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Job Chapter
Sixteen
Job 16
Chapter Contents
Job reproves his friends. (1-5) He represents his case as
deplorable. (6-16) Job maintains his innocency. (17-22)
Commentary on Job 16:1-5
(Read Job 16:1-5)
Eliphaz had represented Job's discourses as unprofitable,
and nothing to the purpose; Job here gives his the same character. Those who
pass censures, must expect to have them retorted; it is easy, it is endless,
but what good does it do? Angry answers stir up men's passions, but never
convince their judgments, nor set truth in a clear light. What Job says of his
friends is true of all creatures, in comparison with God; one time or other we
shall be made to see and own that miserable comforters are they all. When under
convictions of sin, terrors of conscience, or the arrests of death, only the
blessed Spirit can comfort effectually; all others, without him, do it
miserably, and to no purpose. Whatever our brethren's sorrows are, we ought by
sympathy to make them our own; they may soon be so.
Commentary on Job 16:6-16
(Read Job 16:6-16)
Here is a doleful representation of Job's grievances.
What reason we have to bless God, that we are not making such complaints! Even
good men, when in great troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts
of God. Eliphaz had represented Job as unhumbled under his affliction: No, says
Job, I know better things; the dust is now the fittest place for me. In this he
reminds us of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and pronounced those blessed
that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Commentary on Job 16:17-22
(Read Job 16:17-22)
Job's condition was very deplorable; but he had the
testimony of his conscience for him, that he never allowed himself in any gross
sin. No one was ever more ready to acknowledge sins of infirmity. Eliphaz had
charged him with hypocrisy in religion, but he specifies prayer, the great act
of religion, and professes that in this he was pure, though not from all infirmity.
He had a God to go to, who he doubted not took full notice of all his sorrows.
Those who pour out tears before God, though they cannot plead for themselves,
by reason of their defects, have a Friend to plead for them, even the Son of
man, and on him we must ground all our hopes of acceptance with God. To die, is
to go the way whence we shall not return. We must all of us, very certainly,
and very shortly, go this journey. Should not then the Saviour be precious to
our souls? And ought we not to be ready to obey and to suffer for his sake? If
our consciences are sprinkled with his atoning blood, and testify that we are
not living in sin or hypocrisy, when we go the way whence we shall not return,
it will be a release from prison, and an entrance into everlasting happiness.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 16
Verse 2
[2] I
have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
Such things —
These things are but vulgar and trivial. And so are all creatures, to a soul
under deep conviction of sin, or the arrest of death.
Verse 3
[3] Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou
answerest?
End —
When wilt thou put an end to these impertinent discourses? He retorts upon him
his charge, chap. 15:2,3.
Verse 7
[7] But
now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.
He — God, as appears by
the following words.
Weary —
Either of complaining, or, of my life.
Desolate —
Hast turned my society into desolation, by destroying my children and servants.
Verse 9
[9] He
teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth;
mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
Eyes —
Looks upon me with a fierce, and sparkling eye, as enraged persons use to do.
Verse 10
[10] They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the
cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.
They — My
friends.
Gaped —
Opened their mouths wide against me. In all this Job was a type of Christ.
These very expressions are used in the predictions of his sufferings, Psalms 22:13. They gaped upon me with their
mouths, and Micah 5:1. They shall smite the judge of Israel
upon the check.
Verse 11
[11] God
hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the
wicked.
The wicked —
And thus Christ was delivered into wicked hands, by the determinate counsel of
God.
Verse 12
[12] I
was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck,
and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.
Shaken — As
a mighty man doth with some stripling, when he wrestleth with him.
Mark —
That he may shoot all his arrows in me.
Verse 13
[13] His
archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not
spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
His archers —
Whoever are our enemies, we must look on them as God's archers, and see him
directing the arrow.
Verse 15
[15] I
have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
I have — So
far am I from stretching out my hand against God, chap. 15:25, that I have humbled myself deeply under
his hand. I have not only put on sackcloth, but sewed it on, as being resolved
to continue my humiliation, as long as my affliction continues.
Defiled my horn — I
have willingly parted with all my wealth, and power, and glory (as the horn
often signifies in scripture,) and been content to lie in the dust.
Verse 17
[17] Not
for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.
Not —
And all this is not come upon me for any injurious dealing, but for other
reasons known to God only.
Pure — I
do not cast off God's fear and service, chap. 15:4. I do still pray and worship God, and my
prayer is accompanied with a sincere heart.
Verse 18
[18] O
earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.
Earth —
The earth is said to cover that blood, which lies undiscovered and unrevenged:
but saith Job, if I be guilty of destroying any man, let the earth disclose it;
let it be brought to light.
Cry —
Let the cry of my complaints to men, or prayers to God, find no place in the
ears or hearts of God or men, if this be true.
Verse 19
[19] Also
now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.
