Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, &c.— Thou puttest my feet also in a clog; thou watchest all my paths; thou settest a mark on the soles of my feet. This alludes to the custom of putting a clog on the feet of fugitive slaves with the owner's mark, that they might be tracked and found. Heath. Houbigant renders the next verse, So that I am become like a thing consumed with rottenness; like a garment eaten up by the moth. I would just observe, that the dividing these speeches by Chapter s very frequently interrupts the connection; and the reader would do well in his perusal of them to neglect this division, which, though it has its uses, is of very modern date.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, In vindicating his cause against his unkind friends, some severity mixes with his just self-defence.
1. He desires them to weigh what he had said, that they might be convinced that he was not so weak as they would insinuate; he spoke from experience and observation, and he was assured that both would corroborate his sentiments, and prove him at least their equal in understanding. Note; We should well weigh before we condemn; rash censures only shew the folly of those who bestow them.
2. He wishes that the cause might be brought before God, as the umpire between him and his friends; could this be granted, he feared not to carry the point. Note; Conscious simplicity fears not the eye of piercing truth.
3. He sharply upbraids their cruel treatment of him: Ye are forgers of lies, contriving and publishing positions contrary to the truth of God, and highly injurious to the character of their neighbour—in saying that God never afflicted the righteous, and that his (Job's) sufferings were on account of his wickedness: ye are all physicians of no value, idol-physicians, pretenders to science, but ignorant both of the cause of his maladies, and the method of cure, deceiving his hopes, and as useless as the idol stock or stone. Note; (1.) A deliberate lie is a crying sin; against such false tongues no innocence can protect. (2.) Whatever here below the awakened sinner flies to for help and healing, will make him worse rather than better: none can cure the miseries of a fallen spirit, but that great physician who has the balm of life and grace to minister to the sin-sick soul.
4. He begs them to hold their peace rather than speak such words as wound, instead of healing; and observes, that their wisdom would better appear in silence, than in arguments so weak, and urged with such unkindness. He earnestly intreats them to hear his reasoning, and not be inattentive to, or disregard his pleadings, as they seemed to do. Note; (1.) Hastiness to speak, and rashness to utter without mature deliberation, expose the folly, instead of displaying the wisdom of a disputant. (2.) Truth needs only a fair hearing; but prejudice is deaf, and the best of men often suffer unheard or unnoticed.
5. He expostulates with them on the folly, sin, and danger of their conduct; who, while they pretended to plead the cause of God and truth, dishonoured him by falsehood, and misrepresented his dispensations; Will you speak wickedly for God? in condemning a righteous man as a hypocrite, and talk deceitfully for him, by pretending to vindicate his justice at the expence of his truth. Will ye accept his person, according to human partiality, and, construing my afflictions into signs of guilt, refuse to examine my case, and judge me unheard? Will ye contend for God? does his cause need such advocates? or will your pretext to plead for him excuse the falsehood of your principles, or the rash censure of your conclusions? Is it good that he should search you out? would he not then detect the evil of your principles, and the cruelty of your conduct? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him? pretending to be on his side, yet speaking to his dishonour. He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons; however you may deceive yourselves with imaginations of zeal for the honour of his perfections, he will resent your accusations of an upright man, condemned unjustly by you: Shall not his excellency make you afraid? or his height, his glorious perfections, of power, holiness, truth, &c. and his dread fall upon you, as false witnesses for him, doing so bad a thing under a pretence of zeal for his glory. Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay; your arguments are light as ashes, and as weak as a fortification composed of eminences of clay; or he suggests their weak and mortal state, as a reason why they should be afraid to provoke the holy and avenging God. Note; (1.) A good intention will not excuse, much less justify, an ill thing. (2.) They who plead for God had need be serious inquirers after truth themselves, and neither wilfully nor wickedly condemn those whom God hath not condemned. (3.) Whatever deceit we may put on others or ourselves, God is not mocked; he searcheth the heart, is no respecter of persons, and will assuredly reprove the evil that he discerns, however secretly committed, or coloured over with whatever pious pretext. (4.) The consideration of God's excellency and our meanness, his perfections and our vanity, should awaken in our mind a holy awe, and make us afraid to provoke his displeasure.
