Only do not two [things] unto me: then will I not hide myself from thee.
Ver. 20. Only do not two things unto me] Accord me only two conditions, and then I will not fly the combat. He knew he might have anything from God that was fit and lawful to be asked. When poor men make requests to princes they usually answer them as the echo doth the voice, the answer cuts off half the petition; and if they beg two boons at once, they may be glad that they get one. But God dealeth by his servants and suppliants not only as the prophet did by the Shunammite (when he bade her ask what she needed, and promised her a son, which she most desired, and yet through modesty asked not, 2Ki 4:16), but also as Naaman did by Gehazi, when, asking one talent, he forced him to take two. This Job well knew, and, therefore, he beggeth two things at once; but better he had begged that one thing necessary, patience; or, if two, the best use of his present sufferings. As we read of one good man, that, lying under great torments of a gall stone, he would often cry out while his friends melted with compassion towards him, The use, Lord, the use; and of Mr William Perkins, that, when he lay in his last and killing torment of the gall stone, hearing the bystanders pray for a mitigation of his pain, he willed them not to pray for an ease of his complaint, but for an increase of his patience (Mr Leigh's Saints' Encouragement, &c., p. 164; Dr Hall's Rem. of Profaneness, p. 143): thus if Job had done, he had done better; but by what he doth here we may easily gather that he expected no freedom from his misery but from God alone; and that he was wont familiarly to impart to God all the thoughts and actings of his heart; and, lastly, that he acknowledged him to be a most righteous Judge, who would not deal with his people upon unequal conditions, but give them a fair trial.
Then will I not hide myself from thee] i.e. I shall have no cause, either through fear or shame, to hide myself. It is not safe for a man to indent with God, and make a bargain with him; for so one may have the thing he would have, but better be without it; as those workmen, Matthew 20:9,14, who bargained for a penny a day, and yet when they had it, were no whit contented. Socrates thought it was not fit to ask of God any more than this, that he would bestow good things upon us; but what, and how much, to leave that to him, not being overly earnest, or presuming to prescribe aught. Sir Thomas Moore's wife was mightily desirous of a boy (that was her word), and she had one that proved a fool; and, saith her husband, you were never quiet till you had a boy, and now you have one that will be all his life a boy. But what were those two things that Job was so earnest for?