But Job answered and said. Job 6 Job's answer to Eliphaz J. Parker, D. D. We must come upon grief in one of two ways and Job seems to have come upon grief in a way that is to be deprecated. He came upon it late in life. He was in solid prosperity and positive and genuine comfort. Grief must tell heavily whenever it comes upon a man in such a condition. This accounts for his lamentation, and whine, and long-drawn threnody. He was not accustomed to it. Some have been born into trouble, and they have become acclimatised. Blessed are they who come upon grief in that method. Such a method appears to be the method of real mercy. Grief must come. The devil allows no solitary life to pass upward into heaven without fighting its way at some point or other. Grief delights in monologue. Job seems scarcely to lay himself down mentally upon the line adopted by Eliphaz. It is most difficult to find the central line of Job's speech. Too much logic would have spoiled the grief. Reasoning there is, but it comes and goes; it changes its tone; it strikes the facts of life as the trained fingers of the player might strike a chord of music. Note how interrogative is Job's speech. More than twenty questions occur in Job's reply. Grief is great in interrogation. Job is asking, "Are the old foundations still here? Things have surely been changed in the nighttime, for I am unaccustomed to what is now round about me." Notice how many misunderstandings there are in the speech of the suffering man! Job not only misunderstood his friends and his pain, he misunderstood all men, and the whole system and scheme of things. How suffering not rightly accepted or understood colours and perverts the whole thought and service of life! Job thinks life not worth living. So much depends on our mental mood, or our spiritual condition. Hence the need of our being braced up, fired, made strong. We are what we really are in our heart and mind. Keep the soul right and it will rule the body. The Bible never shrinks from telling us that there is grief in the world, and that grief can be accounted for on moral principles. The Bible measures the grief, never makes light of it. But it can be sanctified, turned into blessing. Any book which so speaks as it does deserves the confidence of men who know the weight and bitterness of suffering. Do not come to the Bible only for condolence and sympathy; come to it for instruction, inspiration, and then you may come to it for consolation, sympathy, tenderest comfort, for the very dew of the morning, for the balm of heaven, for the very touch of Christ. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Job's first reply Robert A. Watson, D. D. In his reply to Eliphaz, Job first takes hold of the charge of impatience and hasty indignation made in the opening of the fifth chapter. He is quite aware that his words were rash when he cursed his day and cried impatiently for death. But had Eliphaz duly considered his state, the weight of his trouble causing a physical sense of indescribable oppression? We need not fall into the mistake of supposing that it is only the pain of his disease which makes Job's misery so heavy. Rather is it that his troubles have come from God; they are "the arrows of the Almighty." Mere suffering and loss, even to the extremity of death, he could have borne without a murmur, But he had thought God to be his friend. Why on a sudden have these darts been launched against him by the hand he trusted? What does the Almighty mean? The evil-doer who suffers knows why he is afflicted. The martyr, enduring for conscience' sake, has his support in the truth to which he bears witness, the holy cause for which he dies. Job has no explanation, no support. He cannot understand Providence. The God with whom he supposed himself to be at peace suddenly becomes an angry, incomprehensible Power, blighting and destroying His servant's life. Existence poisoned, the couch of ashes encompassed with terrors, is it any wonder that passionate words break forth from his lips? A cry is the last power left to him. So it is with many. The seeming needlessness of their sufferings, the impossibility of tracing these to any cause in their past history, in a word, the mystery of the pain confounds the mind and adds to anguish and desolation an unspeakable horror of darkness. Sometimes the very thing guarded against is that which happens; a man's best intelligence appears confuted by destiny or chance. Why has he, amongst the many, been chosen for this? Do all things come alike to all, righteous and wicked? The problem becomes terribly acute in the case of earnest, God-fearing men and women who have not yet found the real theory of suffering. Endurance for others does not always explain. All cannot be rested on that. Nor, unless we speak falsely for God, will it avail to say, These afflictions have fallen on us for our sins. For even if the conscience does not give the lie to that assertion, as Job's conscience did, the question demands a clear answer, why the penitent should suffer — those who believe — to whom God imputes no iniquity. If it is for our transgression we suffer, either our own faith and religion are vain, or God does not forgive excepting in form, and the law of punishment retains its force. We have here the serious difficulty that legal fictions seem to hold their ground even in the dealings of the Most High with those who trust Him The truth is, that suffering has no proportion to the guilt of sin, but is related in the scheme of Divine providence to life in this world, its movement, discipline, and perfecting in the individual and the race. ( Robert A. Watson, D. D. ) Job's great suffering Homilist. It was — I. UNAPPRECIATED BY MEN. This is the meaning of the first five verses. Eliphaz had no conception of the profundity and poignancy of Job's suffering. There are two things indicated here in relation to them. 1. They were unutterable. "My words are swallowed up." His whole humanity was in torture.(1) He suffered in body. "He was smitten with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of the head, and he took a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and sat down amongst the ashes."(2) He suffered in mind. "The arrows of the Almighty were within him, whose poison drank up his spirits." 2. They were irrepressible. "Doth the wild ass bray when tie hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder?" The idea here is, I cannot but cry; my cries spring from my agonies. Had not the wild ass his grass, he would bray with a ravenous hunger; and had not the ox his fodder, he too would low in an agony for food; this is nature, and my cries are natural — I cannot help them. Who can be silent in torture? His suffering was — II. MISUNDERSTOOD BY FRIENDS. "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?" This language seems to me to point to Job's impression of the address which Eliphaz had delivered to him. Job seemed to feel — 1. That the address of Eliphaz was utterly insipid. "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?" As if he had said, your speech lacks that which can make it savoury to me; it does not apply: you misunderstand my sufferings: I suffer not because I am a great sinner, as you seem to imply: my own conscience attests my rectitude: nor because I need this terrible chastisement, as you have said: you neither understand the cause nor the nature of my sufferings, therefore your talk is beside the mark. 2. That the address of Eliphaz was truly offensive. "The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meats." Does not this mean what Dr. Bernard says, "the things you speak — your unmeaning, insipid words and similes — are as the loathsomeness of my food, or are as loathsome to my soul as food now is to my body"? You intrude remarks on me that are not only tasteless, because of their unsuitability, but that are as disgusting as loathsome food. III. INTOLERABLE TO HIMSELF. He longed for death; he believed that in the grave he would have rest. 1. Though his life was unbearable, he would not take it away himself. He felt that he Was not the proprietor, only the trustee of his life. 2. He was not forgetful of his relation to his Maker. "I have not concealed the words of the Holy One." I have not shunned to declare my attachment to Himself and His cause. His sufferings did not obliterate his memory of his Creator, drive him from His presence, or impel him to blasphemy or atheism. No, he still held on. God was the Great Object in his horizon; he saw Him through the thick hot steam of his fiery trials. 3. Though his life was unbearable, he knew that it could not last long. "What is my strength that I should hope? and what is mine end that I should prolong my life?" etc. Whether God will loose His hand and cut me off, and thus put an end to my existence or not, I cannot endure long. I am not made "of stone or brass," and I cannot stand these sufferings long. However powerful the human frame may be, great sufferings must sooner or later break it to pieces. 4. Though his life was unbearable, he was conscious of an inner strength. "Is not my help in me? And is wisdom driven quite from me?" No strength like this, physical strength is good, intellectual strength is better, but moral strength is the best of all. ( Homilist. ) Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed. Job 6:2 Heaping up one scale J. D. Watters, M. A. We have no objection to weigh all Job's griefs. But what shall we put in the other scale? He who counts the hairs of our head, and puts our tears in a bottle, will not make light of human grief. In His scale it will be weighed to the utmost grain. But God has two scales, whereas Job has evidently only one. 1. In one scale look how he has put his SELF. The first personal pronoun is heavy enough in these speeches. Job's friends perceived his egoistic spirit, and heaped up therefore the opposite scale. What art thou compared to the Eternal? Very sublime is the God whom Eliphaz puts over against Job. He fills all — man is nothing. No man's thoughts or sufferings are to be seen or heard or reckoned against the Absolute. But should I not say "I"? Am I in no sense to feel myself and be an egoist? in my solemn hours I cannot but know and dwell with a very real being within me which is my ego. God and sin are nothing to me unless first of all I have a personality, What is the indwelling of Christ, unless I have a separate individuality Into which He can come? David says, "I am a little lower than the angels." May I not say the same? Yes, say it; say it loud and clear. But balance it. Put into the other scale, for example, your fellow men. Other men have as intense a self as you. They, too, are crowned with glory and dignity, and have their range of feelings, strong and tender, like thyself. "Let each esteem other better than himself." Put also into the other scale over against thyself the great Other. Down on the seashore when we wander, or when we look out on the starry heavens, how clearly and with all its mystery we say "I." But as we say it, there comes back from the ebon walls of night the echo of the voice of That Other, which brings ourself into