Job 10:22

ed and forlorn state. Verse 2 Do not condemn me - Let me not be afflicted in thy wrath. Show me wherefore thou contendest - If I am afflicted because of my sins, show me what that sin is. God never afflicts but for past sin, or to try his followers; or for the greater manifestation of his grace in their support and deliverance. Verse 3 Is it good unto thee - Surely it can be no gratification to thee to distress the children of men, as if thou didst despise the work of thy own hands. And shine upon the counsel - For by my afflictions the harsh judgments of the wicked will appear to be confirmed: viz., that God regards not his most fervent worshippers; and it is no benefit to lead a religious life. Verse 4 Hast thou eyes of flesh! - Dost thou judge as man judges? Illustrated by the next clause, Seest thou as man seeth? Verse 5 Are thy days as the days of man - אנוש enosh, wretched, miserable man. Thy years as man's days; גבר gaber, the strong man. Thou art not short-lived, like man in his present imperfect state; nor can the years of the long-lived patriarchs be compared with thine. The difference of the phraseology in the original justifies this view of the subject. Man in his low estate cannot be likened unto thee; nor can he in his greatest excellence, though made in thy own image and likeness, be compared to thee. Verse 6 That thou inquirest - Is it becoming thy infinite dignity to concern thyself so much with the affairs or transgressions of a despicable mortal? A word spoken in the heart of most sinners. Verse 7 Thou knowest that I am not wicked - While thou hast this knowledge of me and my conduct, why appear to be sifting me as if in order to find out sin; and though none can be found, treating me as though I were a transgressor? Verse 8 Thine hands have made me - Thou art well acquainted with human nature, for thou art its author. And fashioned me together round about - All my powers and faculties have been planned and executed by thyself. It is thou who hast refined the materials out of which I have been formed, and modified them into that excellent symmetry and order in which they are now found; so that the union and harmony of the different parts, (יחד yachad), and their arrangement and completion, (סביב sabib), proclaim equally thy wisdom, skill, power, and goodness. Yet thou dost destroy me - ותבלעני vatteballeeni, "and thou wilt swallow me up." Men generally care for and prize those works on which they have spent most time, skill, and pains: but, although thou hast formed me with such incredible skill and labor, yet thou art about to destroy me! How dreadful an evil must sin be, when, on its account, God has pronounced the sentence of death on all mankind; and that body, so curiously and skilfully formed, must be decomposed, and reduced to dust! Verse 9 Thou hast made me as the clay - Thou hast fashioned me, according to thy own mind, out of a mass of clay: after so much skill and pains expended, men might naturally suppose they were to have a permanent being; but thou hast decreed to turn them into dust! Verse 10 Hast thou not poured me out as milk - After all that some learned men have said on this subject, in order to confine the images here to simple nutrition, I am satisfied that generation is the true notion. Respicit ad fetus in matris utero primam formationem, quum in embryonem ex utriusque parentis semine coalescit - Ex semine liquido, lac quodammodo referente, me formasti - In interpretando, inquit Hieronymus, omnino his accedo qui de genitali semine accipiunt, quod ipsa tanquam natura emulget, ac dein concrescere in utero ad coalescere jubet. I make no apology for leaving this untranslated. The different expressions in this and the following verse are very appropriate: the pouring out like milk-coagulating, clothing with skin and flesh, fencing with bones and sinews, are well imagined, and delicately, and at the same time forcibly, expressed. If I believed that Job referred to nutrition, which I do not, I might speak of the chyle, the chylopoietic organs, the lacteal vessels, and the generation of all the solids and fluids from this substance, which itself is derived from the food taken into the stomach. But this process, properly speaking, does not take place till the human being is brought into the world, it being previously nourished by the mother by means of the funis umbilicus, without that action of the stomach by which the chyle is prepared. Verse 12 Thou hast granted me life and favorer - Thou hast brought me from my mother's womb; given me an actual existence among men; by thy favor or mercy thou hast provided me with the means of life; and thy visitation - thy continual providential care, has preserved me in life - has given me the air I breathe, and furnished me with those powers which enable me to respire it as an agent and preserver of life. It is by God's continued visitation or influence that the life of any man is preserved; in him we live, move, and have our being. Verse 13 And these things hast thou hid in thine heart - Thou hast had many gracious purposes concerning me which thou hast not made known; but thy visitations and mercy are sufficient proofs of kindness towards me; though for purposes unknown to me thou hast sorely afflicted me, and continuest to treat me as an enemy. Verse 14 If I sin - From thee nothing can be hidden; if I sin, thou takest account of the transgression, and canst not hold me for innocent when thou knowest I am guilty. Verse 15 If I be wicked - I must meet with that punishment that is due to the workers of iniquity. If I be righteous - I am only in the state which my duty to my Creator requires me to be in; and I cannot therefore suppose that on this account I can deserve any thing by way of favor from the justice of my Maker. I am full of confusion - I am confounded at my state and circumstances. I know that thou art merciful, and dost not afflict willingly the children of men; I know I have not wickedly departed from thee; and yet I am treated by thee as if I were an apostate from every good. I am therefore full of confusion. See thou to my affliction; and bring me out of it in such a way as shall at once prove my innocence, the righteousness of thy ways, and the mercy of thy nature. Verse 16 For it increaseth - Probably this refers to the affliction mentioned above, which is increased in proportion to its duration. Every day made his escape from such a load of evils less and less probable. