The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 643

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 1-34.-Description of the leviathan, or crocodile. The description ia In two parts. I. The first part shows THE DIFFICULTY OR WELL-NIGH IMPOSSIBILITY OJ' CIRCUM• VENTING AND OAl'TUilING THIS HUGE AND BJ,IPPERY CREATURE. (Vers. 1-7.) In language of irony and almost of taunt this fact is set forth. Here, then, ie a mere creature of God before which man must feel his helplessness. If man cannot overcome the creature, how much less shall he pretend to vie with the Creator, make his imper- fect will the rule of the world, and bend the pride of the wicked beneath him ? II. The second part (vei-s. 8-34) is A DESOllIPTION IN DETAIL OF TllE PARTS, THE ORGANS, THE TERRIBLE ASPECT, THE FURY, THE OBSTINATE POWER OJ' DEFENCE, AND THE PROUD DOMINION OF THIS TERRIBLE CREATURE OVER ALL OTHERS IN HIS IIIVER• HAUNTS. \Vithout at all straining the language or the sense, the crocodile may be regarded as the type or allegory of the wicked-in his destructive fierceness and passion, his callol.\sness, his place of pride and worldly defences-the alarm and con• fusion which he spreads around him. So fearful and so real does wickedness seem in the high places of the earth. Inwardly, the good man may escape from its power and influence; outwardly, he seems exposed to its baneful sway, and seeks in vain for dominion over it. The leviathan is the symbol of those "kings of the children of pride." The conquest over the kingdoms of force and fraud is reserved for the Divine might of righteousness a.lone. The great lesson of tllis chapter is, then, that almighty power and justice a.re inseparable.. Separate in thought for a moment these principles, and imagine either without the other to be associated with the nature of God, and we have a world that is horrible to contemplate....:.a world where force without right is the only law, or a world where right is ever vainly struggling against force. Put these cases before the mind, and we at once see that they are not only dreadful but impossible alternatives. Neither is that human world, in which, with all its mysteries and seeming inconse- quences,. pious and .dutiful souls are thankful and content to live, the world that is firmly and broadly based upon the eternal will of absolute power and justice. Thus, too,.we are taught the truth concerning ourselves. Till we know both our weakness and our moral frailty, we know nothing truly about ourselves. To be conscious of impotence in presence of evil is to confess that we are unrighteous. And this leads to that humble conviction of dependence in which is the great root of piety. Dependence, in the natural and in the moral life, is the law of our being. In the recognition of it, in the acceptance of those relations and the fulfilment of those duties which the gospel builds upon this foundation, con.,iste man's health and peace. The thought of a God who is mere arbitrary power, as the gods and fates of the heathen, can never inspire loving trust or holiness. The thought of a God who is just, but not all-powerful, so that he cannot carry out bis righteous purposes (as in ancient Manichllllism and in the strange theory, e.g., of J. S. Mill), can never support the feeble soul in the midst of the tempta- tions of the world, in its struggle against evil, The foundation laid in Zion is built of no such crumbling material; it is raised upon a truth on which to rest is to be secure from disturbance, for upon it all the history of time and the life of mankind are built. "Praise, everlasting praise, be paid To him that earth's foundations la.id; Praise to the LoI'EI. whose strong decrees Sway the creation as he please.'' J. Vel'II. I-84.-Leviathan the terribl,. This terrible monster has a whole chapter to himself. His portrait is painted on a broad canvas, and it is as full of life and move- ment as it is of form nnd colour. Representing the crocodile, though enlarged and Idealized, leviathan is a picture of the most terrible of the works of nature,  680 THE BOOK OF JOB.