Job 17:9

_THE RIGHTEOUS ALSO SHALL HOLD ON HIS WAY, AND HE THAT HATH CLEAN HANDS SHALL BE STRONGER AND STRONGER._ The strength of religious principle is heightened by misfortune. The pious shall take fresh courage to persevere from the example of suffering Job. The image is from a warrior acquiring new courage in action (Isaiah 40:30; Philippians 1:14)....

1-9 Job reflects upon the harsh censures his friends had passed upon him, and, looking on himself as a dying man, he appeals to God. Our time is ending. It concerns us carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for eternity. We see the good use the righteous should make of Job's afflictions from God, from enemies, and from friends. Instead of being discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage this faithful servant of God met with, they should be made bold to proceed and persevere therein. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end, will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they may meet with....

Verse Job 17:9. _THE RIGHTEOUS ALSO SHALL HOLD ON HIS WAY_] There shall be no doubt concerning the dispensations of the Divine providence. My case shall illustrate all seemingly intricate displays of God's government. None shall be stumbled at seeing a godly man under oppression, knowing that God never permits any thing of the kind but for the good of the subject, and the manifestation of his own mercy, wisdom, and love. Therefore whatever occurs to the righteous man, he will take it for granted that all is well and justly managed, and that the end will be glorious. _SHALL BE STRONGER AND STRONGER._] He shall take encouragement from my case, stay himself on the Lord, and thus gain strength by every blast of adversity. This is one grand use of the book of Job. It casts much light on seemingly partial displays of Divine providence: and has ever been the great text-

THE RIGHTEOUS ALSO SHALL HOLD ON HIS WAY - The meaning of this verse is plain; but the connection is not so apparent. It seems to me that it refers to “Job himself,” and is a declaration that “he,” a righteous man, who had been so grievously calumniated, would hold on his way, and become stronger and stronger, while “they” would sink in the public esteem, and be compelled to abandon their position. It is the expression of a confident assurance that “he” would be more and more confirmed in his integrity, and would become stronger and stronger in God. Though Job intended, probably, that this should be applied to himself, yet he has expressed it in a general manner, and indeed the whole passage has a proverbial cast; and it shows that even then it was the settled belief that the righteous would persevere. As an expression of the early faith of the pious in one of the now settled doctrines o...

EXPOSITION JOB 17:1 The general character of this chapter has been considered in the introductory section to Job 16:1. It is occupied mainly with Job's complaints of his treatment by his friends, and his lamentations over his sufferings (verses 1-12). At the end he appeals to the grave, as the only hope or comfort left to him (verses 13-16). JOB 17:1 MY BREATH IS CORRUPT; or, _my spirit is oppressed. _But the physical meaning is the more probable one. A fetid breath is one of the surest signs of approaching dissolution. MY DAYS ARE EXTINCT; or, _cut off_. The verb used does not occur elsewhere. The graves are ready for me

THE RIGHTEOUS ALSO SHALL HOLD ON HIS WAY,.... He that is righteous, not in appearance but really, not in a legal but in an evangelic sense; who is justified by the righteousness of Job's living Redeemer, who lives by faith on his righteousness, and in consequence of that in holiness of life and conversation; such an one being in Christ the way of righteousness and salvation, and walking in the paths of faith, holiness, and truth, and in all the tracks of religious worship, private and public, he will persevere therein, and will not on any account depart out of the right way into which he has been led and directed. This is opposed to a going back, as some do, and to a turning to the right hand or the left, as others, and to a standing still, being stumbled, offended, and discouraged; and it supposes a progress, a going forward in the way, so as not to be moved out of it by their own, or t...

CHAPTER S 16-17 JOB'S REPLY TO ELIPHAZ _ 1. Miserable comforters are ye all (Job 16:1)_ 2. Oh God! Thou hast done it! (Job 16:6) 3. Yet I look to Thee (Job 16:15) 4. Trouble upon trouble; self-pity (Job 17:1) 5. Where is now my hope? (Job 17:13) Job 16:1. How masterfully he meets their wrong accusations and how he brings forth his suffering afresh, yet always with that horrible nightmare, God is not for me, but against me! Such things Eliphaz spoke he had h

JOB 16:22 TO JOB 17:16. Job pleads in favour of his prayer for Divine vindication, that death is before him and he has no hope, if he must now die. JOB 17:2 is obscure; the general sense seems to be that Job complains of the delusive hopes, held out by the friends, of return to health and prosperity (Peake). Job 17:3 continues the idea of Job 16:20 f. God, as Job's advocate, is to give to God as his creditor a pledge that He will in the future vindicate him. Who else will strike hands with Job over such a bargain?...

Job 16:18 to Job 17:9. Job, dying a martyr's death, beseeches God that He would uphold his right with God and against men, and give him a pledge that He will make his innocence appear In Job 16:12 Job described the terrible hostility of God, who dashed him to pieces, laid him in ruins and poured out his soul to the ground brought him unto death. Then the other thought rose in his mind that all this befell him though he was innocent both in life and in spirit. Here he comes to the point at which he always loses self-control when he realizes that in spite of his innocence he is held guilty. This is an overwhelming feeling, and under it Job either wildly challenges the rectitude of God, as in the first cycle of speeches; or he flings off from him

DISCOURSE: 468 DARK DISPENSATIONS OVERRULED FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SAINTS Job 17:9. _The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger_. AMONGST all the doctrines of our holy religion, there is not one more difficult to be received than that which here offers itself to our notice: it may well be numbered amongst “the deep things of God.” The manner too in which it has been professed by men of enthusiastic minds, or antinomian habits, has rendered it odious in the eyes of thousands, who yet are truly upright before God. But neither the difficulty of guarding it from abuse, nor the averseness of men to embrace it, must deter us from stating what we believe to be the truth of God. We would not needlessly go out of our way to introduce a subject of such difficult discussion; nor, on the other hand, should we feel justified in p