equilibrium. We sweep our hands out and whisper to ourselves, "my power," or we lift up our heads, proud in the consciousness of our knowledge. But when God sweeps His hand across the heavens, or lifts up the might of His knowledge, then the pride of the human heart is humbled. We bow our heads in silence; not crushed out of all consciousness, but balanced and rightly weighed by the thoughts of men and God. 2. Job's egoism arose from his sorrow. How much he makes of his afflictions. His howling is dismal. Chapters 6 and 7 are one long lamentation, with much poetry in them, but truly a terrible heaping up of one scale. What shall we do to balance human sorrow? Laugh at it? Call it nothing? Call it commonplace? Nay, let us try and put something over against it which may outweigh it. Philosopher! hast thou aught which can balance a broken heart or a soul convulsed with agony? Surely thou hast something. Let us try your maxims, your precepts of self-control and of wholesome thought. Put them into the opposite scale; Bacon's "Essay on Adversity," beautiful extracts from Marcus Aurelius. Put them all in. Now lift up the balance and see. Ah! they weigh nothing. Scientist! canst thou do this great work? Go and tell Job your germ theories. Explain to him the nature of his sloughing sores, and see if you can answer his complaint. No, never. Religionist, what can you put into the opposite scale? Let us hear your doctrine. "God is the potter and man the clay. We are creatures of His, and He can do as seems best. Let us learn to submit to His sovereign will. The discipline is good, though bitter." Oh, what bitter drops of acid are all these to wounded souls. You only crush a man when you hurl at him, at such a time, God's sovereignty. No, lot us put into the opposite scale human sympathy. Let us acknowledge all the pain and sorrow and affliction of the sufferer. Let us suffer it, and feel its weight. Let our tears flow. Put our sufferings and our feelings into the opposite scale. Let us seek to put God's sympathy into the opposite scale. Not the absolute hard stern Deity Eliphaz labours to construct. Let us speak of His tenderness and pity. Is it not said, Jesus wept? Christ's tears will outweigh ours. When looking down into the dark and horrid grave, listen what Christ says, "Thy brother shall rise again." That is Christ's sympathy to balance thy crushing pain. 3. Job asks of God the question, "What have I done?" Ah! well might he heap up that scale; piling up to the heavens his sins, and offences, and ignorance. Probably there would be no scale large enough to hold our iniquities. Is this right? Oh yes. Know thy sins, O soul, all of them, black as hell and heavy as lead, and high enough to hide the light of heaven. But be not men of one idea. Have two ideas. Look into the other scale and see, if you can, a drop of Christ's precious blood. Lift up the scales, and see if this drop of precious blood does not balance all your sins. Yes! Thank God it does, cries out Bunyan. Nay, more, it outweighs them. "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." ( J. D. Watters, M. A. ) Afflictions weighed J. Caryl. 1. It is a duty to weigh the saddest estate and afflicted condition of our brethren thoroughly. But what is it to weigh them thoroughly? It is not only to weigh the matter of an affliction, to see what it is which a man suffers, but to weigh an affliction in every circumstance and aggravation of it; the circumstance of an affliction is often more considerable then the matter of the affliction. If a man would confess his sins, he is to confess not only the matter of them, as sins are the transgressions of the law, and errors against the rule, but he must eye the manner in which sin hath been committed, the circumstances with which it is clothed, these render his sin out of measure, and out of weight sinful. Likewise, would a man consider the mercies and favours received from God, would he know them thoroughly, and see how much they weigh, let him look, not only what, but how, and when, and where, and by whom he hath received them. There may be a great wickedness in a little evil committed, and a great mercy in a little good received. Secondly, He that would weigh an affliction thoroughly, must put himself in the case of the afflicted, and (as it were) make another's grief his own: he must act the passions of his brother, and a while personate the poor, the sick, the afflicted man: he must get a taste of the wormwood and of the gall upon which his brother feedeth: in a word, he must lay such a condition to heart. In these two points, this holy art of weighing grief, consists: consideration of circumstances, and sympathy of the smart. Mere speculation moves little. We have no feeling of another's suffering, till we have a fellow feeling. The bare theory of affliction affects no more than the bare theory of fire heats. 2. It is an addition to a man's affliction, when others are not sensible of his affliction. Our high priest is none of your senseless priests, who care not what the people endure, so they be warm and at ease. 3. We can never rightly judge till we thoroughly weigh the condition of an afflicted brother. For Job conceived that Eliphaz proceeded to judgment before he had been in consideration. 4. A man who hath not been, or is not afflicted himself, can hardly apprehend what another endures who is under affliction. If we had a Mediator in heaven that had not been tempted on earth, we might doubt whether He would be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, whether sinning infirmities or sorrowing infirmities. ( J. Caryl. ) For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. Job 6:4 Sharp arrows J. Caryl. Arrows are — 1. Swift. 2. Secret. 3. Sharp. 4. Killing. ( J. Caryl. ) The poisoned arrows of the Almighty George Hutcheson. By "poisoned arrows" we must understand, not only his boils, the heat and inflammation of which had dried up Job's moisture, vigour, and strength, but all his other outward troubles also, which stuck fast in him; and his inward temptations, and sense of God's wrath flowing therefrom, which, like the inward deep wound of the arrow, had, by the furious poison thereof, so exhausted him that he was ready to faint, and give it over. Learn — 1. Though to quarrel and complain of God, in any case, be a great fault, yet it pleads for much compassion to saints when they do not make a stir about their lot, except when their trouble is extreme. 2. It is the duty of those in trouble to turn their eyes off all instruments, that they may look to God. 3. As it is our duty always to entertain high and reverent thoughts of God, so trouble will cause men to know His almighty power. 4. It is a humbling sight of God Almighty's power in trouble, when His strokes are like arrows, and do not only pierce deep, and come suddenly and swiftly upon men, as an arrow doth, but especially do speak God angry at them, in that He makes them His burr (target) at which He shoots. 5. In this case of Job, the number of troubles doth contribute much to afflict the child of God, every particular stroke adding to the weight. 6. Albeit sharp troubles, inflicted by the hand of God, be very sad to the people of God, yet all that is easy in comparison of the apprehension of God's anger in the trouble and perplexities of spirit, and temptations arising upon those troubles. 7. Temptations, and sense of Divine displeasure under trouble, will soon exhaust created strength, and make the spirits of men succumb. 8. It is a great addition to the present troubles and temptations of saints, when terrors and fears for the future do assault and perplex them; especially when they apprehend that God is pursuing them by these terrors. 9. When once a broken mind is haunted with terrors add fears, their wit and fancy may multiply them beyond what they are, or will be, in reality. ( George Hutcheson. ) Of religious melancholy S. Clarke, D. D. Job's affliction was sent to him for the trial of an exemplary and unshaken virtue; and because it was sent for that reason only, and not as any mark of Divine displeasure, therefore how great soever the calamity was in another respect, yet was it by no means insupportable, because there still remained to him the great foundation of comfort, in the assurance of a good conscience, and the expectation of God's final favour. He had in his own mind, even in the midst of his affliction, the satisfaction to reflect with pleasure on his past behaviour, and to strengthen his resolutions of continuing in the same course for the future. Though no calamity could well be heavier than that of Job, yet when the disposition of the person comes also to be taken into the act, there is a trouble far greater than his, namely, when the storm falls where there is no preparation to bear it; when the assault is made from without, and within there is nothing to resist it. In other cases, the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but when the spirit itself is wounded, who can bear it? There is another state, most melancholy and truly pitiable, and that is of those who, neither by the immediate appointment of Providence, as in the case of Job, nor by the proper effect of their own wickedness, as in the case of an evil conscience, but by their own imagination and groundless fears, by indisposition of body and disorder of mind, by false notions of God and themselves, are made very miserable in their own minds. They fancy, though without sufficient reason, that the arrows of the Almighty are within them. Consider the chief occasions of such religious melancholy. 1. Indisposition or distemper of body. This is by no means to be neglected, slighted, or despised: for, as the mind operates continually upon the body, so the body likewise will of necessity influence and operate upon the mind. It is not unusual to see the good understanding even of a reasonable person, borne down and overburdened by bodily disorder. The principal sign by which we may judge when the indisposition is chiefly or wholly in the body is this, that the person accuses himself highly in general, without being able to give any instances in particular; that he is very apprehensive, of he does not well know what; and fearful, yet can give no reason why. The misery is very real, though without good foundation. In such cases all endeavours ought to be used to remove the bodily indisposition. 2. Want of improvement under the exercise of religious duties is complained of. Many piously and well-disposed persons, but of timorous and melancholy constitutions, are under continual apprehensions that they do not grow better, that they make little or no improvement in the ways of religion, and that they cannot find in themselves such a fervent zeal and love towards God, as they think is necessary to denominate them good Christians. If by want of improvement is only meant want of warmth and affection in the performance of their duty, then there is no just ground for trouble of mind upon that account. In the same person there are sure to be different degrees of affection at different times, according to the varying tempers of the body. No man can keep up at all times an equal vigour of mind. Vain suspicions that our obedience proceeds not from a right principle, from a true and unfeigned love of God, are by no means any just cause for uneasiness of mind, provided that we sincerely perform that obedience, by a life of virtue and true holiness. 