Witness —
Besides the witness of my conscience, God is witness of my integrity.
Verse 22
[22] When
a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
Go — To the state and
place of the dead, whence men cannot return to this life. The meaning is, my
death hastens, and therefore I earnestly desire that the cause depending,
between me and my friends, may be determined, that if I be guilty of these
things, I may bear the shame of it before all men, and if I be innocent, that I
may see my own integrity, and the credit of religion, (which suffers upon this
occasion) vindicated. How very certainly, and how very shortly are we likewise
to go this journey.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
16 Chapter 16
Verses 1-22
Miserable comforters are ye all.
Miserable comforters
They are but sorry comforters who, being confounded with the sight
of the afflicted’s trouble, do grate upon their (real or supposed) guilt,
weaken the testimony of their good conscience that they may stir them up to
repent, and let them see no door of hope, but upon ill terms. Learn--
1. God’s people may mutually charge and load one another with heavy
imputations; whereof, though one party be guilty, yet who they are will not be
fully cleared (save in men’s own consciences) till God appear.
2. Man may sadly charge that upon others whereof themselves are most
guilty. For the friends charged Job to have spoken vain words, or words of
wind, and yet he asserts themselves were guilty of it, having no solid reason
in their discourses, but only prejudice, mistakes, and passion.
3. Men may teach doctrine, true and useful in its own kind, which yet
is but vain when ill applied. Thus Satan may abuse and pervert Scripture.
4. Vain and useless discourses are a great burden to a spiritual, and
especially to a weary spiritual mind, that needs better.
5. When men are filled with passion, prejudice, or self-love, they
will outweary all others with their discourses before they weary themselves.
Yea, they may think they are doing well, when they are a burden to those who
hear them.
6. Men are not easily driven from their false principles and opinions
when once they are drunk in.
7. As men may be bold who have truth and reason on their side, so
ofttimes passion will hold men on to keep up debates when yet they have no
solid reason to justify their way.
8. Man’s consciences will be put to it, to see upon what grounds they
go in debates. It is a sad thing to start or continue them without solid and
necessary causes, but only out of prejudice, interest, or because they are
engaged.
9. Men ought seriously to consider what spirit they are of, and what
sets them to work in every thing they say and do. (George Hutcheson.)
Spiritual depression and its remedies
I. Spiritual
distress is either physical, caused by the action of bodily weakness and
infirmity upon the mind. Or satanic, directly due to suggestions of the great
enemy of souls. Or judicial, arising from the sensible withdrawal of the light
of God’s countenance. The general cause of this depression is sin. God
occasionally permits it to come upon us, that we may know ourselves, and feel
our own weakness.
II. How spiritual
depression manifests itself. The most common form is, that the sufferer fancies
himself lost. The Psalmist expresses the effect thus, “Make the bones which
Thou hast broken to rejoice.” The sufferer finds no comfort in prayer; or in
the ordinances of religion. What can be done for such?
1. Sympathise with the sufferer.
2. Immediately have recourse to prayer.
3. Endeavour to discover the cause of the withdrawal of God’s favour.
4. Dwell much on the promises of God.
5. Meditate upon the love and sovereignty of God.
6. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Do not continue to write bitter things against yourselves. This is
not the day of condemnation. (M. Villiers, M. A.)
Job’s comforters
The office of the comforter is a very high and blessed one. One
who has the tongue of the learned, and can speak a word in season to him that
is weary, may often prevent distress becoming despair; may often strengthen
faith and hope, and cheer the mourner with the light of eternal peace. He who
has force of conviction, clearness of sight, knowledge of God’s love, may
render one of the richest services that man can render to his fellow men. In
Job’s case there was a sorrow that indeed cried aloud for comfort. The pity of
the angels must have rested on him, plunged from such a height of mercy into
such a gulf of misery. Is there no comforter? When wealth abounded, he had many
to felicitate him; are there none now to weep for him, and to uphold his heart?
Let us look. There are never wanting hearts that pity the afflictions of men.
But it is one thing to pity with silent, on-looking grief; it is another thing
to tackle grief itself, and show how right and merciful it is: and for this
brave and tender work few are fitted. And so accordingly Job has to complain (Job 6:15-17) that his friends on whom he
had relied were like the winter torrents, brawling strongly, flowing bravely
when less needed; but drying up in the summer heats and leaving caravans, which
hoped to drink of their waters, to perish with thirst. But amidst the
bewilderment which marks all his friends, and the general shrinking of those
who should have tried to comfort, there are three of his old
friends--apparently from what they say themselves, and what Elihu says of them,
all men at least as old as Job himself--who strive to console him. Not at the
very outset of his calamity, but at a time when Job can say (Job 7:3), “I am made to possess months of
vanity”; these three men make an appointment with each other and go together to
comfort him. Job himself flouts them, saying, “Miserable comforters are ye
all”; doing thereby not quite justice to men whose task was not so easy to
accomplish as some of their critics think. I think that great and obvious as
their faults were, perhaps they were better comforters to Job than any others
would have been. They did not find a solace for him, but they did something
better, they helped him to find the true solace for himself. Let us see what
there is in the character and utterances Of these men worthy of our remark.
