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Job Chapter
Thirty-two
Job 32
Chapter Contents
Elihu is displeased at the dispute between Job and his
friends. (1-5) He reproves them. (6-14) He speaks without partiality. (15-22)
Commentary on Job 32:1-5
(Read Job 32:1-5)
Job's friends were silenced, but not convinced. Others
had been present. Elihu was justly displeased with Job, as more anxious to
clear his own character than the justice and goodness of God. Elihu was
displeased with Job's friends because they had not been candid to Job. Seldom
is a quarrel begun, more seldom is a quarrel carried on, in which there are not
faults on both sides. Those that seek for truth, must not reject what is true
and good on either side, nor approve or defend what is wrong.
Commentary on Job 32:6-14
(Read Job 32:6-14)
Elihu professes to speak by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, and corrects both parties. He allowed that those who had the longest
experience should speak first. But God gives wisdom as he pleases; this
encouraged him to state his opinion. By attention to the word of God, and
dependence upon the Holy Spirit, young men may become wiser than the aged; but
this wisdom will render them swift to hear, slow to speak, and disposed to give
others a patient hearing.
Commentary on Job 32:15-22
(Read Job 32:15-22)
If we are sure that the Spirit of God suggested what we
are about to say, still we ought to refrain, till it comes to our turn to
speak. God is the God of order, not of confusion. It is great refreshment to a
good man, to speak for the glory of the Lord, and to edify others. And the more
we consider the majesty of God, as our Maker, and the more we dread his wrath
and justice, the less shall we sinfully fear or flatter men. Could we set the
wrath Lord always before us, in his mercies and his terrors, we should not be
moved from doing our duty in whatever we are called to do.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 32
Verse 1
[1] So
these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes.
Because — So
they said: but they could not answer him.
Verse 2
[2] Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the
kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself
rather than God.
The Buzite — Of
the posterity of Buz, Nahor's son, Genesis 22:21.
Ram —
Or, of Aram; for Ram and Aram are used promiscuously; compare 2 Kings 8:28; 2 Chronicles 22:5. His pedigree is thus
particularly described, partly for his honour, as being both a wise and good
man, and principally to evidence the truth of this history.
He justified —
Himself not without reflection upon God, as dealing severely with him, he took
more care to maintain his own innocency, than God's glory. The word Elihu
signifies, my God is he. They had all tried in vain to convince Job: but my God
is he who both can and will do it.
Verse 3
[3] Also
against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no
answer, and yet had condemned Job.
No answer — To
Job's arguments as to the main cause.
Condemned — As
a bad man.
Verse 4
[4] Now
Elihu had waited till Job had spoken, because they were elder than he.
'Till Job —
And his three friends.
Verse 6
[6] And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said, I am young,
and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not shew you mine
opinion.
Afraid — Of
being thought forward and presumptuous.
Verse 8
[8] But
there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them
understanding.
Spirit —
The spirit of God.
Giveth — To
whom he pleaseth.
Verse 9
[9]
Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.
Judgment —
What is just and right.
Verse 12
[12] Yea,
I attended unto you, and, behold, there was none of you that convinced Job, or
that answered his words:
Convinced — By
solid and satisfactory answers.
Verse 13
[13] Lest
ye should say, We have found out wisdom: God thrusteth him down, not man.
Left —
God thus left you to your own weakness, lest you should ascribe the conquering
or silencing of Job to your own wisdom.
God —
This is alleged by Elihu, in the person of Job's three friends; the sense is,
the judgments which are upon Job, have not been brought upon him by man
originally, but by the hand of God, for his gross, though secret sins: but,
saith Elihu, this argument doth not satisfy me, and therefore bear with me if I
seek for better.
Verse 19
[19]
Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new
bottles.
Bottles —
Bottles of new wine.
Verse 22
[22] For
I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my maker would soon take me
away.
I know not —
The more closely we eye the majesty of God as our maker, the more we dread his
wrath and justice, the less danger shall we be in of a sinful fearing or flattering
of men.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
32 Chapter 32
Verses 1-22
Verses 1-7
Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu.
Analysis of Elihu’s speech
After the introduction Elihu reproves Job, because he had claimed
too much for himself, and had indulged in a spirit of complaining against God.
