The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 62

Vera. 11-19.-The stricl,en patriarch's lament: 2. Bewailing his life. I. THE DESPISED GIFT-LIFE. In bitterness of soul, Job not only laments that ever he had entered on the stage of existence at all, but with the perverse ingenuity of grief which looks at all things crosswise, he turns the very mercies of God into occasions of complaint, despising God's care of him: 1. Before birth. "Why died I not from the womb-1" i.e. while I was yet unborn; surely a display of monstrous ingratitude, since, if God did not protect the tender offspring of men prior to their birth, it would be impossible that they should ever see the light (contrast Ps. cxxxix. 13). 2. At birth. "Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?" To which he might himself have returned answer: (1) Because of God's sovereign will; man being God's creature (Gen. v. 1; Deut. iv. 32; eh. x. 8; xii. 10; xxvii. 3; xxxiii. 4), and God ever doing according to his will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth (eh. ix. 12; xii. 9; xxxiii. 13). (2) Because of God's great power, the hour of birth being a time so fraught with peril to a tender babe as well as to a suffer- ing mother, that only God's watchful guardianship can account for a child not dying as soon as it is born ( eh. xxxi. 15; Ps. lx:xi. 6). ·(3) Because of God's spontaneous kindness; life being a gift to the bestowal of which God can be moved by nothing but his own free favour, as Job afterwards acknowledged (eh. x. 12). 3. After birth. "Why did the knees prevent "-i.e. anticipate-" me? or why the breasts that I should suck?" (ver. 12). To which, again, he might have responded that man is so helpless in infancy that without the safe shelter of e. father's arms and the strong support of a father's knees, as well as the warm nest of a mother's bosom and the rich con- solations of a mother's breasts(" consolationes lactis hnmani," Angustine, 'Confessions,' bk. i. eh. vi.), he must inevitably perish. That God has provided these for man is a signal proof of the Divine wisdom and loving-kindness. That any shoul<l despise them is a mark of tho1J,ghtlessness, if not of depravity (cf. Ps. xxii. 9, 10; lxxi. 5,-6). II. THE LOST DL'Ess'iNG-THE GRAVE. Thus undervaluing God's great gift of life, he pro,ceeds to depict a blessing of which he foolishly as well as sinfully supposes himself to have'been deprived in consequence of having entered on the stage of existence, viz. the peaceful repose of the grave, in which he should have enjoyed: 1. Pe1fect rest. "Now should I have la.in still," like one reclining on his couch after the labours of the day-death being compared to a night of resting after the day of working life (Eccles. ix.10; Ps.civ. 23; Rev. xiv. 13). "And been quiet "-at peace, withdrawn from every kind of trouble and arinoyance-tbe grave being a place of absolute security a/!!liust every form of temporal calamity (vers. 17, 18; Eccles. ix. 5). "I should have slept" -death being often likened to a sleep (John xi. 11; Acts vii. 60; xiii. 36; 1 Thess. iv. 13; v. 10). "Then had I been at rest;" my sleep being untroubled, a profound slumber unvisited by dreams-the rest of the grave being, especially for the good man, e. couch of the most peaceful repose (Gen. xv.15; Eccles. xii. 5; eh. vii. 2 L; xu. 23), in comparison with which Job's maladies and miseries allowed him neither rest nor quiet. 2. Dignified companionship. "Then had I been at rest with kiugs and coun- sellors of the earth," etc. Enjoying a splendid association with the great ones of the earth, now lying iu their magnificent mausoleums, instead of sitting, as I presently do, on this ash-heap, in sublime but sorrowful isolation, nn object of loathing and disgust to passers-by. The human heart, in its seasons of distress, longs for society, in particular the society of sympathetic friends; and sometimes the loneliness of sorrow is so great that the thought of the grave, with its buried millions, presents to the sufferer a wel- come relief. However obscure, isolated, miserabl"', the lot of a saint ou e,irth, death introduces •him to the noblest fellowships-of his fathers (Gen. xv. 15; x::i:v. 8); of "the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heh. xii. 23); of the Saviour (Luke xxiii. 43 ; Phil. i. 23). 3 . .Absolute equality. Whereas he was now spurned by his fellows, he would then, had he died in infancy, have attained to as much glory as the  86 THE BOOK OF JOB. [on. m. 1-28.