1. They had evidently some of the grandest qualities of a comforter
about them. They had a profound sense of Job’s calamity. Their whole bearing at
the outset is beautiful; when they see him they lift up their voice and weep.
They seat themselves beside him on his dunghill, and for a whole week, in
grave, respectful silence, they share his sorrow. Everywhere, but especially in
sorrow, speech is only silvern, but silence is golden. In great sorrow the room
to admit comfort is small, though the comfort needed be very large indeed.
Consolation is hardly for early stages of great sorrow, it must be inserted
gradually, as the soul gives room to hold it. And when the time comes for
direct consolation, it should be line upon line, here a little, there a little.
The comfort of the Gospel of providence first; the comfort of the Gospel of
salvation second. If they had been but wise enough to hold their peace, they
had been almost perfect comforters. They did so for seven days, and showed by
doing so they had one great quality of the comforter; they took some proper
measure of the trouble they came to soothe.
2. If they had a sense of his calamity they had also another quality
of great value in a comforter--they had courage. Amongst Job’s numberless
friends hardly any but themselves had the courage to face his grief. They had
it. Courage is wanted sometimes to forbid the abandonment of despair, to deny
the accusations which impatience makes against God. Sometimes, like the great
Comforter, you have to begin by convincing of sin, and to lead the afflicted
through penitence to consolation.
3. They had also some of the great elements of the creed of
consolation. They believed, first of all, that God sent the affliction; and the
root of all consolation is there. The sorrow’s crown of sorrow is the thought
that chance reigns. And wherever we feel God rules, and what has happened came
by Divine prescription or permission, we have a seed of consolation most sufficient.
In fact, as we shall see hereafter, all Job’s grand comfort springs from this.
They have a second great article of faith and consolation--their hearts are
strongly moored in a sense of the justice of God. In heathen creeds a large
place was often assigned to Divine envy and jealousy. And they have also some
knowledge of His love, They urge Job to prayer as to something He habitually
answers. They urge him to penitence, assuring him that even though his guilt
had been so great, yet God would pardon him. They have some of the great
convictions requisite to console.
Yet they fail in their effort to console; and when you ask why,
you see that while they possessed some of the first qualities of comforters,
they had others which marred their work.
1. First of all, their creed, good as far as it goes, does not go far
enough. There was in it a certain intellectual and moral narrowness. They think
of God almost exclusively as a judge--rewarding right, punishing wrong,
pardoning the fault He punishes when it is duly repented. But they seem to give
God no margin for any other activities. According to them, all He does is
reward or punishment. They have not in their view any grand future extending to
the other world--in preparation for which, discipline of various kinds may be
useful, even where there is no special transgression. They had a short, clear
creed--say to the righteous it shall be well with him, say to the wicked it
shall be ill with him--and any refinement, such as “whom God loveth He
chasteneth,” seems to them something that spoils the clearness and cogency of
saving truth. These men could believe in a reward to the righteous, in
affliction to the wrongdoer, but the doctrine, “Many are the afflictions of the
righteous,” enfeebled the hopes of the good and destroyed the alarm of the
wicked. Accordingly not one of them ever is able to get out of the feeling that
Job had been secretly a sinner above all men. We should beware of narrowness,
and, although our light is fuller, remember that we make a mistake whenever we
imagine that we have mapped out the whole of God and of the plans and working
of God. Leave a margin modestly, and assume that God will do many things, the
reasons for which are sufficient, but not knowable by ourselves. Assume that we
cannot understand much of His ways, and be on your guard against creeds that
simplify too much. Man is rather a complicated thing, and the truth of man
cannot be reduced to a set of very easy and very broad statements. These
comforters failed to remember that man’s understanding was not quite equal to
account for all God’s acts, and they left out of view all the prospective
probable results of God’s dealings in the idea that the calamity could have no
reason excepting some precedent wrong. And they had another fault.
2. They were short of faith in man. It is easy to understand how men
should be suspicious. When we feel how much of volcanic energy there is in the
evil of our own hearts, we are apt to believe too readily in the evil of
others. Faults are common, falls are common, but deliberate hypocrisy is too
rare to justify an easy assumption of its existence on slight grounds. If a
wavering thought that their friend must have been guilty of great sins, and all
his religion hypocrisy, was pardonable, should they have settled down so
fixedly and promptly in this belief, and without any evidence, have first
surmised and then asserted guilt beyond that of any other? This unbelief in Job
is a sin which God subsequently rebukes them for. It is a serious thing to
admit to one’s heart any unbelief in the essential integrity of another. Keep
faith in man if you would comfort man. These men were short of faith in their
fellow men, and became, as Job called them, “false witnesses for God,” in
consequence of being so. Perhaps the week of silence is due to suspense as well
as sympathy, to some misgiving about their theory as much as to compassion. But
as soon as Job has “cursed his day,” and given vent to the murmur which,
however natural, was not sinless, then the momentary misgiving vanishes, and
they begin their work. Eliphaz, more gently than the rest, with little more
than a hint of the direction in which he thinks Job would do wisely to proceed.
