The stricken patriarch's lament: 2. Bewailing his life.
I. THE DESPISED GIFT—LIFE. In bitterness of soul, Job not only laments that ever he had entered on the stage of existence at all, but with the perverse ingenuity of grief which looks at all things crosswise, he turns the very mercies of God into occasions of complaint, despising God's care of him:
1. Before birth. "Why died I not from the womb?" i.e. while I was yet unborn; surely a display of monstrous ingratitude, since, if God did not protect the tender offspring of men prior to their birth, it would be impossible that they should ever see the light (contrast Psalms 139:13).
2. At birth. "Why did 1 not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?" To which he might himself have returned answer:
3. After birth. "Why did the knees prevent"—i.e. anticipate—"me? or why the breasts that I should suck?" (verse 12). To which, again, he might have responded that man is so helpless in infancy that without the safe shelter of a father's arms and the strong support of a father's knees, as well as the warm nest of a mother's bosom and the rich consolations of a mother's breasts, he must inevitably perish. That God has provided these for man is a signal proof of the Divine wisdom and loving-kindness. That any should despise them is a mark of thoughtlessness, if not of depravity (cf. Psalms 22:9, Psalms 22:10; Psalms 71:5, Psalms 71:6).
II. THE LOST BLESSING—THE GRAVE. Thus undervaluing God's great gift of life, he proceeds to depict a blessing of which he foolishly as well as sinfully supposes himself to have been deprived in consequence of having entered on the stage of existence, viz. the peaceful repose of the grave, in which he should have enjoyed:
1. Perfect rest' "Now should I have lain still," like one reclining on his couch after the labours of the day—death being compared to a night of resting after the day of working life (Ecclesiastes 9:1-18; Ecclesiastes 10:1-20; Psalms 104:23; Revelation 14:13). "And been quiet"—at peace, withdrawn from every kind of trouble and annoyance—the grave being a place of absolute security against every form of temporal calamity (verses 17, 18; Ecclesiastes 9:5). "I should have slept"—death being often likened to a sleep (John 11:11; Acts 7:60; Acts 13:1-52 :86; 1 Thessalonians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:10). "Then had I been at rest;" my sleep being untroubled, a profound slumber unvisited by dreams—the rest of the grave being, especially for the good man, a couch of the most peaceful repose (Genesis 15:15; Ecclesiastes 12:5; Job 7:2 l; Job 30:23), in comparison with which Job's maladies and miseries allowed him neither rest nor quiet.
2. Dignified companionship. "Then had I been at rest with kings and counsellors of the earth," etc. Enjoying a splendid association with the great ones of the earth, now lying in their magnificent mausoleums, instead of sitting, as I presently do, on this ash-heap, in sublime but sorrowful isolation, an object of loathing and disgust to passers-by. The human heart, in its seasons of distress, longs for society, in particular the society of sympathetic friends; and sometimes the loneliness of sorrow is so great that the thought of the grave, with its buried millions, presents to the sufferer a welcome relief. However obscure, isolated, miserable, the lot of a saint on earth, death introduces him to the noblest fellowships Ñ of his fathers (Genesis 15:15; Genesis 25:8); of "the spirits of just men made perfect" (Hebrews 12:23); of the Saviour (Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23).
3. Absolute equality. Whereas he was now spurned by his fellows, he would then, had he died in infancy, have attained to as much glory as the aforesaid counsellors, kings, and princes, who, notwithstanding their ambitious greatness, which had led them to construct gorgeous sepulchres and amass untold hoards of wealth, were now lying cold and stiff within their desolate palaces. Behold the vanity of earthly greatness!—monarchs mouldering in the dust (Isaiah 14:11; Ezekiel 32:23). See the impotence of wealth—it cannot arrest the footsteps of death (James 1:11; Luke 16:22). Note that death is a great leveller (Ecclesiastes 2:14, Ecclesiastes 2:16; Psalms 89:48; Hebrews 9:27), and the grave a place where distinctions are unknown (verse 19; Ecclesiastes 3:20).
4. Complete tranquillity. "As a hidden untimely birth I had not been, and as children that have never seen the light" (verse 16; cf. Ecclesiastes 6:4, Ecclesiastes 6:5); unconscious and still as non-existence itself, as those "upon whose unopened ear no cry of misery ever fell, and on whose unopened eye the light, and the evil which the light reveals, never broke;" a tranquillity deeper (and, in Job's estimation, more blessed) than that of those who only attain rest after passing through life's ills—a doctrine against which both the light of nature and the voice of revelation protest (vide homily on verse 16).
5. Entire emancipation. A perfect cessation from all life's troubles, and a final escape from the exactions of his unseen oppressor. "There the wicked cease from troubling," etc. (verses 17-19; cf. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10)—a sentiment, again, which is only partially correct, i.e. so far as it relates to the ills of life.
LESSONS.
1. God's best gifts are often least appreciated.
2. Men frequently mistake ill for good.
3. What we have not commonly appears more desirable than what we have.
4. "Better is a living dog than a dead lion."
5. The grave is a poor place for a man to hide his sorrows in.
6. It is better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.
7. It is well to scrutinize keenly all that we either think or say in trouble.
8. There is a greater sin than despising the gift of temporal existentence, viz. despising the offer of eternal life.