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion - As the hunters attack the king of beasts in the forest, so my friends attack me. They assail me on every side. Thou showest thyself marvelous - Thy designs, thy ways, thy works, are all incomprehensible to me; thou dost both confound and overpower me. Mr. Good translates thus: - "For uprousing as a ravenous lion dost thou spring upon me. And again thou showest over me thy vast power." Verse 17 Thou renewest thy witnesses - In this speech of Job he is ever referring to trials in courts of judicature, and almost all his terms are forensic. Thou bringest witnesses in continual succession to confound and convict me. Changes and war - I am as if attacked by successive troops; one company being wearied, another succeeds to the attack, so that I am harassed by continual warfare. Verse 18 Wherefore then - Why didst thou give me a being, when thou didst foresee I should be exposed to such incredible hardships? See on Job 3:10 (note), etc. Verse 19 I should have been as though - Had I given up the ghost as soon as born, as I could not then have been conscious of existence, it would have been, as it respects myself, as though I had never been; being immediately transported from my mother's womb to the grave. Verse 20 Are not my days few? - My life cannot be long; let me have a little respite before I die. Verse 21 I shall not return - I shall not return again from the dust to have a dwelling among men. To the land of darkness - See the notes on Job 3:5 . There are here a crowd of obscure and dislocated terms, admirably expressive of the obscurity and uncertainty of the subject. What do we know of the state of separate spirits? What do we know of the spiritual world? How do souls exist separate from their respective bodies? Of what are they capable and what is their employment? Who can answer these questions? Perhaps nothing can be said much better of the state than is here said, a land of obscurity, like darkness. The shadow of death - A place where death rules, over which he projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life. Without any order, ולא סדרים velo sedarim, having no arrangements, no distinctions of inhabitants; the poor and the rich are there, the master and his slave, the king and the beggar, their bodies in equal corruption and disgrace, their souls distinguished only by their moral character. Stripped of their flesh, they stand in their naked simplicity before God in that place. Verse 22 Where the light is as darkness - A palpable obscure: it is space and place, and has only such light or capability of distinction as renders "darkness visible." The following words of Sophocles convey the same idea: Ιω σκοτος εμοι φαος; "Thou darkness be my light." It is, as the Vulgate expresses it, Terra tenebrosa, et operta mortis caligine: Terra miseriae et tenebrarum, ubi umbra mortis, et nullus ordo, sed sempiternus horror inhabitat: "A murky land, covered with the thick darkness of death: a land of wretchedness and obscurities, where is the shadow of death, and no order, but sempiternal horror dwells everywhere." Or, as Coverdale expresses this last clause, Wheras is no ordre but terrible feare as in the darknesse. A duration not characterized or measured by any of the attributes of time; where there is no order of darkness and light, night and day, heat and cold, summer and winter. It is the state of the dead! The place of separate spirits! It is out of time, out of probation, beyond change or mutability. It is on the confines of eternity! But what is This? and where? Eternity! how can I form any conception of thee? In thee there is no order, no bounds, no substance, no progression, no change, no past, no present, no future! Thou art an indescribable something, to which there is no analogy in the compass of creation. Thou art infinity and incomprehensibility to all finite beings. Thou art what, living, I know not, and what I must die to know; and even then I shall apprehend no more of thee than merely that thou art E-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y! Introduction Zophar answers Job, and reproves him severely for his attempts to justify himself; charges him with secret iniquity, and contends that God inflicts less punishment on him than his iniquities deserve, Job 11:1-6 . Shows the knowledge and perfections of God to be unsearchable, and that none can resist his power, Job 11:7-11 . Warns him against vanity of mind, and exhorts him to repentance on the ground that his acceptance with God is still a possible case, and that his latter days may yet become happy and prosperous, Job 11:12-20 . Verse 1 Zophar the Naamathite - Of this man and his friends, see Job 2:11 . He is the most inveterate of Job's accusers, and generally speaks without feeling or pity. In sour godliness he excelled all the rest. This chapter and the twentieth comprehends all that he said. He was too crooked to speak much in measured verse. Verse 2 Should not the multitude of words be answ