He goes on to say that it is not necessary for God to develop all His counsels
and purposes to men; that He often speaks in visions of the night; and that the
great purpose of His dealings is to take away pride from man, and to produce
true humility. This He does by the dispensations of His providence, and by the
calamities with which He visits His people. Yet he says, if, when man is
afflicted, he will be truly penitent, God will have mercy and restore his
flesh, so that it will be fresher than that of an infant. The true secret,
therefore, of the Divine dispensations, according to Elihu, the principle on
which he explains all, is, that afflictions are disciplinary, or are designed
to produce true humility and penitence. They are not absolute proof of enormous
wickedness and hypocrisy, as the friends of Job had maintained, nor could one
in affliction lay claim to freedom from sin, or blame God, as he understood Job
to have done. He next reproves Job for evincing a proud spirit of scorning, and
especially for having maintained that, according to the Divine dealings with
him, it would be no advantage to a man to be pious, and to delight himself in
God. Such an opinion implied that God was severe and wrong in His dealings. To
meet this, Elihu brings forward a variety of considerations to show the
impropriety of remarks of this kind, and especially to prove that the Governor of
the world can do nothing inconsistent with benevolence and justice. From these
considerations he infers that the duty of one in the situation of Job was
plain. It was to admit the possibility that he had sinned, and to resolve that
he would offend no more. He then proceeds to consider the opinion of Job, that
under the arrangements of Divine Providence there could be no advantage in
being righteous; that the good were subjected to so many calamities, that
nothing was gained by all their efforts to be holy; and that there was no
profit though a man were cleansed from sin. To this Elihu replies, by showing
that God is supreme; that the character of man cannot profit Him; that He is
governed by other considerations in His dealings than that man has a claim on Him;
and that there are great and important considerations which lead Him to the
course He takes with men, and that to complain of these is proof of rebellion.
Elihu then closes his address by stating--
1. The true principles of the Divine administration, as he understood
them; and
2. By saying that there is much in the Divine government which is
inscrutable, but that there are such evidences of greatness and wisdom in His
government, there are so many things in the works of nature, and in the course
of events, which we cannot understand, that we should submit to His superior
wisdom. (Albert Barnes.)
Post-exilic wisdom
Elihu appears to represent the “new wisdom” which came to Hebrew
thinkers in the period of the exile; and there are certain opinions embodied in
his address which must have been formed during an exile that brought many Jews
to honour. The reading of affliction given is one following the discovery that
the general sinfulness of a nation may entail chastisement on men who have not
been personally guilty of great sin, yet are sharers in the common neglect of
religion and pride of heart, and further, that this chastisement may be the
means of great profit to those who suffer. It would be harsh to say the tone is
that of a mind which has caught the trick of “voluntary humility,” of pietistic
self-abasement. Yet there are traces of such a tendency, the beginning of a
religious strain opposed to legal self-righteousness, running, however, very
readily to excess and formalism. Elihu, accordingly, appears to stand on the
verge of a descent from the robust moral vigour of the original author towards
that low ground in which false views of man’s nature hinder the free activity
of faith Elihu avoids assailing the conception of the prologue, that Job is a
perfect and upright man before God. He takes the state of the sufferer as he
finds it, and inquires how and why it is, and what is the remedy. There are
pedantries and obscurities in the discourse, yet the author must not be denied
the merit of a careful and successful attempt to adapt his character to the
place he occupies in the drama. Beyond this, and the admission that something
is said on the subject of Divine discipline, it is needless to go in justifying
Elihu’s appearance. One can only remark with wonder in passing, that Elihu
should ever have been declared the Angel Jehovah, or a personification of the
Son of God. (Robert A. Watson, D. D.)
Credulous and incredulous minds
1. Elihu appears to have been a young man of keen perception,
vigorous intellect, and possessed of the idea that he had a mission to teach
and criticise others. He saw their mistakes as a bystander might, and set
himself to correct them. The thing which peculiarly stirs him is, that while
Job was clearly wrong, the friends had not hit off the truth, they had erred
more than he, and this he considers as overruled for good, that they might not
fancy that “they had answered him,” and that they, and not God, “had thrust him
down.” With this view of their relative positions he goes to work to answer
their objections and to correct Job. The opening of his speech to Job gives the
impression of a simple and intentionally humble person, nevertheless deeply
persuaded that his mission to advise and teach others is from God. Yet there is
an inclination to condemn others, and to an apparent arrogance. He first
describes himself as “full of matter.” This looks like vanity, but it need not
be. There is an intuitive consciousness of inspiration in the minds of some
men, and those often are the young, which seems to point them out as men to do
a work for God, or the advancement of souls, in their own day. The power that
urges them within is one they cannot resist. It is the teaching and influence
of God. Many a youth is conscious of some such energy, and, being conscious of
it, can neither resist the consciousness, nor hinder the expression of the
power. Society usually condemns such men, though men often have to endorse
their work in after days. Such an one Elihu seems to have been. It was not the
possession of the power to see truth unseen by others which was his fault; nor
was it the consciousness that he possessed it; but the presuming on the power,
to offend against the laws of humility and modesty, and the thrusting forward
the consciousness of his ability in such a way as to contemn and despise
others, or to give to others the impression that they are despised and
neglected.
2. Elihu opens his speech with a warm protest in favour of the
fairness of God’s dealings, and against the complaints set up by Job assailing
the inequality of providence. He shows that there is an end and object in God’s
dealings with man through sorrow and chastisement. He dwells on the perfection
of His character. He then proceeds to show the power and omniscience of God.
