The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 462

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-25.-Wisiful retrospect of past happy days. I. PICTURES OIi' MEMORY; HAPPINESS FOUNDED ON THE FRIENDSHIP OF Goo. ( Vers.1-10.) 1. Friendship with God the source of happiness. (Vers.1-5.) This is beautifully indicated in figurative expres- sions. He thinks of the days when God's light beamed upon his brow, by God's light he walked through the darkness; the days of his ripe and mellow age (rather than of his" youth"), when the secret, i.e. the intimacy, of the Almighty was a shelter and a blessing to his home. The word "secret" means "intimacy," confidential intercourse (see eh. xi.x. 19; ,Ps. xxv, 14; Iv. 15; Prov. iii. 32). God was near to him, and the next greatest blessing to that favour'of God, viz. the blessing of children, was granted to him. (Compare on the blessing of children, Ps. cxxvii. 3, sqq.; cxxviii. 3.) The outward bless- ings of life a.re chiefly to be· valued as signs of the deeper, the inward good; the con- stant nearness of God, the consciousness of his approval, the certainty of his guidance. 2. Fe-aeures of outward happiness. (Vers. 6-10.) (1) Abundance of meam. Here the favourite Oriental figures are employed. He bathed his steps in butter, and the rock at his side gushed with streams of oil (comp. Deut. xxxii.13). (2) Respect and dignity. When he went to the gate of the city, the great public place of assembly in Oriental cities, corresponding to the agora. of the Greeks, the forum of the Romans, and the market-place of our old towns (eh. v. 4; xxxi. 21; Prov. i 21; viii. 3); when he placed his.seat in the market-the wide open place close by the gates-the young men retired in reverential respect before him, and the old men rose and remained standing until he had taken his seat; while princes ceased their conversation, laying the hand upon the mouth (eh. x.xi. 5); the voice of persons of consideration was hushed, their tongne cleaving to the roof of their mouth. The possession of the respect of others is one of the noblest kinds of wealth, as the consciousness of being despised, looked down upon, scouted, and flouted is an element of the deepest misery. Out of the dark present Job looks back to those sunny days. His life is "in the sere and yellow leaf," and his is "the crown of sorrow," the "remembering happier things." "It is the pensive autumn feeling, the sensation of half-sadness that we experience when the longest day of the year is past, and every day that follows is shorter, and the light fainter, and the feebler shadows tell that Nature is hastening with gigantic footsteps to her winter grave." As Christians, we should learn to look forward, and forget the past, in so far as its recol- lection paralyzes or depresses (Phil. iii. 13, 14). (Read F. W. Robertson's sermon 011 this: 1 Ohristian Progress by Oblivion of the Past.') .. Not backward are our glances bent, But onwards to our Father's home." The past is gone for ever; but there is a. present and a future which is still our own. IL '!'BE SOUROJ!I OF HAPPINESS IN GOODNESS. (Vere. 11-17.) His benevolence and his strict integrity were mediately the cause of his prosperity. For although God is the one and only Cause of 1111 things, the gracious Author of our bliss, yet his dis- pensations are not arbitrary. Blessing is conditioned by faith; and faith is proved by conduct. Job's public and private life was known and seen, and elicited approval {roCQ all. ff e was the eqccoqn1r of the poor ,_nd the helJ>less orpha~; the ble~sing Q{ f78 THE BOOK OF .JOB.