if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction; 16 For it increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou showest thyself marvellous upon me. 17 Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and increasest thine indignation upon me; changes and war are against me. 18 Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! 19 I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. 20 Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little, 21 Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; 22 A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness. Here we have, I. Job's passionate complaints. On this harsh and unpleasant string he harps much, in which, though he cannot be justified, he may be excused. He complained not for nothing, as the murmuring Israelites, but had cause to complain. If we think it looks ill in him, let it be a warning to us to keep our temper better. 1. He complains of the strictness of God's judgment and the rigour of his proceedings against him, and is ready to call it summum jus—justice bordering on severity. That he took all advantages against him: " If I sin, then thou markest me, v. 14 . (1.) If I do but take one false step, misplace a word, or cast a look awry, I shall be sure to hear of it. Conscience, thy deputy, will be sure to upbraid me with it, and to tell me that this gripe, this twitch of pain, is to punish me for that." If God should thus mark iniquities, we should be undone; but we must acknowledge the contrary, that, though we sin, God does not deal in extremity with us. (2.) That he prosecuted those advantages to the utmost: Thou wilt not acquit me from my iniquity. While his troubles he could not take the comfort of his pardon, nor hear that voice of joy and gladness; so hard is it to see love in God's heart when we see frowns in his face and a rod in his hand. (3.) That, whatever was his character, his case at present was very uncomfortable, v. 15 . [1.] If he be wicked, he is certainly undone in the other world: If I be wicked, woe to me. Note, A sinful state is a woeful state. This we should each of us believe, as Job here, with application to ourselves: " If I be wicked, though prosperous and living in pleasure, yet woe to me." Some especially have reason to dread double woes if they be wicked. "I that have knowledge, that have made a great profession of religion, that have been so often under strong convictions, and have made so many fair promises—I that was born of such good parents, blessed with a good education, that have lived in good families, and long enjoyed the means of grace— if I be wicked, woe, and a thousand woes, to me. " [2.] If he be righteous, yet he dares not lift up his head, dares not answer as before, ch. ix. 15 . He is so oppressed and overwhelmed with his troubles that he cannot look up with any comfort or confidence. Without were fightings, within were fears; so that, between both, he was full of confusion, not only confusion of face for the disgrace he was brought down to and the censures of his friends, but confusion of spirit; his mind was in a constant hurry, and he was almost distracted, Ps. lxxxviii. 15 . 2. He complains of the severity of the execution. God (he thought) did not only punish him for every failure, but punish him in a high degree, v. 16, 17 . His affliction was, (1.) Grievous, very grievous, marvellous, exceedingly marvellous. God hunted him as a lion, as a fierce lion hunts and runs down his prey. God was not only strange to him, but showed himself marvellous upon him, by bringing him into uncommon troubles and so making him prodigy, a wonder unto many. All wondered that God would inflict and that Job could bear so much. That which made his afflictions most grievous was that he felt God's indignation in them; it was this that made them taste so bitter and lie so heavy. They were God's witnesses against him, tokens of his displeasure; this made the sores of his body wounds in his spirit. (2.) It was growing, still growing worse and worse. This he insists much upon; when he hoped the tide would turn, and begin to ebb, still it flowed higher and higher. His affliction increased, and God's indignation in the affliction. He found himself no better, no way better. These witnesses were renewed against him, that, if one did not reach to convict him, another might. Changes and war were against him. If there was any change with him, it was not for the better; still he was kept in a state of war. As long as we are here in this world we must expect that the clouds will return after the rain, and perhaps the sorest and sharpest trials may be reserved for the last. God was at war with him, and it was a great change. He did not use to be so, which aggravated the trouble and made it truly marvellous. God usually shows himself kind to his people; if at any time he shows himself otherwise, it is his strange work, his strange act, and he does in it show himself marvellous. 