Job's Reply to Zophar It is part of the Poet's art no doubt to make Job wait till all the three have spoken and fully developed their case before he replies to it. But his art is also nature. Job at the beginning of each round of speeches is too much occupied with himself, with the broad general im... [ Continue Reading ]
_your consolations_ They believed they were offering him the consolations of God (ch. Job 15:11); the consolation he seeks from them is that they listen to him.... [ Continue Reading ]
_mock on_ This last word is sing. and seems addressed to Zophar the last speaker, whose pictures of the fate of the wicked deeply wounded Job. Having heard his account of the prosperity of the wicked, they shall have leave then to proceed with their bitter taunts and insinuations if they have a mind... [ Continue Reading ]
_is my complaint to man_ Rather, OF, or, CONCERNING man. The whole first clause means, Is _my_complaint about man? _my_emphatic. The words may express a reason for their listening to him, it is not of them nor of men at all that _he_complains; it is of another, and of a moral riddle and evil that ma... [ Continue Reading ]
The mystery which he will lay before them if they will mark it will strike them dumb. To "lay the hand upon the mouth" is a gesture of awe-struck silence, cf. ch. Job 40:4.... [ Continue Reading ]
When Job himself reflects on it he trembles. When I _remember_means, When I think of it.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Wherefore do the wicked live_ The question scarcely means, How is it, if your principles be true, that the wicked live? Job's mind is engrossed with the great problem itself, and he asks, Why in the government of a righteous God do the wicked live? They not only live, they live to old age, and wax... [ Continue Reading ]
The mystery is, Why do the wicked prosper? They live long, they see their children grow up, and their homes are peaceful (Job 21:7). Their cattle thrives (Job 21:10). Their children and they pass a mirthful life with music and dance (Job 21:11). And with no pain at last they die, though they had ope... [ Continue Reading ]
This great mystery of the prosperity of the wicked in God's providence Job now unfolds on both its sides: first, they and all belonging to them prosper, and they die in peace, although in conscious godlessness they bade the Almighty depart from them, Job 21:7; and second, negatively, examples of cal... [ Continue Reading ]
They have the additional felicity of seeing their children grow up beside them a pathetic touch from the hand of the man whose sons had been taken from him.... [ Continue Reading ]
Not merely themselves and their children but their homes and all in them are full of peace another allusion to the rod of God which had fallen on all belonging to Job.... [ Continue Reading ]
Their cattle thrives no failure or barrenness assails them.... [ Continue Reading ]
Their children, numerous like the flock and happy like the lambs, skip in their glee and sport.... [ Continue Reading ]
And they themselves pass their days in gladness, surrounded with all the charms of life. _They take the timbrel_ Rather, THEY SING TO, i. e. to the accompaniment of, THE TIMBREL AND THE LUTE; lit. _they lift up_the voice, cf. Psalms 49:4. The timbrel is the tambourine. _the sound of the organ_ Rat... [ Continue Reading ]
_in wealth_ i. e. _weal_, prosperity. The word has not here its modern meaning of riches, but its older, more general sense: "in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth … good Lord deliver us." _The Litany_. _to the grave_ Heb., _to Sheol_. They die in a moment without pain there are... [ Continue Reading ]
All this joy and prosperity they enjoyed though they had bidden God depart from them and renounced His service. _Therefore they say_ Rather, THOUGH (lit. and) THEY SAID. Their godlessness was not merely that of passion, it was almost formal and reasoned. Coverdale's rendering of the words, Who is t... [ Continue Reading ]
Finally Job adverts to the mystery: this prosperity of theirs does not depend upon themselves, it is not of their own making; it comes from another, from God. God prospers the wicked, and Job had elsewhere said that He mocked at the despair of the innocent, Job 9:23. _the counsel of the wicked is fa... [ Continue Reading ]
The negative side of his theme is now illustrated by Job. In Job 21:7 he shewed that the wicked enjoy great, life-long prosperity; now he shews that they are free from calamity; such sudden and disastrous visitations of God do not come upon them as the friends incessantly insisted on. The interrogat... [ Continue Reading ]
A conceivable objection, and its answer by Job. The verses read, 19. God (say ye) layeth up his iniquity for his children. Let him recompense it unto himself, that he may know it; 20. Let his own eyes see his destruction, And let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty; 21. For what concern hath... [ Continue Reading ]
