Job to Bildad: 4. The cries of a desparing soul.
I. MAINTAINING HIS INNOCENCE.
1. Attested by his conscience. "Though I were perfect;" or, better, "I am guiltless" (verse 21). Before God Job did not claim to be absolutely spotless, but merely to be free from such transgressions of the moral law as his friends insinuated he must have committed to render him obnoxious to those palpable tokens of Divine displeasure which had overtaken him. Against this, however, he protested as a wholly baseless aspersion of his character, declaring his determination to maintain his integrity at all hazards, ay, even should it cost him his life. Yet would I not know [literally, 'I know not, i.e. I value not, care not for] my soul. I would despise [or, I despise ] my life" (verse 21). Vehement asseveration such as this would, of course, have been out of place, and altogether unjustifiable, unless Job had had the clearest and most irrefragable evidence of his own innocence behind it. But this Job professed to have in the inner testimony of his conscience, which declared him to be what Jehovah himself had already affirmed him to be—"a perfect man and an upright, one that feared God and eschewed evil" (Job 1:8). It is by no means impossible tot a good man to have a conscience void of offence both towards God and towards men (Acts 23:1; Acts 24:16). Decisions registered before the court of conscience are always in accordance with truth. Conscience may be stupefied through sin, and prevented from delivering its testimony (Ephesians 4:19). It may even be perverted and constrained to call evil good (Acts 26:9). But where enlightened and free, it never fails to indicate the moral standing of the soul. Scripture distinctly recognizes the validity of the inner witness of conscience (Romans 8:16). And not unfrequently this witness is all that a good man can lean upon in times of adversity (e.g. Joseph, Genesis 39:21; Daniel, Daniel 1:8; SS. Peter and John, Acts 4:19; St. Paul, Titus 2:1-15 :17; cf. Shakespeare, 'Henry VIII.,' act 3. sc. 2). When it is so, the evidence of circumstance and appearance being all against him, he is fully warranted to rest upon it. If he trust it, it will support him.
2. Not disproved by his sufferings. The sole ground possessed by Eliphaz and Bildad for their calumnies was that Job had been overtaken by evil fortunes. But, besides repelling the charges themselves as contradicted by the clear verdict of his own conscience, he likewise repudiates the foundation on which they were based as diametrically opposed to the plain facts of history. So far from appearances being against Job, rightly interrogated they were rather in his favour. So far from God's dealings with men being strictly retributive, so that Job's guilt might warrantably be inferred from his misery, they were as nearly as possible the opposite. All experience showed:
"Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face."
God laughs at the wicked and their machinations (Psalms 2:4); never at his people and their sorrows (Exodus 3:7; Matthew 23:37; John 11:35).
II. BEMOANING HIS LOT.
1. The impossibility of attaining to happiness.
(a) like a quick-footed courier: "My days are [literally, 'were '] swifter than a post" (verse 25), or state-runner carrying letters and despatches, sometimes able, when mounted on dromedaries, to travel a hundred and fifty miles a day;
(b) like a fast-sailing ship, literally, "ships of reed," skiffs constructed of the papyros Nilotica' and celebrated for their swiftness, "a little pinnace that may serve to make sport and pastime on the water, which turneth nimbly here and there, and goeth away apace" (Calvin); and
(c) like a swift-flying eagle: "As the eagle that hasteth to the prey" (verse 26);—three images conveying an impressive picture of the brevity of man's existence on the earth.
2. The impossibility of surmounting his sorrow. This also had. a double cause.
3. The impossibility of establishing his innocence. Because of:
III. YEARNING FOR A DAYSMAN.
1. The necessity of such a daysman. Job craved an arbiter or umpire between himself and God, because of the unequal terms on which they stood. "He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment ' (verse 32). For the same reason man requires a Mediator between himself, the feeble, sinning creature, and Jehovah, the infinitely powerful and immaculately pure Creator. And this want which Job so powerfully felt has been supplied by Christ, the one Mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).
2. The work of such a daysman. Described as twofold:
3. The benefit of such a daysman.
Learn:
1. There is a clear difference between maintaining one's blamelessness before men and asserting one's righteousness before God.
2. The character of God's heart is not always to be inferred from the dealings of God's hand.
3. Many things are permitted to occur in God's universe of which he does not approve.
4. The science of numbering our days is one that all mortals should learn.
5. The true value of life is not to be estimated by its length.
6. The best consolation in human sorrow is the enjoyment of Divine favour.
7. The finest and purest morality will not enable a man to do without a mediator.
8. No man can come to God except through Jesus Christ.
9. But in him and through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Verse 1-10:22
Second reply of Job. The fearfulness of God's power.
Now, for the first time, Job admits the great principle for which Eliphaz and Bildad have contended, but in a bitter and sarcastic sense. True, he says, it is not for man to contend against God. But why? Because he is absolute Power, and hence there is no possibility of a flail mortal prevailing in his plea. His might is his fight. It is a dark conception of God to which Job's despair now drives him. He looks upon God simply as omnipotent Force, arbitrary and irresistible Will. Take the thought of power, and separate it from that of justice and of compassion, and we have the idea of an almighty Fiend rather than of a good and gracious Father. Yet the spark of true faith still lives, as we shall see, in the recesses of his awakened heart,—J.