The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 201

Ver. 7.-The unsearcJia:ble depth of God. It has been said that Zophar shows "some touch of the base courtier spirit and motive" in 1,thus eulogizing the wisdom of God. He seems to wish to secure God on his side. While he rebukes Job he flatters God. Nevertheless, though his motive may be unworthy, the question which he here raises is real and important. . . I. GoD's THOUGHT IS UNFATHOMABLY DEEP. 1. It mwt be BO becawe God is infinite. If we could understand God completely, it would be clear that he was but as one of us. A dog cannot fathom the thought of a man, because the inferior being can never enter into the depths of the experience of one greater in faculty. No creature can measure the mind of the great Creat-0r. 2. It is jOtJ,nd to be so in ea.perience. We are continually baffled by riddles of providence. We are puzzled to find our calculations false, and our explanations unsatisfactory. We fail to understand the object and meaning of God's mysterious dealings with us. II. WE CANNOT BUT DESIRE TO FATHOM THE DEPTHS OF GoD's ,THOUGHT. No inquiry can be more intensely interesting. God is the Source and controlling Power of our lives, and everything depends on what he thinks about us. Therefore true theology is no idle study of the cloister; it is the most practical inquiry concerning what most intimately affects our vital interests in time and in eternity. But apart from personal considerations, the study of God is the study of what is highest, best, and most wonder- ful in the universe. Can any more lofty employment for the human intellect be found? Is it not grossly UIIIl8tura.l for the child not to care to know about his father? .Surely it is wrong to check an inquiring soul in its search after God, even when it seems to go sounding on through dim and perilous ways. JII. M.E1!l HAVE XADE FOOLISH CLAillB TO HAVE FATHOMED THE DEPTHS OF Goo. Zophar did this even while appearing to honour the vastness and mystery of the Divine thought; for he assumed that he Jrnew God's idea, and that this was just identical with conventional orthodoxy. . His was the common error of extreme dogmatists. Creeds may be excellent as clear, concise confessions of belief; but the moment a finality is claimed for them tbey cease to be a help, and become a positive stumbling-block and hindrance to truth. We caODot define God; he escape&_all the bounds of tLe largest words. When we attempt to draw a circle about him we tacitly easume that he is not an Infinite Being. . · .. IV. Qua KNOWLE~E oF Gon 18 REAL, BUT PA.BTIAL. We cannot "find out the Almighty tJ,'11,tO pl-rjection." We cannot know God perfeetly, c;tnnot know 11,ll of. God. We may ,know much of him. He is not represented_ in the Bible as the Unknowable, nor to Christians a.s •• the Unknown God." lndeed Chruitians can say, "We know that we know him" (1 Johll ii. 3). Our knowledge is not merely a knowledge of our OH, JU. 1-20,] THE BOOK OF JOB. 201