IN THESE two chapters Job again takes the defense against the accusations of his friends. He calls them “miserable (or grievous) comforters,” and says that if he were in their place and they in his, he could “heap up words” against them as they were doing to him. But instead of that he would seek to comfort and encourage them, and we doubt not that Job was one who would have done so. Though he had been pouring out his grief, he felt no better for it. He complains of how God had reduced him to such straits, and that he had been made desolate of all his family. “God hath delivered me to the ungodly,” he says, “and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.”
He goes on: “I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder.” It would seem from this that Job formerly had been resting in his easy circumstances, and not in the goodness of God who had given Him such a manner of life. His thought and hope seem to have been expressed in his words, “I shall die in my nest.” But in His perfect wisdom, God was pleased to allow Job to be divested of all those comforts his nest afforded him, in order that he might be a partaker of “His holiness” (Heb. 12:9, 10), not merely the holiness of an upright or righteous man, but that which suited the call of God, of those who like Abraham were “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” (Heb. 11:13.)
Job felt very keenly that he who once had been a byword of the people, had now become a reproach, and an object of his friends’ mockery. All this had caused him to pour out his tears unto God. Yet even in the midst of his grief a ray of light seems to pierce the gloom for he declares, “Behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.” But he again longs for an arbitrator, or umpire, “that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbor! When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.” We ought not to belittle Job in our thoughts when we remember that he had not then the Scriptures to turn to for comfort as we have. We see now how that Christ came into this world and became the answer to the longings in Job’s heart. How wonderful it is that since He accomplished all for us on the cross, that we can find our comfort in the Scriptures and know that we have a hope that reaches beyond the grave. For He is our hope, and He is coming soon to take us to be with Himself. When we hear Job saying, “My breath is corrupt [or my spirit is undone], my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me,” we are reminded of how we now look for the Saviour “Who shall change our vile body [or body of humiliation], that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,” one that is beyond the sufferings and trials of this life.
Job says, “Are there not mockers with me?"—and certainly that is what his friends proved to be. But such is man. Love is of God, for God is love (1 John 4:7). The Lord Jesus, the perfect Man, when He was on earth was mocked, and when on the cross there were none to help. Yet on His part there was love and compassion going out to His enemies, He could say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
In spite of his having been misunderstood and so falsely accused by his friends, Job holds to his integrity, knowing that he was not guilty of what they accused him. He feels that in the end all will be made plain, so he says, “Pray come on again; and I shall not find one wise man among you.” (J.N.D. Trans.)
ML-04/24/1960