Bildad follows with utterance full of ungracious candour: “If thy children have
sinned against Him, and He have cast them away in their transgression He would
restore your prosperity if you prayed.” Zophar, who is coarser than either of
the rest, roundly tells him that “God exacteth of him less than his iniquity
deserves.” When Job has declared his innocence, and uttered his longing to
stand face to face with God, and reminded them that the prosperity of the
wicked was as universally observed as their calamities, they abate no measure
of their censure. In every form of innuendo and accusation they impeach him for
some great crime. Till at last Eliphaz himself gathers boldness to make
specific charges of inhumanity. Poor Job! to be thus battered by accusations;
when soothing tenderness was his need and due. Yet I am not sure he is altogether
to be pitied. They could not give him comfort, but they drove him to find it
for himself. And in finding it for himself he got it more firmly and more
richly than he could possibly have found it ready made on their lips. Several
things should be remembered.
1. It is well to act the comforter.
2. Love is the great prerequisite for doing so. Sympathy soothes more
than any philosophy of sorrow.
3. A narrow interpretation of God’s ways of love is a common fault of
those who would console.
4. There must be time for consolation to grow, and it may come in a
form very different from that in which we expect it.
5. At last God brings all the true-hearted to a comfort exceedingly
rich and great. (Richard Glover.)
Job’s comforters
These words express Job’s opinion of his friends. Nor is it a
harsh judgment. These friends missed, and misused, their opportunity. They
wanted to be at the philosophy of the matter. Many men now, when asked to
assist a neighbour, are more ready “to trace the history of the ease,” than to
render assistance. Job’s comforters deserved the epithet “miserable,” because--
I. They forgot
that affliction is not necessarily punitive. And, conversely, all exaltation is
not blessedness. Job’s comforters saw only the surface, and reasoned from what
they saw. They did not discriminate between Job’s circumstances and the man
Job. They did not discriminate between the body of Job and Job. Allowing that
the affliction of Job fell heavily on his soul, it was not necessarily punitive
on that account. God subjects His people to tests and disciplines as well as to
punishments. Christian men are in the school of Christ, and must accept its
discipline.
II. They did not
discriminate between means and ends. Not to do so is grievously to err in
matters religious; not doing so is practical superstition. A man regards church
going, Bible reading, attendance upon ordinances, as ends instead of means.
What then? He lessens the felt necessity for the broken and contrite heart.
Nay, more, he will never rise into the region of the spiritual, so will never
worship God acceptably.
III. We shall never
benefit a fellow man by casting the past in his teeth. Even if a child has been
naughty in the past, we shall only harden it by dwelling upon the fact. Our
Lord never twitted men about their past. Job’s comforters gratuitously assumed
that Job’s past had not been well spent, and so they merited the epithet
“miserable.” We all need comfort; we can get it only in Christ. If we are
seeking it in fame, money, friends, learning--anything appertaining exclusively
to this world--the time will come when we shall exclaim of these things,
“Miserable comforters are ye all,” May that sentence not be uttered in
eternity. (J. S. Swan.)
Miserable comforters
Cold comfort some ministers render to afflicted
consciences; their advice will be equally valuable with that of the Highlander
who is reported to have seen an Englishman sinking in a bog on Ben Nevis. “I am
sinking,” cried the traveller. “Can you tell me how to get out?” The Highlander
calmly replied, “I think it is likely you never will,” and walked away. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
No comfort in cant
Those persons are incompetent for the work of comfort bearing who
have nothing but cant to offer. There are those who have the idea that you must
groan over the distressed and afflicted. There are times in grief when one
cheerful face dawning upon a man’s soul is worth a thousand dollars to him. Do
not whine over the afflicted. Take the promises of the Gospel and utter them in
a manly tone. Do not be afraid to smile if you feel like it. Do not drive any
more hearses through that poor soul. Do not tell him the trouble was
foreordained; it will not be any comfort to know it was a million years coming.
If you want to find splints for a broken bone, do not take cast iron. Do not
tell them it is God’s justice that weighs out grief. They want to hear of God’s
tender mercy. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The worldly philosopher no comforter
He comes and says, “Why, this is what you ought to have expected.
