Giobbe 29:1-25
1 Giobbe riprese il suo discorso e disse:
2 "Oh foss'io come ne' mesi d'una volta, come ne' giorni in cui Dio mi proteggeva,
3 quando la sua lampada mi risplendeva sul capo, e alla sua luce io camminavo nelle tenebre!
4 Oh fossi com'ero a' giorni della mia maturità, quando Iddio vegliava amico sulla mia tenda,
5 quando l'Onnipotente stava ancora meco, e avevo i miei figliuoli d'intorno;
6 quando mi lavavo i piedi nel latte e dalla roccia mi fluivano ruscelli d'olio!
7 Allorché uscivo per andare alla porta della città e mi facevo preparare il seggio sulla piazza,
8 i giovani, al vedermi, si ritiravano, i vecchi s'alzavano e rimanevano in piedi;
9 i maggiorenti cessavan di parlare e si mettevan la mano sulla bocca;
10 la voce dei capi diventava muta, la lingua s'attaccava al loro palato.
11 L'orecchio che mi udiva, mi diceva beato; l'occhio che mi vedeva mi rendea testimonianza,
12 perché salvavo il misero che gridava aiuto, e l'orfano che non aveva chi lo soccorresse.
13 Scendea su me la benedizione di chi stava per perire, e facevo esultare il cuor della vedova.
14 La giustizia era il mio vestimento ed io il suo; la probità era come il mio mantello e il mio turbante.
15 Ero l'occhio del cieco, il piede dello zoppo;
16 ero il padre de' poveri, e studiavo a fondo la causa dello sconosciuto.
17 Spezzavo la ganascia all'iniquo, e gli facevo lasciar la preda che avea fra i denti.
18 E dicevo: "Morrò nel mio nido, e moltiplicherò i miei giorni come la rena;
19 le mie radici si stenderanno verso l'acque, la rugiada passerà la notte sui miei rami;
20 la mia gloria sempre si rinnoverà, e l'arco rinverdirà nella mia mano".
21 Gli astanti m'ascoltavano pieni d'aspettazione, si tacevan per udire il mio parere.
22 Quand'avevo parlato, non replicavano; la mia parola scendeva su loro come una rugiada.
23 E m'aspettavan come s'aspetta la pioggia; aprivan larga la bocca come a un acquazzone di primavera.
24 Io sorridevo loro quand'erano sfiduciati; e non potevano oscurar la luce del mio volto.
25 Quando andavo da loro, mi sedevo come capo, ed ero come un re fra le sue schiere, come un consolatore in mezzo agli afflitti.
ESPOSIZIONE
Da queste profonde riflessioni sulla natura della vera sapienza, e dal contrasto tra l'ingegnosità e l'intelligenza dell'uomo e l'infinita conoscenza di Dio, Giobbe passa a un altro contrasto, che persegue attraverso due capitoli ( Giobbe 29:1 ; Giobbe 30:1 .) - il contrasto tra ciò che era e ciò che è - tra la sua condizione nel periodo della sua prosperità e quella a cui è stato ridotto dalle sue afflizioni.
Il presente capitolo si occupa solo del primo periodo; e fornisce una descrizione grafica della vita condotta, al tempo e nel paese di Giobbe, da un grande capo, capo di una tribù, non di semplici nomadi, ma di Perseo che aveva raggiunto una considerevole quantità di civiltà. L'immagine è primitiva nelle sue caratteristiche, ma non scortese o grossolana. È completamente non ebreo e ha il suo parallelo più vicino in alcuni dei primi documenti egiziani, come la Stele di Beka e le Istruzioni di Amen-em-hat.
Inoltre Giobbe continuò la sua parabola e disse (vedi il commento a Giobbe 27:1 ).
Oh se fossi come nei mesi passati! o, nei mesi di età. A Giobbe il periodo della sua prosperità sembra molto, molto tempo fa, qualcosa di lontano nella notte dei tempi, che ricorda con difficoltà . Come nei giorni in cui Dio mi ha preservato . Giobbe non dimentica mai di riferire la sua prosperità a Dio, o di essergli grato per questo (vedi Giobbe 1:21 ; Giobbe 2:10 ; Giobbe 10:8 , ecc.).
Quando la sua candela brillò sulla mia testa ( Salmi 18:28 , "Poiché tu accendi la mia candela: il Signore mio Dio illuminerà le mie tenebre"). Una "candela" o "lampada" è un simbolo generale nella Scrittura per la vita e la prosperità. Si dice che Dio accenda le candele degli uomini quando li benedice e fa risplendere il suo volto su di loro; al contrario, quando ritira il suo favore si dice che spenga le loro candele ( Giobbe 18:6 ; Giobbe 21:17 ).
E quando alla sua luce ho camminato attraverso l'oscurità . La luce del volto di Dio che risplende sul cammino dell'uomo gli permette di camminare con sicurezza anche attraverso la fitta oscurità, cioè attraverso problemi e perplessità.
Come ero nei giorni della mia giovinezza ; letteralmente, nei giorni del mio autunno - con cui Giobbe probabilmente intende i giorni della sua "maturità" o "piena virilità" - che aveva raggiunto quando le sue calamità erano cadute su di lui . Quando il segreto di Dio era sul mio tabernacolo ; o, il consiglio di Dio ; quando, cioè; nella mia tenda tenni un dolce consiglio con Dio, e comunicai con lui come amico con amico (comp.
Salmi 25:14 : "Il segreto del Signore è con quelli che lo temono; ed egli mostrerà loro la sua alleanza"; e Proverbi 3:32 , "Poiché il perverso è un abominio per il Signore, ma il suo segreto è presso i giusti").
Quando l'Onnipotente era ancora con me . Sono parole terribilmente tristi. Giobbe, nelle sue afflizioni, è arrivato a considerare l'Onnipotente come non più "con lui", non più dalla sua parte; ma piuttosto contro di lui, un nemico (vedi Giobbe 6:4 ; Giobbe 7:19 ; Giobbe 9:17 ; Giobbe 10:16 , ecc.). Quando i miei figli erano intorno a me (cfr. Giobbe 1:2 , Giobbe 1:4 , Giobbe 1:5 ).
Quando ho lavato i miei passi con il burro . Calpestato, per così dire, sulla grassezza, commosso in mezzo a tutto ciò che era lieto, gioioso e delizioso. E la roccia mi ha versato fiumi d'olio . "La roccia" è probabilmente il terreno, accidentato e sassoso, su cui crescevano le sue olive. "Le olive", dice il dottor Cunningham Geikie, "fioriscono meglio su terreno sabbioso o sassoso ". Gli portarono una quantità di olio così grande che gli sembrò che la roccia ne scorresse a fiumi.
Quando sono uscito alla porta attraverso la città ; piuttosto, dalla città , o contro la città. La "porta" era il luogo in cui veniva amministrata la giustizia e generalmente sbrigati gli affari pubblici. Sarebbe "di fronte" alla città, separata da essa da una grande piazza o luogo (רְחוֹב), in cui potrebbe radunarsi una moltitudine (su Nehemia 8:1 ).
Qui Giobbe era abituato a procedere di tanto in tanto, ad agire come giudice e amministratore. Quando ho preparato il mio posto in strada. In tali occasioni sarebbe stato portato fuori e "preparato" un seggio, dove il giudice si sarebbe seduto per ascoltare le cause e pronunciare le sentenze (comp. Nehemia 3:7 ).
I giovani mi videro e si nascosero ; si ritirarono, cioè si ritirarono negli angoli, per non intromettersi tanto in un loro superiore. Confronta il rispetto pagato all'età dagli spartani. E il vecchio si alzò e si alzò. Qui il rispetto pagato non era tanto per l'età quanto per la dignità. Uomini vecchi come lui, o più anziani, fecero a Giobbe il complimento di alzarsi in piedi finché non fu seduto, in considerazione del suo rango e della sua alta carica. Così. in molte assemblee, come nelle nostre corti di giustizia, in Convocazione, e altrove, quando entra il presidente, tutti si alzano.
I principi si trattennero dal parlare . Gli altri capi della tribù, riconoscendo il rango e la dignità superiori di Giobbe, si trattennero dalle parole non appena fece la sua apparizione, e in silenzio aspettarono ciò che avrebbe detto. Forse non riusciamo a capire letteralmente l'ulteriore affermazione che si misero la mano sulla bocca, che è probabilmente un modo di dire tanto quanto la nostra frase, "hanno tenuto la lingua" (cfr. Giobbe 21:5 ).
I nobili tacevano . Gli altri uomini di spicco seguirono l'esempio dei "principi" e tacquero ugualmente finché Giobbe non ebbe parlato. E la loro lingua si attaccò al tetto del loro mese. Una ripetizione pleonastica. Il significato è semplicemente che non dissero nulla, rimasero in rapita attenzione.
Quando l'orecchio mi ha sentito, allora mi ha benedetto . Giobbe, dopo aver descritto la sua accoglienza da parte dei nobili e dei capi della città, passa a parlare del comportamento della gente comune. I primi erano rispettosi e attenti, i secondi si rallegravano e facevano acclamazioni. Essendo della classe più esposta all'oppressione e al torto, acclamarono nel patriarca un campione e un protettore. Erano sicuri del risarcimento e della giustizia dove lui era il giudice.
