Bible Commentaries

Job 34:22

The text marks a special circumstance in the character of "workers of iniquity," namely, that they are men who wish or will wish to hide themselves; that there is that in their dispositions and practice which they wish concealed from all knowledge and judgment. This wish to hide is the acknowledgment that there is justice over the creation, that there is a righteous and retributive Power inspecting everywhere, with the consciousness that there is something obnoxious to justice. But for this consciousness all would be "children of the light."

I. The text chiefly respects the impossibility of concealment from God and the wish that it were possible. But to a certain extent it might be truly said also with regard to human inspection and judgment. It is but imperfectly that the workers of iniquity can hide themselves even from human view. For there are innumerable vigilant eyes and minds exercising a keen inspection. Men are watching one another, in default of inspecting themselves. There is a never-sleeping suspicion. The wicked often betray one another.

II. Notice the different kinds of darkness in which sinners seek to hide themselves. (1) There is the darkness of profound dissimulation. (2) There is the darkness of deep solitude. (3) There is the darkness of night. (4) In a moral or spiritual sense, we may give the name of "darkness" to a delusive state of notions respecting religion. (5) In the grave, in the state of the dead, in the other world, there will be no hiding-place of darkness. No corner of the universe has a veil from the Creator. There is no recess into which a spirit can slide. The same all-seeing power and almighty justice are everywhere. And if we look forward through time, there is in prospect the great day of manifestation, of which the transcendent light will be such as to annihilate the darkness of all past time. It will be not only as "the light of seven days," but as the light of thousands of years all at once.

J. Foster, Lectures, vol. i., p. 167.

References: Job 34:29.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 62; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii., No. 737. Job 34:31, Job 34:32.—Ibid., vol. xxii., No. 1274; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 132.

Job 34:32

What we all want is direct teaching—the teaching of Almighty God. God has many lesson-books out of which He teaches. But the Teacher Himself is always apart from and above the lesson-book. The power is all in His secret agency. That instructs; that elevates. It is a real, personal God, using all, pervading all, impressing all, a spirit working with the spirit of a man.

I. There are two classes of subjects about which we need God's teaching. (1) The one is what we know is to be known, but as yet we do not know it. (2) The other is that about which we have not a conception; we do not know that it exists or can exist. Both equally lie in the words, "What I see not."

II. As you attain to the knowledge of the one, the other will open to you—first of things dimly guessed; then of facts actually realised. So it will be for ever, indistinct knowledge growing distinct, and the distinct knowledge making up the idea of things indistinct, and then those indistinctnesses becoming again in their turn distinct. Then shadow out further hazes, which in their turn grow into substances, and so on in a never-ending series. And still the craving must be, "What I see not, teach Thou me."

III. There is only one way to secure God's own teaching. You must go into that school with clean hands and a pure heart. Over the portal of the palace of truth is the inscription—as strict in its stipulation as it is large in its undertaking—"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine."

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 21.

References: Job 34:33.—A. Raleigh, The Little Sanctuary, p. 195; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 136; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, pp. 132, 287; H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 299. Job 34—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 341; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 437. Job 35:10.—H. Melvill, Four Sermons in Cambridge, No. 2; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 295. Job 35:10, Job 35:11.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1511. Job 35—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. xi., p 33; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 455.