Good - Dost thou take any pleasure in it? Far be it from Job, to think that God did him wrong. But he is at a loss to reconcile his providences with his justice. And so other good men have often been, and will be, until the day shall declare it.
Eyes of faith - No. Eyes of flesh cannot see in the dark: but darkness hideth not from God. Eyes of flesh are but in one place at a time, and can see but a little way. But the eyes of the Lord are in every place, and run to and fro thro' the whole earth. Eyes of flesh will shortly be darkened by age, and shut up by death. But the eyes of God are ever the same, nor does his sight ever decay. As man - Man sees the outside only, and judges by appearances: but thou seest mine heart.
Man's - Man's time is short and uncertain, and therefore he must improve it, and diligently search out the crimes of malefactors, lest by death he lose the opportunity of doing justice: but thou art eternal, and seest at one view all mens hearts, and all their actions present and to come; and therefore thou dost not need to proceed with me in this manner, by making so long a scrutiny into my heart and life.
Searchest - Keeping me so long upon the rack, to compel me to accuse myself.
Wicked - An hypocrite, as my friends account me. Deliver - But thou art the supreme ruler of the world; therefore I must wait thy time, and throw myself on thy mercy, in submission to thy sovereign will.
Clay - As a potter makes a vessel of clay; so this may note both the frailty of man's nature, which of itself decays and perishes, and doth not need such violent shocks to overthrow it; and the excellency of the Divine artifice commended from the meanness of the materials; which is an argument why God should not destroy it. Again - I must die by the course of nature, and therefore while I do live, give me some ease and comfort.
As milk - Thus he modestly and accurately describes God's admirable work in making man out of a small and liquid, and as it were milky substance, by degrees congealed and condensed into that exquisite frame of man's body.
Clothed - Covered my inward and more noble parts; which are first formed. So he proceeds in describing man's formation gradually. Bones - The stay and strength of the body; and some of them, as the skull and ribs, enclose and defend its vital parts.
Life - Thou didst not only give me a curious body, but also a reasonable soul: thou didst at first give me life, and then maintain it in me; both when I was in the womb (which is a marvellous work of God) and afterward when I was unable to do anything to preserve my own life. Favour - Thou didst not give mere life, but many other favours, such as nourishment by the breast, education, knowledge, and instruction. Visitation - The care of thy providence watching over me for my good, and visiting me in mercy. Preserved - My life, which is liable to manifold dangers, if God did not watch over us every day and moment. Thou hast hitherto done great things for me, given me life, and the blessings of life, and daily deliverances: and wilt thou now undo all that thou hast done? And shall I who have been such an eminent monument of thy mercy, now be a spectacle of thy vengeance.
Hid - Both thy former favours and thy present frowns. Both are according to thy own will, and therefore undoubtedly consistent, however they seem. When God does what we cannot account for, we are bound to believe, there are good reasons for it hid in his heart. It is not with us, or in our reach to assign the cause; but I know this is with thee.
Markest - If I am a wicked man, I cannot hide it from thee; and thou wilt punish me for it.
Wicked - An hypocrite, as my friends esteem me. Righteous - An upright man; so whether good or bad, all comes to one. Yet - Yet I have no comfort, or hopes of any good. Confusion - I am confounded within myself, not knowing what to say or do. Let my extremity move thee to pity, and help me.
Lion - Which hunteth after his prey with great eagerness, and when he overtakes it, falls upon it with great fury. Returnest - The lion tears its prey speedily, and so ends its torments; but thou renewest my calamities again and again, and makest my plagues wonderful both for kind and extremity, and continuance.
Witnesses - Thy judgments, which are the evidences both of my sins, and of thy wrath. Indignation - My miseries are the effects of thine anger. Army - Changes may denote the various kinds, and an army the great number of his afflictions.
Cease - My life is short, and of itself hastens to an end, there is no need that thou shouldest grudge me some ease for so small a moment.
Then answered - How hard is it, to preserve calmness, in the heat of disputation! Eliphaz began modestly: Bildad was a little rougher: But Zophar falls upon Job without mercy. "Those that have a mind to fall out with their brethren, and to fall foul upon them, find it necessary, to put the worst colours they can upon them and their performances, and right or wrong to make them odious."
Answered - Truly, sometimes it should not. Silence is the best confutation of impertinence, and puts the greatest contempt upon it.
Lies - Both concerning thy own innocency, and concerning the counsels and ways of God. Mockest - Our friendly and faithful counsels, chap.6:14,15,25,26.
Doctrine - Concerning God and his providence. Clean - I am innocent before God; I have not sinned either by my former actions, or by my present expressions. But Zophar perverts Job's words, for he did not deny that he was a sinner, but only that he was an hypocrite.
Speak - Plead with thee according to thy desire: he would soon put thee to silence. We are commonly ready with great assurance to interest God in our quarrels. But they are not always in the right, who are most forward, to appeal to his judgment, and prejudge it against their antagonists.
Secrets - The unsearchable depths of God's wisdom in dealing with his creatures. Double - That they are far greater (the word double being used indefinitely for manifold, or plentiful) than that which is manifested. The secret wisdom of God is infinitely greater than that which is revealed to us by his word or works: the greatest part of what is known of God, is the least part of those perfections that are in him. And therefore thou dost rashly in judging so harshly of his proceedings with thee, because thou dost not comprehend the reasons of them, and in judging thyself innocent, because thou dost not see thy sins; whereas the all - knowing God sees innumerable sins in thee, for which he may utterly destroy thee.
Find out - Discover all the depths of his wisdom, and the reasons of his actions?