E quando l'occhio mi vide, mi diede testimonianza . L'occhio del povero si illuminò di gioia e di giubilo quando Giobbe si sedette sul seggio del giudizio, ascoltando così testimonianza della sua equità, candore e integrità.
Because I delivered the poor that cried. And again the Inscription of Ameni-Amenemha: "No little child have I injured; no widow have I oppressed; no fisherman have I hindered; no shepherd have I detained; no foreman have I taken from his gang to employ him in forced labour" (ibid; vol. 12.63). And the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. Championship of the poor was anciently regarded as characteristic of the wise, good, strong ruler.
The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me (comp. Giobbe 29:11). Oppression in the East sometimes drives its victims to actual starvation or to suicide. Isaiah calls the oppressors against whom he inveighs "murderers" (Isaia 1:21). These "perishing" ones Job often saved, and they "blessed" him. And I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
How cold are the words of Ameni, "No widow have I oppressed," compared with these! Job was not content with mere abstinence from evil, mere negative virtue. He so actively and effectually relieved distress that affliction was turned into happiness, and lamentation into rejoicing.
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me (comp. Isaia 61:10; Salmi 132:9, etc.). Job "put on righteousness;" i.e. made it as the garment wherewith he clothed himself withal (Salmi 109:18, Salmi 109:19), covered up with it all his own natural imperfections, and made it part and parcel of his being.
It was a beautiful covering, and, when once he had put it on, it clung to him, and could not be removed. It "clothed him," or rather, if we translate the Hebrew literally, "clothed itself with him." putting him on, as he had put it on. It was not merely external; it was internal, a habit of his soul and spirit. My judgment was as a robe and a diadem; rather, my justice (see the Revised Version). My "justice," or "righteousness" (for the words are synonymous), was at once my robe and my crown, my necessary clothing and my ornament.
Ero occhi per il cieco, e piedi ero per lo zoppo . I re persiani avevano dei funzionari, che chiamavano i loro "occhi" e le loro "orecchie", osservatori che dovevano informarli di tutto ciò che accadeva nelle province. Giobbe faceva da "occhi" ai ciechi del suo tempo, dando loro le informazioni che la loro infermità gli impediva di ottenere. Era anche un passo avanti per gli zoppi, portava messaggi per loro, faceva le loro commissioni e cose simili. Era gentile e disponibile con i suoi simili, non solo nelle cose grandi, ma anche nelle piccole cose.
Ero un padre per i poveri ( cfr . Giobbe 29:12 , e vedi sotto, Giobbe 31:16 ): e la causa che non conoscevo l'ho cercata ; piuttosto, la causa di lui che non conoscevo l' ho cercata (vedi la versione riveduta). Quando gli uomini gli erano del tutto sconosciuti, Giobbe prestava ancora alle loro cause la massima attenzione possibile, "cercandole", o indagandole, diligentemente come se fossero state le cause dei suoi stessi amici.
E spezzo le fauci degli empi ( Salmi 58:6 ). Non si intende, come suppone Canon Cook, che Giobbe fosse lui stesso il carnefice. " Quod facit per allure facit per so ." Giobbe considererebbe Età che fa ciò che ha ordinato di fare. E gli strappò il bottino dai denti . O deludendolo di una preda che era sul punto di far propria, o costringendolo a restituire una preda che aveva effettivamente afferrato.
Allora ho detto, morirò nel mio nido . La metafora di "nido" per "dimora" ricorre in Numeri 24:21 ; Geremia 49:16 : Abdia 1:4 ; e Habacuc 2:9 . È anche impiegato da Healed ('Op. et Di.,' 1.301). E moltiplicherò i miei giorni come la sabbia.
Alcuni traducono: "Moltiplicherò i miei giorni come la fenice", il favoloso uccello che avrebbe dovuto vivere per cinquecento anni (Erode; 2:72), bruciarsi su un mucchio funerario di spezie, e poi risorgere le sue ceneri. Ma la visione sembra essere una mera tradizione rabbinica, e non è supportata dall'etimo. Khol (חוֹל) significa "sabbia" in Genesi 22:17 ; Geremia 33:22 ; e altrove. È inteso in questo senso da Rosenmuller, Schultens, Professor Lee, Canon Cook e dai nostri revisori.
La mia radice fu stesa dalle acque ( Salmi 1:3 ; Geremia 17:8 ); anzi, alle acque, così che le acque lo raggiungessero e lo nutrissero. E la rugiada rimase tutta la notte sul mio ramo . Giobbe paragona se stesso, nel suo precedente stato di prosperità, a un albero che cresce lungo la riva di un fiume, che riceve un doppio nutrimento: dall'acqua attuale del ruscello, che raggiunge le sue radici, e dall'umidità evaporata dal ruscello, che pende nell'aria e scende sotto forma di rugiada sulle sue foglie e sui suoi rami. Entrambe le fonti di ristoro rappresentano la grazia e il favore di Dio.
La mia gloria era fresca in me ; cioè "la mia gloria è rimasta fresca" - non ha ricevuto alcuna macchia, è rimasta brillante come era stata all'inizio. E il mio arco è stato rinnovato nella mia mano . La mia forza non è venuta meno. Quando sembrava sul punto di fallire, veniva segretamente e misteriosamente "rinnovata". Alcuni commentatori considerano Giobbe 29:19 e Giobbe 29:20 come una parte del discorso iniziato in Giobbe 29:18 e vedono i verbi non come tempi passati, ma come futuri (confronta la traduzione della versione riveduta). Il significato generale è più o meno lo stesso, qualunque delle due opinioni prendiamo.
Gli uomini mi hanno prestato orecchio, e hanno aspettato, e hanno taciuto al mio consiglio ( Giobbe 29:10 . Giobbe 29:9 , Giobbe 29:10 ). Giobbe però non si ripete, sines nel passaggio precedente parla del suo lavoro e del suo ufficio di giudice, mentre ora dichiara la posizione che aveva occupato tra i suoi connazionali come statista e consigliere.
Dopo le mie parole non parlarono più . Quando Giobbe ebbe parlato, il dibattito di solito finiva. Si riteneva che tutto fosse stato detto e che un'ulteriore osservazione sarebbe stata superflua . E il mio discorso cadde su di loro (comp. Deuteronomio 32:2 , "La mia dottrina cadrà come la pioggia, la mia parola distillerà come la rugiada"). Si dà un'occhiata all'influenza silenziosa e penetrante del saggio consiglio.
Mi aspettavano come la pioggia ; vale a dire "erano tanto desiderosi di riscaldarmi" dico quanto la terra arida è di ricevere la pioggia invernale, che aspetta e aspetta e assorbe avidamente. E spalancarono la bocca come per l'ultima pioggia . Hanno bevuto nel mio discorso come la vegetazione primaverile beve nelle piogge primaverili, conosciute in Oriente generalmente come "le ultime piogge".
Se ridevo di loro, non ci credevano ; piuttosto, se gli sorridessi. Se, in segno di favore, sorridevo a qualcuno, pensavano che fosse una tale gentilezza e condiscendenza che a stento lo credevano possibile. E la luce del mio volto non hanno abbassato . Non mi hanno mai tolto il volto, né mi hanno reso triste e cupo, opponendosi alle mie opinioni e schierandosi contro di me.
Ho scelto la loro strada e mi sono seduto capo . Sebbene non fosse un monarca assoluto, ma solo un capo patriarcale, determinai praticamente il corso che la tribù prese, poiché il mio consiglio fu sempre seguito. Ho dunque "sono seduto capo" - anzi, abitava come un re nell'esercito (o, in l'host , vale a dire tra la gente), come uno che consola gli afflitti ; cioè come uno a cui tutti cercavano conforto in tempi di angoscia e calamità, quanto consigli e guida in altri tempi ( Giobbe 29:21-18 ).
OMILETICA
Seconda parabola di Giobbe: 1. Ricordi penosi dei tempi passati.
I. GIORNI DI FELICITÀ RELIGIOSA . In teneri versi di elegiatti Giobbe riprende il suo monologo di dolore, gettando uno sguardo patetico sui "tempi di un tempo", già sbiaditi nel lontano passato e irrimediabili; non i giorni della sua giovinezza (Versione Autorizzata), ma la stagione autunnale della sua maturità virile, quando, come un campo che il Signore aveva benedetto ( Genesi 27:27 ), gemendo sotto l'esuberanza dei suoi frutti raccolti, era carico di abbondanza di cose buone ( Salmi 103:1Genesi 27:27, Salmi 103:1). Le benedizioni del cielo erano così tante e così varie, così mature e così pronte, che gli parve proprio un tempo di vendemmia per la sua anima. Ma ahimè! questi giorni luminosi di sole dorato erano trascorsi, portando con sé tutti i tesori di felicità che avevano portato; e di questi ciò che per la sua perdita colpì ora la più acuta fitta di angoscia nella sua anima malinconica fu la benedetta comunione, il rapporto familiare, fiducioso e senza riserve che allora ebbe con Eloah, che, nella triplice veste di Guardiano, Guida e Amico, era un visitatore abituale nella sua tenda.
1. As a Guardian. Then Eloah preserved, or protected, him, as Satan, in the cloning of the fundamental controversy of the poem, complained (Giobbe 1:10), and as Eliphaz (Giobbe 5:11; Giobbe 22:25), followed by Zophar (Giobbe 11:18), assured him God would again do, if he returned in penitential submission to Eloah's ways.