His complaint against Job is, not only that he has actually done wrong, but
that his arguments are of a kind to fortify the wicked, and to strengthen the
position of God’s enemies. He concludes his remonstrance in the magnificent
language of chapter 37, in which he sets forth the greatness of the works of
creation. He is offended at Job’s deviation from the recognised paths of simple
religion into the more devious and intricate ones of a somewhat metaphysical
search into the causes of apparent contradictions.
3. The two conditions of mind are best seen in contrast. We often do
see them so in life. The following classes of men are frequent and familiar to
our mind. There is a man who sincerely serves and loves God. He has no
hesitation as to his faith in His love, his choice and his intense desire;
nevertheless, his mind is one which surveys and weighs everything. It sees the
inequality of the law of God, if only the superficial view be taken; he goes
down lower, and strives to find some firm basis founded on the moral sense, and
the deeper condition of the progress of society. This man accepts and defends
the discoveries of science; he is not startled at seeming contradictions. Such
was Job. Elihu did not understand the man of keenly inquiring mind, agitated,
as Job was, about the causes of things. There are two classes of men among us;
those who reach the end of faith through the gallery of inquiry, and those who
rest in it from the beginning, and would shudder at having to ask the question
which they consider already finally rocked to sleep in the cradle of
unsuspecting and Unhesitating trust.
4. Elihu suggests to Job the various modes of God’s visitations and
dealings with men. Elihu expresses some surprise that Job should not more
easily and heartily acquiesce in the justice of God’s dealings, without
inquiring and searching so deeply into God’s actions and motives. So many men
of Elihu’s kind are surprised at the difficulty which deeper minds feel. He
first objects to Job finding fault with God for giving him trouble, as if he
had any right to object to the ways and laws of Him who made him. He tries to
convince Job of the close connection between cause and effect in God’s dealing
with His people, of the reality of His intentions in every act of trial or
humiliation to draw the soul of man out of some snare of Satan, some pit of
destruction, and to bring him near Himself. Elihu’s complaint against Job is,
that he does not feel all this. He hesitates about this manifest connection
between cause and effect; he searches more anxiously, decides more
hesitatingly, and takes courage more cautiously. He searches into grounds and
causes. Another man under a strong impression that some line of action is a
duty, expects everything will guide him with regard to it; sees everything
through that atmosphere, possessed in soul of one time, imagines everything he
hears is a note which tends to recall it. See how each of these classes would
deal with--
The two classes of mind are very distinct; but both may be
religious, and that in the very highest sense; but they will have a tendency to
mistake and misunderstand each other. There is a painful tendency in religious
men to be narrow towards each other. We can help being severe in our judgment
on each other. (E. Monro.)
The speech of Elihu
I. Religious
controversy issuing in utter failure. Long was the controversy of Job and his
three friends; hot was their spirit, and varied the arguments employed on both
sides. But what was the result? Neither party was convinced. Polemics have
proved the greatest hindrance and the greatest curse to the cause of truth.
“Disagreement,” says F.W. Robertson, “is refreshing when two men lovingly
desire to compare their views, to find out truth. Controversy is wretched when
it is an attempt to prove one another wrong. Therefore Christ would not argue
with Pilate. Religious controversy does only harm. It destroys the humble
inquiry after truth; it throws all the energies into an attempt to prove
ourselves right. In that disparaging spirit no man gets at truth. ‘The meek
will He grade in judgment.’ The only effective way to clear the atmosphere of
religious errors, is to stir it with the breath and brighten it with the beams
of Divine truth. Bring out the truth, regardless of men’s opinions.”
II. Indignation
towards men springing from zeal to God. “Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu
the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his
wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God. Also against his
three friends was his wrath kindled.” Men hating their fellow creatures because
their opinions concerning God tally not with their own. How arrogant is this!
It is the regarding our own views as the infallible truth; and what is this but
the spirit of Popery?
2. How impious is this! A zeal for God which kindles indignation to
men, is a false zeal--a zeal abhorrent to the Divine nature.
3. How inhuman is this! Can anything be more inhuman than to be
indignant with a man simply because his opinions are not in agreement with our
own?
III. Reverence for
age restraining the speech of youth. “I am young, and ye are very old;
wherefore I was afraid, and durst not show you mine opinion. I said, Days
should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.” Here this young man
appears in an aspect most becoming and commendable. He shows--
1. A sense of his theological inferiority arising from his youthhood.
2. A deference for the judgment of his seniors. “I said, Days should
speak.” Age gives a man great advantage in judging things. “The aged,” says a
modern writer, “have had an opportunity of long observation. They have
conversed much with men. They have seen the results of certain courses of
conduct, and they have arrived at a period of life when they can look at the
reality of things, and are uninfluenced now by passion. Returning respect for
the sentiments of the aged, attention to their counsels, veneration for their
persons, and deference for them when they speak, would be an indication of
advancement in society in modern times; and there is scarcely anything in which
we have deteriorated from the simplicity of early ages, or in which we fall
behind the Oriental world, so much as in the want of this.” (Homilist.)