3. An apprehension of exclusion from mercy by some positive decree and fore-appointment of God. From nature and reason, this apprehension cannot arise. Nor in Scripture is there any foundation for any such apprehension. There may be some obscure texts, which unstable persons may be apt to misinterpret to their own and others disquiet; but surely the whole tenour, design, and aim of Scripture should be the interpreter of particular passages. The plain texts should be the rule by which the obscurer ones are interpreted. It is quite evident that there is no ground in Scripture for any pious person to apprehend that possibly he may be excluded from mercy by any positive decree or fore-appointment of God. 4. The fear of having committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. But distinguish between sin against the Holy Ghost and blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Such blasphemy was the sign of an incurably wicked and malicious disposition. It is quite impossible for any truly sincere and well-meaning person to be guilty of this malignity, or to have any reason of apprehending he can possibly have fallen into it. 5. A cause of much trouble to some is found in wicked and blasphemous thoughts. These are not so much sin as weakness of imagination arising from infirmity of body. They may he only signs of a tender conscience, and of a pious disposed mind. 6. Another cause is the conscience of past great sins, and of present remaining infirmities. Infirmities as weaknesses and omissions, are fully allowed for in the Gospel. Forgiveness of them is annexed to our daily prayers. And sins blotted out, ought to be forgotten by us, as God says they are by Him. ( S. Clarke, D. D. ) Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Job 6:5 The satisfied ass J. J. S. Bird. The patriarch introduces this illustration to prove to his friends that his complainings were not in vain. His troubles were not imaginative. This quaint subject is instructive and interesting to all. It teaches two lessons. I. HE WHO IS SATISFIED DOES NOT COMPLAIN. He goes straight on to the enjoyment of the possession he has acquired. The ox or the ass that has abundance of food does not make lamentation. Job meant to say that this was the case with him. If he were only reaping the fruit of his conduct, he would not complain; or even if his suffering had been the result of sinful indulgence, or came to him from evil doing, or thinking, he would have submitted. But he suffered greatly, knowing at the same time that he was altogether innocent. He had not received his just reward, and therefore he did complain. II. EMPLOYMENT IS THE ROOT OF CONTENT. Laziness breeds contention. The man who has honest work to do, and does it, eats and is satisfied. It is your hungry, idle men who are agitators. It is so — 1. Because the busy man has no time for brooding on his cares. The ass or the ox at his food has something to occupy his attention, and has therefore not a moment to spare for braying. 2. Because he has no opportunity for shallow noise. If he wished to bray or low, the very fact of having his mouth full would prevent him. So men whose hands are full of employment, cannot cast down the work they are engaged upon, for the mere sake of airing their grievances. When the wild ass has been well filled, and when the ox has finished his fodder, then they will waste their time in mischief and discontent. The proper remedy for restless agitation is plenty of work, and the labour which is ever necessary to procure and prepare our daily wants. ( J. J. S. Bird. ) Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? Job 6:6 Seasoning for Christianity J. J. S. Bird. Salt gives a zest to many unpalatable things, and is an invaluable condiment. The health, the digestion, the entire well-being of man, demand its use. The patriarch is alluding to those matters which give zest to life, even as salt gives zest to food. Some things axe pleasant enough to eat, and require nothing wherewith to be seasoned. Sugar is sweet in itself. So there are some occupations and pleasures of life which need nothing to render them enjoyable. But there are other things which, like unsavoury or tasteless food, demand some addition to give them a zest or make them more pleasant to perform. A few examples will make the meaning plain: — I. TAKE A MOTHER AND HER BABE. If we look at her disinterestedly, we shall see what a vast amount of unpleasant labour she must undergo. No toil is too great, no work too exhausting, no effort too repulsive. In itself such patience or self-denial would be considered an intolerable hardship. But when the unsavoury morsel is taken with the salt of love, how sweet to the taste does it become! What would otherwise be a painful labour is turned into a delightful joy. II. TAKE A MAN AND HIS BUSINESS. What is business but a toil — a painful, bitter, wearisome contest, rising early and toiling late? It is One of the unsavoury things to which the words of the patriarch may allude. To swallow it for its own sake alone would cause a good many to make a very wry face. And what is the salt of business? Why, it is money and gain. What a zest these impart to the hardest labour and the early toil! How sweetly goes down the hardship when the clinking coins are counted from the till at night. III. TAKE THE TOILING STUDENT. How hard he labours over his midnight lamp! Amusement is forsworn, pleasures and relaxation are given up. But the flavour improves when eaten with the salt of ambition or the desire of honour. Then the toil is transformed into a pleasure and the trouble into a labour of love. IV. SO ALSO WE MAY TAKE THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. Who can say that the Christian life is pleasant in itself? It is humiliation, sorrow, bitterness, disappointment. It means an apparently unavailing contest with powers that are more powerful than ourselves. But once flavour the Christian life with salt, and how different it becomes! Flavour the bitterness with the love of God, the blessed sympathy of Christ, the glorious reward beyond, and then as the golden sunshine gilds and beautifies the most rugged scene, so the bitterness is turned into a sheen of glory and the toil is forgotten. ( J. J. S. Bird. ) The treatment of the unsavoury Albert Barnes. Unsavoury means insipid, without taste. It is necessary to add salt in order to make it either palatable or wholesome. The literal truth of this no one can doubt. Insipid food cannot be relished, nor would it long sustain life. "The Orientals eat their bread often with mere salt, without any other addition except some dry and pounded summer savory, which last is the common method at Aleppo." It should be remembered also that the bread of the Orientals is commonly mere unleavened cakes. The idea of Job in this adage or proverb is, that there was a fitness and propriety in things. Certain things went together, and were necessary companions. One cannot be expected without the other; one is incomplete without the other. Insipid food requires salt in order to make it palatable and nutritious, and so it is proper that suffering and humiliation should be united. There was a reason for his complaints, as there was for adding salt to unsavoury food. Some have supposed that Job means to rebuke Eliphaz severely for his harangue on the necessity of patience, which he characterises as insipid, impertinent, and disgusting to him; as being, in fact, as unpleasant to his soul as the white of an egg was to his taste. Dr. Good explains it as meaning, "Doth that which hath nothing of seasoning, nothing of a pungent or irritating power, within it, produce pungency or irritation? I, too, should be quiet, and complain not if I had nothing provocative or acrimonious; but, alas! the food I am doomed to partake of is the very calamity which is most acute to my soul, that which I most loathe, and which is most grievous and trying to my palate." But I see no reason to think that in this he meant to reproach Eliphaz for an insipid and unmeaning address. ( Albert Barnes. ) A cure for unsavoury meats This is a question which Job asked of his friends, who turned out to be so unfriendly. Thus he battles with those "miserable comforters" who inflamed his wounds by pouring in verjuice and vinegar instead of oil and wine. The first of them had just opened fire upon him, and Job by this question was firing a return shot. He wanted the three stern watchers to understand that he did not complain without cause. His were not sorrows which he had imagined; they were real and true, and hence he asks this question first, "Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?" If these creatures lift up their notes of complaint, it is when they are starving. He was like one who finds no flavour in his food, and loathes the morsel which he swallows. That which was left to him was tasteless as the white of an egg; it yielded him no kind of comfort; in fact, it was disgusting to him. The speech, also, to which Job had listened from Eliphaz the Temanite did not put much sweetness into his mouth; for it was devoid of sympathy and consolation. Here he tells them that Eliphaz had administered unto him unsavoury meat without salt; — mere whites of eggs, without taste. Not a word of love, pity, or fellow feeling had the Temanite uttered. We may now forget the much tortured patriarch Job, and apply this text to ourselves. I. The first point will be this, that A WANT OF SAVOUR IS A VERY GREAT WANT in anything that is meant for food. Everybody knows that all kinds of animal life delight in food that has a flavour in it. It is exactly the same with regard to the food of our souls. It is a very great fault with a sermon when there is no savour in it. It is a killing fault to the people of God when a book contains a good deal of what may be true, but vet lacks holy savour — or what, in others words, we call "unction." But what and of savour is that which we expect in a sermon? 1. I answer, first, it is a savour of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. The next necessity to secure savour is a devout sp