The laws of nature must have their way”; and then they get eloquent over
something they have seen in post-mortem examinations. Now, away with all human
philosophy at such times! What difference does it make to that father and
mother what disease their son died of? He is dead, and it makes no difference
whether the trouble was in the epigastric or hypogastric region. If the
philosopher be of the stoical school, he will come and say, You ought to
control your feelings. You must not cry so. You must cultivate a cooler
temperament. You must have self-reliance, self-government, self-control”--an
iceberg reproving a hyacinth for having a drop of dew in its eye. (T. De
Witt Talmage.)
The voluble are miserable comforters
Voluble people are incompetent for the work of giving comfort.
Bildad and Eliphaz had the gift of language, and with their words almost
bothered Job’s life out. Alas for those voluble people that go among the houses
of the afflicted, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk! They rehearse their
own sorrows, and then tell the poor sufferers that they feel badly now, but
they will feel worse after awhile. Silence! Do you expect with a thin court
plaster of words to heal a wound deep as the soul? Step very gently round about
a broken heart. Talk very softly round those whom God has bereft. Then go your
way. Deep sympathy has not much to say. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The comforter must have experienced sorrow
People who have not had trials themselves cannot give comfort to
others. They may talk very beautifully, and they may give you a good deal of
poetic sentiment; but while poetry is perfume that smells sweet, it makes a
very poor salve. If you have a grave in a pathway, and somebody comes and
covers it all over with flowers, it is a grave yet. Those who have not had
grief themselves know not the mystery of a broken heart. They know not the
meaning of childlessness, and the having no one to put to bed at night, or the
standing in a room where every book, and picture, and door is full of
memories--the doormat where she sat--the cup out of which she drank--the place
where she stood at the door and clapped her hands--the odd figures she
scribbled--the blocks she built into a house. Ah, no! you must have trouble
yourself before you can comfort trouble in others. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
But now He hath made me weary.
Weariness under affliction
The word “he” is not in the original. Some understand it of his
grief and sorrow, and read thus, “And now it hath made me weary,” or, my pain
hath tired me. Others understand it of what had been spoken by his friends;
your tedious discourses, and severer censures, have quite spent my spirits, and
made me weary. Our translation leads us to a person, and our interpretation
leads us to God. Job everywhere acknowledges that God was the author and
orderer of all his sorrows. Weariness of mind is referred to, and it is the
most painful weariness.
1. A state of affliction is a wearisome estate. Suffering wearies
more than doing; and none are so weary as those who are wearied with doing
nothing.
2. Some afflictions are a weariness both to soul and body. There are
afflictions which strike right through, and there are afflictions which are
only skin deep.
3. Some afflictions do not only afflict, they unsettle the mind. They
unsettle not only the comforts, but the powers and faculties of it. A man under
some afflictions can scarce speak sense while he acts faith, or do rationally
while he lives graciously.
4. A godly man may grow extremely weary of his afflictions. The best
cannot always rejoice in temptations, nor triumph under a cross. True
believers, as they have more patience in doing, so in suffering; yet even their
patience doth not always hold out; they, as Job, speak sometimes mournfully and
complainingly. (Joseph Caryl.)
God hath delivered me to the ungodly.
Tracing all to God
But Job gets some notion of the reality of things when he traces
all to God, saving, “God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over
into the hands of the wicked.” I begin to feel that even the devil is but a
black servant in God’s house. There is a sense, perhaps hardly open to a
definition in words, in which the devil belongs to God as certainly as
does the first archangel. There is no separate province of God’s universe: hell
burns at the very footstool of His throne. We must not allow ourselves to
believe that there are rival powers and competing dynasties in any sense which
diminishes the almightiness of God. If you say, as some distinguished
philosophers have lately said, God cannot be almighty because there is evil in
the world, you are limiting the discussion within too narrow a boundary. We
must await the explanation. Give God time. Let Him work in His eternity. We are
not called upon now to answer questions. Oh! could we hold our peace, and say,
We do not know; do not press us for answers; let patience have her perfect
work: this is the time for labour, for education, for study, for prayer, for
sacrifice: this poor twilight scene is neither fair enough nor large enough to
admit the whole of God’s explanation: we must carry forward our study to the
place which is as lofty as heaven, to the time which is as endless as eternity.
We all have suffering. Every man is struck at some point. Let not him who is
capable of using some strength speak contemptuously of his weak brother. It is
easy for a man who has no temptation in a certain direction to lecture another
upon going in that direction. What we want is a juster comprehension of one
another. We should say, This, my brother, cannot stand such and such a fire;
therefore we try to come between him and the flame: this other brother can
stand that fire perfectly well, but there is another fire which he dare not
approach; therefore we should interpose ourselves between him and the dread
furnace, knowing that we all have some weakness, some point of failure, some
signature of the dust. Blessed are they who have great, generous, royal, Divine
hearts! The more a man can forgive, the more does he resemble God. (Joseph
Parker, D. D.)
Not for any injustice in mine hands.