Verse 7
Days should speak.
The voice of days
Days should speak. They do. Each has a message.
I. Yesterday
speaks. It says, “Learn of me.” To learn from the experience of the past is one
of our prime duties. What is learned by experience is best understood: is best
remembered; and is most practical in its influence.
II. Today speaks.
It says, “Use me. Turn me and my gifts to good account.” Make prompt use of
opportunity.
III. Tomorrow
speaks. It says, “Let me alone. Leave me. Trust me with God. Do not anticipate
me.” Wise and kindly message! Four considerations show this. Today has quite
enough cares. Anxiety will not help us to bear tomorrow’s cares. Christ is Lord
of tomorrow. And tomorrow may be quite different from what we expect. (W. R.
Stevenson, B. A.)
Time yields maturity
The distance between the infancy of a great man and the climax of
his greatness is immense, so that could we have heard Fox or Pitt deliver one
of their greatest orations, it would seem impossible that the day ever was when
those lips could not speak even the name of her whose arms were their whole
world, their horizon, their parliament, their only earth and only heaven. Man
is thus an accumulation. He grows as the tree grows. The little oak shrub
stands only a foot high in the first summer, but around it the winds and rains
and sunshine play, and cast their offerings upon their favourite, and joyfully
it receives them, and heaps them up, and when a hundred years have passed,
there stands the great monument of the forest, laden with all the vital forces
that came near it in the whole hundred years. Its great trunk represents the
sunshine and the rain that fell a hundred years before. It is probable that our
earth in its early days presented only a surface of volcanic rock, as desolate
as Gibraltar; and then came the influence of rain, and atmosphere, and sun,
dissolving the surface and making that soil in which the trees and grass live,
and which the plough can move so easily. Be this as it may, the philosophy of
this world is action, and the conservation of this action in some new form.
Into such a theatre of forces God saw fit to place man, and if the favourite
creature of God is true to his world, each year comes and adds to his mind and
heart far more willingly than the summer days add to the unconscious oak. The
chief mission of earth must be to help the mind onward toward a higher
condition of every faculty. In harmony with the whole theory of earth, Elihu
opens his speech to Job, and drops one of the finest of truths: “Days should teach,
and years should teach wisdom.”
Homily for the New Year
Time should be educatory. Every day has its lessons divinely
arranged which we are expected to learn. The “days” by their educational
processes should throw brighter light on the great problems of life, and make
the pathway to the hidden world less ghostly and shadowed. There may be age
without wisdom, and there may be wisdom without a “multitude of years.” There
is a wisdom which is only born of experience; and experience can only come with
the silent growth of years. What is wisdom? The right application of means to
ends. Wisdom is knowledge reduced to practice. But there may be worldly wisdom
and advanced age without “understanding.” Men may be intellectually cultured
and wise, yet morally fools in their attempts at interpretation of questions
and problems in the higher realm of the spiritual and divine. The mental can
never of itself interpret the spiritual, the metaphysical, the Divine. Moral
revelations come to none but such as are in heart prepared and waiting to
receive them. This is the secret of the errors which our clever scientists are
making today in their interpretations of the hieroglyphs of the spiritual
universe,--they read them, spell them out, in the light of the intellectual, and
guess at their meaning through the medium of secular knowledge, mere cultured
reason. There must be the child spirit of humility, receptivity,
submissiveness, and love, or God will remain a hidden, impalpable, unrealised
mystery, and the spiritual universe a sealed volume, a dumb oracle, a dread
uncertainty. The mysteries of life are plain only in the light which is born of
Divine “inspiration.” Elihu, spirit taught, saw beneath the apparent, the real
design of Job’s sufferings. They were “moral discipline,” not “judicial
visitation.” Both parties looked at the same object, but the three philosophers
saw it through the medium of their philosophy, and Elihu through the medium of
sonship--filially; hence the difference! The heart sees farther than the head,
and its Christian love interprets with accuracy what the dictionary confounds
and philosophy contradicts. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God.” (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
The lessons of time
I. Time unfolds
the plan of our life. Our curiosity often prompts us to desire a present
knowledge of future events. Would we understand them if revealed? You put an
arithmetic book in the hand of a child, and say, In this book you will find
Practice, Proportion, Fractions, Interest, etc. The child turns the leaves over
from beginning to end, but as yet he has not learnt numeration. The book is of
no use, although it contains the arithmetician’s wisdom. So, did we see the end
from the beginning, we should be no wiser. God has kept the other pages of the
Book till we have learnt the first; the others are not soiled.
1. Human life is ordered of God. He orders our steps. He girded Cyrus
for his work, although he knew it not. It is impossible to realise and value
life if this view is not taken of it. Its sacred origin and its Divine
organisation constitute the basis of belief.
