The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 293

unflinching faith. It must be on\y of faith, however; for we have not the lnherit,mce aa yet, but only a pledge of it. Still God'a pledge ie an absolutely lll\fe security,-W, F. A, Ver. 4.-7'1re hf/arl that ia hitl<lml from -understwn.d,ng, Job is pereuRded that God vdll not desert him. He even takes the very delusions of hie tormentors RB the pledge from Gc>d for which he has been praying; for these delusions seem to come from God, and to show tbe.t he he.a bidden the bee.rt of the three friends from underete.ndlng. If it be so, they will not be exalted by God to trample on the sufferer in his misery. J. U~'DERSTANDING DEPENDS ON Tml: OONDITION OF TRE HEART If the heart is wrong the judgment will be at fault. We do not judge simply as we aee with our eyes. The mental 8:nd_ spiritue.1 condition within largely determines the shape and character of our conv1ctwns. Observe some of the states of the heart tbat hide it from understanding. 1. Obtuseness. 'l'he heart may be simply dull and blind to truth, If the light shines with meridian splendour, the man who has cataracts in his eyes will stumble into the ditch as surely as if he were walking in midnight darkness. Some men have no eyes of sympathy with which to see their neighbours; they cannot understand them. Some have no spiritualfperceptions of God; and they cannot under- s~nd him. 2. Prejudir:c, We see with the mind as weil ~ with the eyes. Our percep- tion 1s an amalgam of s1i;rht and thought. If the thought 1s warped, the perception will be crooked. A prejudiced heart excludes truth from the understanding. 3. Passion. Strong feeling blinds the judgment by its own fiery fury. The enraged heart, the sin- loving heart, the ill-regulated heart, a.re all void of understanding. We need a new and clean heart that we may receive God's truth. II. Tm HEART FBOll W.HIOH UNDERSTANDING IS mDDEN CANNOT ENJOY THE FAVOUR OF Gon. His favour does not depend on intellectual conditions. Purely mental per- plexity is no barrier against the soul in its enjoyment of the Divine love, for God does not wait for perfect orthodoxy before he will help and bless his children. But we he.ve now to do with quite another kind of error. The error which cuts off from God's favour is moral ; it springs from a perversion of heart. For this we are to blame, and therefore the 1068 it entails ie justly deserved. The loss of God's favour is seen throughout, both in the origin and in the results of the error. 1. In its origin. The startling thought of Job is that it is God who has hidden the heart from understanding. The blindness is judicial, a result of God's action. This may look like attributing moral evil to God. H Job in his terrible darkness meant anything of the kind, of course we know that he must have been in error. (1) But without going so far as thie, we may see that God would withdraw hilt aiding Spirit from the perverre heart. The result would be to bide that heart from understanding. (2) The laws of human life and thought which connect perversity of heart with lack of understanding proceed from God. (3) It is not well that truth should be understood by the perverse heart. Christ bade his disciples not cast their pearls before swine. The ideas for which we are not morally fit would be misappliedand degraded if we could receive them. 2. In its results. All error is dangerous, and moral error ie fatal. God pities the bewildered doubter; he is an,,"Ty with the perverse and wilful thinker, who goes wrong in thought because his heart is wrong. Such a man cannot prosper under the favour of God.-W. F. A. Ver. 7.-TM eye that is made dim by sorrow. Job has just been saying that God had hidden the heart of his tormentors from understanding (ver. 4). Now he sadly observes that sorrow has dimmed his own eye. It ie not easy to see clearly through a veil of tears. Excessive weeping induces blindness. The sad soul sits in darkness. I. SoRBOW PREVENTS 011 FRO)( SEEING ALL THE TaUTH. It limits the range of vision even when it does not drive us down to the darkness of despair. 1. It is an emotion, and as such it absorbs our consciousness witu internal feeling, and therefore does not permit it to look out in ex:ternal observation. A.11 subjectivity is unobservant, 2. It i.B a dq,reui:ng i11fi'11«1,U. It tends to lower our vitality. It will scarcely let us lift up our eyes to see even when we have the power of vision. Poor Hagar was too broken-hearted to notice the well which was to restore life to her child. Thus in great grief the BOUl cannot see the Divine purpose, nor the love that is above all, Black cloud!! hide the he.avens. A rain of tears blots out the earthly landscape. To the liOrrowful eye there are no flowers in spring. OIi, XVII, 1-16,] THE BOOK OF JOB. 30&