A good man’s confidence
In these words Job delivers us--
1. The confidence of a godly man.
2. That kind of infirm anguish and indignation, that half-distemper,
that expostulation with God, which sometimes comes to an excess even in good and
godly men.
3. The foundation of his confidence, and his deliverance from this
his infirmity. (John Donne.)
My witness is in heaven
and my record is on high.
The trite witness of life
I. In reference to
Job.
1. A declaration of his belief.
2. An avowal of his sincerity.
3. A proof of his devotion.
II. In reference to
ourselves.
1. In seasons of self-suspicion.
2. Under the assaults of calumny.
3. In the prospect of death. (G. Brooks.)
When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall
not return.
The shortness of human life
Doctrine--The coming in of a few new years will set us out of this
world, never to return to it.
I. In what
respects we can have but few years to come.
1. In comparison of the many years to which man’s life did, at one
time, extend.
2. In comparison of the years of the world that are past.
3. In comparison of the great work which we have to do, namely, our
salvation and generation work.
4. In comparison of eternity.
II. Why is the
coming, and not the going, of the few years mentioned?
1. Because, that by the time they are fully come in, they are gone
out.
2. Because that year will at length begin to come which we will never
see the going out of.
III. When the few
years have sent us off, there is no returning.
1. Men cannot come back (Job 16:14).
2. God will not bring them back. Improvement--
The shortness and frailty of human life
This is not one of Job’s fretful speeches; it is one in which he
is giving forth the utterances of an inspired philosophy, and suggests a few
practical reflections, as well on the frailty of life as on the irreversible
issues of death.
I. The shortness
and frailty of human life. “When a few years are come.” Almost every image that
could be thought of to denote transitoriness, fleetness, brief duration, sudden
change, will be found in Scripture as an emblem of human life. Our days are represented
as passing from us just as an eagle hasteneth to her prey, as the swift post
flies on his errand, as the ships of Ebeh cleave a path through the waters, as
the weaver’s shuttle darts through the web, as the rolling clouds move in the
air. Or again, our life is a flower clothed in glory for a day--a shepherd’s
tent, which on the morrow will be removed to some other place--a vapour,
curling up for a moment into some beautiful shape, and then dissolving into
nothingness--a shadow, flinging its bold outline across our path, and in an
instant departing to leave no trace behind. But let us consider some of the
senses in which this expression, a few years, may be taken. Thus it may be
taken in a contingent sense with a sad reference to life’s uncertainty, to the
consciousness which should be present to all of us, that the invisible guiding
hand which struck down our friend during the past year may be led to lay us low
the next. In this view the word “few” may be taken in its most severe and
absolute sense. It may mean three years, or two years, or even one, but it
behoves the youngest, and the strongest, and most full of hope amongst us, to
speak as Job spake. Every day throws fresh confusion into our calculated
probabilities of life’s duration. Death seems to be always finding some new
door which we had left out of our account, and which we had not provided
against; it seemed to be too remote a contingency to be numbered among human
likelihoods. But commonly, the word “few” is used in some comparative sense.
The labourers in the field of the Gospel are said to be few compared with the
plenteousness of the harvest; they who find the way of life are said to be few
compared with those by whom the way is missed; and so, in the text, the years
of our life are said to he few, compared with the many things which have to be
done therein, in order to fit us for a condition of immortality. The comparison
comes natural to us. In all great works to be done, we almost intuitively
consider as an element of the difficulty the question of time. The surprise of
the Jews when they supposed our Lord to say that He would rebuild their temple
after it was destroyed, was not that He should rebuild it, but that what it had
cost forty-and-six years to accomplish, He should be able to do in three days.