Benson Commentary Job 6:1 But Job answered and said, Job 6:1 . Job answered and said — Eliphaz concluded his discourse with an air of assurance, being very confident that what he had advanced was so plain and so pertinent that nothing could be objected to it. Job, however, is not at all convinced by it, but still justifies himself in his complaints, and condemns his friend for the weakness of his arguing. Though Eliphaz, in the beginning and some other parts of his speech, was very severe upon Job, he gave him no interruption, but heard him patiently till he had delivered his whole mind. But when he had done this, and had finished all he had to say, Job modestly, but feelingly, makes his reply. He begins with an apology for venting his grief in a manner somewhat unbecoming, and begs it may be ascribed to the great multitude and sharpness of his afflictions; but as to the advice given him by Eliphaz, to hope for an amendment of his condition: and to address God for that purpose, he tells them, that his petition to God should be of a quite different nature, namely, that he would be pleased to cut him off speedily; for that the desperateness of his condition would by no means permit him to hope for any amendment. That, however, he could not help resenting their unkind suspicions of him, that they should think him capable of such great wickedness; but, above all, should imagine him to be so abandoned as to be able to entertain a thought tending to a revolt from the Almighty. He begs them not to condemn him barely on suspicion, and on the strength of general maxims, but to consider it was possible he might be innocent. Job 6:2 Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! Job 6:2 . O that my grief — The cause of my grief; were thoroughly weighed — Were fully understood and duly considered! O that I had an impartial judge! that would understand my case, and see whether I have not just cause for such bitter complaints. And my calamity laid in the balances — Would to God some more equal person than you would lay my complaint and my sufferings one against the other, and judge sincerely which is heaviest! Job 6:3 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up. Job 6:3 . For now it — That is, my grief or calamity; would be heavier than the sand of the sea — Which is much heavier than dry sand. Therefore my words are swallowed up — My voice and spirit fail me. I cannot find or utter words sufficient to express my sorrow or misery. Job 6:4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Job 6:4 . The arrows of the Almighty are within me, &c. — The sublimity of style, and beautiful vein of poetry, which run through this verse, are well deserving of the reader’s particular attention. He fitly terms his afflictions arrows, because, like arrows, they came upon him swiftly and suddenly, one after another, and that from on high, and wounded him deeply. And he calls them arrows of the Almighty, not only, generally speaking, because all afflictions come from him, but particularly, because God’s hand was in a singular manner visible and eminent in his sufferings, and especially because they were immediately shot by God into his spirit, so that they were within him, as it follows, not like the external evils mentioned chap. 1., which were passed, but fixed and constant in his very nature, producing sharp pains in his body, and dismal horrors in his mind. The poison whereof drinketh up my spirit — Or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up: which is the construction of Pagninus and the Targum. But our translation is more poetical, and quite agreeable to Moses’s sublime expression, Deuteronomy 32:42 , where he represents God as taking vengeance on his enemies, and saying, I will make mine arrows drunk with blood. The words imply, that these arrows were more keen and pernicious than ordinary, being dipped in God’s wrath, as the barbarous nations used to dip their arrows in poison, that they might not only pierce, but burn up and consume the vital parts. Thus did the poison of God’s arrows drink up his spirit, that is, exhaust and consume his life and soul. The terrors of God do set themselves in array — They are like a numerous army invading me on every side. Houbigant renders it, The terrors of the Lord confound me. This was the sorest part of his calamity, wherein he was an eminent type of Christ, who complained most of the sufferings of his soul. Indeed, trouble of mind is the sorest trouble. A wounded spirit, who can bear? “He had patience enough,” says Lord Clarendon, “for the oppression and rapine of his enemies, for the unkindness and reproach of his friends, and for the cunning and malice of the devil; but he was so transported with the sense of God’s anger against him, he could not bear that with temper: the apprehension that all those miseries, of so piercing and destroying a nature in themselves, fell upon him, not only by God’s permission, to try and humble him, but proceeded directly from his indignation and resolution to destroy him, almost confounded him. When they appeared no more the arrows of his enemies levelled and shot at his greatness and prosperity, the enterprises and designs of evil men, suborned by the devil against him; but the artillery which God himself discharged upon him in his greatest displeasure and fury, he was able to stand the shock no longer, and thought he had some reason to pour out his complaints and lamentations with a little more earnestness; and that the grief and trouble of his mind might excuse the want of that order, and method, and deliberation, which the ease, and calm condition, and disputing humour of his friends, who were only healthy spectators of what he suffered, reproachfully required from him.” Job 6:5 Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder? Job 6:5 . Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? &c. — “Grass and fodder here are a figure of abundance and tranquillity, such as the friends of Job enjoyed. To bray and low refer to expressions of grief and uneasiness. Job therefore compares his friends, with some smartness, to a wild ass exulting in its food, and to an ox perfectly satisfied with grateful pasture.” His words may be paraphrased thus: Even the brute beasts, when they have convenient food, are quiet and contented. So, it is no wonder that you complain not, who live in ease and prosperity, any more than I did when I wanted nothing; “happy yourselves, you do not condole with me in my wretchedness, nor mourn with me, but rather blame my mourning as importunate clamour, and as if I had behaved myself toward God with insolence and impatience.” — Schultens. Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? Job 6:6 . Can that which is unsavoury — Or rather, that which is insipid, be eaten without salt? — Is it not requisite that every thing insipid should be seasoned, to give it a relish, and make it agreeable? Therefore life itself, when it has lost those comforts, which are the seasoning to it, and give it its relish, then becomes insipid, so that it is nothing more than a burden. Now, if men commonly complain of their meat when it is only unsavoury, how much more when it is so bitter as mine is? Some commentators, however, consider Job here as referring to Eliphaz’s discourse, which had been insipid and disagreeable to him, as having no substance, and carrying no weight with it: like unsavoury food, not seasoned nor cured, instead of satisfying and instructing him, it had been nauseous and offensive, like corrupted meat to a weak and sick stomach. Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? — “Our version of this clause,” says Dr. Dodd, “seems to be void of all sense and connection with what goes before. Mr. Mudge supposes Job to allude, in the original words, to those medicinal potions, which were administered by way of alterative; and, agreeably to his criticism, the clause should be rendered, Is there any relish in the nauseous medicinal draught?” Job 6:7 The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat. Job 6:7 . The things that my soul refused, &c. — “Job, persisting in his allegory,” says Schultens, “goes on to show how disagreeable to his stomach the speech of Eliphaz had been.” This learned critic accordingly translates the verse thus: My soul refuseth to touch such things; they are to me as corrupted food. But Dr. Dodd, after quoting these words of Schultens, observes, he “cannot help thinking that this and the two preceding verses will bear another interpretation, and that Job means, in them, to offer a justification for himself; to declare that he had sufficient ground for complaint, without which it was no more usual for man to lament than for the ox or ass to low or bray, when they had sufficient food, &c.” The sense of the verse seems to be, Those grievous afflictions, which I dreaded the very thought of, are now my daily, though sorrowful, bread. Job 6:8 Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Job 6:8-9 . O that I might have my request! — The thing which I so passionately desired, and which, notwithstanding all your vain words, and weak arguments, I still continue to desire, and beseech God to grant me. The thing that I long for! — Hebrew, ????? , tickvati, my hope or expectation. That it would please God to destroy me — To end my days and calamities together: that he would let loose his hand — Which is now, as it were, bound up or restrained from giving me that deadly blow which I desire. O that he would not restrain it any longer, and suffer me to languish in this miserable condition, but give me one stroke more and quite cut me off. Mr. Peters has justly observed, that “these two verses, as well as Job 6:11 , with many more that might be quoted to the same purpose, are utterly inconsistent with Job’s believing that God would restore him to his former happy state;” as Bishop Warburton contended, that he might lay a foundation for an interpretation of the noted passage in Job 19:25-27 , different from that commonly received, and might explain it, not of Job’s hope of immortality, but of his expectation of a restoration to temporal prosperity. Job 6:9 Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! Job 6:10 Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One. Job 6:10 . Then should I yet have comfort — The thoughts of my approaching death would comfort me in all my sorrows, and yield me abundantly more solace than life, with all that worldly safety, and glory, and happiness, for which thou hast advised me to seek unto God. Yea, I would harden myself in sorrow — I would bear up with more courage and patience, under all my torments, with the hopes of death and blessedness after death. Let him not spare — Let him use all severity against me, so far as to cut me off, and not suffer me to live any longer. For I have not concealed the words of the Holy One — That is, of God, who is frequently called the Holy One in Scripture, and is so in a most eminent and peculiar sense. The meaning is, As I have myself steadfastly believed the words, or truths of God, and not wilfully and wickedly departed from them; so I have endeavoured to teach and recommend them to others, and have not been ashamed nor afraid boldly to confess and preach the true religion in the midst of the heathen round about me. And, therefore, I know, if God do cut me off, it will be in mercy, and I shall be a gainer by it. Job 6:11 What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? Job 6:11 . What is my strength that I should hope? — My strength is so small and spent, that although I may linger a while in my torments, yet I cannot live long, and therefore it is vain for me to hope for such a restitution as thou hast promised me, Job 5:22 . And what is my end? — What is the end of my life? Or, what is death to me? It is not terrible, but comfortable. That I should prolong my life? — That I should desire or endeavour to prolong it, by seeking unto God