Vers. 21, 22.-Job's resignation. We cannot but be struck with the magnificent calmness of Job after receiving the successive blows of unprecedented calamities. He is not stunned; he is not distracted. He possesses his soul in patience. With a singular dignity of bearing he is seen to be greater now in his calamity than ever he appeared when at the height of success. I. How JOB BERA VED. 1. He 'TTWurned. This was natural, reasonable, and right. He would have been less than man if he had taken his troubles without a pang. God loves the heart of flesh, not the stony heart; and the heart of flesh must needs feel great trouble very keenly. God's saint is not a stoic. But though Job mourned, he did so with calmness and self-restraint. He did not fling himself down in passionate grief. His rising, his rending his mantle-from neck to girdle, according to custom- his shaving his head, all indicate his marvellous self-possession. He goes through the dreary process of conventional mourning with unflinching decision. His calmness, however, only covers the depth of his sorrow. There is something terrible about that methodical process. The tragedy is sublime. 2. He worshipped. He did not renounce God. On the contrary, he blessed the Name of the Lord. He could not understand the meaning and end of his strange experience. But he knew God, and he never dreamed of doubting God. Moreover, his trouble drives him to God. He falls before God in adoration. The singular thing is that he is not seen praying for help. His trouble is beyond help, and he is not one to whine in weak misery. He loses himself in adoration of God. This is the great secret of fortitude-not to cry for deliverance, ut to forget ourselves in God. If. WHaT JoB RECEIVED. He spoke to God. or perhaps uttered a soliloquy, for the relief of his own heart, yet doubtless conscious of the sustaining presence of God, His words show his perfect reasonableness. There is nothing which makes people so unreasonable as trouble. Yet Job was not yet turned one hair's breadth from the line of troth and reason by his fearful calamities. It is a great security to see things as they are. Half our distress arises from our viewing them in false lights of passion and pre- judice. If we are 'only calm enough to look about us, we may discover a str11.nge revealing light in great calamities. They break through the conventional forms, and fla.sh out facts. 1. Job saw his own littl,eness. In a moment he perceived that he bad no natural right to all be had poBBe86ed. He had nothing when he entered the world; he could carry 11othuig out witb him, Pride prepares for distresses which OH, II, 1-18.) THE :BOOK O'B' JOB. 88
humility escapee. When we perceive how very small we are, we cannot be a.mazed at any lose which we may sustain. 2. Job recognized God'11 right. He who gives has a right to withdraw. All we have is on loan from God. This truth does not make our loss the lees, but a perception of it calms the foolish, rebellious spirit, which is the source of our deepest misery.-W. F. A. Ver. 22.-Standing fire. Thus ends the first scene. Satan is completely defeated. His surmise is proved to be utterly false. God bas permitted the hedge about Job to be broken through, and the destroyer has ravaged his possessions till the garden is turned into a. desert. Yet the good man does not renounce God. I. To CHARGE GoD WITH WRONG IB A BIN. This was the sin to which Satan was tempting Job. The suggestion was that he should say that God was acting cruelly, unjustly, wrongly. Now, as this seems a natural inference from the events, why was it wrong for Job to follow it? The answer must be found in the truth that God is not known inductively by means of external phenomena. "Judge not the Lord by feeble sense." He has made himself known by special revelations, and he is ever making himself more and more known in the voice of conscience. From these sources we know that the Judge of all the earth must do right. To doubt this is to forsake the higher light and to ~ink into culpable folly. To prefer a charge against God is worse than to doubt him. At least we might be silent. II. THE ABSENCE OF SIN CAN ONLY BE PROVED BY TRIALS. It is easy to hide sin from view in times of quiet. Then the base metal may shine as brightly as the pure gold. The fiery test reveals its worthlessness. The important question is as to whether we have a character that will stand fire. It is of little value for a man not to be sinning when he has no inducement to sin. His goodness then is at best a negative innocence, and very possibly it is only a. slumbering of latent evil. III. THE MOBT DIFFICULT THING IS NOT TO BIN WHEN ONE IS MOST TEMPTED. There were many sins, doubtless, to which Job was not at all liable. It was little to his credit that he was not guilty of them. The point of interest was that "in all this," i.e. in this specially trying series of calamities, Job did not commit the particular sin to which they pointed, i.e. charging God with wrong. People pride themselves on their goodness in various directions; but this is of small importance if they fail when they are really tempted. IV. THE SECRET OF STANDING FIRE IS IN THE STRENGTH OF GoD. Now Job bas the reward of his long devotion to God. Ver. 5 shows him a. man of prayer in the days of prosperity; it shows him praying for his children in their need; th-us Job was beina prepared unconsciously for the evil day. When it came it found him ready, thou"h it was quito unexpected, be011.use it found him living near to God. When the wh;l- wind is about us it is too late to think of strengthening the tent-stakes. We need the inward strength of God, which comes by the slow growth of Christian experience, if we a.re to stand l!ike the sturdy oak in the sudden swirl of calamities.-W. F. A.
EXPOSITION.
OHAPTER II. account of the arrival of Job's three special friends to mourn with him and to comfort Vera. 1-13.-This cha.pter oonolullee the him ; and of their behaviour during the "Introductory section." It consists of three first seven days after their arrival. parts. Vere. 1-6 oontain an account of Satan's seoond appearance in the courts of Ver. !.-Again there was a day when the heaven, and of a. second colloquy between sons of God oame to present themselves him and the Almighty. Vere. 7-10 con• before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. There is no " again" in the original. tain the sequel to this colloquy, viz. The words used are an exact repetition of Satan's further affliction of Job, and his those contained in ver. 6 of eh. i. But they eonduct under it. Vers.11-18 contain an mark, no doubt, a second occasion on which ,JOB. D TD BOOI 01' ilOB. [OH. II, 1-18.