This Divine guardianship must not be limited to the setting up of a fence around the patriarch's estate, but extended to that of which it was a symbol, the casting of a shield around the patriarch's soul. In the happy days of old Job nestled beneath the shadow of the Almighty's wings (Rut 2:12; Salmi 91:1), body, soul, and spirit, feeling himself secure against calamity of every sort, inward or outward, spiritual or material.
What God was to Job he likewise proved himself to be to David and other Old Testament saints, and to-day offers himself to be to all Christ's believing followers—a Defender against the charges of the Law, of conscience, or of Satan (Salmi 32:1; Salmi 65:3; Salmi 85:2, Salmi 85:3; Isaia 44:22; Romani 8:1, Romani 8:31, Romani 8:33); a Protector against the ills and temptations of life (Salmi 46:1; Salmi 48:3; Salmi 121:3; Proverbi 3:6, Proverbi 3:23, Proverbi 3:24; Isaia 54:14 Isaia 54:17; Zaccaria 9:8; 2 Tessalonicesi 3:3; 1 Pietro 3:13).
2. As a Guide. Job also recollects that, in the bright days whose departure he laments, Eloah's candle (or lamp) shone above his head, enabling him to walk with perfect safety even in nights of thickest darkness. The allusion probably is to the custom of suspending lamps in rooms or tents over the head (Carey); and the meaning is that, while rejoicing in Heaven's favour and fellowship, Job's feet never stumbled in the path of duty.
If perplexities arose around or before him, through Divine grace he was always able to resolve them, threading his way through the deepest intricacies, and moving straight on in an even path. This was no doubt owing partly to the circumstance that his consciousness of inward peace and sincerity permitted him to make the best possible use of his natural faculties, and partly to the fact that he enjoyed the special illumination of Heaven.
If piety does not confer new powers, it enables old ones to be turned to the best advantage Then the singleness of aim which a good man possesses largely facilitates the discovery of light in times of darkness. And, finally, saints have special promises guaranteeing providential guidance when placed in situations of perplexity m' peril (Salmi 25:8, Salmi 25:9; Salmi 32:1; Salmi 37:23; exit. 4).
3. As a Friend. More particularly Job mentions that, in the times of blessedness referred to, "the secret," or favour (Cox), or blessed fellowship (Delitzsch), or counsel (Fry) of Eloah was upon his tent. Whether Job was honored like Abraham to receive theophanies (Genesi 18:1, Genesi 18:2), so that he might actually speak of God being a Visitor at his tent (Carey), the language (literally, "in the seat or cushion of God being at my tent") obviously points to an intercourse of the most friendly and familiar kind between him and God—such a dwelling together as Eliphaz affirmed should take place (Giobbe 22:21) if Job and God were to be at peace.
The friendship here depicted as having existed between Job and Eloah was realized in the case of Abraham and Jehovah (2 Cronache 20:7; Isaia 41:8; Giacomo 2:23), and is in a certain sense still realized in the experience of Christians and the Saviour (Giovanni 15:15).
As one result of this friendly intercourse between Eloah and Job, Job became acquainted with Eloah's counsel or secret purpose, as Abraham was informed of Jehovah's determination concerning Sodom (Genesi 18:17), as the prophets generally were afterwards instructed about the mind of God (Amos 3:7), as "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Salmi 25:14; Proverbi 3:32), and as on believers is conferred an unction from the Holy One, enabling them to know all things (1 Giovanni 2:20, 1 Giovanni 2:27; 1 Giovanni 5:20), but more particularly the mind of Christ (Giovanni 16:13; 1 Corinzi 2:16).
II. DAYS OF DOMESTIC FELICITY. It is a special mark of piety in Job that, enumerating his lost blessings, he begins with what the worldly or wicked man would have plied last, viz. the Divine friendship. As to David (Salmi 63:3) and to Asaph (Salmi 73:25), so to Job the favour and fellowship of God constituted the principal ingredient in his full cup of blessing.
But next to fellowship with a God of mercy and salvation, no earthly happiness can be compared to a home illumined by the sunshine of genuine religion, and gladdened by the cheery voices of loving and obedient children. Job cannot recall the time when the Almighty was still with him (verse 5) without remembering that then also his children (his young men, his boys) were about him—a numerous, happy, loving, united, and, it may be hoped, a pious family (Giobbe 1:1; vide homiletics).
It is contrary to religion for a good man, or any man, to prize his wife and children above his Saviour and his God (Matteo 10:37); it is contrary to nature to behold them taken from his side by the hand of death without weeping (Genesi 23:2; Joh 11:1-57 :81, 83, Giovanni 11:35); it is contrary to neither nature nor religion to cherish them with loudest affection, and to mourn for their death with sincere lamentation.
III. DAYS OF MATERIAL PROSPERITY. Guarded by Divine care and guided by Divine light, like Jacob in Padan-aram (Genesi 31:5, Genesi 31:7, Genesi 31:11, Genesi 31:12, Genesi 31:42), Job attained to extensive wealth, the poetic imagery employed (verse 6) to depict it meaning, when converted into unadorned prose, that his flocks became so abundant, and their yield of milk so rich and plentiful, that he might almost be said to wash his steps in butter, which among the Arabs was mostly a liquid preparation, and that everywhere throughout his domain the crags were clothed with olive trees so prolific that the very rocks appeared to pour forth oil It was another mark of Job's fervent piety and well-balanced judgment that he preferred his children to his flocks and trees, giving these latter only the third place in his esteem, and that he ascribed his material prosperity, no less than his domestic felicity, to the circumstance that then the Almighty was with him.
So did Jacob when serving with Laban (Genesi 31:5), and Joseph when ruling for Pharaoh (Genesi 45:8), recognize God as the Author of their temporal advancement. So does Scripture habitually trace to God every blessing which the saint enjoys (Salmi 75:6, Salmi 75:7; Giacomo 1:17).
IV. DAYS OF CIVIC HONOUR. A saint of eminent piety, the father of a numerous family, and the proprietor of vast possessions, Job had likewise been the chief magistrate, or supreme dispenser of law and justice, in his clan. Passing beyond the bounds of his own private domain, and entering the adjacent city, when he took his seat among the elders in the broad way, i.
e. in the open space usually reserved in Oriental cities, either in front of the gate (2 Cronache 32:6; Nehemia 8:1, Nehemia 8:8, Nehemia 8:16), or in the vaulted recesses beneath the archway (Genesi 19:1; 1 Re 22:10), for the transaction of business (Rut 4:1), the dispensing of justice (Proverbi 31:23), or the conducting of other negotiations, he was saluted with marked tokens of respect.
The younger men, conscious of his greatness, retired into the background; the old men amongst the councillors received him standing; the voice of the greatest magnate amongst them was silent until he had uttered his opinion. A remarkable testimony to the high esteem in which Job was held for his personal qualities and commanding abilities.
V. DAYS OF PUBLIC PHILANTHROPY. What Eliphaz once admitted (Giobbe 4:3, Giobbe 4:4), Job is now constrained to avow, that his whole by-past career had been one of unwearied benevolence. In his magisterial capacity he had:
1. Espoused the cause of the poor and needy. In conspicuous contradiction to Eliphaz, who had charged him (Giobbe 22:5) with intolerable oppression and cruelty, with robbing the poor, and inhumanly suffering the naked and hungry to perish, he had taken, it might be said, the whole family of the unfortunate under his protection.
When a poor man oppressed by his neighbour had cried out for help, when an orphan had poured into his ear a tale or pitiful distress, when a miserable outcast half-dead through cold and nakedness, or through hunger and thirst, had found the way to his door, when a broken-hearted widow had appealed to him for assistance, he had had an ear for every cry, a heart for every sorrow, and a hand for every need.
Job's sympathies had inclined him to feel for the defenceless and the poor. And in this Job had shown himself to be a good man (Salmi 40:1), and an eminent type of Christ (Salmi 72:4; Matteo 8:16, Matteo 8:17). Nay, Job had considered no care or trouble too much to expend on behalf of his clients.
He had both taken pains to understand their complaint, and had not been satisfied till he had rectified their grievance. And with such skill, energy, and perseverance had he conducted their causes, that he commonly carried them forward to success, delivering the poor and fatherless who cried to him (verse 12), causing the widow's heart to sing for joy (verse 13), breaking the jaws of the wicked and plucking the spoil out of his teeth (verse 17). And in all that Job had said or done in his magisterial capacity he had:
2. Acted with the most scrupulous regard to justice. He had not met chicanery and oppression by resorting to the same dishonest weapons. If he had stood forth for justice to the poor, he had not attempted to withhold it from the rich. So unchallengeably just had been his decisions, and so unimpeachable the principles of equity by which these were guided, that he felt himself entitled to say he had literally clothed himself in righteousness, and assumed integrity as a robe and turban; in this, again, typifying strikingly the Lord Jesus Christ (Salmi 72:2; Salmi 96:13). And so successful had Job been in his determination to combine "mercy and truth, righteousness and peace," in his magisterial capacity, that he had:
3. Gained the good opinion and respect of all. Unlike Aristides, whom his fellow-countrymen ostracized because they could not longer bear to hear him called the "just" the fellow-citizens of Job had saluted him on every side with words and looks of commendation and esteem (verse 11).