for that purpose. But, as desirous of death as Job was, yet he never offered to put an end to his own life. Such a thought will never be entertained by any that have the least regard to the law of God and nature. How uneasy soever the soul’s confinement in the body may be, it must by no means break the prison, but wait for a fair discharge. Job 6:12 Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass? Job 6:12 . Is my strength the strength of stones? — I am not made of stone or brass, but of flesh and blood, as others are; therefore I am not able to endure these miseries longer, and can neither desire nor hope for the continuance of my life. Bishop Patrick’s paraphrase on this verse is, “God hath not made me insensible; and therefore do not wonder that I desire to be released from these very sharp pains.” Job 6:13 Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me? Job 6:13 . Is not my help in me? — Though I have no strength in my body, or outward man, yet I have some help and support within me, or in my inward man, even a consciousness of my sincerity toward God, notwithstanding all your bitter accusations and censures, as if I were a hypocrite and had no integrity in me, chap. Job 4:6 . And is wisdom driven quite from me? — If I have no strength in my body, have I therefore no wisdom or judgment left in my soul? Am I therefore unable to judge of the vanity of thy discourse, and of the truth of my own case? Have I not common sense and discretion? Do not I know my own condition, and the nature and degree of my sufferings, better than thou dost? And am I not a better judge whether I have integrity or not than thou art? It may not be improper to observe here, that there is considerable difficulty in determining the precise sense of the Hebrew of this verse; and that, accordingly, different learned men have proposed different translations of it. Houbigant renders it, Because my help is not at hand, is wisdom, therefore departed far from me? Dr. Waterland reads it, Is my help in me vain, and the substance quite gone from me? And Heath, Do not I find that I cannot in the least help myself, and that strength is quite driven out of me? In justification of our translation, and of the interpretation given above, it may be sufficient to observe, that the same form of expression in the Hebrew is used Isaiah 50:2 , ??? ??? ?? ?? , haim en bi choach, and is translated, and according to the context must necessarily be translated, in a similar manner. An vero, nulla ( est ) in me potestas? Is there no power in me? (saith the Lord.) or, Have I no power to deliver? If, however, a different translation of the words be contended for, perhaps that mentioned by Poole, which is perfectly agreeable to the Hebrew, and admits of an easy explication, is preferable to any other that has been proposed; which is, What, if I have not help in me, is wisdom driven quite from me? That is, if I cannot help myself, if my outward condition be helpless and hopeless, as I confess it is, have I therefore lost my understanding? Cannot I judge whether it is more desirable for me to live or to die; whether I am sincere in my religion or not; whether your words have truth and weight in them; and whether you take the right method of dealing with me? Job 6:14 To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty. Job 6:14 . To him that is afflicted — Hebrew, To him that is melted, or dissolved with afflictions: or, as Dr. Waterland renders it, To one that is wasting away; pity should be showed from his friend — His friend, such as thou, O Eliphaz, pretendest to be to me, should show kindness and compassion in his judgment of him, and behaviour toward him, and not pass such unmerciful censures upon him as thou hast passed upon me, nor load him with reproaches; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty — Thou hast no love or pity for thy friend; a plain evidence that thou art guilty of what thou didst charge me with, even of the want of the fear of God. The least which those that are at ease can do for them that are pained, is to pity them, to feel a tender concern for them, and to sympathize with them. Job 6:15 My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; Job 6:15 . My brethren — That is, my kinsmen, or three friends; for though Eliphaz only had spoken, the other two had shown their approbation of his discourse; have dealt deceitfully — Under a pretence of friendship dealing unmercifully with me, and adding to the afflictions which they said they came to remove. As the stream of brooks, &c. — Which quickly vanish and deceive the hopes of the thirsty traveller. It is no new thing for even brethren to deal deceitfully. It is therefore our wisdom to cease from man. We cannot expect too little from the creature, or too much from the Creator. Job 6:16 Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: Job 6:16 . Which are blackish, &c. — Which in winter, when the traveller neither needs nor desires it, are full of water congealed by the frost. Wherein the snow is hid — Under which the water from snow, which formerly fell, and afterward was dissolved, lies hid. So he speaks not of those brooks which are fed by a constant spring, but of them which are filled by accidental falls of water or snow. Job 6:17 What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. Job 6:17-18 . What time they wax warm — When the weather grows milder, and the frost and snow are dissolved; they vanish — ????? , nitsmathu, ex cisi sunt, they are cut off, having no fountain from whence to draw a supply. When it is hot — In the hot season, when waters are most refreshing and necessary; they are consumed out of their place — The place where the traveller expected to find them to his comfort; but they are gone he knows not whither. The paths of their way are turned aside — That is, the courses of those waters are changed; they are gone out of their channel, flowing hither and thither, till they be quite consumed, as it here follows. There “is a noble climax,” as Heath observes, in these last three verses; “a most poetical description of the torrents in the hot climates. By extraordinary cold they are frozen over, but the sun no sooner exerts its power than they melt; they are exhaled by the heat, till the stream for smallness is diverted into many channels; it yet lasts a little way, but is soon quite evaporated and lost.” Job 6:18 The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish. Job 6:19 The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them. Job 6:19 . The troops of Tema looked — This place and Sheba were both parts of the hot and dry country of Arabia; in which waters were very scarce, and therefore precious and desirable, especially to travellers. The word ????? , orchoth, signifies companies of travellers or merchants, such as that mentioned Genesis 37:25 , A company of the Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels, &c., or those spoken of Isaiah 21:13-14 , In the forest of Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies. The inhabitants of Tema brought water, &c. The Hebrew word, however, properly means ways, or roads; but is here put for travellers in the ways, by a common metonymy. The companies of Sheba waited for them — The Scenitæ, who lived in tents, may here be included, as well as the troops before mentioned, for they removed with their cattle from one place to another for the convenience of pasture and water. It must be observed, men did not there travel singly as we do, but in companies, for their security against wild beasts and robbers. “By a very slight alteration in the pointing, Mr. Heath so translates this verse as to introduce the speaker using a prosopopœia, or addressing himself to the travellers: Look for them, ye troops of Tema, ye travellers of Sheba, expect them earnestly. This gives great life to the poetry, and sets a very beautiful image before the eye: the travellers wasting their time, depending on those torrents for water; but, when they come hither, how great the disappointment!” — Dodd. Job 6:20 They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed. Job 6:20 . They were confounded — That is, the troops and companies were miserably disappointed; because they hoped — Comforted themselves with the expectation of water there to quench their thirst; they came, and were ashamed — To think that they should expect relief from such uncertain streams, and had deceived themselves and others. Thus we prepare confusion for ourselves by our vain hopes: the reeds break under us because we lean upon them. Job 6:21 For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid. Job 6:21 . For now ye are nothing, &c. — Just such are you, who, seeing my calamity, afford me no comfort, and seem afraid lest I should want something of you. Thus Job very properly applies the preceding most beautiful description of the torrents in the hot climates, to his three friends who thus disappointed his expectations. Indeed, it is a very fine image of pretended friends in adversity. When their help is most wanted and coveted, they are too apt to fail the expectations of those that trusted in them. They may properly enough be said to be either frozen or melted away by adversity. All their warm professions are congealed, as it were, when adverse circumstances have laid hold on their friends, and their friendship is quite dissolved and melted away. Ye see my casting down, and are afraid — You are shy of me, and afraid for yourselves, lest some further plague should come upon me, wherein you, for my sake, should be involved; or, lest I should be burdensome to you. Therefore you are to me as if you had never come; you are nothing to me, for I have no help or comfort from you. Job 6:22 Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance? Job 6:22-23 . Did I say — Or, is it because I said; Bring unto me? — Give me something for my support or relief? Is this, or what else is the reason why you are afraid of me, or alienated from me? Did either my former covetousness, or my present necessity, make me troublesome or chargeable to you? or, Give a reward for me of your substance — Or, Give a gift for my use or need? Did I send for you to come and visit me for this end? Nay, did you not come of your own accord? Why then are you so unmerciful to me? You might at least have given me comfortable words, when I expected nothing else from you. Or, Deliver me from the enemy’s hand? — By power and the force of your arms, as Abraham delivered Lot; or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? — Namely, by price or ransom. Job 6:23 Or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? Job 6:24 Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. Job 6:24-25 . Teach me — Instead of censuring and reproaching, instruct and convince me by solid arguments; and I will hold my tongue — I will patiently hear and gladly receive your counsels; and cause me to understand wherein I have erred — Show me my mistakes and miscarriages; for I am ready to receive your reproofs, and humbly to submit to them. How forcible are right words! — The words of truth and solid argument have a marvellous power to convince and persuade