3. He complains of his life, and that ever he was born to all this trouble and misery ( v. 18, 19 ): "If this was designed for my lot, why was I brought out of the womb, and not smothered there, or stifled in the birth?" This was the language of his passion, and it was a relapse into the same sin he fell into before. He had just now called life a favour ( v. 12 ), yet now he calls it a burden, and quarrels with God for giving it, or rather laying it upon him. Mr. Caryl gives this a good turn in favour of Job. "We may charitably suppose," says he, "that what troubled Job was that he was in a condition of life which (as he conceived) hindered the main end of his life, which was the glorifying of God. His harp was hung on the willow-trees, and he was quite out of tune for praising God. Nay, he feared lest his troubles should reflect dishonour upon God and give occasion to his enemies to blaspheme; and therefore he wishes, O that I had given up the ghost! A godly man reckons that he lives to no purpose if he do not live to the praise and glory of God." If that was his meaning, it was grounded on a mistake; for we may glorify the Lord in the fires. But this use we may make of it, not to be over-fond of life, since the case has been such sometimes, even with wise and good men, that they have complained of it. Why should we dread giving up the ghost, or covet to be seen of men, since the time may come when we may be ready to wish we had given up the ghost and no eye had seen us? Why should we inordinately lament the death of our children in their infancy, that are as if they had not been, and are carried from the womb to the grave, when perhaps we ourselves may sometimes wish it had been our own lot? II. Job's humble requests. He prays, 1. That God would see his affliction ( v. 15 ), take cognizance of his case, and take it into his compassionate consideration. Thus David prays ( Ps. xxv. 18 ), Look upon my affliction and my pain. Thus we should, in our troubles, refer ourselves to God, and may comfort ourselves with this, that he knows our souls in adversity. 2. That God would grant him some ease. If he could not prevail for the removal of his trouble, yet might he not have some intermission? "Lord, let me not be always upon the rack, always in extremity: O let me alone, that I may take comfort a little! v. 20 . Grant me some respite, some breathing-time, some little enjoyment of myself." This he would reckon a great favour. Those that are not duly thankful for constant ease should think how welcome one hour's ease would be if they were in constant pain. Two things he pleads:—(1.) That life and its light were very short: " Are not my days few? v. 20 . Yes, certainly they are, very few. Lord, let them not be all miserable, all in the extremity of misery. I have but a little time to live; let me have some comfort of life while it does last." This plea fastens on the goodness of God's nature, the consideration of which is very comfortable to an afflicted spirit. And, if we would use this as a plea with God for mercy (" Are not my days few? Lord, pity me"), we should use it as a plea with ourselves, to quicken us to duty: " Are not my days few? Then it concerns me to redeem time, to improve opportunities, what my hand finds to do to do it with all my might, that I may be ready for the days of eternity, which shall be many." (2.) That death and its darkness were very near and would be very long ( v. 21, 22 ): "Lord, give me some ease before I die," that is, "lest I die of my pain." Thus David pleads ( Ps. xiii. 3 ), " Lest I sleep the sleep of death, and then it will be too late to expect relief; for wilt thou show wonders to the dead? " Ps. lxxxviii. 10 . "Let me have a little comfort before I die, that I may take leave of this world calmly, and not in such confusion as I am now in." Thus earnest should we be for grace, and thus we should plead, "Lord, renew me in the inward man; Lord, sanctify me before I die, for otherwise it will never be done." See how he speaks here of the state of the dead. [1.] It is a fixed state, whence we shall not return ever again to live such a life as we now live, ch. vii. 10 . At death we must bid a final farewell to this world. The body must then be laid where it will lie long, and the soul adjudged to that state in which it must be for ever. That had need be well done which is to be done but once, and done for eternity. [2.] It is a very melancholy state; so it appears to us. Holy souls, at death, remove to a land of light, where there is no death; but their bodies they leave to a land of darkness and the shadow of death. He heaps up expressions here of the same import to show that he has as dreadful apprehensions of death and the grave as other men naturally have, so that it was only the extreme misery he was in that made him wish for it. Come and let us look a little into the grave, and we shall find, First, That there is no order there: it is without any order, perpetual night, and no succession of day. All there lie on the same level, and there is no distinction between prince and peasant, but the servant is there free from his master, ch. iii. 19 . No order is observed in bringing people to the grave, not the eldest first, not the richest, not the poorest, and yet every one in his own order, the order appointed by the God of life. Secondly, That there is no light there. In the grave there is thick darkness, darkness that cannot be felt indeed, yet cannot but be feared by those that enjoy the light of life. In the grave there is no knowledge, no comfort, no joy, no praising God, no working out our salvation, and therefore no light. Job was so much ashamed that others should see his sores, and so much afraid to see them himself, that the darkness of the grave, which would hide them and huddle them up, would upon that account be welcome to him. Darkness comes upon us; and therefore let us walk and work while we have the light with us. The grave being a land of darkness, it is well we are carried thither with our eyes closed, and then it is all one. The grave is a land of darkness to man; our friends that have gone thither we reckon removed into darkness, Ps. lxxxviii. 18 . But that it is not so to God will appear by this, that the dust of the bodies of the saints, though scattered, though mingled with other dust, will none of it be lost, for God's eye is upon every grain of it and it shall be forth-coming in the great day. Poor Job's wound's were yet bleeding, his sore still runs and