The Reply of Job.
“AND Job answered, and said,
O that my vexation were exactly weighed,
And my calamity raised in the scales together!
For now is it heavier than the sand of the seas,
Therefore do my words rave.
For the arrows of the Almighty are in me,
The poison of which my spirit drinketh up.
The terrors of God array themselves against me
Doth the wild ass bray by the fresh grass?
Doth an ox low over his fodder?
Is that which is tasteless eaten without salt?
Is there flavor in the white of an egg?
My soul refuseth to touch:
They are as the disease of my bread.
O that my request might come,
And that God would grant my longing,
That it might please God to destroy me,
That He would let loose His hand, and cut me off!
So would it ever be my comfort,
And I would exult if He in pain should not spare,
For I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
What is my strength that I should wait,
And what mine end that I should be patient?
Is my strength the strength of stones?
Is my flesh copper?
Truly is not the nothingness of help with me,
And substance driven away from me?
To the despairing there is gentleness from hi.
friends,
Even to one forsaking the face of the Almighty.
My brethren have deceived as a torrent,
As the bed of torrents which overflow.
Turbid are they from ice;
The snow hideth itself in them:
What time heat cometh, they are cut off;
When it is hot, they are extinguished from their place.
Caravans turn aside out of their way,
They go up into the waste, and vanish.
The caravans of Tema looked,
The companies of Sheba hoped for them;
They were put to shame because one trusted,
They came up to it, and became red with shame.
For truly ye are become nothing,
Ye see a terror, and are dismayed.
Is it that I ever said, Give me,
And bring presents to me from your wealth,
And deliver me out of the enemy’s hand,
And redeem me out of the oppressor’s hand?
Teach me, and I will be silent,
And show me wherein I have erred.
How sweet are right words!
And what doth reproof from you reprove?
Think you to reprove words,
When the speeches of one despairing are but wind?
Ye would even let fall on the orphan,
And would traffic for your friend.
But now be pleased to face me,
And to your faces it will be if I lie.
Return, I pray, let there be no wrong;
Yea, return; I am still right therein.
Is there wrong in my tongue?
Doth not my palate discern calamities?
Hath not man a warfare on earth,
And are not his days as the days of a hireling?
As the slave panting after the shade,
And as the hireling longing for his wages.
So I am made to inherit months of wretchedness,
And nights of distress are appointed to me.
When I lie down, then I say,
When shall I arise, and the evening be gone?
And I am weary of restlessness till the dawn.
My flesh is clothed with worms and crusts of earth,
My skin healeth, and is again melted;
My days pass more swiftly than a shuttle,
And come to an end without hope.
Remember that my days are a breath,
Mine eye will not return to see good.
The eye of him that seeth me shall not see me;
Thine eyes [look] toward me: I am no more.
The cloud consumeth, and is gone;
So he that goeth down to Sheol cometh not up,
He returneth no more to his house;
His place knoweth him not again.
I also will not restrain my mouth,
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Am I a sea, or a monster,
That Thou settest guard over me?
When I say, My bed shall comfort me,
My couch shall ease my complaint,
Then Thou shakest me with dreams,
And makest me tremble through visions of the night,
So that my soul chooseth strangling,
Death rather than these bones: I would not live on;
I loathe it: let me alone; my days are vanity.
What is man that Thou magnifiest him,
And that Thou settest Thy mind on him,
And that Thou visitest him every morning,
And every moment triest him?
How long dost not Thou look away from me,
Nor lettest me alone till I swallow my spittle?
I have sinned; what could I do to Thee?
Watcher of men, why makest Thou me Thy mark,
So that I am become a burden to myself?
And why dost not Thou pardon my transgression,
And put away my iniquity?
For now shall I lie in the dust,
And, if Thou seekest after me, I am no more.”
Thus Job pleads for a fairer appraisal of his sore trial along with his random words. It was easy for others to moralize who were at ease, but as inevitable for him to cry out as for the beast without food. He owned the strokes to be from God, and only desired to be crushed, as his conscience was good. Hope for this life was gone. Such an one should have had pity from his friends, who had, on the contrary, played him false, as the wadys of the desert deceive in summer the caravans that count on them. Nor had he asked help of them, but was willing to learn if they could show his error, instead of cavilling at the wild words of one in despair. He asks an open judgment of his ways, and a lenient estimate of his complaints. When a man has served out as a soldier or slave, may he not retire? It was his grief that he could not, after unutterable days and nights of hopeless misery; yet was he but a wind or cloud, and as he thought of it, he must again speak in his anguish. Was he a sea, or sea-monster, so uncontrollable as to be allowed no respite, not even at night, from horrors enough to make him prefer strangling, any death, rather than for such bones as his to live on? What was mortal man that God should make so much of him? and try him as he was tried unintermittingly? Grant that he had sinned; but why set him as a butt till he should pass away in sorrow?
How beautifully in contrast with Job’s repining are Psalms 8 and 144, where a similar question brings out, in and by the Lord Jesus, wholly different answers. Yet the Lord passed into the glory of Son of man set over all things, through infinitely deeper suffering; as He will at length close man’s feeble history by His coming in judgment to take the kingdom in power and glory before the universe. Job gives way to murmurs and complaints that God should take such notice of man in daily government: not so He, who was rejected by all, and tasted death for everything, whom now we see exalted above the heavens, and who will ere long judge all men when God gives the word.