2. Human life is gradually unfolded. Because it is Divine it is
mysterious. All God’s works have passed through time. Matter and events must
ever turn in cycles. God alone is immovable. “I, the Lord, change not.”
II. Time unfolds
our capacities for life. Growth is a characteristic of life; change, that of
inanimate nature.
1. Man becomes an intelligent being by the exercise of time. There
are activities which tend both to reveal that which we ought to know, and
enlarge our capacity for knowing it. It is a two-fold process. Unexercised
brains are dwarfs. Minds which are exercised about that which pleases them, and
are made their hobby, grow like the willow--very long, but very weak.
2. Man becomes a moral being by considering time. Life moves on
gradually, like a panorama, that we may observe its motions, and know the
purposes of God in them. We learn the nature of actions by the exercise of the
intuitive faculty, as actions reveal themselves. Morality and accountability
are unfolded by degrees.
3. Man becomes a social being by the enjoyment of time. We have a
capacity for enjoyment, and life has blessings to exercise that capacity. Every
period of life has its charms.
III. Time unfolds
the great purposes of life.
1. The development of true manhood. Man is God’s ideal creature. All
others am steps up to man. Evolution is the gradual unfolding in creation of
the final embodiment of matter and life.
2. The unity of the various parts. There is a period when we shall
not look upon life as atoms separated from their kindred, or contradictions,
but a whole, with all its parts fitly put together, and all things working for
our good. (T. Davies, M. A.)
The past
I. The past should
speak of us.
1. It speaks of sins committed. Spectres seem to come up from the
dark arches of the past, and confront us at every turn. They tell of sins of
omission and sins of commission; they speak of failures here and errors there.
The past is dark, and few can look it in the face without a blush.
2. It speaks of privileges abused. The means of grace
neglected--prayer restrained--the Gospel declined.
3. It speaks of opportunities neglected.
II. The past should
speak to us.
1. It should speak to us of the frailty of human life.
2. It should speak to us of the shortness of time.
3. It should speak to us of the future recompense of the saints, and
punishment of the ungodly. The voice of the past says: “He that soweth to the
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption,” etc.
III. The past should
speak in us and impress our moral consciousness in regard to our personal
obligations.
1. It should teach us to develop a spirit of gratitude. “O praise the
Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever,” is the language as well
of the thoughtful intelligent Christian as the emphatic utterance of
revelation.
2. It should preach to us the part of our personal responsibility to
ourselves; to our families; to the Church; to the world.
3. It should teach us greater fidelity to God.
4. It should inspire us with a Divine earnestness.
Conclusion--Meditate on the past. Mourn over its sins and its failures. Seek to
improve upon it. Ask Divine aid in order that you may succeed. (The Study.)
Ancestral experience a Divine schoolmaster
I. A
distinguishing faculty in human nature. Of all the creatures on this earth man
alone has the power of deriving instruction from the experience of others. We
have no reason to believe that the birds of heaven or the beasts of the field
derive one particle of information from any of their ancestors through the ages
that are gone.
1. The faculty connects all generations together in a mental unity.
2. This faculty explains the gradual advancement of the world in
intelligence. Every age builds up a fresh layer Of general intelligence, on
which the next steps up and works, and thus the generations are ever climbing
the hill of knowledge.
3. This faculty increases the moral responsibility of the world. On
us the ends of ages are come.
II. A sad
perversity in human nature. In secular matters we are constantly learning from
the experience of our ancestors, We avail ourselves of their discoveries. But
in moral and spiritual matters we are slow to learn. Ancestral experience
teaches us lessons on spiritual subjects not only in the general historical
works of the world, but especially in the Bible. The Bible for the most part is
a record of man’s experience in relation to the higher and more solemn
relations of being. (Homilist.)
Verse 8
But there is a spirit in man.
The spirit in man
We can define “spirit” only by negations, but the negations are
positive, inasmuch as it is the limitations and imperfections of matter that
they deny. Spirit, though it uses material organs and implements, is distinct
from them, their owner and master. Modern science derives man’s parentage from
what we have been accustomed to call the lower order of beings. I confess a
strong preference for the genealogy whose two connecting links are, “which was
the Son of Adam, which was the Son of God.” Man has the same material
conditions, surroundings, and necessities with his humbler fellow beings. But
is there in man an immaterial, supra-material consciousness, in which he
differs from the brutes, not in degree alone, but in kind, something into
which: instinct could never grow, occupying a range of thought, knowledge, and
aspiration which to the brute is and ever will be an unexplored region? This
question we attempt to answer.
