In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
Ver. 22. In all this Job sinned not] The Greek and Latin versions add here, with his lips; but I could rather be of Mercer's judgment, who referreth the former part of this verse to the mind, and the latter to the mouth (Beza.); showing that Job neither thought in his heart, nor uttered with his mouth, anything unsuitable and unworthy of God, insomuch, that both within and without he carried away the victory and conquest over Satan, and so better deserved to be sainted than our Henry VI, of whom the chronicler writeth thus: The king in both estates so demeaned himself, that he modestly carried the one, and moderately underwent the other; yea, such was his deportment, that the inconstancy of his state could not alter the constancy of his mind; insomuch that one of his successors, King Henry VII, laboured for that only virtue, to have him canonized for a saint; and had obtained to have done it, had not the charges thereof so far exceeded mediocrity, as to cause him to leave it undone (Dan. Hist. contin. by Trussel). God himself hath here canonized, crowned, and chronicled holy Job, for his many good properties before, and here for his humility and patience. The trial of his faith, being much more precious than that of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, is found to praise and honour and glory, 1 Peter 1:7. It was a saying of Philostratus, that one Jupiter set out by Homer, the poet, was worth ten set out by Phydias, the carver; because the former flew abroad through all the world; whereas the other never stirred from his pedestal at Athens: so one Job, thus renowned by God's own pen, is far beyond all that have been memorized in human histories for their equanimity and constancy. In all this that Job suffered, acted, and uttered, he sinned not, sc. sinningly; he was not transformed into sin's image; he sinned not by cursing God, as Satan hoped, and would have had it; or charged God foolishly, or with folly; with anything insolent, insulse, unsavoury; he charged him not in the least, to have dealt unwisely or unworthily with him; and this is here mentioned, as grace, almost to a miracle, as patience having her perfect work, and proving Job to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing, James 1:4 .