The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 572

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver.1-<:h. n:xvii. 24.-Elihu's fourth speech: God the Loving, the Just, and the Holy, In the preceding discourse11 of Elihu, he has dwelt chiefly upon the moral relations of man to God, and the view presented of God has been chiefly that obtained through the medium of human feelings and analogies. His present discourse rises to a sublime view of him as the infinitely mighty One, the wise and just Father of mankind. If we suppose that during this address the storm is brewing out of which Jehovah presently speaks, then all Elihu's references to the lightning, the thunder, the storm and rain receive, as he proceeds, their splendid illustration from the sublime scene around, and heighten the force of his appeals. L lNTBoDUCTION. (Vera. 1-4.) The speaker begins by announcing that he has i::omething further of weight to say in juslification of the ways of God to man. He ha~ "words for God" to utter. Though God's works are his justification, and he.needs no defence at the hands of man, yet it may be said that the free exercise of reason, in setting forth the glory of his goodness 3lld justice, is an acceptable service to him. If he delighu; in the unconBcious testimony of babes and sucklings (Ps. viii.), still more must he delight in the COI111Cious spontaneous offerings of man's matured thought at his shrine, The great works of Christian theologians 3lld apologists, such as Calvin's' Institutes' or Butler's 'Analogy,' are the tributes of reason ·to the honour of God. But they. are valueless unle."8 they have that quality which Elihu so emphatically claims, ~incerity, truth. He who ventures to speak for God must speak, not with the purpose of temporary expediency, but out of the conBciowmess of eternity. II. THE JUSTICE OF GoD REVEALED IN THE BlSTOBY OF MAN. (Vers. 5-21.) The course of life, argues the speaker, shows that a chastening, a purifying, but at the same time a loviog, Power is at work in the world. This is supported : 1. By a general uiew qf human life. (Vers. 6-15.) God is revealed in the different courses of men•~ lives as Power, but not as arbitrary Power. His greatness is not associated with con- tempt for the lowliness of man. It is not reckless of right and wrong. It upholds the moral order-the godless sink unsupported into the ruin their own conduct has prepared for them; while those wbo suffer from the injustice of others are succoured and defended. God's watchful eye is uµuu all just men, from the kiog whose throne he establishes, whose diguity he guards, to the captive in Lis chains, to the beggar in his misery. This, ~s we have so often seen, is the firm foundation-truth which runs beneath the whole of this book. and tlirough the whole of the Bible. And the seeming exceptions to these principles of the Divine admillistration are now explained as merely seeming; for they come under the principle of chasti6ement, which is but another illustration of love. According to this view-never more feelingly set forth than here-suffering may be, not the brand of guilt, but the silent token of love in the form of discipline. With- out positive guilt there may be moral stagnation, in which the germs of future evil are discovered by the eye of the Divillc Educator. Evil is formi1,g in tendency or thought when it has not blo1:1somed into deeds. Then comes the visit of God in suffering to 011, XXXVI, 1~8.] THE. BOOK OF JOB. 587