VI. GIORNI DI MALE IMPREVISTO . Pio, ricco, onorato, utile, fidato, riverito, Giobbe era ignaro di un solo cupo presentimento. Tutto intorno a lui, sopra di lui, davanti a lui, la prospettiva era chiara ed esaltante. Non un granello di nuvola giaceva sull'orizzonte luminoso che lo circondava. Giobbe non pensava se non che avrebbe dovuto vivere una vita lunga, prospera e onorata, moltiplicando i suoi giorni come la sabbia, o come la fenice, il favoloso uccello della mitologia egizia, o, forse, come il.
palma, e alla fine muore serenamente nel suo nido, cioè come Abramo ( Genesi 25:8 ), nel seno della sua famiglia. Due cose hanno contribuito a suscitare nella mente di Giobbe una così piacevole attesa.
1 . L' apparente stabilità della sua prosperità esteriore o materiale. Paragonandosi ad un albero piantato lungo corsi d'acqua, un emblema biblico frequente di un uomo buono ( Salmi 1:3 ; Salmi 92:12 ; Geremia 17:8 ) -Ha avevano sperato che, dal momento che le sue radici sono state aperte alle acque , da cui potevano sempre attingere un'abbondante scorta di umidità, e poiché i suoi rami erano carichi di rugiada di notte (versetto 19), nulla sarebbe mai accaduto o avrebbe potuto interrompere il corso esteriore della sua grandezza temporale.
Le fonti della sua ricchezza apparivano così permanenti e inesauribili che non avrebbe mai immaginato che potessero essere diminuite o prosciugate. I suoi onori erano così freschi su di lui (cfr. 'Enrico VIII .,' Atti degli Apostoli 3 . sc. 2) che non sognava il loro declino. E il suo vigore virile, la sua capacità di scongiurare il pericolo, rappresentata dall'arco che portava in mano, era così pieno e così facilmente rinnovato che non temeva un rovesciamento alla sua ineguagliabile fortuna, o un'eclissi allo splendore splendente del suo nome onorevole.
2 . L'estensione illimitata della sua autorità e influenza.Il frammento autobiografico introdotto ai versetti 21-25 non vuole essere una continuazione o ripresa del tema sopra trattato (versi 7, 8), ma intende spiegare come oscuri presentimenti non abbiano mai attraversato la mente di Giobbe quando riposava sotto il sole splendente della sua gloria terrena. La profonda venerazione in cui lo tenevano i suoi concittadini, inducendoli con paziente silenzio e ansiosa attesa ad attendere il suo consiglio (vv. 21, 23); il terribile rispetto con cui tenevano le sue parole, considerandole definitive su ogni argomento che trattavano (versetto 22); l'effetto che le sue decisioni non mancavano mai di produrre su coloro che le ascoltavano, il suo discorso distillava su di loro con influenze ravvivanti e vivificanti, ed era benvenuto nei loro cuori come le prime e le ultime piogge (versetto 23); l'influenza che esercitava su di loro con i suoi modi gentili, il suo stesso sorriso era considerato un atto di graziosa condiscendenza che difficilmente potevano credere fosse destinato a loro, ma che, tuttavia, erano restii a perdere e che sembrava avere un potere talismanico nel dissipare la loro tristezza (versetto 24); e l'indiscussa, anzi gioiosa, sottomissione con cui salutarono le sue istruzioni, essendo la sua posizione in mezzo a loro allo stesso tempo quella di un monarca e di un amico (versetto 25); tutte queste considerazioni resero difficile per Giobbe pensare che mai per lui un giorno malvagio dovrebbe sorgere.
Imparare:
1 . L'opportunità e il profitto di ricordare e rivedere il passato.
2 . Nell'enumerare le benedizioni, molto dipende dall'assegnare a ciascuna il suo esatto posto nell'ordine di importanza.
3 . Per un uomo buono le cose di Dio sono sempre in primo piano.
4 . Avendo la selce ottenuto il favore del Cielo, un uomo può legittimamente aspirare ad acquisire le ricchezze del mondo e le buone opinioni dei suoi simili.
5 . Una vita retta e utile raramente non trova la sua ricompensa, anche sulla terra.
6 . Colui che Dio ha arricchito di ricchezze, capacità e influenza dovrebbe dedicarle al servizio dei poveri e dei bisognosi.
7 . Le benedizioni di coloro che un uomo buono allevia sono ricchezze maggiori dell'oro e dell'argento accumulati.
8 . La retrospettiva di una vita ben spesa è una grande consolazione nella stagione delle avversità.
9 . È pericoloso cercare la permanenza in qualsiasi cosa sulla terra.
10. È bene quando i grandi uomini possono combinare l'amore con l'autorità e la simpatia con il potere.
OMELIA DI E. JOHNSON
Retrospettiva malinconica dei giorni felici passati.
I. IMMAGINI DELLA MEMORIA ; FELICITÀ FONDATA SU L'AMICIZIA DI DIO . ( Giobbe 29:1 .) Giobbe 29:1
1 . L'amicizia con Dio fonte di felicità. ( Giobbe 29:1 ). Questo è magnificamente indicato nelle espressioni figurative. Pensa ai giorni in cui la luce di Dio brillava sulla sua fronte, con la luce di Dio camminava nelle tenebre; i giorni della sua età matura e dolce (piuttosto che della sua "giovinezza"), quando il segreto, cioè l'intimità, dell'Onnipotente era un rifugio e una benedizione per la sua casa.
La parola "segreto" significa "intimità", rapporto confidenziale (vedi Giobbe 19:19 ; Salmi 25:14 ; Salmi 55:15 ; Proverbi 3:32 ). Dio era vicino a lui, e la prossima più grande benedizione a quel favore di Dio, vale a dire. gli fu concessa la benedizione dei bambini. (Confronta la benedizione dei bambini, Salmi 127:3 , ss.
; Salmi 128:3 .) Le benedizioni esteriori della vita devono essere valutate principalmente come segni del bene più profondo, interiore; la vicinanza costante di Dio, la coscienza della sua approvazione, la certezza della sua guida.
2 . Caratteristiche della felicità esteriore. ( Giobbe 29:6 .)
(1) Abbondanza di mezzi . Qui vengono impiegate le figure orientali preferite. Ha bagnato i suoi passi nel burro, e la roccia al suo fianco zampillava con rivoli d'olio (comp. Deuteronomio 32:13 ).
(2) Rispetto e dignità. Quando andò alla porta della città, il grande luogo pubblico di adunanza nelle città orientali, corrispondente all'agorà dei Greci, al Foro dei Romani e alla piazza del mercato delle Nostre città antiche ( Giobbe 5:4 ; Giobbe 31:21 ; Proverbi 1:21 ; Proverbi 8:3 ); quando sistemò il suo posto nel mercato, lo spazio spalancato vicino alle porte, i giovani si ritirarono davanti a lui con rispetto reverenziale, ei vecchi si alzarono e rimasero in piedi finché non ebbe preso posto; mentre i principi cessavano la loro conversazione, ponendo la mano sulla bocca ( Giobbe 21:5 ); la voce delle persone di riguardo era zitta, la loro lingua attaccata al palato.
Il possesso del rispetto degli altri è uno dei generi più nobili di ricchezza, poiché la coscienza di essere disprezzati, disprezzati, scrutati e derisi è un elemento della più profonda miseria. Fuori dal buio presente, Giobbe ripensa a quei giorni di sole. La sua vita è "nella foglia secca e gialla", e la sua è "la corona del dolore", il "ricordare le cose più felici". "È il pensieroso sentimento autunnale, la sensazione di mezza tristezza che proviamo quando il giorno più lungo dell'anno è passato, e ogni giorno che segue è più corto, e la luce più fioca, e le ombre più deboli dicono che la Natura si affretta con passi giganteschi verso la sua tomba invernale.
" As Christians, we should learn to look forward, and forget the past, in so far as its recollection paralyzes or depresses (Filippesi 3:13, Filippesi 3:14). (Read F. W. Robertson's sermon on this: 'Christian Progress by Oblivion of the Past.')
"Not backward are our glances bent,
But onwards to our Father's home."
The past is gone for ever; but there is a present and a future which is still our own.
II. THE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS IN GOODNESS. (Verses 11-17.) His benevolence and his strict integrity were mediately the cause of his prosperity. For although God is the one and only Cause of all things, the gracious Author of our bliss, yet his dispensations are not arbitrary.
Blessing is conditioned by faith; and faith is proved by conduct. Job's public and private life was known and seen and elicited approval from all. He was the succourer of the poor and the helpless orphan; the blessing of the forlorn and the wretched was breathed forth on his behalf. He had clothed himself with rectitude (compare for this figure, Isaia 11:5; Isaia 51:9; Isaia 59:17; Salmi 132:9).
It was to him like a robe and a turban. He was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame; a father to the needy. He searched out the cause of unknown men, to help them as surety or otherwise if their cause was good. He put down men of violence and oppression, and recovered their ill-gotten booty from them, as one snatches the prey from the jaws of the wild beast. Despite the mournful mood of Job, what solace is there not, even in the greatest affliction, through the memory of having been permitted to do some good and reap some reward of affection from others in the world? And, looking to the sequel of the story, let us remember that God is not unrighteous to forget the labour of love.