1. Note man’s power of progress, as manifested both individually and
collectively. The swallow builds as good a nest the first spring of his life as
he will ever build. But man’s antecedents and surroundings do not furnish the
first elements for calculating his orbit, which may intersect the outermost
circle of the material system to which he belongs, and stretch on unto the
unmapped region beyond, as the comet wings its flight into depths of space
remoter than the planet’s round. Man, also, alone of all animals, grows
collectively, and from generation to generation. Each generation of men mounts
on the shoulders of that which preceded it. Facts are epitomised into
principles! knowledge is condensed into general truths, and the acquisitions of
a thousand years are carried by the child from the primary school. There is no
physical peculiarity in man that can account for this power of progress. Is it
ascribed to speech? The human hand cannot account for man’s progress. Man’s
power of progress is due to causes wholly unconnected with his physical
development, and with the possibility of material consciousness. We have no
proof that other animals have any knowledge, except that which comes to them
immediately through the senses. They evince no apprehension of principles, of
multitudinous, comprehensive facts, of general truths. Man’s superiority
consists in his capacity for super-sensual ideas, and these cannot be
elaborated by any conceivable material apparatus. Man with his mental vision
sees a class or a law as distinctly as the eye discerns an individual object;
and still further, by higher stages of abstraction and generalisation, he
resolves clusters of classes into more comprehensive classes, fascicles of laws
into single laws of a broader scope, till in every department he seizes upon
some one unifying principle under which all the classes may be grouped, or to
which all the laws may be referred. He then, from these principles, deduces
inferences which the senses never could have discovered. And man’s entire imaginative
apparatus is super-sensual.
2. The phenomena of man’s moral nature cannot be derived from his
material organisation. Of all beings on the earth, man alone cognises the
distinction between right and wrong. The first question in ethics, whether
theoretical or practical, concerns the nature of moral distinctions--the
essential difference between right and wrong. Material philosophers see the
origin of this distinction in the differing sensations of pleasure and pain;
and that conscience results solely from the observation of what is approved and
what disapproved. But materialism cannot account for either a man’s moral or a
man’s religious nature. We conclude that natural science cannot detach man’s
hold upon the ancestral tree which traces his parentage from God. In Jesus
Christ Himself we find the strongest of all arguments against the theory of
material evolution as applicable to the higher portion of man’s nature. (A.
P. Peabody, D. D.)
Human spirit and Divine inspiration
Read text thus, “There is a spirit in man, and the in-spirit-ing
of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” The spirit in man is that special
apartment of his nature which has been contrived and fitted for personal
intercourse between him and God. The spirit in man is to the great inbreathing
of God what the lungs are to the circumambient air. It is the element of our
being that establishes in us religious possibilities. “There is a spirit in
man,” and like every other instinct of our being, it stands to us
authoritatively, and lays its mandate upon us imperiously. We are religious by
nature. It is just this faculty divinely wrought upon, and this string divinely
played upon, that really composes the strength and tenacity of our religious
convictions. The inspiration here has to do, in a purely general way, with
God’s own personal communication of Himself to us, and, at the spirit point of
our being, imparting unto us the energies of His own wisdom, holiness, and
power. It is not our concern to understand how this is done. The first office
work of inspiration is to create in us fresh personal vigour and new spiritual
animation. Character cannot be constructed. It cannot be put together. It needs
first of all a principle that is animated, and one, therefore, that is
animating. It was an impulse more glowing, determined, and passionate than
anything we are possessed of naturally. We need nothing so much as a
determining life force at the core of character, an impulse from out the very
soul of God, that shall hold us in its warm, steady, and irresistible grip, and
impel us with a momentum that has the very pressure of Jehovah in it. And all
of this is a draft upon the Divine inspiration. This may seem to be what
theologians call “regeneration.” The new man, the new life, is only another
name for character wrought out at the determining impulse of a Divine
inspiration. What we need first of all is not to act like Christ, but to have
exactly the same Divine Spirit working at the core of our lives that worked at
the core of His, and then acts will take care of themselves. All true manliness
grows around a core of divineness. Virtue is safe only when it is inspired.
Another office work of inspiration is to create in us fresh and vivid
perceptions of the Divine truth. We need as much inspiration to read the Bible
as its authors needed to fit them to write it. No Christian creed is ever
constructed. It is the form in which a man shapes his own experiences of the
things of God, and of his own soul. As we go on to know the Lord, our creeds
will change. Christian thinking will continue growing better, deeper, truer, so
long as Christians, along the luminous path of God’s self-revelation to them,
continue getting into the deeper things of God and the closer intimacies of
God. And further, the inspirations of the Almighty are suited to become to us
qualification for all kinds of holy doing. We make toilsome work of being good,
because we do not let the inspirations of God work in us: and we make irksome
work of doing good because we do not let the inspirations of God work through
us . . . Our common and comprehensive need is of the inspiration of the
Almighty, the direct breathing into us of the breath of God, with all the
wisdom, holiness, and power which such a Divine afflatus involves, that whether
we speak, be it by word or act, we may speak as the oracles of God; and whether
we minister, we may do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all
things may be glorified through Christ Jesus. (Charles H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
God the source of all wisdom
Professor Morse, the renowned electric telegraph inventor, was
once asked, “Professor, when you were making your experiments yonder in your
rooms in the university, did you ever come to a stand, not knowing what to do
next?” “Oh yes; mere than once.” “And at such times, what did you do next? I
may answer you in confidence, sir,” said the professor, “but it is a matter of
which the public knows nothing. Whenever I could not see my way clearly, I
prayed for more light.” “And the light generally came?” “Yes. And I may tell
you that when flattering honours came to me from America and Europe on account
of the invention which bears my name, I never felt that I deserved them. I had
made a valuable application of electricity, not because I was superior to other
men, but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to
someone, and was pleased to reveal it to me.” The inventor’s first
message--“What hath God wrought”--intimated in no uncertain way the inspiration
which gave his work longevity, and made it a light to the world.