2nd, Full of matter, he resolved to utter his speech, and begs a moment's diligent attention to the declaration that he was going to make.
1. Whatever became of him, whatever censures his friends laid on him, speak he must; he would not smother the protestations of his innocence, nor pine to death in silent vexations: for, to hold his tongue under such circumstances of suffering and wrong, would be to burst with grief and expire: or, as some render the words, At all events I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand; come what will come, I will maintain my integrity. Note; If we have the testimony of a good conscience, we need fear no evil.
2. He strongly maintains his simplicity before God. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: the severity of my trials shall not make me quit my dependance on him; and the consciousness of my integrity till death will I never renounce. I will maintain mine own ways before him, that I have walked in truth and all good conscience. Not that herein he placed his hope of salvation; no; He also shall be my salvation, in his rich and free grace is my trust, whatever becomes of me here below; but this he never could hope to partake of, if allowed guile had been chargeable upon him; for an hypocrite shall not come before him: this he was fully assured of, and as sure that this character was not applicable to himself, as his friends had insinuated. Behold, now I have ordered my cause, am ready to maintain it against every accuser; I know that I shall be justified from the malicious accusations of men, from the sin he had confessed, and in his own heart enjoy the consciousness of his acceptance before God. Who is he that will plead with me? let him appear, and I am prepared to answer every allegation. Note; (1.) Whatever discouragements are in our way, confidence in God is our great duty and support. (2.) They who plead the salvation of Jesus Christ, and trust in it in living loving faith, are conscious that no charge lies against them in the court of heaven. (3.) Though sincerity is not our justification before God, it is a comfortable evidence to our own souls of an interest in his salvation, while hypocrisy gives the lie to every hope.
3. He turns from his friends to make his address to God. Two things he desires, and then he will undertake to open his cause: (1.) That his afflictions be removed, or suspended; and (2.) That the terror of the Divine Majesty be withdrawn; and that such a manifestation of his presence might be made, as would not confound and dismay him; then, as Defendant, he would answer, or as Plaintiff interrogate, and reason with God on his dealings with him: a daring proposal, for which he was afterwards, by Elihu, and God himself, justly censured. Note; In their distress men are too apt to utter what, on reflection, they must deeply condemn.
3rdly, Having proposed a fair trial, Job now,
1. Begs to be informed of the number and nature of his sins, being confessedly a sinner, though not chargeable with any of the grosser crimes. Some understand this as the language of humility; others, as a complaint of hard measure, to suffer without knowing the cause, or being conscious of having given any particular provocation: the latter sense seems most to correspond with the succeeding expostulations. Note; Who can understand his errors? they who know most, know but a little of the evil that they stand chargeable with before God.
2. He grieves bitterly at the absence of a sense of God's favour, a more afflictive burden than all his other losses; and cannot bear the thought of having the God he loved to treat him as an enemy, and frown on him in displeasure. Note; (1.) Those alone who have enjoyed communion with God know the misery of darkness, and distance from him. (2.) An apprehension of God's wrath is a kind of hell upon earth. (3.) When God seems to depart from us, it becomes us to examine and see what hath provoked him; for assuredly there is a cause.
3. He expostulates with God on his treatment of him, as beneath his majesty to crush a worm, who is as unable to resist him as the stubble the furious whirlwind: perhaps he meant it to move his commiseration. He complains of the hard measure that he endured, for which the iniquities of his youth were raked up against him, as those which afforded most cause for condemnation; and intimates God's severity in putting him into such a state of suffering, marking every false step, as if solicitous to catch at the least infirmity to vindicate his procedure, and to increase his anguish, under which already he pined away, as a corpse turning to putrefaction, and as a garment moth-eaten: under such misery to add to his sufferings seemed bitter, not to say cruel. Note; (1.) They have sadly-mistaken notions of the divine compassions, who can entertain a thought of his breaking with his wrath the heart which is bleeding in humiliation. (2.) However lightly youthful sins may be considered, God frequently makes his servants possess the bitter remembrance of them. (3.) They who think God too strict and severe, prove their own ignorance of themselves and him. (4.) Man is a perishing worm. How vile does disease make our bodies! but how much more odious has sin made the souls of all men by nature! What a blessed hope to be fixed out of the reach of both for ever on the resurrection-day!