He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
Ver. 4. He teareth himself in his anger] Here he chargeth Job with desperate madness, as if through extreme impatience he fell foul upon his own flesh, as did that demoniac in the Gospel, Bajazet, the Great Turk, in his iron cage, Pope Boniface VIII, when clapped up close prisoner in St Angelo; and as they say the tiger doth, when he heareth a drum struck up, he teareth his own flesh with his teeth; or as all ravenous beasts tear in pieces the prey which they have taken. Many read the text thus, O the man which teareth his soul in his anger; or, O thou which tearest thyself, &c. The moralist describeth an angry man forcibly held by his friends, biting his own lips, rending his clothes, and dashing himself against the pillars, Labia mordet, caput quassat, vestimenta scindit, et se in columnas impingit (Senec.). Such a one Bildad maketh Job to be, horn-mad, or mankind, as we say; and he takes occasion, likely, from those words of his, Job 13:14. But love would have thought no evil. Bildad herein sinned against the law of love, as likewise he doth much more in the following vehement interrogation, charging Job with insolent boldness against God.
Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?] Shall God cast off the care of his earthly kingdom to gratify thee, and to make good thine assertion, that good men may suffer, and bad men go unpunished? Never think it; thou mayest sooner expect him to overturn the whole world for thy sake, and put everything out of that order he hath decreed and made it in, than cease to be just in punishing the wicked. The course of justice is as firmly settled as the course of nature is. Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus. Of Fabricius it was said, that the sun might as easily be turned out of his track as he out of his path of justice; much more may it be so said of Almighty God, the rock that cannot be removed, though he varieth the manner, the means, the times and seasons of executing justice, as seemeth best unto his heavenly wisdom.