Job to Zophar: 2. The dogma of the friends demolished.
I. BY THE FACTS OF EXPERIENCE.
1. The adverse fortunes of the good. Exemplified in Job's own case, which showed
2. The prosperous fortunes of the bad. Apt illustrations were at hand in the seemingly unchanging success which waited on the footsteps of those marauding caterans with which Arabia Deserta was overrun.
(a) Robbers of men, violent and rapacious plunderers, who put might for right, "men of the arm" (Job 22:8), acting on
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can;"
like the Nephilim and Gibborim of Noah's day, who deluged the world with immorality and violence (Genesis 6:4)
(b) Defiers of God, impudent and audacious sinners who openly and presumptuously trampled on Heaven's laws in order to obtain their unhallowed will, like the tower-builders of Babel (Genesis 11:4), like Pharaoh (Exodus 5:2), like Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:19-35), like wicked men generally, whose foolish tongues "talk loftily," and "set themselves against the heavens," and "walk through the earth" (Psalms 73:8, Psalms 73:9), and whose carnal minds, inflamed with enmity against God (Romans 8:7), conspire against the Lord and his Anointed (Psalms 2:2).
(c) Worshippers of the sword, who had no deity but the dagger which they carried in their bands, as the glutton has no god but his belly (Philippians 3:19); who, like Lamech, made ballads to their rapiers (Genesis 4:23); like Laban, regarded brute force as the supreme power of the world (Genesis 31:29); and like the ancient Chaldeans, took military strength for their god (Habakkuk 1:11).
(a) Their tents were peaceful. That is, their habitations were tranquil, their families were united and numerous; their domestic felicity was deep (cf. Job 21:8-11; Psalms 17:14; Psalms 49:11).
(b) Their persons were secure. Calamity seldom, almost never, overtook them. Winds and hurricanes that desolated the righteous left them untouched (Psalms 73:4).
(c) Their baskets were full. Retaining the Authorized Version (Carey and others), we understand Job to have said that God brought to them abundantly with his own hand, as if he had taken them under his especial protection.
II. BY THE TEACHINGS OF THE CREATURES.
1. The teachers. The entire circle of animate and inanimate creation—everything on the earth, in the air, and in the sea. The natural and the supernatural, the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual, the mundane and the heavenly, are in God's universe so indissolubly linked together, and so wisely adjusted to each other, that the one is a picture or reflection of the other, the earthly and material an emblem of the heavenly and spiritual. Hence all nature is full of subtle analogies to things and thoughts existing in the realms above it—the intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, the human, the celestial. Hence the wise student of nature may find
"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything."
('As You Like It,' act 2. sc. 1.)
Hence man is frequently counselled by Scripture writers to learn wisdom from the creatures. "Solomon sends us to the ant; Agur to the coney, the locust, the spider; Isaiah to the ox and the ass; Jeremiah to the stork, the turtle-dove, the crane, the swallow; and the heavenly Teacher himself to the fowls of the air" (Thomas). Of all teachers Christ stood indisputably first in interpreting the hidden thoughts of nature.
2. The teaching. While the creatures say much to man concerning God, his almighty power, unerring wisdom, unwearied goodness, and ever-watchful care; and concerning duty, reminding man that he, like them, should act in harmony with the laws of his nature, and in obedience to the will of his Creator (Psalms 148:7-13), they are here introduced as instructors on the subject of Divine providence. Among the lower creatures phenomena exist analogous to those above described as occurring in the higher world of men. How often is the harmless lamb devoured by the wolf, the kid by the panther, the gazelle by the tiger, the patient ass by the ferocious lion! Are not the eagle, the vulture, and the hawk but as rapacious robbers swooping down upon the dove the sparrow, and the robin? Can greater plunderers be found than the vast aquatic monsters, the whale, the shark, and the crocodile, which roam through the deep, striking terror among the lesser tribes that haunt the seas? And yet "who knoweth not in all these that the hand of Jehovah hath wrought this, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?" Well, if these things occur under God's government among the lower creatures, why, asks Job, might similar occurrences not transpire under the same government among men?
III. BY THE SAYINGS OF THE FATHERS.
1. The ground of their authority. The weight attached by Zophar, and indeed allowed by Job himself, to the maxims of antiquity, was derived from the fact that they were the concentrated wisdom of antecedent ages, which had been carefully elaborated by long-lived sages as the result of their individual and collective experience (vide homiletics on Job 8:8-22).
2. The limit of their authority. Granting that these sagacious apothegms and profound parables were fairly entitled to be heard, Job contended that they were not possessed of absolute authority. They were not to be accepted with unquestioning submission, but with wise and intelligent discrimination, the ear, and of course "the judgment which sits behind the ear," having been given to try words as the palate does food. And even at the best they were only human judgments, the thoughts of long-lived patriarchs, of much-observing as well as deep-reflecting sages, but not at all to be compared with the thoughts of him with whom is "wisdom and strength, counsel and understanding" (verse 13). They were, therefore, not to be accepted as final interpretations of the facts of providence, which were the concrete expressions of eternal Wisdom, as much as these traditional maxims were the abstract utterances of patriarchal wisdom. Man's thoughts never can be more than a finite projection, or contracted image, of God's. Hence the danger of setting man's thoughts in place of God's, investing confessions, catechisms, and symbolical books generally with the authority which belongs only to the supreme revelation of God's mind. Hence also the folly of attempting to crush the boundless realm of God's truth into the narrow dimensions of any formula, however beautiful or well-arranged, however strictly scientific or profoundly philosophic. The fundamental principles of all intelligent Protestantism may be summed up in two thoughts: man's formulas are not the exact measure of God's revelations; "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good."
3. The verdict of their authority. If rightly discriminated, the voice of patriarchal wisdom will be found to be on Job's side; in support of which assertion he proceeds, in the next section, to recite other sayings of antiquity, which certainly give countenance rather to his than to their view of God's providential government of the world and mankind. So perhaps it will be generally found that the best thoughts of men in all ages harmonize with the thoughts of God as expressed both in the Bible and in providence.
Learn:
1. "He that is first in his own cause seemeth right; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him."
2. "A half-truth is sometimes as dangerous as a whole lie."
3. "In contemplation of created things, by steps we may ascend to God."
4. It is not true that "man is the measure of the universe."
5. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in man's philosophy."
6. "That alone is true antiquity which embraces the antiquity of the world, and not that which would refer us back to a period when the world was young."