The cry of despair.
Job is in the depth of his suffering. His heart is sore broken. He bursts forth with his loud complaint, which he can no longer restrain. His spirit seeks relief in its cry. Every cry is supposed to give relief. But the bitter cry of despair, coming up from the depths of excruciating sorrow, often marks the turning-point in the history of suffering. Its vanity and uselessness being made apparent, the soul returns to a calmer and more collected state.
I. THE CRY OF DESPAIR IS WRUNG FROM THE HEART ONLY IN ITS EXTREMEST SUFFERINGS. Brave and strong as the human spirit may be under suffering, there comes a moment when its strength fails. It reaches a climax of pain and anguish. It can hold out no more; and, in the passionate haste for relief, seeks it in its wild cry of despair. "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit."
II. THE CRY OF DESPAIR IS VAIN. It fails to give ease to the suffering flesh; and, though an expression of the soul's anguish, in itself it is powerless to relieve that anguish. It is liable to excite but to rebelliousness. It is as the struggle of one enclosed in a strong net; or as the folly of a child, in wild passion, kicking with bare foot against the stony rock.
III. THE CRY OF DESPAIR, BEING OFTEN, AS HERE, A CRY OF DEFIANT COMPLAINT, TENDS TO ROUSE THE SOUL TO WICKED REBELLIOUSNESS. There is no restraint put upon the agitated soul. It is let loose in unrestricted freedom to declare, not its calm judgment, but its uttermost complaint, goaded on by the severities of acute suffering. "I will not refrain my mouth."
IV. THE CRY OF DESPAIR SPRINGS FROM, AND AT THE SAME TIME PROMOTES, ERRONEOUS VIEWS OF LIFE AND ITS ISSUES. Job is so far led astray that he chooses "strangling and death rather than life:" So completely is his judgment in abeyance that he knows no other alternative. Possibly it is the aim of the poet to show that Job's knowledge of the future is insufficient to counteract the sorrows and evils of the present.
V. THE CRY OF DESPAIR IS DESERVING OF PITY. When the soul is driven by fierce affliction to such an extremity, it is a proper object for the most tender compassion and patient forbearance. As men are patient with the demented, so they have need to be with him who, by despair, is driven off from the balanced, calm judgment and just thought.
VI. IT IS NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN THAT THE CRY OF HUMAN DESPAIR PIERCES TO THE EAR OF THE ALMIGHTY, THE ALL-HELPFUL ONE. Even the sigh of a contrite heart is heard; so also the wail of despair. The human extremity is the Divine opportunity. Job will ultimately prove that God has not forgotten him.—R.G.