The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 492

God will one day hold such a court of inquiry, in which masters and servants, rulers and ruled, will be judged, ie announced in Scripture (Pe. xcvi.13; Ecclelf. xi. 9; Acts x-vii. 31; 2 Cor. v. 10). Hence masters are responsible for their treatment or servants (Col. iv. 1); and this thought should deter them, as it did Job, from inflicting upon th1Jee who serve, or a.re dependent upon them, either injustice or severity (Eph. vi. 9). (2) His servants were possessed of the same human nature with himself. They had been fashioned by the so.me bivine power as himself. Both alike were God's handi- work (eh. :xxxiv. 19; Ps. xxxiii. 15), God's creatures (Isa. xlv. 12), God's offspring (Me.I. ii.10; Aote xvii. 29). Iloth he.d been produced by the same human agency. Both had been curiously and secretly elaborated in a woman's worn b (Ps. cxxxix. 13). Both had been me.de of one blood (Acts xvii. 26). Hence both belonged to a common brotherhood. Physically, intellectualJy, moralJy, the slave is the fellow of his master, having on the ground of e. common humanity equal rights with that master in the sight of God e.nd before men. The language of Job is a powerful condemnation of the modern kind of slavery. V. WITH RESPEO'l' TO THE LAW OF KINDNESS. (Vers. 16-22.) 1. The objects of Job's compassionate 'f"egard. The poor and the needy, the hungry and the naked, the fatherless and the widow. The care of such persons is a dictate of nature, which, how- ever, is frequently powerless to enforce obedience to its own precepts. Among heathen nations generally the helpless and the destitute have been neglected and left to perish, if not openly oppressed and destroyed. Religion, however, both natural and revealed, pre- scribes kindness to the poor and needy as one of its essential virtues. The Mosaic code provided special legislation for the poor (Lev. xix. 10, 13; xxiii. 22; Exod. xxiii. 11 ; Deut. xv. 7-11; xiv. 28, 29), for the widow (Exod. xxii. 22; Deut. xxiv. 17; xxvii. 19), for the orphan (Exod. xxii. 22; Deut. x. 18; xiv. 29). In the Hebrew Church these were the objects of God's peculiar care (Ps. lxviii. 5; cxlvi. 9; Jer. xlix. 11; Mal. iii. 5). In' the' Christian Church they are regarded as Christ's brethren (Matt. xxv. 40). The care of them a special duty of tlie pious (Jas. i. 27). 2. Job's habitual behaviour towards the poor and needy. Previously described (eh. xxix. 11-17), it is here again set·forth both negatively and positively. (1) Negatively, by reciting the special acts of unkindness towards the poor which he was careful to avoid, such as (a) withholding the poor from their desire (ver. 16), it might be from the wages for which they had toiled or the alms which they had craved; (b) causing the eyes of the widow to fail, by denying her assistance or· refusing her redress against her powerful oppressor (eh. xxiv. 3); (c) eating his morsel alone, "in tnisery and grudging seclusion," lest the fatherless should see it and require to be invited to partake (ver. 17); (d) looking on 'Yith heartless unconcern while the naked shivered in their rags, and perished for want of clothes (vet. HI); (e) shaking the hand, i.e. using a threatening gesture towards the orplie.n who_ sued him in a court of justice, the moment he recognized the judges to be his friends (ver; 21). (2) Positively, by 8ketching the manner of life towards them which from his youth up he he.d pursued (ver. 18), and which in large measure had become a second nature to him; according to which Job had been a father to the orphan and a son to the widow (ver. 18), training up the one with paternal solicitude and comforting the other with filial devotion, while the hungry never failed to find a meal at his hospitable board (ver. 17), or the naked to exchange their rags for the warmest fleeces of his sheep (ver. 20), bis own heart finding its truest joy and amplest reward in the happiness he conferred on others. 3. The fipirit that inspired Job in his charitable deeds. He·was afraid of the Divine retribution, e.nd he stood in awe of the Divine majesty. It was the fear, not of man, but of God, that deterred him; the apprehension, not of unpleasant consequences in tirue, if he acted otherwise, bnt of the e.11-devonriag wrath of the Almighty in the future. 4. The proof that Job off,·rcd of his veracity in what he said. He invoked upon himself a curse if he had sinned iu any of the·ways above named, but more particularly if he had lifted up his band against the orphan; he desired that his shoulder might fall from its shoulder-blade, a.nd that his ar!Jl might be broken from its bone (ver. 22). VI. WmI RESPECT TO THE LAW OF WORSHIP. (Vers. 24-28.) 1. The twofold. idplatry from which Job had abstained. (1) Mam monism, or the worship of money. Formerly possessed of great wealth (eh. i. 3; cf. xxii. 24), Job had carefully avoided those particular sins which great wealth is prone to foster. (a) lie had not allowed hi:i 608 'rHE BOOK OF JOB. rOH, xxu, l-40,