I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners.
I chose ... their way - i:e., I willingly went up to their assembly from my country residence (Job 29:7). (Maurer.) 'If I chose to go in their way' - i:e., if their ways pleased me, I then sat there as chief (Umbreit). The English version makes good sense: 'I chose out for them, as their counselor, the way its which they should go.'
In ... army - as a king supreme in the midst of his army.
Comforteth ... mourners. Here, again, Job unconsciously foreshadows Jesus Christ (Isaiah 61:2-3). Job's afflictions, as those of Jesus Christ, were fitting him for the office hereafter (Isaiah 50:4; Hebrews 2:18).
Remark:
(1) The remembrance of past comforts increases the bitterness of present sufferings. Above all other privations, the believer feels most acutely the withdrawal of the light of God's countenance, and looks back with mournful regrets on the sweet seasons of secret communion and holy intimacy with God which once were his chiefest joy (Job 29:1-5). As the hymn expresses it:
`What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill'
Sometimes this withdrawal of the sensible comforts of religion arises from sinful carelessness of walk and declension in prayer and watchfulness (Song of Solomon 5:2-8). At other times it is regarded, as in Job's case, to be a trial of our faith, and to teach us to trust God even when we cannot see or feel Him In the former case, we need to search ourselves, and to ask God to search us, that we may put away from us whatever in us has displeased Him, and provoked Him to withdraw His Spirit from us. In the latter case we must, like Jesus on the cross, amidst the darkness, when there is no light, "trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon our God."
(2) Riches, honours, and flourishing families soon pass away. Yet so deceitful are earthly things that even the godly are apt to forget how transitory are the best of earth's good things. Therefore, God often cuts by the root, and in the moment when we least expect it, our confident anticipations of security, prosperity, and lengthened "days" (Job 29:18-20), in order to teach us not to make our "nest" here, but to look for the heavenly and enduring home.
(3) Meanwhile, so long as wealth, influence, and rank remain with us, they are to be prized, not so much for their own sake as because they afford valuable opportunities of honouring God and promoting the good of our fellow-men (Job 29:11-13). There is no such exquisite luxury as that of doing good. In the retrospect of his past prosperity, doubtless there was no one circumstance on which Job could look back with such unmingled satisfaction, as upon the generosity which had called forth "the blessing of him that was ready to perish," and which "had caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." Then, also, what a source of pleasure it is to the honourable magistrate, civil officer, and senator, if, in looking back on his conduct in such high positions, he can truly say, "I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was as my mantle and diadem" (Job 29:14). Riches and rank so used, though perishing themselves, leave a beneficent and lasting impression behind them; but if abused for mere earthly ends, pride, vanity, and selfishness, they entail on the possessor an awful weight of condemnation.