Lo this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and know thou it for thy good.
Searched it ... for thy good - literally, for thyself. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein" (Psalms 111:2); "If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself" (Proverbs 9:12; Proverbs 2:4).
Remarks:
(1) The murmurer against God has no refuge in heaven or earth to flee to: none of the heavenly beings will espouse (1) The murmurer against God has no refuge in heaven or earth to flee to: none of the heavenly beings will espouse his cause, as though he were harshly and wrongfully dealt with.
(2) There is but one Advocate for us with the Father, whose only plea is His own, not our, righteousness (1 John 2:1-2). He pleads for those of us alone who, instead of justifying, condemn themselves as guilty before God, and rely solely on the propitiation for our sins offered on the cross by "Jesus Christ the righteous."
(3) The fretful complainer is his own executioner. Impatience and passion are as foolish as they are sinful.
(4) The ungodly may for a time flourish like a firmly rooted tree; but sudden destruction will come upon him when he least expects it (1 Thessalonians 5:3); assuredly in the eternal world, and often even in this life. God visits the sin of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
(5) The cause of men's troubles is often to be locked for, not so much in external things, as in themselves. Men reap as they sow (Job 4:8). But we are not, like Eliphaz, to press this principle so far as to attribute each calamity to some special sinfulness in the sufferer. God, when He sends adversity, has often other objects in view besides retribution for particular sin. In the case of His people, as Job, one purpose of chastisement is to manifest character, in order that their blemishes, heretofore latent, may be opened out; then, stripped of all self-righteousness, and justifying God in all His dealings, they learn to rest solely on the mercy of God in Christ; and faith and patience have thus their perfect work.
(6) All things are ordered in time and eternity for the good of them that love God. If God wound them for a time, the hand that wounds will also make whole. Howsoever many may be the troubles of the godly man, the Lord will deliver him out of them all. He will either avert every temporal calamity, or else overrule it to His people's good. When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh His enemies to be at peace with him. The believer has peace with the world (as much as lieth in him, Romans 12:18) - peace in his home-above all, peace in his conscience and with his God (Romans 5:1; John 14:27). And when the great change comes he is not cut off prematurely: he comes to his grave in a full age, in his due season; the grain is found full in the ear; the heavenly Husbandman waits not a moment longer. "But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately He putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come" (Mark 4:29).