The stricken patriarch's lament: 3. Desiring his death.
I. DOLEFUL LAMENTATION. Job pitifully wails forth that his soul was in bitterness because of:
1. The miseries of life. Which he depicts as:
2. The perplexities of providence. To these he alludes when he describes himself as a man "whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in" (verse 23). The term "way" is often put for course of life (Psalms 1:6; Proverbs 4:19; Isaiah 26:7; Jeremiah 10:23); and a man's way may be said to be hid (i.e. to himself) when either its future character is concealed from his perception, or the reason for its present shape is not understood. Now, to all men a veil inscrutable separates the future, the immediate no less than the remote, from the present (Proverbs 27:1; James 4:14). The special ground of complaint felt by Job was, not so much that he had been subjected to adversity, but that he could not discern the reason of God's mysterious dealings with him; that his sufferings so engirt him like a lofty wall, that he not only knew not which way to turn, but that he failed to discover any way to turn. The like perplexity has frequently been experienced by God's people (of Jeremiah 12:1; Psalms 42:5; l73:2; Lamentations 3:7). But it is unreasonable to expect that God's ways should be perfectly patent to the finite understanding. Man cannot always fathom the purposes or comprehend the plans of his fellow-creatures: how much less should he think to gauge the counsel of him whose wisdom is "fold over fold" (Job 11:6); or discern the reason of every dark dispensation that is measured out by him whose judgments are a great deep (Psalms 36:6)! Hence God charges his saints, when they see that clouds and darkness surround his throne, that his footsteps are in the sea, and that his way is not known, to preserve their souls in patience, to decline to be perplexed, and to calmly trust their present way and future course to him who always walketh in the light, and who, out of the greatest entanglements and darkest riddles of life, is able to evolve his own glory and their good (Psalms 37:5; Isaiah 26:3, Isaiah 26:4; Romans 8:28).
II. QUERULOUS EXPOSTULATION. "Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery," etc? (verses 20, 23). The interrogation indicated:
1. Astonishing presumption on the part of Job, not only in questioning the Supreme, seeing that he giveth no account of his doings unto any, and least of all to men (Job 33:13; Psalms 46:10; Jeremiah 18:6; Daniel 4:35); but much more in addressing to him such a question, which practically meant—Why should a man be sent into this world? or, if sent into it, why should he be kept in it, unless his existence is to be always encircled with the radiance of prosperity, and exhilarated with the wine of joy, and unless he is to be assisted both to pierce the veil of futurity and to penetrate the overshadowing clouds of the present?
2. Monstrous ingratitude; in first depreciating what, after Christ and salvation, is God's highest gift to man, viz. existence; in forgetting the manifold blessings he had enjoyed during the former period of his prosperity; and in overlooking the fact that he had some good gifts remaining still. But men are prone to forget past mercies (Psalms 103:2; cf. 'Troilus and Cressida,' act 3. sc. 3), and to appreciate what the)' have not more highly than what they have. True thankfulness magnifies the gifts it has received, and does not grudge that the great Giver still reserves something to bestow (cf. 'Timon of Athens,' act 3. sc. 6).
3. Extraordinary ignorance; in not discerning that the ultimate end and chief aim of life are not to render men happy, but to make them holy; not to make them wise as the gods (Genesis 3:5), but to form them into sons of God (Hebrews if. 10); and that these sublime purposes may be secured as well through adversity as through prosperity. But perhaps the absence of gospel light should explain and extenuate in Job's case what in ours would be reprehensible in the extreme.
III. MELACHOLY EXULTATION. Job's vehement longing for death bespoke:
1. An intense pressure of misery. Seeing that life is essentially joyous (Ecclesiastes 11:7), that men naturally cling to life above every earthly possession (Job 2:4), and that the intrinsic worth and happiness of life are a thousandfold increased by the addition of Heaven's favour, it indicates an amount and degree of wretchedness transcending ordinary experience when a man yearns for life's extinction, exults in the prospect of dissolution, would be blithe to find a grave, however humble or obscure—
"Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd,
Anywhere, anywhere out of the world."
(Hood, 'Bridge of Sighs.')
They who find life's calamities in any measure tolerable have reason to bless God for laying on them no heavier burden than they are able to bear, and for imparting to them strength to bear the burden which he does impose. God's grace alone keeps men from sinking beneath the weight and pressure of life's ills. Contrast with Job's present state of mind that of St. Paul in the Roman prison (Philippians 1:23).
2. An utter extinction of hope. "The miserable hath no other medicine, but only hope"—hope that things will eventually improve; that the clouds of adversity will yet give place to the fair sunshine of prosperity; but even this the patriarch appears to have abandoned. It would be incorrect to affirm that Job had absolutely lost his hold on God; but of hope in a return to health and happiness he had none. Yet in this Job erred—erred two ways: in thinking himself at the worst, which he was not; and in despairing of recovery, which he should not. It is seldom so sad with any one that it could not be sadder; and it is seldom so bad that it cannot be improved. All things are possible with God, and God reigneth; therefore nil desperandum either in nature or in grace.
3. A sad want of faith. Had Job been able calmly to trust himself and his future to God, it is certain he would not have so inordinately longed for death. He would have reasoned that neither the miseries of life nor the perplexities of providence were a sufficient reason for God's cancelling the grant of life, or for a saint seeking the relief of death; since:
Learn:
1. Men are apt to think there is no reason for that for which they can see no reason.
2. The best gifts of God may become burdensome to their possessors.
3. Some look for death, but cannot find it; death ever finds those for whom it looks.
4. Afflictions are commonly accompanied by much darkness, which faith only can illumine.
5. Though a man's way is sometimes hid from himself, it never is concealed from God.