a man; and, if yours were such, I should readily yield to them. But what doth your arguing reprove? — There is no truth in your assertions, nor weight in your arguments, and therefore they are of no account, and have no power with me. Job 6:25 How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? Job 6:26 Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? Job 6:26 . Do you imagine to reprove words? — What! is all your wisdom employed for this, to catch hold of and reprove some of my words, without making allowance for human infirmity or extreme misery? and the speeches of one that is desperate? — Of a poor, miserable, helpless, and hopeless man; which are as wind — Which you esteem to be like wind, vain and light, without solidity, giving a sound, but with little sense, and to little purpose. Heath renders it, Are they as the wind? vain and empty. Job 6:27 Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend. Job 6:27 . Ye overwhelm the fatherless — Your words are not only vain, useless, and uncomfortable to me, but also grievous and pernicious. Hebrew, ????? , tappilu, you rush, or throw yourselves upon him. You fall upon him with all your might, and say all that you can devise to charge and grieve him. You load him with censures and calumnies. The word ???? , jathom, here rendered fatherless, means a solitary person in distress, as well as an orphan; or one desolate. Job intends himself by the expression, being deprived of all his children, and of all his estate, and forsaken by his friends. And you dig a pit for your friend — You insult and triumph over me, whom once you owned for your friend. I spoke all I thought, as to my friends, and you from thence take occasion to cast me down. There is nothing in the Hebrew for the word pit: it is literally, You dig for your friend; or as Heath and Houbigant render it, make a mock of your friend. Job 6:28 Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie. Job 6:28 . Now therefore be content, look upon me — Hebrew, Be willing; look upon me, or, to look upon me, the second imperative being put for the infinitive. Be pleased to consider me and my cause further and better than you have done, that you may give a more true and righteous judgment concerning it; for it is — Or rather, will be; evident — You will plainly discover it; if I lie — A little farther consideration and discourse will make it manifest if I have uttered any thing untrue or without foundation, and I shall readily acknowledge it. Job 6:29 Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it. Job 6:29 . Return, I pray, let it not be iniquity — Or, Recollect yourselves, I beseech you; call it not wickedness: yea, return again; my righteousness is in it — Or, Consider it yet again, righteousness may be in me. — Chappelow. Notwithstanding your suspicion, if you will examine more candidly and strictly, you may, perhaps, be convinced that I am not the sinner you think; but that righteousness is still in me, though I have fallen under these sore afflictions. Job 6:30 Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things? Job 6:30 . Is there iniquity in my tongue? — Consider, if there be any iniquity, or untruth, in what I have already said, or shall further speak? Have I hitherto uttered any thing that is faulty? Cannot my taste discern perverse things — That is, my understanding, which judges of words and actions, as the palate doth of meats. I hope it is not so corrupted but that I can discern what is bad, though spoken by myself. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Job 6:1 But Job answered and said, VIII. MEN FALSE: GOD OVERBEARING Job 6:1-30 ; Job 7:1-21 Job SPEAKS WORST to endure of all things is the grief that preys on a man’s own heart because no channel outside self is provided for the hot stream of thought. Now that Eliphaz has spoken, Job has something to arouse him, at least to resentment. The strength of his mind revives as he finds himself called to a battle of words. And how energetic he is! The long address of Eliphaz we saw to be incoherent, without the backbone of any clear conviction, turning hither and thither in the hope of making some way or other a happy hit. But as soon as Job begins to speak there is coherency, strong thought running through the variety of expression, the anxiety for instruction, the sense of bewilderment and trouble. We feel at once that we are in contact with a mind no half-truths can satisfy, that will go with whatever difficulty to the very bottom of the matter. Supreme mark of a healthy nature, this. People are apt to praise a mind at peace, moving composedly from thought to thought, content "to enjoy the things which others understand," not distressed by moral questions. But minds enjoying such peace are only to be praised if the philosophy of life has been searched out and tried, and the great trust in God which resolves all doubt has been found. While life and providence, one’s own history and the history of the world present what appear to be contradictions, problems that baffle and disturb the soul, how can a healthy mind be at rest? Our intellectual powers are not given simply that we may enjoy; they are given that we may understand. A mind hungers for knowledge, as a body for food, and cannot be satisfied unless the reason and the truth of things are seen. You may object that some are not capable of understanding, that indeed Divine providence, the great purposes of God, lie so far and so high beyond the ordinary human range as to be incomprehensible to most of us. Of what use, then, is revelation? Is it given merely to bewilder us, to lead us on in a quest which at the last must leave many of the searchers unsatisfied, without light or hope? If so, the Bible mocks us, the prophets were deceivers, even Christ Himself is found no Light of the world, but a dreamer who spoke of that which can never be realised. Not thus do I begin in doubt, and end in doubt. There are things beyond me; but exact or final knowledge of these is not necessary. Within my range and reach through nature and religion, through the Bible and the Son of God, are the principles I need to satisfy my soul’s hunger. And in every healthy mind there will be desire for truth which, often baffled, will continue till understanding comes. And here we join issue with the agnostic, who denies this vital demand of the soul. Our thought dwelling on life and all its varied experience-sorrow and fear, misery and hope, love threatened by death yet unquenchable, the exultation of duty, the baffling of ambition, unforeseen peril and unexpected deliverance-our thought, I say, "dealing with these elements of life, will not rest in the notion that all is due to chance or to blind forces, that evolution can never be intelligently followed." The modern atheist or agnostic falls into the very error for which he used to reprove faith when he contemptuously bids us get rid of the hope of understanding the world and the Power directing it, when he invites us to remember our limitations and occupy ourselves with things within our range. Religion used to be taunted with crippling man’s faculties and denying full play to his mental activity. Scientific unbelief does so now. It restricts us to the seen and temporal, and, if consistent, ought to refuse all ideals and all desires for a "perfect" state. The modern sage, intent on the study of material things and their changes, confining himself to what can be seen, heard, touched, or by instruments analysed, may have nothing but scorn or, say, pity for one who cries out of trouble- "Have I sinned? Yet, what have I done unto Thee, O Thou Watcher of men? Why hast Thou set me as Thy stumbling block, So that I am a burden to myself? And why wilt Thou not pardon my transgression, And cause my sin to pass away?" But the man whose soul is eager in the search for reality must endeavour to wrest from Heaven itself the secret of his dissatisfaction with the real, his conflict with the real, and why he must so often suffer from the very forces that sustain his life. Yes, the passion of the soul continues. It protests against darkness, and therefore against materialism. Conscious mind presses toward an origin of thought. Soul must find a Divine Eternal Soul. Where nature opens ascending ways to the reason in its quest; where prophets and sages have cut paths here and there through the forest of mystery; where the brave and true testify of a light they have seen and invite us to follow; where One stands high and radiant above the cross on which He suffered and declares Himself the Resurrection and the Life, -there men will advance, feeling themselves inspired to maintain the search for that Eternal Truth without the hope of which all our life here is a wearisome pageant, a troubled dream, a bitter slavery. In his reply to Eliphaz, Job first takes hold of the charge of impatience and hasty indignation made in the opening of the fifth chapter. He is quite aware that his words were rash when he cursed his day and cried impatiently for death. In accusing him of rebellious passion, Eliphaz had shot the only arrow that went home; and now Job, conscientious here, pulls out the arrow to show it and the wound. "Oh," he cries, "that my hasty passion were duly weighed, and my misery were laid in the balance against it! For then would it, my misery, be found heavier than the sand of the seas: therefore have my words been rash." He is almost deprecatory. Yes: he will admit the impatience and vehemence with which he spoke. But then, had Eliphaz duly considered his state, the weight of his trouble causing a physical sense of indescribable oppression? Let his friends look at him again, a man prostrated with sore disease and grief, dying slowly in the leper’s exile. "The arrows of the Almighty are within me, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up. The terrors of God beleaguer me." We need not fall into the mistake of supposing that it is only the pain of his disease which makes Job’s misery so heavy. Rather is it that his troubles have come from God; they are "the arrows of the Almighty." Mere suffering and loss, even to the extremity of death, he could have borne without a murmur. But he had thought God to be his friend. Why on a sudden have those darts been launched against him by the hand he trusted? What does the Almighty mean? The evildoer who suffers knows why he is afflicted. The martyr enduring for conscience’ sake has his support in the truth to which he bears witness, the holy cause for which he dies. Job has no explanation, no support, he cannot understand providence. The God with whom he supposed himself to be at peace suddenly becomes an angry incomprehensible Power, blighting and destroying His servant’s life. Existence poisoned, the couch of ashes encompassed with terrors, is it any wonder that passionate words break from his lips? A cry is the last power left to him. So it is with many. The seeming needlessness of their sufferings, the impossibility of tracing these to any cause in their past history, in a word, the mystery of the pain confounds the mind, and adds to anguish and desolation an unspeakable horror of darkness. Sometimes