On man as a rational and moral being
The inherent excellence of our nature. Consider man--
1. As a rational being. How are we otherwise to account for that
superiority which man has acquired over all the other inhabitants of this world?
In the lowest conditions of human society there is always a marked preeminence
in man over the other animals. In man there are at all times signs of a mind
possessing in some degree a creative and inventive energy. The effects of this
power in man are by no means small and insignificant. While he is yet remote
from what we call civilisation, the native grandeur of the human mind shows
itself in bold exertions of genius; and as he proceeds in his career, man
constantly discovers new resources. What is this power? Is it not what the text
declares it to be, “a spirit in man, the inspiration of the Almighty”? Going on
the principles of natural reason,--what, indeed, is it that produces in our
minds a belief of the existence of the supreme God, but the perception that the
world which we inhabit bears strong indications of design and intelligence
having been employed in its formation? Our connection with God is impressed on
our minds by the very proofs which bring us a knowledge of His existence, and
we could not know that there was such a Being unless we tried His works by the
scale of our own reason.
2. The same great truth will appear if we consider man as a moral
being. Other animals follow blindly the impulse of appetite. There is impressed
on the mind of man a rule by which he judges himself,--a sense of right and
wrong in conduct, by which he becomes conscious that he is the object either of
love and esteem, or of contempt and hatred. Reflect on the very high dignity
and importance of this part of our constitution; how much it elevates us above
the other creatures; how close a connection it forms between us and the
Almighty. How can we derive, except from God Himself, except from the spirit
which He has breathed into man, any feeling of those excellencies, any love
for, or any aspiration after that goodness which indisputably constitutes His
own greatest attribute? Is not our relationship to the Divine nature apparent
in this, that we alone, of all the creatures breathing upon earth, are capable
of having any relish of those perfections which alone render God Himself the
object of worship and love? (J. Morehead, M. A.)
On man as a religious being
Man has not only received understanding from the inspiration of
the Almighty, but he knows that it is so; and he is prompted by nature to lift
up his thoughts to the contemplation of that great Being who conferred upon him
so high a preeminence. This principle it is which distinguishes us from the
lower animals, even more than our reason or our moral perceptions. He alone of
all creatures thinks it not presumption to address himself to the unknown God.
Wherever man exists, therefore, you will find religion. By collecting together
all the follies of superstition, it has been attempted to show that the
religion of man is rather a proof of the weakness than of the loftiness of his
nature. It must be owned that the vices and follies of man have shown
themselves as frequently in the midst of his religious sentiments as in any
other part of his character. Yet the perversions of religion ought never to be
treated in a light and careless strain; they are rather objects of pity. But
even these superstitions prove that man is by nature a religious being. Man is
a spirit, clouded and obscured, struggling with darkness, and fettered by sin,
yet aiming at lofty things, and striving to regain some glimpses of the Divine
form, which was accustomed to walk with man while yet in the garden of primeval
innocence.
1. Let students pursue their inquiries with a becoming reverence for
the nature to which they belong.
2. Value Christianity which has brought immortality to light. (J.
Morehead, M. A.)
The world within
There is a spirit in man--a rational, accountable, undying
personality. This spirit has been called “the world within,” and truly of all
worlds it is the greatest and most wonderful, Like the outward world of nature,
it has its own orbit, and its own revolutions, and its own centre. Souls create
their own centres. The Bible everywhere teaches the distinction between the
soul and matter. This world is the greatest world.
1. It is a world whose existence is complete in itself.
2. It is a world that has a self-multiplying power.
3. It is a world conscious of its own existence.
4. It is a world that can make use of the outward.
5. It is a world that can devoutly recognise its Maker.
6. It is a world which its Maker has made extraordinary efforts to
restore.
7. It is a world that can shut out its Maker.
Conclusion--
Verse 17
I also will show mine opinion.