Every cause has its effect; every act of benevolence will be followed in due time by its bright flowers of peace and joy in the conscience and the memory. Go on, then, in the work of doing good, steadfast and immovable in the work of the Lord. Be like fountains watering the earth and spreading fertility. "Subdue discord, mutiny, widespread despair by manfulness, justice, mercy, and wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as hell; let light be, and there is instead a green, flowery world.
Oh, it is great, and there is no other greatness! To make some work of God's creation a little more fruitful, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, more manful, happier, more blessed; it is a work for God!" (Carlyle).
III. THE MEMORY OF BRIGHT HOPES; THE RESPECT AND INFLUENCE IN FORMER DAYS. (Verses 18-25.)
1. Everything in that happy period pointed with seeming prophetic power to a long life' to a blessed old age. He thought within himself that he should end his days in his nest. in the besom of his family, in peace and security; and like the sand (or the days of the phoenix) would be their number. If the word be taken as denoting the phoenix, then the allusion is to the legend of the bird living five hundred years, then burning in its nest, and rising from the ashes.
Peace and prosperity bred in his mind great hopes. Like a well-watered tree, he thought his life would spread, the refreshing dew resting by night upon its branches, and that his honour would ever freshly remain with him; that his bow—the symbol of lusty manhood and strength (1 Samuele 2:4; Salmi 46:9; Salmi 76:3; Geremia 49:35; Geremia 51:56)—would renew itself in his hand.
We learn here, in passing, the lesson not to build on the constancy of earthly things, not to lay up treasures of hope here. If it be well with us now, let us be prepared for reverses (Sirach 11:25). This lesson comes back to us from many a saying of the ancient world, mixed no doubt with much of superstition, and ignorance of the nature of God, but still in the main expressed with the truth of experience.
"There is nothing secure in the world, no glory, no prosperity. The gods toss all life into confusion, mix everything with its reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more worship and reverence". "God hath power to change the lowly for the lofty; he weakens the distinguished, he brings the obscure to the light; Fortune with shrill sound here removes the towering crest, and here she sets it up" (Horace, 'Od.
,' 1:35). The brief sum of life's days forbids us to cherish a long hope (ibid; Giobbe 1:4). We must learn in a Christian sense to "pluck the day, and have the smallest confidence in what is to come" (ibid; Giobbe 1:11). What the morrow may bring we should shun to inquire, and count as a gain every day that may be given us (ibid; Giobbe 1:9). "Too late is the life of to-morrow; live to-day!" (Martial).
2. A further picture of the social esteem and respect in which his past days had been spent. The members of his tribe or clan all looked up to him, listened in silence to his address, and had nothing to add alter he had spoken. His speech fell upon them like the refreshing rain for which the thirsty pastures long—the late rain which in March or April blesses the ripening crops (comp.
Deuteronomio 11:14; Geremia 3:3; Geremia 5:24; Gioele 2:23; Osea 6:3). His cheerful smile dismissed men's rising fears, the light of his countenance was like the sun dispelling the clouds of doubt or alarm. He sat in the midst of the assembly of his tribe, guiding, commanding, directing, like a king in the midst of his battle-host; or, as if this picture were too warlike and remote from the peaceful scenes of the patriarch's life, he sat among them as a general consoler, a comforter of the mourners. Thus—
"Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Sucks at his breast, and turns the past to pain?
But we have a power over this "bosom-spring," and may cheer or sadden ourselves with retrospect, according as we take the golden key of faith or the iron key of despondency wherewith to unlock the door of the past. Do not these bright memories of a well-spent past afford solace to the afflicted hero, though they also touch the nerves to pain? Let it be ours so to use memory that it still yield instructive joy and hope.
As we turn over her mixed records, let us say to ourselves, "The joys we have possessed are ever ours—out of the reach of chance and change. Let past years, so far as they are marked with the greatness of God, with acts of piety, works of love, breed in us perpetual benedictions."—J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
A mournful reflection upon a happy past.
Job had lived in honour and great respect. He was "the greatest of all the men of the East." The Divine testimony concerning him was, "There is none like him in the earth." Job's was an enviable condition, and his own words indicate how sensible he was of it. In his mournful utterance, made as he looks back upon a dead past, we see wherein consisted his happiness; and we learn what arc the elemental conditions of the highest felicity in human life—at least at that period of the world's history. Nor can we think of loftier conditions to-day. The conditions of happiness on the loss of which Job mournfully reflected are—
I. THE ASSURED FAVOUR OF JEHOVAH. The proof of this to Job was in his abounding prosperity.
II. DOMESTIC FELICITY. If the joy of home be destroyed, all joy must wither.
III. THE RESPECT OF SURROUNDING SOCIETY. It is always painful to a right-minded man not to be held in respect by his fellow-men; and although it may minister to pride in the unwary, it is to the prudent a source of the greatest satisfaction, especially when it is subordinated to the honour that cometh from God only.
IV. THE HONOURABLE REGARD EVEN OF THE GREAT. The very princes and nobles held silence when he spake. He who is so highly honoured cannot but honour himself. Happy the man whose self-respect so ripens.
V. THE EXERCISE OF CHARITY, without which the heart would become selfish.
VI. THE RESPONSIVE BLESSINGS OF MEN, sweet as nard of great price.
VII. CONSCIOUSNESS OF INTEGRITY AND RIGHTEOUSNESS—a conscience void of offence.
VIII. THE EXERCISE OF HIS POWER AND WEALTH FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE NEEDY AND OPPRESSED. Every kind act leaves a fragrance on the hand of him who does it.
IX. THE POSSESSION OF HOPE. It might be said the hope of the permanence of these precious possessions.
X. A CAUSE OF BLESSING TO OTHERS. In these lies the secret of the truest happiness, but many deserve them not, and having them are not able to retain their integrity and simplicity. Hence how often are they withdrawn! The absence of these Job is called to mourn. To hold fast his integrity in the loss as truly as amidst the possession of these things marks the true greatness and goodness of the man, and ultimately brings him the highest honour.—R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Regrets for the happy past.
I. IT IS NATURAL TO LOOK BACK WITH REGRET ON THE HAPPY PAST. The memory of past joy is not wholly pleasant. If the joy is gone, the memory only adds pain to the present sense of loss. Several things contribute to give intensity to the feeling of regret.
1. Many of the best blessings are not appreciated while we possess them. We have to lose them to learn their value. This is especially true of great common blessings, such as the buoyancy of youth, health, affluence. When all goes well with us we do not consider how many gifts of God we are enjoying. The charm of summer is appreciated when dull November makes us look back on the lost days of brightness. We wake up to the value of our loved ones when they have been taken from us by the hand of death. Adversity reveals the privileges of prosperity. Declining years teach the value of youth.
2. Reflection grows with years. It has been remarked upon as a misfortune that so many of the best things in life seem to be lavished upon an age that is carelessly negligent of them. Strength, energy, health, happiness, in abundance are enjoyed in youth without a thought. When these treasures are more scarce they are carefully economized and highly valued. In later years the habit of looking backward grows upon us, and reflection takes the place of heedless activity. Thus we consider find appreciate with regret in the later years of life what we disregarded in the earlier times of possession.
3. Memory throws a delusive glamour over the past. The distant hills are beautiful; we see their purple shadows, we do not observe their stony paths. Youth is not so sunny as age paints it. Keen pains of youth are forgotten in after-years, especially if those years have brought with them the fortitude that despises such sufferings. For there is a gain in years, and this very gain leads to an over-valuation of youth.
Patience and self-control are acquired by experience, and while they help us to bear much that would be intolerable to youth, they also lead us to smile at and under-estimate the wild distresses of earlier years.
IX. IT IS GOOD TO APPRECIATE THE DIVINE BLESSINGS OF THE HAPPY PAST. Job acknowledged that God had preserved him in past days. The candle of the Lord had then shone upon his head. He enjoyed God's friendship when he came to maturity.
1. This adds poignancy to the grief of regret. God has not been sufficiently appreciated. His blessings have not been acknowledged with merited gratitude. Or if no self-accusations arise on these points, still the loss of God's favour seems to accompany the loss of his gifts. The regret has deeper thoughts than those concerning earthly good things. Apparently deserted by God, the troubled man cries, with poor Cowper—
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his Word?"
2. This should really inspire hope. God is not fickle. His constancy is deeper than appearances. We may have lost hold of his goodness through our own sin or distrust. Perhaps, however, we are deluding ourselves; he is really nearer to us in adversity than he was in prosperity, only we cannot understand the mysteries of his providence. Assuredly, if God once loved and cared for his children, he will never forsake them.
3. This should urge the young to appreciate their privileges. It is not desirable that any should reflect overmuch on their present happy condition, because the charm of it is its unconscious freedom and activity. But it is only right to acknowledge the goodness of God with thankfulness; and to so use early privileges that we shall not afterwards look back with regret on a misspent youth.—W.F.A.
The character that wins respect.
Job paints a glowing picture of his honoured condition in past days. Then he was more than prosperous. He was treated with great deference. Let us gather up the traits of the character that wins respect, and in order to do so let us distinguish them from false grounds of deference.
I. FALSE GROUNDS OF DEFERENCE.
1. Power. Multitudes cringe before mere power, either in fear of giving offence or with a hope of gaining some advantage. The Oriental makes his humble salaam to the infidel whom in his heart he despises. This deference is no credit to either party.