Well, the building up of the spiritual temple does not always require
forty-and-six years, though it may require threescore years and ten. But
whatever the unknown limit be, the years always seem to be getting shorter as
that limit is approached; or as the work to be done in it remains in an
unfinished state. The fact, as you perceive, cries aloud against the folly of
all delayed repentances. To subdue the power of sin, to get disengaged from the
ties of the world, to change the bias of an evil heart, and acquire a relish
and taste for holiness, to become skilled in those higher acquisitions of the
saintly life--how to wait, how to hope, how to be silent, how to sit still--oh,
we want a long life for this! Grace may dispense with it sometimes, and does;
as when our young righteous are taken away from the evil to come; and then the
green blade is as fit for the garner as the shock of corn in its season. But in
all cases where longer time is granted, longer time is required; and then, if a
portion of these years be wasted, what arrearages of work are thrown forward to
the remainder; and thus we fail to make any advance. We have everything to
unlearn and undo. But again, I think the time that remains to us is described
by the phrase “few years,” because howsoever many they be, they will appear few
when they are past. For the truth of this, I may appeal with confidence to the
experience of the aged. You may have many years to live, but they will not
appear many when you have lived them out. What the text seems to suggest is,
that the duration of the future should be measured by the mind’s estimate of
the duration of the past. Assume, for example, that you have ten more years to
live; to know whether this is a long time or a short time, measure it by what
appears to you now the length of the last ten years. Something important and
noticeable occurred about that time; realise the fact, that after a
corresponding lapse for the future you will be no more seen. Such a method of
measuring your length of days from the other end of the line cannot fail to
leave upon the heart a salutary impression of the shortness of life. Wherefore,
let us all calculate our length of clays according to Job’s life table; let us
reckon our years backwards, that is, not by what they are in prospect, but what
they will seem in review. I note one other thought, which could hardly have
been out of the patriarch’s mind, when he spoke of his remaining years as few,
namely, that they must be few--incomparable, and beyond all arithmetical
reduction few--when compared with the life which was to succeed. This should be
always an element in the Christian’s computation of time. We shall never get at
the true length of our years without it. If the apostle Paul, when writing to
the Corinthians, had taken for his guidance any of our human calendars he would
have said, “That light affliction which has been upon me for nearly thirty
years”; but instead of this he recollects that time is not to be estimated by
this standard at all. Length of service must be compared with length of
reward--increase the one and you diminish the other, and this without limit; so
that if the duration of the succeeding recompense become infinitely great, the
duration of the service becomes inappreciably small. Who cares to be king for a
day? Who for one morsel of meat would become another’s servant for the rest of
his life? Or, on the other hand, who would not endure sorrow for a night to he
assured that he should enter upon a life of endless joy on the morrow? “Whence
I shall not return.”
II. The
irreversible issues of death.
1. Here we should note the moral scope of the expression. Job is not
to be understood as if he would exclude the possibility of his return to earth
bodily to visit his friends, and renew his employments, to tell life’s tale a
second time--his design is manifestly to indicate the fixedness of his
spiritual state when these few years of life shall have run out. His meaning
is, I shall go to the place whence I shall not return for any of the available
purposes of salvation, for repentance, for prayer, for making reconciliation.
It is a place where all is determined, unalterable, final; where as each tree
falls, so it lies; where he that is unjust is unjust still; where he that is
holy will be holy still. He had used similar language in the 7th chapter. “As
the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to the grave
shall come up no more.” To which we may not unfittingly add that exhortation of
the wise man, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither
thou goest.”
2. And now let me gather up some of the lessons of our subject. I
speak to many who must take up the words of our text in their most literal
sense. “When a few years are come, I shall go the way whence I shall not
return.” Your years to come must be few, because your years past have been
many. Well, what have you been doing with those many? And your work, how stands
it? Has your life been all wasted, all unprofitable, all of the earth, earthy?
Have you made nothing of your day of grace and visitation? And yet your sun is
going down. As thus--it should teach us to get our hearts fixed upon the true
rest, while our few years are continued, and be gradually preparing for our
final rest when these years are gone. Let our souls be staid on the right rest
now. We know where it is, what it is, who it is says, “Come unto Me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”; rest from the
buffetings of a changeful world, rest from the tossings of an anxious heart,
rest from the accusations of an upbraiding conscience, rest from the
suggestions of a desponding and fearful mind. Get skilled in the art of dying
daily, of anticipating the summons to an eternal world. (D. Moore, M. A.)
Calm in prospect of death
Why should we be pensive and wistful when we think how near our
end is? Is the sentry sad as the hour for relieving guard comes nigh? Is the
wanderer in far-off lands sad as he turns his face homewards? And why should
not we rejoice at the thought that we, strangers and foreigners here, shall
soon depart to the true metropolis, the mother country of our souls? I do not
know why a man should be either regretful or afraid as he watches the hungry
sea eating away his “bank shoal of time” upon which he stands, even though the
tide has all but reached his feet, if he knows that God’s strong arm will be
stretched forth to him at the moment when the sand dissolves from under his
feet, and will draw him out of many waters, and place him on high above the
floods in that stable land where there is “no more sea.” (A. Maclaren.)
The extreme brevity of human life
I. The fact
itself. It is in accordance with the representations of Scripture. Our life
nearly resembles Jonah’s gourd, which came up in a night and perished in a
night. Our life is short, if you consider--
1. The actual span of life. Seventy years, and infantile tenderness
is transformed into decrepitude,--the infant at its mother’s breast becomes the
man of hoary hairs, tottering beneath the pressure of infirmities, and sinking
fast into the cold and silent grave.
2. The millions who die young. It is said that by far the greater
number of human beings die in infancy. And how many die in youth!
3. The momentous objects to which we have to attend in this life. We
came not into this world just to exist, or just to spend a mere animal life; we
came to prepare for eternity, for our final and irrevocable destinations beyond
these narrow confines. Here we have to repent, to seek an interest in Christ,
to love, to serve, to glorify our Creator, to labour in His cause, to cultivate
our faculties, to discipline our hearts, prior to our entrance upon a deathless
state of existence beyond the tomb. All this to do, and yet so short a time for
its accomplishment.
