Job 3:23 [Why is light given] to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
Ver. 23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid?] i.e. Why is the light of life continued to him who is in a maze or labyrinth of miseries, whereof he can see no cause, and whereout he can descry no issue? no hope at all appeareth of ever either mending or ending. Therefore Vale lumen amicum, as he in St Jerome said, Sweet light, adieu; Quin morere ut merita es, as she in the poet, Be thine own death's man. Seneca counts it a mercy to a man in misery that he may, by commiting suicide, let out his life when he will; and this he calls valour and manhood. But we have not so learned Christ, neither may we leave our station till called for by our Captain, but must stand to our arms, and, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, suffer hardship, 2 Timothy 2:4. His word to us is the same as the king's was to his son, the Black Prince, Either vanquish or die (Speed.); and as she in the story said to her son when she gave him his target, See that thou either bring this back with thee, or else be thou brought back dead upon it out of the battle, ταν η επι ταν. It troubled Job that he could not see his way, and that God had hedged him in, viz. with a thorn hedge of afflictions, Lamentations 3:7; Lam 3:9 Hosea 2:6, so that he could find no way out. But what if he could not, nor any man alive? yet the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, 2 Peter 2:9. He hath his way in the whirlwind, and his judgments are a great deep, Psalms 36:6. Sometimes secret they are, but ever just. Surely it had been more meet for Job to have said unto God, "That which I see not, teach thou me," Job 34:32. "Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have I waited for thee; the desire of my soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee," Isaiah 26:8 .