2. Wealth. The worship of mammon may be less visibly cruel than the worship of Mars, and yet in some respects it is more degrading, for it calls out no heroic qualities. The deference shown to the rich simply because they are rich is one of the most unworthy characteristics of human weakness. It is not peculiar to our own age; this miserable sycophantic spirit was ridiculed by Roman satirists and reprobated by New Testament writers (e.g. Giacomo 2:2). Its sordid meanness humiliates all who are enslaved by it.
3. Self-assertion. The world is often too easy in taking men at their own valuation of themselves. Because a great claim is made it is often tacitly assented to, simply because people are too indolent or too cowardly to question it. But self-importance is not greatness.
4. Success. There is more in this when it is not merely a business matter, when it indicates sterling qualities of ability and energy. Still, good fortune may have much to do with it, and conscientious scruples may have been trampled down in the fierce determination to win it at any cost. Then the failure that would not stoop to the lower and more easy means of success is infinitely more worthy of honour.
II. THE TRUE CHARACTER THAT WINS RESPECT. it is portrayed in Job's description of his own happy past. Why was this hushed deference of old men as well as young, of princes and nobles? The answer is to be found in the conduct of Job.
1. Active benevolence. "Job delivered the poor that cried," etc. Here was more than princely generosity. It costs a man absolutely nothing to leave a big legacy to the poor, and it does not hurt him much to give freely during his lifetime out of his superfluous cash. On the contrary, the money may be profitably laid out, even from a purely worldly and selfish point of view, in the honour of standing well in subscription-lists.
Ma l'onore maggiore spetta a coloro che si adoperano per il bene dei loro fratelli. Lord Shaftesbury era un uomo di pochi mezzi. La sua fama non è fondata su doni in denaro; poggia sul fondamento più solido delle fatiche abnegate.
2 . Integrità. Giobbe si rivestì di giustizia ed essa lo rivestì. Senza questo, la benevolenza ha poco valore. Dobbiamo essere appena prima di essere generosi. Un uomo d'affari cristiano dovrebbe fare in modo che il suo nome sia senza biasimo nel mondo commerciale. La verità e l'onestà sono condizioni primarie del rispetto.
3 . Saggezza. "Gli uomini mi hanno prestato orecchio, hanno aspettato e hanno taciuto al mio consiglio" (versetto 21). Se Giobbe fosse stato un uomo sciocco, sebbene ben intenzionato, la deferenza ai suoi consigli sarebbe stata un segno di debolezza da parte degli altri. Ma si dimostrò un uomo di forte potere mentale e di vera saggezza. Dobbiamo rispetto agli "uomini di luce e guida" quando la loro guida è determinata dalla loro luce. —WFA
La benedizione di colui che era pronto a perire.
I. PERCHE IT IS PREZIOSO . Non possiamo non rimanere colpiti da questo bel tratto nel racconto autobiografico di Giobbe. È meglio di tutta la fama. I clamori della moltitudine sono miseri applausi in confronto alla benedizione dei poveri. Molte persone potrebbero esserne indifferenti. Possono essere soddisfatti se solo possono afferrare il potere e costringere l'omaggio dei grandi, sebbene il loro percorso sia seguito da "maledizioni non forti, ma profonde". Conquistatori crudeli, tiranni spietati, uomini di mondo dal cuore duro, non sanno nulla della benedizione qui descritta da Giobbe. Eppure è solido e reale.
1 . Nasce dal vero apprezzamento. Questa non è una lode superficiale richiesta dall'usanza o suggerita da motivazioni superficiali. Nasce da una genuina percezione della bontà.
2 . È caratterizzato dalla gratitudine. Così con-talus sentimenti più caldi di quelli di ammirazione. In esso entra un elemento di risveglio dell'affetto. Ora, è meglio essere amati dagli oscuri che essere semplicemente onorati dai grandi; è meglio essere amati da pochi che essere applauditi da un multi-rode.
3 . È accompagnato dall'approvazione di Cristo. Ci dice che quello che facciamo a uno dei suoi fratelli più piccoli lo facciamo a lui. Ci presenta il buon Samaritano come esempio approvato. Perciò la gratitudine degli umili poveri porta con sé il sorriso del Cielo.
4 . È potente per sempre. Gli uomini cercano di ottenere il favore dei grandi che possono fare molto per loro, e ignorano egoisticamente le opinioni dei poveri che sembrano avere il potere di far loro poco bene o male. Eppure le benedizioni degli indifesi sono preghiere al grande Amico degli indifesi. Portano le benedizioni di Dio. Felice è l'uomo che vive in queste condizioni!
II. COME IT SI GUADAGNA .
1 . Per mezzo della genuina bontà. Gli applausi possono essere vinti con una condotta molto equivoca. Le cose superficiali possono suscitare un'ammirazione straordinaria. La gente si precipita a fissare e gridare dietro a qualsiasi celebrità. Ma vogliono saperne di più prima di benedirne uno. Questa devota benevolenza e preghiera per una persona che chiamiamo benedizione può essere guadagnata solo da una vera e solida bontà.
2 . Attraverso l'esercizio della simpatia. Gli indifesi e i moribondi possono essere costretti ad avvalersi dei favori lanciati loro da lontano da una mano di orgoglioso patrocinio, e forse anche di sprezzante disprezzo, ma se non c'è grazia nel dono ci sarà poca gratitudine nell'accoglienza di esso. Se vogliamo ottenere la benedizione degli indifesi, dobbiamo conquistare il loro amore, e per farlo dobbiamo manifestare loro amore. La simpatia sblocca le fontane del cuore.
3 . In atti di attiva disponibilità. Se la simpatia è genuina, porterà spontaneamente a tali azioni. Non possiamo veramente simpatizzare con una persona in difficoltà senza desiderare di aiutarla. Ora, la disponibilità attiva sarà il segno e il sigillo della simpatia. Fu questo che assicurò il posto di Giobbe nel cuore dei poveri. Gli uomini hanno accumulato onori sulla testa del "Guerriero Felice.
" È giunto il momento in cui dovremmo far rivivere le migliori glorie dei giorni di Giobbe. Se desideriamo conquistare una posizione nel mondo, salviamo la nostra ambizione da mete sordide o addirittura malvagie. Lascia che sia il primo nell'amore e nel servizio che sarebbe primo in onore Questa è la regola di Cristo ( Marco 9:35 ).—WFA
Rivestito di giustizia.
I. LA GIUSTIZIA VESTE L' UOMO COME DI UN ABITO .
1 . Copre. Se un uomo ha solo un buon carattere, possiamo perdonargli molto altro. Può essere debole, sciocco, sfortunato. Potrebbe aver fallito nel mondo, ed essere caduto nella povertà. Eppure non è vestito di stracci. Una veste regale lo copre e, agli occhi di coloro che possono apprezzare il vero valore, questa è l'unica cosa che si vede di lui.
2 . Protegge. L'indumento è per tenere lontani i venti freddi, le nebbie smorzanti e il sole cocente. La giustizia è più di un vestito robusto. È un pezzo di armatura, una corazza che protegge il cuore ( Efesini 6:14 ). Quando un uomo è sicuro dell'integrità della sua causa può guardare in faccia il mondo intero; può osare passare attraverso il fuoco e l'acqua; è forte e al sicuro dove chi ha una cattiva coscienza può benissimo tremare e rannicchiarsi.
3 . Adorna. Questa giustizia non è solo decente e confortante, come un indumento spesso, caldo e fatto in casa; è più bello dell'abito di un re di porpora e seta e ricami d'oro. Non c'è bellezza così bella come quella della bontà.
4 . Non può essere nascosto. Non è un segreto confinato al cuore. Deve essere lì per primo, deve nascere dal cuore. Ma non è nascosto all'interno. Il carattere è visibile, come un capo indossato per strada.
II. LA GIUSTIZIA CHE QUINDI VESTE DEVE ESSERE REALE . È solo la perversità di una teologia erronea che potrebbe mai rendere necessario pronunciare una frase così ovvia come questa. C'è un modo per riferirsi alla giustizia imputata a Cristo come se questo dispensasse dalla necessità del nostro essere noi stessi giusti.
Sicuramente una tale dottrina sarebbe immorale. Sotto quali aspetti si poteva distinguere questa cosiddetta veste della giustizia dal mantello dell'ipocrita? Se la giustizia di Cristo si limitasse a nascondere la nostra ingiustizia senza curarla, non solo si praticherebbe un grande inganno, ma non si compirebbe alcun vero bene. Il risultato sarebbe un male assoluto. Perché qual è la nostra maledizione e la nostra rovina? Non è il nostro peccato? Se è così, niente può giovarci che non distrugge quel peccato.
Quindi un tentativo di coprirlo e lasciarlo inalterato non ci farà bene, ma ci ferirà drogando la nostra coscienza e dandoci una falsa sicurezza. Nelle città dell'Est un canale di scolo aperto scorre in mezzo alla strada, e non è così offensivo come si potrebbe pensare, perché viene sempre ossidato e purificato dall'aria fresca. Copriamo i nostri scarichi, ma facciamo buchi di ventilazione nelle nostre strade, attraverso i quali gas di sporcizia concentrata, non mescolati con aria pura, salgono continuamente tra i passanti. Abbiamo guadagnato molto?
