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Job 16:18-22

The Pulpit Commentary on Job 16:18-22

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Job to God: 2. An appeal to God against God.

I. A SUBLIME INVOCATION. "O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place!" (verse 18).

1. The explanation of the language. The allusion seems to be to , where the blood of Abel is represented as crying to God from the ground for vengeance upon its destroyer; and Job, in the lofty consciousness of his innocence, while momentarily anticipating death, calls upon the earth not to drink up his blood, but to permit its cry to "urge its way unhindered and unstilled towards heaven without finding a place of rest." But the student may consult the Exposition.

2. The import of the language. It contains a declaration on the part of Job that, though about to perish, he was innocent; and, since he regarded God as the Author of all his sufferings, it was virtually an accusation of God as the Shedder of his innocent blood. The style of address here employed is certainly not one that a good man may with safety imitate.

II. A CONFIDENT APPEAL.

1. To what quarter? Not to his friends who had mocked him (verse 20), but to God himself who had assailed him, to whom nevertheless he clung as for dear life, and whom he describes by a threefold characteristic.

2. In what spirit? Clearly

III. A FERVENT SUPPLICATION.

1. The earnestness of Job's prayers. They were:

2. The burden of Job's prayers.

IV. A PATHETIC REASON.

1. The brevity of life's term. "When a few years are come" (verse 22). The short period of life that still remained would soon be ended. Time flies with all, but especially with the dying.

2. The hopelessness of man's return from the tomb. "Then I shall go the way whence I shall not return (cf. ).

Learn:

1. That the God of faith alone is the true God.

2. That faith's God is found in the page of revelation and in Jesus Christ, not in the mere conceptions of the human mind.

3. That faith's God is the enemy of no man, but the Friend of all.

4. That the ear of faith's God is never heavy that it cannot hear, or his hand shortened that it cannot save.

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

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