the very thing guarded against is that which happens; a man’s best intelligence appears confuted by destiny or chance. Why has he amongst the many been chosen for this? Do all things come alike to all, righteous and wicked? The problem becomes terribly acute in the case of earnest God-fearing men and women who have not yet found the real theory of suffering. Endurance for others does not always explain. All cannot be rested on that. Nor unless we speak falsely for God will it avail to say, These afflictions have fallen on us for our sins. For even if the conscience does not give the lie to that assertion, as Job’s conscience did, the question demands a clear answer why the penitent should suffer, those who believe, to whom God imputes no iniquity. If it is for our transgressions we suffer, either our own faith and religion are vain, or God does not forgive excepting in form, and the law of punishment retains its force. We have here the serious difficulty that legal fictions seem to hold their ground even in the dealings of the Most High with those who trust Him. Many are in the direst trouble still for the same reason as Job, and might use his very words. Taught to believe that: suffering is invariably connected with wrong doing and is always in proportion to it, they cannot find in their past life any great transgressions for which they should be racked with constant pain or kept in grinding penury and disappointment. Moreover, they had imagined that through the mediation of Christ their sins were expiated and their guilt blotted out. What strange error is there in the creed or in the world? Have they never believed? Has God turned against them? So they inquire in the darkness. The truth, however, as shown in a previous chapter, is that suffering has no proportion to the guilt of sin, but is related in the scheme of Divine providence to life in this world, its movement, discipline, and perfecting in the individual and the race. Afflictions, pains, and griefs are appointed to the best as well as the worst, because all need to be tried and urged on from imperfect faith and spirituality to vigour, constancy, and courage of soul. The principle is not dearly stated in the Book of Job, but underlies it, as truth must underlie all genuine criticism and every faithful picture of human life. The inspiration of the poem is so to present the facts of human experience that the real answer alone can satisfy. And in the speech we are now considering some imperfect and mistaken views are swept so completely aside that their survival is almost unaccountable. Beginning with the fifth verse we have a series of questions somewhat difficult to interpret:- "Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Can that be eaten which is unsavoury, without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? My soul refuseth to touch them; They are to me as mouldy bread." By some these questions are supposed to describe sarcastically the savourless words of Eliphaz, his "solemn and impertinent prosing." This, however, would break the continuity of the thought. Another view makes the reference to be to Job’s afflictions, which he is supposed to compare to insipid and loathsome food. But it seems quite unnatural to take this as the meaning. Such pain and grief and loss as he had undergone were certainly not like the white of an egg. But he has already spoken wildly, unreasonably, and he now feels himself to be on the point of breaking out afresh in similar impatient language. Now, the wild ass does not complain when it has grass, nor the ox when it has fodder; so, if his mind were supplied with necessary explanations of the sore troubles he is enduring, he would not be impatient, he would not complain. His soul hungers to know the reason of the calamities that darken his life. Nothing that has been said helps him. Every suggestion presented to his mind is either trifling and vain, without the salt of wisdom, like the white of an egg, or offensive, disagreeable. Ruthlessly sincere, he will not pretend to be satisfied when he is not. His soul refuses to touch the offered explanations and reasons. Verily, they are like mouldy bread to him. It is his own impatience, his loud cries and inquiries, he desires to account for; he does not attack Eliphaz with sarcasm, but defends himself. At this point there is a brief halt in the speech. As if after a pause, due to a sharp sting of pain, Job exclaims: "Oh that God would please to destroy me!" He had felt the paroxysm approaching; he had endeavoured to restrain himself, but the torture drives him, as before, to cry for death. Again and again in the course of his speeches sudden turns of this kind occur, points at which the dramatic feeling of the writer comes out. He will have us remember the terrible disease and keep continually in mind the setting of the thoughts. Job had roused himself in beginning his reply, and, for a little, eagerness had overcome pain. But now he falls back, mastered by cruel sickness which appears to be unto death. Then he speaks:- "Oh that I might have my request, That God would give me the thing I long for, Even that God would be pleased to crush me, That He would loose His hand and tear me off; And I should yet have comfort, I should even exult amidst unsparing pain, For I have not denied the words of the Holy One." The longing for death which now returns on Job is not so passionate as before; but his cry is quite as urgent and unqualified. As we have already seen, no motion towards suicide is at any point of the drama attributed to him. He does not, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, whose position is in some respects very similar, question with himself, "Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?" Nor may we say that Job is deterred from the act of self-destruction by Hamlet’s thought, "The dread of something after death that makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of." Job has the fear and faith of God still, and not even the pressure of "unsparing pain" can move him to take into his own hands the ending of that torment God bids him bear. He is too pious even to dream of it. A true Oriental, with strong belief that the will of God must be done, he could die without a murmur, in more than stoical courage; but a suicide he cannot be. And indeed the Bible, telling us for the most part of men of healthy mind, has few suicides to record. Saul, Zimri, Ahithophel, Judas, break away thus from dishonour and doom; but these are all who, in impatience and cowardice, turn against God’s decree of life. Here, then, the strong religious feeling of the writer obliges him to reject that which the poets of the world have used to give the strongest effect to their work. From the Greek dramatists, through Shakespeare to Browning, the drama is full of that quarrel with life which flies to suicide. In this great play, as we may well call it, of Semitic faith and genius, the ideas are masterly, the hold of universal truth is sublime. Perhaps the author was not fully aware of all he suggests, but he feels that suicide serves no end: it settles nothing; and his problem must be settled. Suicide is an attempt at evasion in a sphere where evasion is impossible. God and the soul have a controversy together, and the controversy must be worked out to an issue. Job has not cursed God nor denied his words. With this clear conscience he is not afraid to die; yet, to keep it, he must wait on the decision of the Almighty-that it would please God to crush him, or tear him off like a branch from the tree of life. The prospect of death, if it were granted by God, would revive him for the last moment of endurance. He would leap up to meet the stroke, God’s stroke, the pledge that God was kind to him after all. Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. According to Eliphaz there was but one way for a sufferer. If Job would bow humbly in acknowledgment of guilt, and seek God in penitence, then recovery would come; the hand that smote would heal and set him on high; all the joy and vigour of life would be renewed, and after another long course of prosperity, he should come to his grave at last as a shock of corn is carried home in its season. Recalling this glib promise, Job puts it from him as altogether incongruous with his state. He is a leper; he is dying. "What is my strength that I should wait, And what my term that I should be patient? Is my strength the strength of stones? Is my flesh brass? Is not my help within me gone, And energy quite driven from me?" Why, his condition is hopeless. What can he look for but death? Speak to him of a new term; it was adding mockery to despair. But he would die still true to God, and therefore he seeks the end of conflict. If he were to live on he could not be sure of himself, especially when, with failing strength, he had to endure the nausea and stings of disease. As yet he can face death as a chief should. The second part of the address begins at the fourteenth verse of chapter 6. ( Job 14:6 ) Here Job rouses himself anew, and this time to assail his friends. The language of their spokesman had been addressed to him from a height of assumed moral superiority, and this had stirred in Job a resentment quite natural. No doubt the three friends showed friendliness. He could not forget the long journey they had made to bring him comfort. But when he bethought him how in his prosperity he had often entertained these men, held high discourse with them on the ways of God, opened his heart and showed them all his life, he marvelled that now they could fail of the thing he most wanted-understanding. The knowledge they had of him should have made suspicion impossible, for they had the testimony of his whole life. The author is not unfair to his champions of orthodoxy. They fail where all such have a way of failing. If their victim in the poem presses on to stinging sarcasm and at last oversteps the bounds of fair criticism, one need not wonder. He is not intended as a type of the meek, self-depreciating person who lets slander pass without a protest. If they have treated him badly, he will tell them to their faces what he thinks. Their want of justice might cause a weak man to slip and lose himself. Pity from his friend is due to the despairing, Lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty: But my brethren have deceived as a torrent, Like the streams of the ravine, that pass away, That become blackish with ice, In which the snow is dissolved. What time they wax warm they vanish, When it is hot they are dried up out of their place. The caravans turn aside, They go up into the desert and are perishing. The caravans of Tema look out, The merchants of Sheba hope for them. They were ashamed because they had trusted, They came up to them and blushed. Even so, now are ye nought. The poetical genius of the writer overflows here. The allegory is beautiful, the wit keen, the knowledge abundant; yet, in a sense, we have to pardon the interposition. Job is not quite in the mood to represent his disappointment by such an elaborate picture. He would naturally seek a sharper mode of expression. Still, the passage must