Job 22:28,29 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

It shall be established Thy purposes shall not be disappointed, but ratified by God. And in all thy counsels and actions God shall give thee the light of his direction and governance, and of comfort and success. When men are cast down When, in a time of general calamity, all are cast down round about thee, cast down in their affairs, cast down in their spirits, sinking, desponding, ready to despair; when men's hearts fail them for fear, or, rather, according to the Hebrew, (in which there is nothing for men, and which is only כי השׁפילו, chi hishpilu, cum depresserint,) when they have cast thee down, or, when thou art cast down; when God, in the course of his providence, shall bring thee, or suffer thee to be brought, into any trouble which he sees will be good for thee; thou shalt say Within thyself, with good confidence and assurance; There is lifting up Or, there shall be lifting up; either, 1st, For them, who, if they repent and humble themselves, shall be preserved and restored: or, rather, for thee and thine: God will deliver thee, when others are crushed and destroyed. Hebrew, Thou shalt say, גרה, gerah, exaltation! an expression to be admired for its conciseness and comprehensiveness. Thou shalt expect exaltation in the time of depression; nay, thy depression shall be in order to, and the means of, thy exaltation. And thou shalt find that consolation in thyself, which will not only bear thee up under thy troubles, and keep thee from fainting, but lift thee up above thy troubles, and enable thee to rejoice notwithstanding them. And he God, from whom alone cometh salvation; shall save Temporally from the evils here mentioned, and eternally from other and infinitely greater evils; the humble person Hebrew, שׁח עינים, shach gneinaim, him that hath low or cast-down eyes; which phrase may denote, either, 1st, Humility and lowliness of mind, as pride is often expressed by high or lofty looks; and so this is a tacit reproof of Job, for his confident justification of himself: or, 2d, Lowness of state and condition, as James 1:10. And so understood, it describes him, whose eyes and countenance are dejected by reason of great troubles and miseries.