The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 552

HOMILETICS. Vers.1-16.-Eli"hu to Jo'b: the trial of Job continued. L JoB'B OFFENCE RESTATED. Returning to the charge, Elihu accuses Job of having given utterance to two da.ngeroU:il assertions. 1. That his (Job's) righteousness was greater than God's. "Thinkest thou this t.o be right? "-dost thou hold this for a sound judgment ?-" that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God's?" (ver. 2). That Job never used this expression may be true; but that Elihu does not unfairly represent the patriarch's meaning may. be inferred from the circumstance that even e.t an earlier stage in the controversy Elipha.z distinctly understood this to be the import of bis language (eh. iv.17). Besides, ifls a ]egitime.te deduction from those passages in which Job, maintaining hie own integrity, complains that God does not accord to him even-handed justice, but treats him, though innocent, as a criminal; so that practically it is involved in the milder rendering,_ "I am righteous before God" (LXX., Umbreit, and others),Jobmeaningtherebyto affirm that he failed to discern in God a corresponding righteousness to that which he b~beld in himself, or, in other words, that his righteousness was more (visible and real) than God's. Whether designed or not, the inevitable result of regarding with too much admiration one's own righteousness (natural or gracious, legal or evangelical) is to obscure one's perceptions of the righteousness of God, as, on the other hand, the more exalted views a saint entertains of the righteousness of God, the less will he feel disposed to magnify his own. 2. That hui (Job's) pi,ety was <>I n-0 adwntage to himself. "For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be c)eaneed from my sin?" literally," (from it) more than from my sin" (ver. 3). Thie, which Job himself had put into the mouth of the ungodly (eh. xxi. 15), adding, "The counsel of the wicked be far from me," had already been assigned to Job by Elihu (eh. xxxjv. 9:; vide homiletics), and might well seem to be implied in such utterances as cb. ix. 22-31, in which God is represented as involving "the perfect and the wicked" in one _indis- criminate destruction. and in a time of sudden and overwhelming calamity_" laughing at the trial of the innocent" (eh. xxi. 7-13; xxiv.18-24), and in which the prosperous lives and happy deaths of the ungodly are set over against the evil fortunes comi:nonly allotted to the good. Such questions as these of Job about the profit of religion, though common in the months of saints (e.g. Acaph, Ps. Juiii. 13; St. Peter, Matt. :x;ix: 27), proceed from mistaken views as to the essential character of piety, which is 'nothing if not diBinterested. Yet, in the truest and most comprehensive sense," gofiliness 'is profitable unto all things" (1 Tim. iv. 8; cf. Matt. xix. 28). • •• IL JoB's FOLLY EXPOSED. Reversing the order of Elihu's words, we discover: 1: .A s(l'Und pre11-.iss. That a man may be hurt by the irreligion, and benefited by the godliqess, of his neighbour. Nothing more demonstrable, or indeed less demanding demonstratio11,, than tLat moral character is contagious, and evil character even more so than g~ Every wicked man does an injury, directly as well as indirectly, uncot1sciously even wheu not coD.SCiously, to the world in which he lives, the neighbourhood in which he on. nxv. 1-16.J TBE' BOOK OF JOB. S67