The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 287

their frklnd, to be a spoil (ver. 6); and so would they in torn be wounded in their parent11.l loves. C'TOd's retributions often show a striking correspondence lo the crimes they avenge. Though the 7a: talionis has been abrogated. by the gospel, it is still not unfrequently ob~erved that they who take the sword perilih by the sword (Matt. u:vi. 52), and that "with what measure a man metes it ie meaeured to him again" (Matt. vii. 2). 5. Prodaimin.g their fully. With contemptuous disdain he invites them to renew their efforts to establish hie guilt, to attack him with another round of argu• menti;, telling them he has no fear of thei-1.· success, knowing them, as he does, to be essential fools (vcr. 5). If the language evinces (1) amazing self-coufidence, Job standing with his foot in the grave, and yet lifting up his head ,vith unfaltering &l!l!urance to the skies; and (2) keen intellectual penetration, the speakQr olearly dis- cerning the fallacious character of the friends' consolation that, if he repented, he would yet be restored to a life of prosperity; it also displays (3) extraordinary acerbity of feeling for a good man who might have been expected to hush his angry pasijione before lying down to sleep in the grave; and (4) exces~ive beat of language which ill became a saint, even of the days of Job. III. SEEKING REFUGE IN THE MERCY OF Gon. 1. The bold request. 'l'urning from his friends and confronting death, Job entreats with a sublimely daring faith, which rises clear above the mists of despondency and the hurricanes of passion that alter.;, nntcly fill his breast, that God himself would strike hands with him, and engage to be Surety for his innocence against himself (ver. 3). It is a by no means di,:n anticipation of the fundament.al notion of the gospel, that, for .the answering of all that God, as a righteous Lawgiver, can lay to the charge of man, God has himself become the Sponsor or Bondsman. What Job's faith, standing as it were on the headlands of human thought, and looking out with prophetic eye into the vast terram incognitam that spread ont before him, craved fur himself, that God wonld nndertake the task of replying for him, not alone to the aspersions of his human calumniators, but also to tbe :\CCusa.tions and charges preferred against him by bis Divine a~sailant, viz; pod hiinseir -this astounding entreaty on the part of poor, feeble, sinful humanity, as represented by Job, has been answered by the gospel of Jesus Christ, who came in the fulness of the times as God incarnate to champion the cause of lost man, and vindicate, not his innocence, but his righteousness before God. 2. Thefourfold rea39n.. Job bases hrii supplication on a variet_v of grounds. (1) The. impossibility o,f finding. l;i.elp. in·· any other quarter but with God. "Who else [but God] should furnish surety to. me?" (ver. 3). Not man, since Job'ij friends rather exulted in his conviction and condem- nation as e. crin,inal. Hence, if any one could act the part of bondsman, it must .be God himself. So is it God e.lone who. cau either clear up the saint's integrit,r or establish the sinner's righteousness before God. "No hope can on the Law be built of justifying grace; " nay- " Vain iB all h11D1an he! p fol' me; I dare not trust an earthly prop I My sole reliance is on thee; Thon art my Hope." (Elliot.) 12) The fact that God himself was the Author of his troubles. Humiliating as these ~ere (ver. 6), they had not come upon him accidentally, but by Divine permission. lr;1 so Jar, taerefore, as they proclaimed hiw an object of God's judicial wrath, they likewise 1uad6 it clear that only God could effectually interpose for his deliverance, As Job was made a proverb and an object of contel)lpt to his age (eh. xxx. 9, 10), so was David (Ps. xxxv. 15, 16), and tbe Mesi;iauic Sufferer spoken of in the P~alter (Ps. xxii. 6, 7; lxix. 7, 11., 12, 19), aud the prophets (Lia. 1, 6; liii. 3), and. Christ (Matt, ,r::~vi. 67; xxvii. 28, 29, 41-44), and so may Christians expect to be (1 Cor. iv. 9, 11, 13). (3) 'l'he circumstance that under the pres~ure of deep debjlsem1mt he had wasted to a skeleton. Nothing impairs the strength or exl,lausts t~e vitality of the body IJke mental wrrow. Such,inward anguish as Job had been subjected to makes the eye dim, the Lair gray, the face old, and the entire frame feeble. Map's frailty, and even ~a.n'e guiltiness, are recogoized in Scripture as an argument for God's mercifuJ intcrpos1t10n (P... vL 2, 5, 7; xxv. 11). (4) 'l'be danger of all UlOral distinctions becoming confu~ed if hi.8 integrity were not cleared up. If allowed to pass away unller 11, cloud, the truly Oft, XVII, 1-16,] TIit BOOK OF JOB. 299