The Answer of Job.
NONE can wonder that the strong language was extremely wounding to him whose integrity was not only questioned, but regarded as the cover of mere godless hypocrisy, and his sufferings as the precursor of a destruction without remedy. His rejoinder shows, however, that if Job felt the solemn warning to be not only beside the mark but impertinent and cruel, he rises completely above the atmosphere of his self-constituted judges, owns the hand of God in all his sorrows without reserve, looks for final vindication, and most gravely admonishes those who misjudged him.
And Job answered and said,
How long will ye vex my soul,
And crush me to pieces with words?
These ten times ye reproach me,
And are not ashamed to stun me;
And, after all, if I have erred,
With me doth mine error lodge.
If indeed ye boast against me,
And argue my reproach against me,
Know now that God hath wrested me,
And compassed me round with His net.
Lo, I cry of violence, and am not heard,
I call out, but [there is] no justice.
He hath hedged my way that I cannot pass,
And hath set darkness on my paths.
He hath stripped me of my glory,
And hath taken the crown of my head.
He ruineth me on every side, and I am going;
And my hope He uprooteth like a tree.
He kindleth His anger against me,
And He regardeth me as His enemies.
His troops come together, and heap up their way against me,
And encamp round about my tabernacle.
My brethren He put far away from me,
And mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
My kinsmen have ceased, and my confidants have forgotten. me.
Guests of my house, and my maid, count me a stranger,
A foreigner I am become in their eyes.
I call to my servant, but he answereth not;
With my mouth I make supplication to him.
My breath is strange to my wife,
And my entreaties for the children of my body.
Even youngsters despise me; I rise, and they speak of me.
All my intimates abhorred me, and those I loved turned against me.
My bone cleaveth to my skin and my flesh;
And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
Pity me, pity me, O ye my friends,
For the hand of God hath stricken me.
Why do ye persecute me as God,
And are ye not satisfied with my flesh?
O that my words were but written
O that they were but inscribed in at book
With a pen of iron and lead, Graven in a rock for ever!
And I know my Redeemer liveth,
And later He shall stand up on the earth;
And after my skin this is torn in pieces,
Yet from my flesh shall I see God,
Whom I shall see for myself,
And mine eyes shall behold, and not a stranger
My reins consume in mine inwards.
If ye say, How shall we persecute him,
And the root of the matter is found in him?
Fear for yourselves before the sword,
For there is wrath, crimes of the sword;
That ye may know [there is] a judgment.
Thus does Job deprecate the persistent suspicion which pursues him, spite of his solemn protestations of innocence. If it were indeed a chastisement of evil, it was his own affair. But he would meet their thought, and frankly acknowledge that his trouble did come from God. It was He who had hurled him down, and compassed him in inextricable toils. It was He who refused to listen to his cry, and gave no ear to his appeals. It was Eloah who had hedged up his way that he could not escape, covered his path with darkness, stripped him of honor, and taken the crown from off his head, crushing him on every side, so that he was going, and uprooting even his hope. It was He whose anger burned against him, and who counted him as of His foes, massing His troops, and rearing mounds against him, and encamping right around. Nor this only: it was He who embittered his social circle, and the privacy of home; his brethren removed, his acquaintance estranged, his kinsmen failed, his familiars oblivious; his sojourners, his maid, counting him a stranger, an alien; his servant called in vain, though supplicated abjectly; himself an object of aversion to his wife, even when yearning after those nearest to him. The very youngsters despised him, and, if he rose, spoke at him, instead of paying any respect; all his intimates loathed him, and those he loved were turned against him. For indeed he was emaciation personally, escaped with nothing but the skin of his teeth.
But he once more appeals to their compassion in presence of such ruin and misery, and the more because he owned it to be the hand of Eloah; and he asks why they should follow him up like God, and not be satisfied with his flesh. Then does the truth of God’s intervention at the end flash so brightly before his soul that he wishes his words written, inscribed in the book, nay, graved with a pen of iron and with lead on a rock for ever. And no wonder. He knows his Kinsman-Redeemer lives, and, the Last One, shall stand on the dust; and, no matter what the ravages of this mortal, from his flesh he shall see Eloah—see Him for himself, his eyes seeing Him, and not a stranger; so that his reins within pine for it now. Hence he admonishes his friends, if they persecuted and sought to fasten on him a moral cause for his woes, to dread an avenging sword for themselves. For if that be the day of resurrection power, it will be also one of retributive dealing and wrath, when the sins that escape man await God’s sword. There will be no mistake then as to judgment. This was a cutting reproof for his friends. For faith rests on God’s word, unbelief will be satisfied with nothing less than the facts when fulfilled, to interpret it. But the fulfilment, in fact, will be the sure punishment and utter ruin of the unbelieving in that day.
The principle, indeed, of seeing in facts or history the interpretation of prophecy is wholly vicious at all times. For it is, as we have just seen, to quit the ground of faith for that of unbelief, which is only convinced when it sees. Faith, on the contrary, proves that the Holy Spirit is the true interpreter of the prophetic word, which is found to center in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. For no prophecy of scripture is of its own interpretation. It is part of a system converging on the Lord, who will judge the wicked and reign in power; and this, as it is wholly outside of man’s will, the Spirit ever holds out in the word of God.
It will be noticed also that the concrete man is before the mind in the Old Testament anticipations of that day, no less than in the New. Nowhere does revelation stop short at the incomplete state when the spirit is severed from the body; though it is distinct both as to the peculiar source and immortal character of man’s soul from the beginning. But faith looks onward to full blessedness for man and the vindication of the word of God in glory.