Ver. 16.-" I would not live alway." I. THE CRY OF BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. Exemplified in the case or Elijah (1 Kings iiL 4) and of Jonah (iv. 3). II. TrrE WAIL OF GB.EAT SOB.Bow. Illustrated by the experience of Job. III. THE VOICE OF BEMOBSEFUL DESPAIB. As with Ahithophel (2 Sam. x:vii. 23) and Judas (Matt. xnii. 5). IV. THE LANGUAGE OF AN .A.WAXENED CONSCIENCE, Witness the jailor of Philippi (Acui xvi. 27). V. Tm: UTrEB.A.NCE OF FAITH. As employed by St. Paul (Phil. i. 23). Learn : 1. The necessity of departing from this life (Heb. ix. 27). 2. The importance of preparing for another (Heh. xi. 10).
Ve!"II. 17-21.-Job to God: L ..d remomtrance with Heaven. I. TBE DIVINE OONDUCT DEPICTED. As that of: 1. .A Man-watcher. (Ver. 20; cf. ver. 12.) Con- cerning this Divine espionage may be noted: (1) The object of it. Man (vcr.17). Not some formidable opponent or powerful ac.versa.ry, of whose movements the Almighty might reasonably be apprehensive, not some all-devouring ocean, or fierce ungovernable sea-monster (ver. 12), but a poor, feeble, insi!!llificant creature (enosh), a dull and spirit- less hireling (soldier or slave), dragging out a term of hard service on the earth (ver; 1), burdened with intolerable miseries (ver. 3), whose days !I.re swifter then a weaver's shuttle (ver. 6), are even vanity (ver. 16), and whose whole term of exis_tence in this sublunary sphere is like e. passing wind or vanishing cloud (vers. 7-9), that melts away and never more returns. (2) The character of it. Job supposes that this great Man- watcher whom he describes first attributes an extravagant importance to the feeble and insignificant creature whose portrait has just been sket-ched: "What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him?" (cf. David's language to Saul, 1 Sam. xxiv. 14); then constitutes him an object of special, close, earnest, vigilant observation: " And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?" (cf. Ps. viii. 4; cxliv. 3; Heh. ii. 6); next treats him like a prisoner subjected to regular inspection, in C886 he should either escape from confinement or be guilty of hatching plots against his keeper: "And that thou shouldest visit him every morning ; " and finally puts him severely to the proof, i.e. by the thumbscrews and stocks of affliction: "And try him every moment." (3) The constancy of it. This terrible inspection Job represents, not as occasional or exceptional, which might have been tolerable, but as perpetual, without interruption and without ceesation-" every morning" and "every moment," the Divine eye never leaving him so long as to permit him to swallow down his spittle. (4) The purpose or it. Not to bless man, as David liked to think of the Divine guardianship (Ps. viii. 4), but to curse him, tp find out his faults, to detect his failings, to discover his sine. This horrible picture of the all-seeing, silent, never-sleeping eye of_ the Eternal always fixed ou man with its cold, clear, cruel, calculating gaze, never seeming to D;l0Ve, but ever there, in the daytime and in the Dight season, dogging him at every turn, is happily not trve of the ~ t (l'e. ~v. l.6 i x~vii, 321 33 i cJ:xi, 1---8), though, 11,}alJ I UH, VII. 1-21.] THE BOOK OF JOB. 129