HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 1-21.-Renewed rebukea and warnings. Bildad again replies, mentioning that the pas~ionate outbreaks of Job are useles~. He holds fast to bis original principle, that, according to the La"w of Go<l, the hardened sinner will suddenly meet his doom. And some secret ein, he persists, must be the cause of the present suffering. I. lNTI\ODUOTION: DENUN0IATION OF JOB AS A FOOLISH AND VIOLENT SPEAKER. (Vera. 1-4.) He is one who "hunts after words." Let him be truly sensihle and rational, begs this confident Pharisaic preacher. "Why do you treat us as stupid beasts?" he indignantly expostulates. "You tear yourself to pieces in your anger, and think yourself lacerated b_v God" (comp. eh. vii. 16). Does Job exi,ect the earth to be depopulated and rocks to be removed for his sake? Bildad thinks that Job's repeated assertion of his innocence aims at the subversion of the moral order of the world- the holy order given by God (comp. Rom. iii. 5, 6). It is a grand thought, though misapplied by the speaker. The order of God, alike in nature and the human spirit, is unchangeable, and admits of no exception. But this order is not to be misunder- stood by drawing conclusions from the outward to the inward life. Where the higher, the spiritual, is concerned, reason, Scripture, and conscience, rather than any outward tokens, must decide the truth. II. DESORIPTION OF THE DREADFUL DOOM OF THE HARDENED SINNER. (Vera. 5- 21.) Most solemn and pathetic; a masterpiece of dramatic representation. .A series of atriking figures is made to pass before the eye of imagination. 1. The light of the wicked. is put out; no flame leaps from bis fire, no cheerful lamp bangs from his tent- roof. This is a favourite image (eh. :x:xi. 17; xxix. 3; Ps. xviii. 28; Prov. xiii. 9). The Arabs say, "Fate has put out my lamp" (vers. 5, 6). 2. Another fignre: bis steps a.re hemmeJ in--current in the East-and bis own counsel overthrows him (ver. 7). 3. Again, the figure of the nets and snares and pitfalls, by which be meets bis ruin (vers. 8-10). 'l'errible tboui:i;bts and dread events throng around him, and pursue him, like the Erinnyes of the Greek mythology-messengers from God to disquiet his guilty soul (ver. 11). 4. Disaster and ruin are personified in the poetic description. The one has an eager hunger for him; the other stands ready, like an armed foe, to cast him down (ver. 12). III. The description now TAKES A MORE PERSONAL DIRECTION-POINTING TO THE STATE OF Jon. 1. His disease-the terrible elephantiasis-the "first-born of death," devours him piecemeal (ver. 13). 2. Expelled from bis secure abode, be advances into the power of the "king of terrors" (ver. 14). He dwells in the tent of another, while brimstone from heaven desolates his former habitation (comp. eh. xv. 34; Deut. u:ix. 22, 23; Ps. xi. 6). This, it is said, is still at the present day the most dreadful of images to tho mind of the Semitic peoples-the desolation of the home (ver, 15). 3. Another figure: be is like a tree, withered at the root, and lopped above (ver. 16). An imprecation was written on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, "Let him have neither roots below nor branches above I" (comp. Isa. v. 24; Amos ii. 9). 4. His memory passes away from the land, and bis name is known over the wide steppe no more (ver. 17; comp. eh. xiii. 12). He is thrust out of the light of life and happiness into tlie darkness of calamity and death, and is hunted from the round babitablt1 earth (ver.18), No scion nor shoot springs from him among the people; none escaped from his utter ruin in his dwelling8 (ver.19). 5, An awful impression is felt by all, in East and \Vest nlike, who contemplate so dreadful a doom. "Thus," concludes Bildad, '' it belalleth the dwellings of the unrighteous, and the place of him that knew not-recognized and honoured not-God" (vers. 20, 21). Detaching this address from its inappropriate application to the sufferer, it is in itself a noble piece of warning and exhortation. Let us gather from it a few lessons. 1. The curse of the wicked is the extinction of the light of God, who is the Light and Brightness of the righteous (vers. 5, sqq.; Ps. xxxvi. 9, 10; cxix.105). The light, again, may be taken as a figure for the clear knowledge of man's destiny, a clear consciousness iD the whole life (MRtt. vi. 22, 23). Then the light in the tent enhances the figure, and 814 THE BOOK: OP OOB. [cm:. S.\rm. 1-21,
'beautifully point.a to thiR clear oonscioume11s in the daUy relatlone of the houRe. 2. (Vel'I!. 17, sqq.) The memory a man leaves behind is not ofeo much coneequence as the conl!Ciouen888 in life of being known to God. There are many true and hidden ones in the world, whose deeds are done in secret for God's eake (John iii. 21); and mnny god- less ones, who make so great a stir and noise in the world that they are talked of after they a.re gone. It is a peculiar bleseing to the child of God if he be made an example to any, And after his death a sweet savour ascends from his life to God's praise (Prov. x. 7). 3. The repeated descriptions of the doom of the ungodly are intended to quell our envy at the sight of unhallowed prospering, and direct our thoughts to the inwar<l, the only real !He. How can we judge whether any one is a true fearer of God? Not from his religious observances, not from the external fortunes which befall him, not from his individual good works; but from the faith which he owns, from the whole direction of his life to the Divine, from the frame of mind in which he dies (Ps. ~xiii. 17, 19, et.o.; Wohlfarth).-J.