By insisting on a doctrine of providence which did not correspond to God's providence as actually seen in facts, Job's friends were making themselves wiser than God and becoming His teachers Will any teach knowledge unto God? Shall we insist on His method of government being what it plainly is not?... [ Continue Reading ]
The emphasis falls on _God_Shall any teach knowledge unto God? The principles of providence insisted on by the friends were not those according to which God's actual providence was administered. They were substituting their principles for His. _seeing he judgeth_ The clause emphasises the word God:... [ Continue Reading ]
_in his full strength_ lit. _in his very perfection_, or completeness, meaning, in the full enjoyment of all that made his lot _complete_, wanting nothing as the second clause explains.... [ Continue Reading ]
_His breasts are full of milk_ Perhaps, HIS VESSELS are full of milk; but the meaning is uncertain, the word rendered "breasts" not occurring again. The word however has analogies in the cognate languages, and may mean _vessels_, or _troughs_, marg. _milk-pails_, the reference being to the plenty an... [ Continue Reading ]
A different history; cf. Job's words of himself, ch. Job 3:20; Job 7:11. _never eateth with pleasure_ Rather, AND HATH NOT TASTED (lit. eaten) OF GOOD.... [ Continue Reading ]
Wholly different in life the two are alike in death; cf. Ecclesiastes 2:15 _seq_. _They shall lie down_ THEY LIE DOWN. Similarly, THE WORMS COVER.... [ Continue Reading ]
Job knows the covert meaning that lies under his friends" talk of the fate of the wicked man.... [ Continue Reading ]
Finally, still pursuing his argument, Job turns to the insinuations of his friends against himself, which lie under their descriptions of the fate of the wicked. He knows what they mean when they say, Where is the house of the prince? But their conclusions were against the testimony of those who had... [ Continue Reading ]
_house of the prince_ "Prince" here perhaps in a bad sense like the classical "tyrant," cf. Isaiah 13:2. _the dwelling places of the wicked_ Or, THE TENTS IN WHICH THE WICKED DWELT, lit. _the tent of the dwellings of the wicked_. The question, Where is the house of the prince? implies that it has b... [ Continue Reading ]
_them that go by the way_ The travellers; here those who have travelled far, or come from a distance, and are full of experience. _do ye not know their tokens_ Or, REGARD. Their "tokens" are no doubt the proofs, or examples which they bring forward. The word "regard," or have respect to, is so used... [ Continue Reading ]
Travellers give a different account of the fate of the wicked; they tell that he is spared in the day of destruction: 29 Have ye not asked them that go by the way, And do ye not regard their tokens, 30 That the wicked is spared in the day of destruction, That they are led forth in the day of wra... [ Continue Reading ]
_they shall be brought forth to_ Rather, THEY ARE LED FORTH IN, i. e. led away in safety from the destroying wrath, parallel to "spared" or withholden, in the first clause; cf. Isaiah 55:12 (_led forth_), or "conducted," Psalms 45:14.... [ Continue Reading ]
The person spoken of in this verse seems most naturally the wicked man. It is doubtful however whether the testimony of the travellers is here still carried on, or whether the present words are not those of Job himself. The history of the evil man is proceeded with: his power makes him irresponsible... [ Continue Reading ]
_Yet shall he be brought_ Rather, AND HE IS CARRIED, as above. Comp. ch. Job 10:19, where Job uses the same language of his own burial. The word is that used in Job 21:30 (led forth, cf. reff.), and suggests the pomp and slow solemnity of his interment. _shall remain in the tomb_ Rather, as above, K... [ Continue Reading ]
The wicked man is buried in honour; and his example followed. 32 And he is carried to the grave, And they keep watch over his tomb; 33 The clods of the valley are sweet unto him; And all men draw after him, As there were innumerable before him.... [ Continue Reading ]
After life's fever he sleeps well. Eurip. Alces. 462, κούφα σοι χθ ὼ ν ἐ πάνω πέσειε γύναι. _Sit tibi terra levis_, Light fall the dust upon thee. _draw after him_ The prosperous wicked man has innumerable successors and imitators, just as he was preceded by countless others whom he resembled, E... [ Continue Reading ]
Job feels he has refuted the theories of his friends in regard to the pretended calamities and misery of the wicked man, whether in life or death. Hence their attempts to comfort him by this line of thinking are vain. _there remaineth falsehood_ i. e. _there is left_(only) _falsehood_. When Job's p... [ Continue Reading ]