4. The momentous interruptions which we experience in our attention
to these essential duties. What cares fill up this little life of ours! what
sorrows, what temptations, what losses and crosses, to call off our attention
from our grand concerns!
5. The uniform testimony of Scripture respecting it.
6. Its contrast with that dread eternity to which we haste. Our life
beyond this present scene will be commensurate, in its duration, with the life
of God, eternal as the throne on which He sits and sways the universe.
II. Improve this
fact.
1. By meditating on the brevity of life; using whatever can aid you
to impress your minds deeply with this solemn fact.
2. Take care not to waste life.
3. Improve life. “Seize the fleeting moments as they pass.”
4. Ever keep in view the uncertainty of life.
5. Remember that these few years of your existence will soon be past.
6. Remember that there will be no return to this present world. Let
us live while we live. Let us all keep the end of our journey in view. Let us
learn to die daily. Let us seek an interest in the grace, and blood, and
righteousness, and intercession of the blessed Redeemer. (F. Pollard.)
The final journey anticipated
I. Consider the
momentous journey which is here anticipated. Under the figure of a journey, Job
directs our attention to that important period, when the immortal spirit must
quit terrestrial things, and our perishing bodies be consigned to the silent
grave. This journey may be considered--
1. Solemn in its nature. There is an indescribable solemnity in
death, even to the man who is best prepared for the event. The path is
unexplored; at least, the experience of those who have gone is of very little
benefit to survivors: to know what it is to die, we must enter the darksome
vale. The journey is of a solitary description; we must perform it lonely and
unattended; the tenderness of affection, and the pomp of equipage, are of very
little avail in the hour of mortality.
2. Indisputable in its certainty.
3. Unknown in its commencement. The moment when we shall be called to
begin this momentous journey is wisely hid from our view. Our passage to the
tomb may be by slowly rolling years of gnawing pain; or by a sudden stroke we
may be launched into eternity.
4. Important in its consequences. The hour of death terminates all
possibility of spiritual improvement.
II. Describe the
effect which this anticipation ought to produce. The anticipation of a journey,
so momentous in its nature and consequences, ought--
1. To elicit serious examination respecting our state of preparation.
Man by nature is not prepared for this important event.
2. To excite just fear in those who are unprepared.
3. To stimulate the righteous to constant watchfulness.
4. It furnishes a source of consolation to the afflicted Christian.
He looks forward with solemn delight to that period when he shall be called
from this state of suffering and pain to the blissful regions of immortality.
He considers the hour of dissolution as the time of his introduction to
angelical society, heavenly employment, a fulness of felicity, the unveiled
glories of his Redeemer,--and the whole eternal in duration. (Sketches of
Four Hundred Sermons.)
Our last journey
I. Let us realise
our inevitable journey. I shall go the way whence I shall not return. Let us
apply it each one to himself. The fact that all men are mortal has little power
over our minds, for we always make a tacit exception and put off the evil day
for ourselves. How the individuality of a man comes out in his dying hour! What
an important being he becomes! Differences on the dying bed arise out of
character and not out of rank. In death the financial element looks
contemptible, and the moral and the spiritual come to be most esteemed. How did
he live? What were his thoughts? What was his heart towards God? Did he repent
of sin? The individuality of the man is clear, and the man’s character before
God, and now it is also evident that death tests all things. If you look upon
this poor dying man, you see that he is past the time for pretences and shams.
II. Now, let us
contemplate its meaning. Very soon we shall have to start upon our solemn and
mysterious pilgrimage. Hence, if there is anything grievous to be borne, we may
well bear it cheerfully, for it cannot last long. When a few years are come we
shall be gone from the thorn and the briar which now prick and wound. Hence,
too, if there is any work to be done for Jesus let us do it at once, or else we
shall never do it, for when a few years are come we shall have gone whence we
shall not return.
III. Now, consider
the fact that we shall not return--“When a few years are come, then I shall go
the way whence I shall not return.” To the occupations of life--to sow and
reap, and mow; to the abodes of life--to the stoic and to the country house; to
the pleasures of life. To the engagements of the sanctuary, the communion
table, the pulpit, or the pew, we shall not return. We need not wish to return.
What is there here that should either tempt us to stay in this world or induce
us to return to it if we could? Still, I could suppose in a future state some
reasons for wishing to return. I can suppose we might have it in our hearts,
for instance, to wish to undo the mischief which we did in life. You cannot
come back to carry out those good resolutions, which as yet are as unripe
fruit. Neither can we come back to rectify any mistake we have made in our life
work, nor even return to look after it, in order to preserve that which was
good in it.
IV. And now let us
enquire whither we shall go? In some respects it happeneth alike to all, for
all go upon the long journey. All go to the grave, which is the place of all
living. Then, we shall all go forward in our journey towards resurrection. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》