III. ONLY CHRIST CAN CLOTHE US WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS. Self-righteousness is a delusion. We cannot make ourselves righteous, nor can any law put us right with God. St. Paul demonstrated this in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans. But he also showed that God had given us righteousness in Christ (Romani 3:21, Romani 3:22).
Now, this comes first of all in forgiveness. We are then put in a right relation with God, before we have overcome all the sin that dwells within us. Christ is the promise of our future righteousness. In this way his righteousness means much to us. God cannot be taken in by any fiction. He can only regard us just as we are. But he can treat us for Christ's sake better than we deserve. So through Christ we are placed in right relations with God, and those right relations are the channels through which real righteousness comes into us.—W.F.A.
The phoenix.
Accepting the rendering that is now adopted by most of the abler commentators—that which is given in the margin of the Revised Version—we see Job comparing himself in his earlier days to the phoenix, which, "according to the Egyptian legend, lived five hundred years, and then, setting fire to its nest, renewed its youth in the funeral pyre." Youth cannot believe in death, unless, indeed, it falls into a sentimental mood, or is startled by the ugly fact itself. Naturally, when health is unbroken, and all goes well, life seems to open up an endless vista of days to the young man. This view contains both a foolish delusion and a Divine truth.
I. THE FOOLISH DELUSION. The phoenix was only a fabulous bird; no such creature exists in nature. No one has ever found the elixir of life. The idea that life is long is a delusion of youth. It springs in part from the freshness of things, and in part from the overflowing vitality of youth. In his address to a butterfly, Wordsworth says—
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now."
Perhaps there is no reason to shatter this delusion. Why should we spoil the sunshine of youth with the shadow of coming years? The world could not go on without young enthusiasm, and hope is essential to young enthusiasm. Yet it is possible to be led into practical mistakes by this delusion. The young may think that there is plenty of time before them, and the thought may be used as an excuse for indolence, negligence, and the postponement of duty. Then a sudden awakening comes with a shock of alarm, as it is perceived only too late that the golden opportunities of youth are gone—for ever!
II. THE DIVINE TRUTH. Clement of Rome appealed to the phoenix as a witness for the resurrection. We smile at his credulity. But may we not appeal to the legend of the phoenix as an evidence of the instinct of immortality? Why is it so natural to us to believe that life will go on for ever? Shall we put this idea down entirely to the delusion of circumstances and of our own vitality? Does it not spring from something deeper in our nature? Be that as it may, however, Christ has come to satisfy the desire and to confirm the hope.
Job confessed the foolishness of his youthful dreams, yet even he in those old-world days had occasional glimpses of the life beyond the grave, and we have a grand assurance of that life in Christ and his resurrection. The mistake is to dream of an earthly immortality. The old man who cherishes fond hopes of living a little longer is not much better off than the drowning man catching at a straw. But he who has a hold on the life eternal can afford to see the years rushing away, swifter than a weaver's shuttle.
He must make the best of them while he has them; for this life is with him but once, and he will have to give an account of it hereafter; for there is a hereafter—a great day of God's eternity that knows no sunset.—W.F.A.
Welcome counsel.
Among the happy circumstances of Job's sunny days of prosperity, he recalls the welcome that was accorded to his words of advice. Too often advice is more freely offered than thankfully received. Let us, then, consider the quality, the utility, and the acceptance of welcome counsel.
I. THE QUALITY OF WELCOME COUNSEL. What conditions must be fulfilled to make advice worthy of acceptation?
1. It must be full of knowledge. A glib tongue is ready enough to offer gratuitous advice, but we want to ascertain whether a full mind is inspiring it. Religious teachers must know for themselves before they can safely lead others. The doubt that is pardonable in the private person may be fatal to the public instructor.
2. It must be based on experience. Evidently Job was a man of wide experience. He spoke out of the fulness of his own observation of the world. Armchair counsellors are not much valued. An apprenticeship must be served to the affairs on which we would give advice.
3. It must be accompanied by practical wisdom. Knowledge and experience may find a man very foolish, and leave him so. We have to learn how to apply our acquisitions. We need practical tact in dealing with men and affairs.
4. It must be offered in sympathy. It is very little good to give preaching advice. We must talk to a man as a brother. We must let people see that we care for them, and that we are truly studying their good. A suspicion that the advice is not disinterested vitiates it entirely.
II. THE UTILITY OF WELCOME COUNSEL. Bushels of advice have to be thrown on one side as so much burdensome rubbish. Nevertheless, the rare value of really good advice is beyond all reckoning.
1. Right living is supremely important. Counsel deals with life rather than with opinions. It touches conduct. Now, as Matthew Arnold quaintly says, "conduct is three parts of life." Anything that really helps conduct must be valuable.
2. Right living is not easy. We are often perplexed and in uncertainty. Our prejudices and interests warp our judgments.
3. External advice brings new light. It may not be better than what we already possess; but it is an addition. The wise counsellor helps us to look at our affairs from a fresh point of view. At the same time, he comes with a certain calmness and detachment that enable him to take a fair view of the situation.
III. THE ACCEPTANCE OF WELCOME ADVICE.
1. It needs humility to receive it. We are all ready to receive the advice that concurs with our previous opinions; but that advice is scarcely needed. The difficulty is to accept the advice that contradicts our notions or wishes. Pride resents it; yet it may be most needful to us.
2. It should be taken with discrimination. Well-meant advice may be very foolish; even wise advice is not infallible. We have to select what commends itself to our judgment.
3. It ought not to supersede independent thought and choice. We may be advised by counsellors; but we have no business to let ourselves be ruled by them. After all, it is we and not they who will be responsible for what we do. Let us, then, preserve independence of judgment, and cultivate strength of will.
4. It deserves to be treated with gratitude. For the sake of its value. Also because, if it is worth much, it must have cost our counsellor time and pains. Too often giving advice is a very thankless task. N.B.—All earthly counsel is useful only in so far as it follows the heavenly, of which it is a type. The most welcome counsel should be that which comes through the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.—W.F.A.
EXPOSITION
The contrast is now completed. Having drawn the portrait of himself as he was, rich, honoured, blessed with children, flourishing, in favour with both God and man, Job now presents himself to us as he is, despised of men (verses 1-10), afflicted of God (verse 11), a prey to vague terrors (verse 15), tortured with bodily pains (verses 17, 18), cast off by God (verses 19, 20), with nothing but death to look for (verses 23-31). The chapter is the most touching in the whole book.
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. As Job had been speaking last of the honour in which he was once held, he beans his contrast by chewing how at present he is disgraced and derided. Men who are outcasts and solitary themselves, poor dwellers in caves (verse 6), who have much ado to keep body and soul together (verses 3, 4), and not men only' but youths, mere boys, scoff at him, make him a song and a byword (verse 9).
nay, "spare not to spit in his face" (verse 10). There seem to have been in his vicinity weak and debased tribes, generally contemned and looked down upon, regarded as thieves (verse 5) by their neighbours, and considered to be of base and vile origin (verse 8), who saw in Job's calamities a rare opportunity for insulting and triumphing over a member of the superior race which had crushed them, and thus tasting, to a certain extent, the sweetness of revenge.
Whose fathers I would have disdained (rather, I disdained) to have set with the dogs of my flock. Job had not thought their fathers worthy of employing even as the lowest class of herdsmen, those reckoned on a par with the sheep-dogs.
Yes, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? Men, who had no such strength in their hands as to yield an employer any profit—poor, weak creatures, in whom old age (rather, manly vigour) was perished. An effete race seems to be pointed at, without strength or stamina, nerveless, spiritless, "destined to early decay and premature death;" but how they had sunk into such a condition is not apparent.
Too often such remanents are merely tribes physically weak, whom more powerful ones have starved and stunted, driving them into the least productive regions, and in every way making life hard for them.
For want and famine they were solitary; rather, they were gaunt (see the Revised Version). Compare the descriptions given to us of the native races of Central Africa by Sir S. Baker, Speke, Grant, Stanley, and others. Fleeing into the wilderness; rather, gnawing the wilderness; i.e. feeding on such dry and sapless roots and fruits as the wilderness produces. In former time desolate and waste; or, on the eve of wasteness and desolation.
Who cut up mallows by the bushes. One of the plants on which they feed is the malluch, not really a "mallow," but probably the Atriplex halimus, which is "a shrub from four to five feet high, with many thick branches; the leaves are rather sour to the taste; the flowers are purple, and very small; it grows on the sea-coast in Greece, Arabia, Syria, etc; and belongs to the natural order Chenopodiace".
And juniper roots for their meat. Most moderns regard the rothen as the Genista monosperma, which is a kind of broom. It is a leguminous plant, having a white flower. and grows plentifully in the Sinaitic desert, in Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. The root is very bitter, and would only be used as food under extreme pressure, but the fruit is readily eaten by sheep, and the roots would, no doubt, yield some nourishment.
They were driven forth from among men. Weak races retreat before strong ones, who occupy their lands, and whose will they do not dare to dispute. They are not intentionally "driven out," for the strong raecs would gladly make them their drudges; but they retire into the most inaccessible regions, as the primitive population has done in India and elsewhere. They cried after them as after a thief.
Outcast tribes naturally, and almost necessarily, become robber-tribes. Deprived of their productive lands, and driven into rocky deserts, want makes them thieves and marauders. Then those who have made them what they are vilify and decry them.