The spirit and message of Elihu
This is the beginning of Elihu’s declaration. It is quite a new
voice. We have heard nothing like this before. So startling indeed is the tone
of Elihu’s voice that some have questioned whether iris speech really forms
part of the original poem, or has been added by some later hand. We deal with
it as we find it here. It is none the less welcome to us that it is a young
voice, fresh, charmful, bold, full of vitality, not wanting in the loftier
music that is moral, solemn, deeply religious. It appears, too, to be an
impartial voice; for Elihu says--I am no party to tiffs controversy: Job has
not said anything to me or against me, and therefore I come into the conference
wholly unprejudiced: but I any bound to show mine opinion: I do not speak
spontaneously; I am forced to this; I cannot allow the occasion to end, though
the words have been so many and the arguments so vain, without also showing
what I think about the whole matter. Such a speaker is welcome. Earnest men
always refresh any controversy into which they enter: and young men must speak
out boldly, with characteristic freshness of thought and word; they ought to be
listened to; religious questions are of infinite importance to them: sometimes
they learn from their blunders; there are occasions upon which self-correction
is the very best tutor. It is well for us to know what men are thinking. It is
useless to be speaking to thoughts that do not exist, to inquiries that really
do not excite the solicitudes of men. Better know, straightly and frankly, what
men are thinking about, and what they want to be at, and address oneself to
their immediate pain and necessity. Elihu will help us in this direction. There
comes a time when the old way of putting things must give way to some new
method. But if the old are not always wise, the young are not always complete.
We live in a time of doctrinal change. There is now an opportunity for an
Elihu, whose wrath is divinely kindled, to make the great progress in
attempting the higher education of the soul. Elihu must come; when he does come
he will be killed: but another Elihu must take his place, and go forward with
the work until the enemy is tired of blood, and lets the last Elihu have a
hearing. We may change forms without changing substances. Let us allow that new
methods of stating old truths are perfectly legitimate. Nor let us condemn a
man who resorts to novel expressions, if he do not injure the substance of the
thing which he intends to reveal. Take, for example, the doctrine of prayer.
The doctrine of prayer has been mocked, or misunderstood, or imperfectly
stated. Every man must state this doctrine for himself. Only the individual man
knows what he means by prayer. There is no generic and final definition which
can be shut up within the scope of a lexicon. Who can define prayer once for
all? Only the Almighty. Every suppliant knows what he means when he prays to
his Father in heaven. He must not be overloaded with other men’s definitions;
they will only burden his prayer; they will only stifle the music of his
supplication. Suppose we say, Prayer is good in cases of sickness, but it stops
short at surgery. What a wonderful thing to say--wonderful because of its
emptiness and vanity. Yet how inclined we are to smile when we are told that
prayer is exceedingly good in the removal of nervous or imaginary diseases, but
prayer always stops short at surgery; prayer never prayed a man’s limb hack
again to him when he had once lost it. As well say, Nursing is very good, but
it always stops short at death. So it does; so it must. As well say, Reaping is
very good, but reaping always stops short at winter. That is true, and that is
right. “That which is lacking cannot be numbered.” Law must have some
reasonableness, or it ceases to be law: when it loses its reasonableness it
loses its dignity and the power of getting hold upon the general judgment and
the personal trust of man. Even miracles themselves might be played with,
turned into commonplaces, debased into familiarities utterly valueless. Prayer
may and does stop short at surgery, but love itself has a point at which it
stops short; the living air has a point at which it falls back, so to speak,
helplessly; all the ministries of nature stop short at assignable points,
saying that without assent and consent and cooperation on the other side no
miracle can be done. In all these cases consider reasonableness and law, and
the necessity of boundary and fixture in the education and culture of mankind.
Then again, others would deprive prayer of what many have considered to be an
essential feature. In order to maintain what doctrine of prayer they may have,
they are only too glad to eviscerate it of the element of petition. They are
not unwilling to have aspiration, a species of poetical communion with the
invisible, but they would complete a great work of evacuation in the direction
of request, petition, solicitation; they would dismiss the beggar from the
altar, and admit only the poetic contemplatist, or the spiritual enthusiast, or
the mystic communicant. For this I see no reason. I hold to the old doctrine of
“Ask, and ye shall receive: ye have not, because ye ask not: if any man lack
wisdom, let him ask of God.” That there may be abuses in the direction of
solicitation is obvious; but we must never give up the reality; because it can
be abused. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Verse 18
For I am full of matter.
Ideas and expression
Sainte-Beuve remarks that the great art in speech, as in military
service, is to gather, maintain, and bring to bear at once the greatest number
of forces. Some generals can manage but few men and some speakers can handle
but one or two ideas. “There are writers who resemble Marshal Soubise: when he
had all his troops gathered at his disposal he knew not what to do with them,
and he dispersed them again that he might fight to better advantage. So I know
of writers who, before writing, dismiss half their ideas because they can
express them only one by one: it is pitiful. It shows that one is embarrassed
by his very resources.”.
──《The Biblical Illustrator》