the rigid oak I He who can say from the heart, like the poor father in the Gospels (Mark ix. 24), "Lord, I believe," shall presently find the floods abating, and a great calm around him. 2. Resignation. Our will has nothing to do with the supreme turns and crises of being. We did not come into this world, we ought not to at~mpt to go out of ~t, by an &.et of our own. We must be resigned to live or to die, A supreme will cletermines our coming and our going, our entrance and our exit, in thill short scene OB, I, 1-22.] THE BOOK OF JOB, 25