Bible Commentaries

CONTENTS

We have in this chapter, the complaints of Jobadiah The whole, from beginning to end, is an unceasing lamentation. The afflicted mourner dwells much upon the miseries of life, and the happiness of death.

(1) ¶ After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. (2) And Job spake, and said, (3) Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. (4) Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. (5) Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. (6) As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. (7) Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

It is worthy our closest observation in this account of Job, (and indeed it is one of the most important considerations in his history) that in the example of great and good men, the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to open to the view of the church, their frailties and imperfections also. While we are called upon to behold the patience of Job, James 5:11. we are to be taught, no less, that he was a man of like passions with ourselves. So in the examples of David, Peter, and others. Jeremiah acted as Job did under his affliction: Jeremiah 20:14-18. What Job hath said of the day of a man's birth, indeed, as it concerns our being born in sin, is true enough. And in this spiritual sense, the day of our death, when we die to sin, and are new born unto a life of righteousness in Jesus, by the quickening of the Spirit, is, as the wise man observes, for better. Ecclesiastes 7:1. But, otherwise, a child of God, under the heaviest affliction, hath a consolation in Jesus, to sweeten all. Reader! if the Lord, in infinite mercy, hath given you and me a new life, what blessings may we trace, both in our old creation, and in our new? Many a poor sinner hath been tempted to curse the day of his birth in nature. Oh! how may you and I bless the day of our new birth in grace!

(8) Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. (9) Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: (10) Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. (11) ¶ Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? (12) Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? (13) For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, (14) With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; (15) Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: (16) Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. (17) There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. (18) There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. (19) The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

I saw no reason to interrupt the progress of those verses, but wished them, as they are not divided in the Bible, not to be considered separately in the Commentary. The language is most pathetically chosen to convey the sorrows of an afflicted mind: but the fineness of the imagery cannot veil the anguish of the spirit with which they are delivered. What Job saith of the grave, if dying in Jesus, is true indeed, and most blessed. But, out of Christ, an untimely birth, as infants which never saw the light, must be preferable.

(20) ¶ Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; (21) Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; (22) Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? (23) Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? (24) For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. (25) For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. (26) I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

These questions and conclusions, if dictated by the Spirit of grace, would have gone much further to have softened the sorrows of the man of Uz; in looking to the Lord, than all the vehement expressions we read before. But alas! a mind under the impulse of temptation makes sad work of it, and, like Jonah, if the gentle and tender expostulation of God puts the enquiry, Dost thou well to be angry? For the moment, will boldly and impudently say, as he did, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Jonah 4:9. But did Jonah think so when the boiling anger of the moment was over, Jon 2? Did Job think so when he prayed, Job 42:5-6?

REFLECTIONS

PONDER, my soul, over this view of Job; and behold in him, whose patience is so highly testified of by the Holy Ghost, what man is in his highest attainments. Oh! precious Jesus! lamb of God, where shall I look for excellence, but in thee! Remark, further, my soul, in this complaint of Job, still the grace of God restraining the devil's power. Though Job was provoked by the adversary to curse the day of his birth, we do not hear a word of his cursing God. Whereas the accusation of Satan was, that if the Lord touched all he had, Job would curse God to his face. Do not, my soul, neither let the Reader, overlook this. The reason for which the Lord permitted Satan to exercise his servant so greatly, was not for the discovery, whether Job was a man subject to the same sins and infirmities as others of the fallen race of Adam; but Satan had accused Job of hypocrisy, and that he had no real love of God in his heart: here therefore was the issue of trial. Will Job, under these dreadful trials, abjure God? Will he give up his God? No! Though he laments himself, and laments his state, yet not a word against the Lord. Here let my soul look to Jesus, who in his unequalled sufferings, though for the while deserted of his Father, that his people might not be deserted, forever, never lost sight of his dependence upon him, when he uttered that dolorous cry; My God, my God, why host thou forsaken me! Lastly, from the representation made in this chapter, let both Reader and Writer learn, if Job's sufferings were so great as to induce him to lament the day of his birth, even while grace within restrained the power of the enemy; what must be the horrors of that place where no grace is felt, and where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Oh! precious Jesus! what everlasting praise must be due to thee, what love ought thy redeemed to feel in the contemplation, that thou hast delivered us from the wrath to come, when thou didst give thy soul an offering for sin, and didst die, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Blessed be the day of every sinner's new birth in thee! And blessed be God for Jesus Christ!