not be judged by our modern dramatic rules. This is the earliest example of the philosophic story, and elaborate word pictures are part of the literature of the piece. We accept the pleasure of following a description which Job must be supposed to have painted in melancholy humour. The scene is in the desert, several days’ journey from the Jauf, that valley already identified as the region in which Job lived. Beyond the Nefood to the west towers the Jebel Tobeyk, a high ridge covered in winter with deep snow, the melting of which fills the ravines with roaring streams. Caravans are coming across the desert from Tema, which lies seven days’ journey to the south of the Jauf, and from Sheba still farther in the same direction. They are on the march in early summer and, falling short of water, turn aside westward to one of the ravines where a stream is expected to be still flowing. But, alas for the vain hope! In the wadi is nothing but stones and dry sand, mocking the thirst of man and beast. Even so, says Job to his friends, ye are treacherous; ye are nothing. I looked for the refreshing waters of sympathy, but ye are empty ravines, dry sand. In my days of prosperity you gushed with friendliness. Now, when I thirst, ye have not even pity. "Ye see a terror, and are afraid." I am terribly stricken. You fear that if you sympathised with me, you might provoke the anger of God. From this point he turns upon them with reproach. Had he asked them for anything, gifts out of their herds or treasure, aid in recovering his property? They knew he had requested no such service. But again and again Eliphaz had made the suggestion that he was suffering as a wrong doer. Would they tell him then, straightforwardly, how and when he had transgressed? "How forcible are words of uprightness," words that go right to a point; but as for their reproving, what did it come to? They had caught at his complaint. Men of experience should know that the talk of a desperate man is for the wind, to be blown away and forgotten, not to be laid hold of captiously. And here from sarcasm he passes to invective. Their temper, he tells them, is so hard and unfeeling that they are fit to cast lots over the orphan and bargain over a friend. They would be guilty even of selling for a slave a poor fatherless child cast on their charity. "Be pleased to look on me," he cries; "I surely will not lie to your face. Return, let not wrong be done. Go back over my life. Let there be no unfairness. Still is my cause just." They were bound to admit that he was as able to distinguish right from wrong as they were. If that were not granted, then his whole life went for nothing, and their friendship also. In this vivid eager expostulation there is at least much of human nature. It abounds in natural touches common to all time and in shrewd ironic perception. The sarcasms of Job bear not only upon his friends, but also upon our lives. The words of men who are sorely tossed with trouble, aye even their deeds, are to be judged with full allowance for circumstances. A man driven back inch by inch in a fight with the world, irritated by defeat, thwarted in his plans, missing his calculations, how easy is it to criticise him from the standpoint of a successful career, high repute, a good balance at the banker’s! The hasty words of one who is in sore distress, due possibly to his own ignorance and carelessness, how easy to reckon them against him, find in them abundant proof that he is an unbeliever and a knave, and so pass on to offer in the temple the Pharisee’s prayer! But, easy and natural, it is base. The author of our poem does well to lay the lash of his inspired scorn upon such a temper. He who stores in memory the quick words of a sufferer and brings them up by and by to prove him deserving of all his troubles, such a man would cast lots over the orphan. It is no unfair charge. Oh for humane feeling, gentle truth, self-searching fear of falsehood! It is so easy to be hard and pious. Beginning another strophe Job turns from his friends, from would be wise assertions and innuendoes, to find, if he can, a philosophy of human life, then to reflect once more in sorrow on his state, and finally to wrestle in urgent entreaty with the Most High. The seventh chapter, in which we trace this line of thought, increases in pathos as it proceeds and rises to the climax of a most daring demand which is not blasphemous because it is entirely frank, profoundly earnest. The friends of Job have wondered at his sufferings. He himself has tried to find the reason of them. Now he seeks it again in a survey of man’s life:- "Hath not man war service on earth? And as the days of a hireling are not his?" The thought of necessity is coming over Job, that man is not his own master; that a Power he cannot resist appoints his task, whether of action or endurance, to fight in the hot battle or to suffer wearily. And there is truth in the conception; only it is a truth which is inspiring or depressing as the ultimate Power is found in noble character or mindless force. In the time of prosperity this thought of an inexorable decree would have caused no perplexity to Job, and his judgment would have been that the Irresistible is wise and kind. But now, because the shadow has fallen, all appears in gloomy colour, and man’s life a bitter servitude. As a slave, panting for the shade, longing to have his work over, Job considers man. During months of vanity and nights of weariness he waits, long nights made dreary with pain, through the slow hours of which he tosses to and fro in misery. His flesh is clothed with worms and an earthy crust, his skin hardens and breaks out. His days are flimsier than a web ( Job 7:6 ), and draw to a close without hope. The wretchedness masters him, and he cries to God. "O remember, a breath is my life Never again will mine eye see good." Does the Almighty consider how little time is left to him? Surely a gleam might break before all grows dark! Out of sight he will be soon, yea, out of the sight of God Himself, like a cloud that melts away. His place will be down in Sheol, the region of mere existence, not of life, where a man’s being dissolves in shadows and dreams. God must know this is coming to Job. Yet in anguish, ere he die, he will remonstrate with his Maker: "I will not curb my mouth, I will make my complaint in the bitterness of my soul." Striking indeed is the remonstrance that follows. A struggle against that belief in grim fate which has so injured Oriental character gives vehemence to his appeal; for God must not be lost. His mind is represented as going abroad to find in nature what is most ungovernable and may be supposed to require most surveillance and restraint. By change after change, stroke after stroke, his power has been curbed; till at last, in abject impotence, he lies, a wreck upon the wayside. Nor is he allowed the last solace of nature in extremis; he is not unconscious; he cannot sleep away his misery. By night tormenting dreams haunt him, and visions make as it were a terrible wall against him. He exists on sufferance, perpetually chafed. With all this in his consciousness, he asks, - "Am I a sea, or a sea monster, That thou keepest watch over me?" In a daring figure he imagines the Most High who sets a bound to the sea exercising the same restraint over him, or barring his way as if he were some huge monster of the deep. A certain grim humour characterises the picture. His friends have denounced his impetuosity. Is it as fierce in God’s sight? Can his rage be so wild? Strange indeed is the restraint put on one conscious of having sought to serve God and his age. In self-pity, with an inward sense of the absurdity of the notion, he fancies the Almighty fencing his squalid couch with the horrible dreams and spectres of delirium, barring his way as if he were a raging flood. "I loathe life," he cries; "I would not live always. Let me alone, for my days are a vapour." Do not pain me and hem me in with Thy terrors that allow no freedom, no hope, nothing but a weary sense of impotence. And then his expostulation becomes even bolder. "What is man," asks a psalmist, "that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" With amazement God’s thought of so puny and insignificant a being is observed. But Job, marking in like manner the littleness of man, turns the question in another way:- "What is man that Thou magnifiest him, And settest Thine heart upon him? That Thou visitest him every morning, And triest him every moment?" Has the Almighty no greater thing to engage Him that He presses hard on the slight personality of man? Might he not be let alone for a little? Might the watchful eye not be turned away from him even for a moment? And finally, coming to the supposition that he may have transgressed and brought himself under the judgment of the Most High, he even dares to ask why that should be:- "Have I sinned? Yet what have I done unto Thee, O Thou Watcher of men? Why hast Thou set me as Thy butt, So that I am a burden to myself? And why will Thou not pardon my transgression, And cause my sin to pass away?" How can his sin have injured God? Far above man the Almighty dwells and reigns. No shock of human revolt can affect His throne. Strange is it that a man, even if he has committed some fault or neglected some duty, should be like a block of wood or stone before the feet of the Most High, till bruised and broken he cares no more for existence. If iniquity has been done, cannot the Great God forgive it, pass it by? That would be more like the Great God. Yes; soon Job would be down in the dust of death. The Almighty would find then that he had gone too far. "Thou shalt seek me, but I shall not be." More daring words were never put by a pious man into the mouth of one represented as pious; and the whole passage shows how daring piety may be. The inspired writer of this book knows God too well, honours Him too profoundly to be afraid. The Eternal Father does not watch keenly for the offences of the creatures He has made. May a man not be frank with God and say out what is in his heart? Surely he may. But he must be entirely earnest. No one playing with life, with duty, with truth, or with doubt may expostulate thus with his Maker. There is indeed an aspect of our little life in which sin may appear too pitiful, too impotent for God to search out. "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth." Only when we see that infinite Justice is involved in the minute infractions of justice, that it must redress the iniquity done by feeble hands and vindicate the ideal we crave for yet so often infringe; only when we see this and realise therewith the greatness of our being, made for justice and the ideal, for moral conflict and victory; only, in short, when we know responsibility, do we stand aghast at sin and comprehend the meaning of judgment. Job is learning here the wisdom and holiness of God which stand correlative to His grace and our responsibility. By way of trial and pain and these sore battles with doubt he is entering into the fulness of the heritage of spiritual knowledge and power. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.