Cut off - A person or family. Shut - Its a prison, or in the hands of an enemy. Gather - Whether it pleaseth God to scatter a family, or to gather them together from their dispersions. Hinder - Or, who can contradict him, charge him with injustice in such proceedings?
Knoweth - Though men know but little of God, yet God knows man exactly. He knoweth that every man in the world is guilty of much vanity and folly, and therefore seeth sufficient reason for his severity against the best men. Wickedness - He perceiveth the wickedness of evil men, though it be covered with the veil of religion. Consider - Shall he only see it as an idle spectator, and not observe it as a judge to punish it?
Man - That since the fall is void of all true wisdom, pretends to be wise, and able to pass a censure upon all God's ways and works. Colt - Ignorant, and dull, and stupid, as to divine things, and yet heady and untractable.
Heart - To seek God; turning thy bold contentions with God into humble supplications.
Lift up - Which denotes chearfulness, and holy boldness. Without spot - Having a clear and unspotted conscience. Steadfast - Shall have a strong and comfortable assurance of God's favour.
As waters - Thou shalt remember it no more, than men remember a land - flood, which as it comes, so it goes away suddenly.
Shine - Light in scripture commonly signifies prosperity and glory. Thy comfort, like the morning - light shall shine brighter and brighter, until the perfect day.
Secure - Thy mind shall be quiet and free from terrors, because thou shalt have a firm and well - grounded confidence in God. Dig - Either to fix thy tents, which after the manner of the Arabians were removed from place to place: or to plough the ground, as he had done, chap.1:14, or to make a fence about thy dwelling.
Fail - Either with grief and tears for their sore calamities: or with long looking for what they shall never attain. Their hope - They shall never obtain deliverance out of their distresses, but shall perish in them. Ghost - Shall be as vain and desperate as the hope of life is in a man, when he is at the very point of death.
Ye - You have engrossed all the reason of mankind; and each of you has as much wisdom as an whole people put together. All the wisdom which is in the world, lives in you, and will be utterly lost when you die. When wise and good men die, it is a comfort to think that wisdom and goodness do not die with them: it is folly to think, that there will be a great, irreparable loss of us when we are gone, since God has the residue of the spirit, and can raise up others more fit to do his work.
But - In these things, which he speaks not in a way of boasting, but for the just vindication both of himself, and of that cause of God, which for the substance of it he maintained rightly, as God himself attests, chap.42:7. Such things - The truth is, neither you nor I have any reason to be puffed up with our knowledge of these things: for the most barbarous nations know that God is infinite in wisdom, and power, and justice. But this is not the question between you and me.
Upon God - Even by my religious neighbours, by those who call upon God, and not in vain; whose prayers therefore I covet, not their reproaches. The just - I, who, notwithstanding all their hard censures dare still own it, that through God's grace I am an upright man.
Slip with his feet - And fall into trouble; tho' he had formerly shone as a lamp, he is then looked upon as a lamp going out, as the snuff of a candle, which we throw to the ground and tread upon; and accordingly is despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
Are secure - Job's friends had all supposed, that wicked men cannot prosper long in the world. This Job opposes, and maintains, that God herein acts as sovereign, and reserves that exact distribution of rewards and punishments for the other world.
But - If thou observest the beasts, and their properties and actions, and events, from them thou mayst learn this lesson: that which Zophar had uttered with so much pomp and gravity, chap.11:7,8,9, concerning God's infinite wisdom, saith Job, thou needest not go into heaven or hell to know. but thou mayst learn it even from the beasts.
Lord - This is the only time that we meet with the name Jehovah in all the discourses between Job and his friends. For God in that age was more known by the name of Shaddai, the Almighty.
Doth not - This may be a preface to his following discourse; whereby he invites them to hear and judge of his words candidly and impartially; that they and he too might agree in disallowing what should appear to be false, and owning of every truth.
Wisdom - These words contain a concession of what Bildad had said, chap.8:8,9, and a joining with him in that appeal; but withal, an intimation that this wisdom was but imperfect, and liable to many mistakes; and indeed mere ignorance and folly, if compared with the Divine wisdom, and therefore that antiquity ought not to be received against the truths of the most wise God.
No opening - Without God's permission. Yea, he shuts up in the grave, and none can break open those sealed doors. He shuts up in hell, in chains of darkness, and none can pass that great gulf.
The waters - Which are reserved its the clouds, that they may not fall upon the earth. They - The waters upon the earth, springs, and brooks, and rivers. As at the time of the general deluge, to which here is a manifest allusion.
With him - The same thing he had said before, ver.13, but he repeats it here to prepare the way for the following events, which are eminent instances, both of his power and wisdom. Are his - Wholly subject to his disposal. He governs the deceiver and sets bounds to his deceits, how far they shall extend; he also over - rules all this to his own glory, and the accomplishment of his righteous designs of trying the good, and punishing wicked men, by giving them up to believe lies. Yet God is not the author of any error or sin, but only the wise and holy governor of it.
Spoiled - The wise counsellors or statesmen, by whom the affairs of kings and kingdoms are ordered, he leadeth away as captives in triumph, being spoiled either of that wisdom which they had, or seemed to have; or of that power and dignity which they had enjoyed. Fools - By discovering their folly, and by infatuating their minds, and turning their own counsels to their ruin.
Looseth - He freeth them from that wherewith they bind their subjects to obedience, their power and authority, and that majesty which God stamps upon kings, to keep their people in awe. Girdeth - He reduces them to a mean and servile condition; which is thus expressed, because servants did use to gird up their garments (that after the manner of those parts were loose and long) that they might be fitter for attendance upon their masters: he not only deposes them from their thrones, but brings them into slavery.