The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 299

of a epeoial providence (Ps, xl. 17; Matt. x. 30); since tbe first can be proved by ndeque.te testimony, while the second and third are supported and confirmed by the Inner witness of conscienco. Even the case pronounced by Bilde.d to be impossible. viz. the suspension of the moral law of retribution, bas come to pass. The salvation of mnn through the cross of Jesus Christ attests the fallacy of Bildad's fundamental &Bsumption. And now Bildad, having proceederl thus far with his oration, for any good be was likely to do to Job, might and should have prudently relapsed into silence. Nevertheless, he r,reached an eloquent discourse. II. THE LOFTY THEME. fhe subject descanted on by Bildad was the inevitable retribu tion which sooner or later overtook the wicked. Set forth under an emblem familiar to Oriental poetry, viz. the extinction of the fire in a dwelling, and of the lamp depending from the roof of a tent (vers. 5, 6), it w~ depicted as: 1. Delayed. The evil-doer was not arrested by the hand of Providence the moment he set forth on his career, but was allowed for a. sea.son to thrive by his unp;odliness, to amass wealth, acquire power, and secure friends, to become the head of a family or the chief of a clan, and to possess a tent, or rather a circle of tents, with his own commodious, well-furnished, richly orna- mented, brilliantly lighted tabernacle in the midst. So Eliphaz saw the foolish ta.king root (eh. v. 3), and David beheld the wicked spreading like a green bay tree (Ps. xxxvii. 35), and Asaph witnessed the ungodly prospering until at last they were sud- denly overwhelmed (Ps. lxxiii. 13). 2. Certain. Nevertheless, i.e. notwithstanding all contrary appearances, the sinner's own security, his determination to resist or evade the pursuing Nemesis, his .fierce resentment when the hand of the destroyer should apprehend him, "the light of the wicked should be put out." Not absolutely and universally true of their terrestrial career, it is yet positively sure that the prosperity of the ungodly shall decline, if not on earth, at least in the future world. 3. Complete. The glow upon the sinner's hearth and the lamp from his roof should be equally extinguished. The light in which he sunned himself, i.e. his personal comfort and happiness, and the light in which he shone to others, i.e. his greatness and glory, should a.like fade and become dark. Sometimes such experience is the lot of God's people, as the case of Job testifies. Happy they to whom Jehovah is an everlasting Light (Isa. Ix. 19), and who, when they sit in temporal darkness, can rejoice in his cheering beams (Micah vii. 8). III. THE BRILLIANT ILLUSTRATION. Tbe wicked man's career, from the moment of his apprehension by misfortune till the hour of his complete destruction, was next represented in a series of graphic pictures. In these he appears as : 1. Snared by calamity. (Vers. 7-10.) (1) Unexpectedly; when, at the height of prosperity, in the fulness of pride, and conscious of strength, he stalks forth with giant strides to execute the wicked counsels he has formed ( eh. v. 3; Eccles. ix:. 12 ; Luke x:.x:i. 34, 35 , 1 Thess. v. 3). (2) Willingly; as if disdainfully defiant of every attempt to arrest his career, marching deliberately into the. toils, so that practically "his own counsel casts him down," and "his own· feet thrust him into a net." A melancholy example of that "vaulting ambition which o'erlea.ps itself and falls on the other side; " of that self- avenging Nemesis which slumbers in the bosom of every sin, but especially of a great sin; of that terrible infatuation which sometimes seizes on the souls of wicked men, and impels them, with stupid blindness to, or reckless disregard of, consequences, for- ward to their own destruction. (3) Effectually; the gin taking him by the heel, and the noose holding him fast, so that first his proud steps become straitened, and finally himself is cast down. (4) Inevitably; the snare that is to arrest him lying already in the ground and only waiting his arrival, the import of which seems to be that the moment a transgressor enters on his evil path he starts upon e. road that must sooner or later conduct him to ruin. 2. Haunted by terrors. (Vcrs. 11, 12.) The evil con- science that he carries in his bosom, though long slumbering, at last awakes, inspires him with fearful forebodings of impending disaster, peoples all the atmosphere around him with ghostly apparitions which dog his footsteps, summons up before his startled vision, well-nigh every moment of his wretched existence, spectral shadows of coming woe, which paralyze his strength and utterly uuma.n his wicked soul. (Cf. Elipha.z's picture of a guilty conscience (?h. xv. 21), of which Bil<lad's appears to _be an ecno and imitation.) 3. .Arrested by disease. (Vers. 13, 14.) (On the expression, "the first.. born of death," see Exposition.) 'l'he obvious allW1io11 is to such a ma.lady as Job'11  811 THE BOOK OF JOB.