The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 498

required of thee;" "Take heed, and beware of coveto11Sneee;" are sayings that occur to us n.11, Thie is really the most fruitful source of all the darker crimes and sins; because there is no passion so unsocial, so anti-social. Men lose their souls to save their pelf. "Covetousness is the alphn. and ome~a of the devil's alphabet; the first vice in corrnpt nature which moves, anrl the last which dies." It is an "immoderate desire and pursuit of even the lawful helps and supports of nature." "Holding fast all it can get in one hand, and reaching at n.11 it can desire with the other." " It has enriched its thousands, and damned its ten thousands." 2. Idolatry and blind worship of pOU1er. (Ver. 26, et seq.) As he had kept his heart with all diligence in presence of the temptations of gold, so he had watched against the inducements of false religion. In presence of the glorious objects of nature, the worship of which so extensively prevailed in the East, and at one period probably over the whole world, he had refrained from throwing towards them the kiss which was the gesture of reverence. For his heart had been touched with true reverence for its alone worthy Object, the God who is a Spirit; and to have declined to these beggarly elements would have been a crime against conscience, a practical infidelity, a denial of the God above. If we have ever been taught and trained in a spiritual faith, we cannot lapse into mere formalism-a confusion of the external symbol with the living reality-without a denial of onr spiritual conscience, a turning of the light within us into darkness. To bow before the mere power and beauty revealed in nature, ignoring God as the Author both of nature and of the moral law; or to make worship a mere sensuous enjoyment rather than a spiritua.1 exercise; are subtle temptations of our time analogous to those of Job. Our view of Nature is only religious when we seek through her sensuous medium for the supersensuous, the moral, the Divine (compare Mozley's noble sermon on" Nature"). 3. Hatred, of ,:nemia. (Ver. 29, et seq.) He had lived in the light of a most lofty morality. The genera.I principle of ancien, morality was," Love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy," among both J ewe and Gentiles. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," was the maxim of the savage justice of the early times. Even the great Aristotle says, in his 'Ethics,' "They who are not enraged when they ought to be, seem to be weak creatures ; to endure insults and neglect one's friends ia the part of a slave., (' Eth. Nie.,' iv. 5). "The first duty ot justice," says Cicero," is to injure no one, unless provoked 1,y a wrong" (' Off.,' i. 7). Let us contrast with this the gentle morality of Heaven. The Law of Moses ordained that if a man should meet his enemy's ass or his ox going astray, he should surely bring it back to him again (Exod. xxiiL 4). Men were not to avenge, nor bear any grudge against others, but to love their neighbours as themselves (Lev. xiL 18). Especially do we find this doctrine preached in the Book of Proverbs, "Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the Lord, and he will save thee" (u.. 22); "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thy heart be glad when he stumbleth" (xxiv.17); "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink" (u.v. 21). Job had not defiled his mouth with curses impre- cating death upon his foes. Nor had his morality been negative merely, which is all that many seem able to conceive of one's duties to one's neighbours. He had been hospitable and generous (vers. 31, 32). The" people of his tent,'' the inmates of his dwelling, had never to complain of scant fare, of short commons, at his table. He did not leave the etranger to pass tho night in the street, but opened his dooI'II to the wanderer. "No surly porter stood in guilty state, To spum imploring famine from the gata. . • • Hie house was known to all the vagrant train : He ohid their wanderings, bot relieved their pain.n Oompare the stories of Abraham's hospitality at Mamre, Lot's at Sodom, of the old man at Gibeah (Gen. xviii. [Heh. xiii. 2]; Judg. xi.x. 15, et seq.). Among peoples who led an unsettled, wandering life, hospitality necessarily became one of the foremost of duties to one's neighbour; and there are many Arab popular anecdotes of Divine punishment of the inhospitable. W etstein says that while exploring the lake Ram, the fountain or the Jordan, the Bedouius asked him if he had not heard of the origin of the lake; and related that many centuries ago a flourishing village once stood there. One evenin" a poor traveller came while the men were sitting together in the open place of th: village, and begged for a &upper and lodging. They refused; and when he said he was starving, an old woman reached out to him a olod of earth, and drove him from the JOB, 2 L  614 'i'BE BOOK OF JOB. [011, XXXI, 1--.,'Q,