To dwell in the cliffs of. the valleys; of in the clefts (Revised Version). Western Asia is full of rocky regions, seamed with deep gorges and clefts, the walls of which rise abruptly or in terraces, and are themselves pierced with caves and cracks. The tract about Petra is, perhaps, the most remarkable of these regions; hut there are many others which closely resemble it.
These places afford refuges to weak and outcast tribes, who hide in them, either in caves of the earth, or in the rocks. The Greeks called these unfortunates "Troglodytes", the Hebrews "Horim," from חוֹר "a hole."
Among the bushes they brayed. The sounds which came from their mouths sounded to Job less like articulate speech than like the braying of asses. Compare what Herodotus says of his Troglodytes: "Their language is unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats." Under the nettles (or, wild vetches) they were gathered together; rather, huddled together.
They were children of fools. The physical degeneracy whereof Job has been speaking is accompanied in most instances by extreme mental incapacity. Some of the degraded races cannot count beyond four or five; others have not more than two or three hundred words in their vocabulary. They are all of low intellect, though occasionally extremely artful and cunning. Yea, children of base men; literally, children of no name.
Their race had never made for itself any name, but was unknown and insignificant. They were viler than the earth; rather, they were scourged out of the land. This must not be understood literally. It is a rhetorical repetition of what had been already said in verse 5. The expression may be compared with the tale in Herodotus, that when the Scythian slaves rebelled and took up arms, the Scythians scourged them into subjection (Herod; 4.3, 4).
And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword (see above, Giobbe 17:6; and comp. Salmi 69:12).
They abhor me, they flee far from me; rather, they abhor me, they stoat aloof from me (see the Revised Version). And spare not to spit in my face. This has generally been taken literally, as it seems to have been by the LXX. But it, perhaps, means no more than that they did not refrain from spitting in Job's presence.
Because he hath loosed my cord. "He," in this passage, can only be God; and thus Job turns here to some extent from his human persecutors to his great Afflicter, the Almighty. God has "loosened his cord," i.e. has relaxed his vital fibre, taken away his strength, reduced him to helplessness. Hence, and hence only, do the persecutors dare to crowd around him and insult him.
And afflicted me. God has afflicted him with blow after blow—with impoverishment (Giobbe 1:14), with bereavement (Giobbe 1:18, Giobbe 1:19), with a sore malady (Giobbe 2:7). They have also let loose the bridle before me. This has given his persecutors the courage to east aside all restraint, and lead him with insult after insult (verses 1, 9, 10).
Upon my right hand rise the youth; literally, the brood; i.e. the rabble—a crowd of half-grown youths and boys, such as collects in almost any town to hoot and insult a respectable person who is in trouble and helpless. In the East such gatherings are very common and exceedingly annoying. They push away my feet; i.e. they try to throw me down as I walk. They raise up against me the ways of their destruction. They place obstacles in my way, impede my steps, thwart me in every way that they find possible.
They mar my path; i.e. interfere with and frustrate whatever I am bent on doing. They set forward my calamity, Professor Lee translates, "They profit by my ruin." They have no helper. If the text is sound, we must understand, "They do all this, they dare all this, even though they have no powerful men to aid them." But it is suspected that there is some corruption in the passage, and that the original gave the sense which is found in the Vulgate," There is none to help me."
They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters; i.e. with a force like that of water when it has burst through a bank or dam. In the desolation they relied themselves upon me. Like the waves of the sea, which follow one after another.
Terrors are turned upon me Job seems to pass here from his human persecutors to his internal sufferings of mind and body. "Terrors' take hold upon him. He experiences in his sleep horrible dreams and visions (see Giobbe 7:14), and even in his waking hours he is haunted by fears. The "terrors of God do set themselves in array against him" (Giobbe 6:4).
God seems to him as One that watches, and "tries him every moment" (Giobbe 7:18), seeking occasion against him, and never leaving him an instant's peace (Giobbe 7:19). These terrors, he says, pursue my soul as the wind; literally, pursue mine honour, or my dignity. They flutter the calm composure that befits a godly man, disturb it, shake it, and for a time at any rate, cause terrors and shrinkings of soul.
Under these circumstances, my welfare passeth away as a cloud. It is not only my happiness, but my real welfare, that is gone. Body and soul are equally in suffering—the one shaken with fears and disturbed with doubts and apprehensions; the other smitten with a sore disease, so that there is no soundness in it.
And now my soul is poured out upon me (comp. Salmi 42:4). My very soul seems to be gone out of me. "I faint and swoon away, because of my fears" (Lee). The days of affliction have taken hold upon me. All my prosperity is gone, and I am come to "the days of affliction." These "take hold on me," and, as it were, possess me.
My bones are pierced in me in the night season. In Elephantiasis anaesthetics' says Dr. Erasmus Wilson, "when the integument is insensible, there are deep-seated burning pains, sometimes of a bone or joint, and sometimes of the vertebral column. These pains are greatest at night; they prevent sleep, and give rise to restless,less and frightful dreams".
And my sinews take no rest; rather, my gnawings, or my gnawing pains (see the Revised Version; and comp. Giobbe 30:3, where the same word is properly rendered by "gnawing [the wilderness]").
By the great force of my disease is my garment changed; or, disfigured. The purulent discharge from his ulcers disfigured and made filthy his garment, which stiffened as the discharge dried, and clung to his frame. It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. The whole garment clung to his body as closely as it is usual for a mall's collar, or "neck-hole" (Professor Lee), to cling about his throat.
He (i.e. God) hath cast me into the mire. "The mire" here is the lowest depth of misery and degradation (comp. Salmi 40:2; Salmi 69:2, Salmi 69:14). Job feels himself cast into it by God, but nevertheless does not forsake him nor cease to call upon him (verses 20-23). And I am become like dust and ashes; i.e. unclean, impure, offensive to my fellow-men, an object of dislike and disdain.
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me. It is the worst of all calamities to be God-forsaken, as Job believed himself to be, because he had no immediate answer to his prayers. The bitterest cry upon the cross was "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" But no good man is ever really God-forsaken, and no rightful and earnest prayers are ever really unheard. Job "had need of patience" (Ebrei 10:36), patient as he was (Giacomo 5:11).
He should have trusted God more, and complained less. I stand up, and thou regardest me not; rather, I stand up, as the manner of the Jews usually was in prayer (Luca 18:11), and thou lookest at me (see the Revised Version). Job's complaint is that, when he stands up and stretches out his hands to God in prayer, God simply looks on, does nothing, gives him no help.
Thou art become cruel to me; literally, thou art turned to be cruel to me. In other words, "Thou art changed to me, and art become cruel to me." Job never forgets that for long years God was gracious and kind to him, "made him and fashioned him together round about," "clothed him with skin and flesh, and fenced him with bones and sinews," "granted him life and favour, and by his visitation preserved his spirit" (Giobbe 10:9); but the recollection brings, perhaps, as much of pain. as of pleasure with it. One of our poets says—
"Joy's recollection is no longer joy;
But sorrow's memory is a sorrow still."
At any rate, the contrast between past joy and present suffering adds a pang to tile latter. With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me; literally, with the might of thy hand dost thou persecute me (see the Revised Version). "Haec noster irreverentius" (Schultens); comp. Giobbe 19:6.
Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou tensest me to ride upon it; i.e. thou makest me to be storm-tossed. I am as it were a straw caught up by a whirlwind, and borne hither and thither in the wide regions of space, unknowing whither I go. I am treated as I have described the wicked man to be treated (Giobbe 27:20, Giobbe 27:21). And dissolvest my substance. "Dissolvest me entirely" (Professor Lee); dissolvest me in the storms (Revised Version).
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death. Job has all along expressed his conviction that he has nothing to look for but death. He feels within himself the seeds of a mortal malady; for such, practically, was elephantiasis in Job's time. He is devoid of any expectation of recovery. Death must come upon him, he thinks, ere long; and then God will bring him to the house appointed for all living.
This, as he has already explained (Giobbe 10:21, Giobbe 10:22), is "the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." It is a melancholy prospect; but we must regard it as cheered by the hope of an ultimate resurrection, such as seems indicated, if not absolutely proclaimed, in Giobbe 19:25-18 (see the comment on that passage).
Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction. This is one of the most obscure passages in the entire Book of Job, and scarcely any two independent commentators understand it alike. To give all the different renderings, and discuss them, would be an almost endless task, and one over-wearisome to the reader. It will, per-Imps, suffice to select the one which to the present writer appears the most satisfactory.
This is the rendering of Professor Stanley Leathes, who suggests the following: "Howbeit God will not put forth his hand to bring a man to death and the grave, when there is earnest prayer for them, not even when he himself hath caused the calamity." The same writer further explains the passage as follows: "I know that thou wilt dissolve and destroy me, and bring me to the grave (verse 23), though thou wilt not do so when I pray to thee to release me by death from my sufferings. Thou wilt surely do so [some time or other], but not in my time, or according to my will, but only in thine own appointed time, and as thou seest fit."
Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? i.e. do I claim a sympathy which I do not deserve? When men wept and entreated me, did not I do my best to give them the aid which they requested? Did not I weep for them, and intercede with God for them? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? (comp. Giobbe 29:12; Giobbe 31:16).
When I looked for flood, then evil came unto me. Job was "looking for good," expecting fully the continuance of his great wealth and prosperity, when the sudden shock of calamity fell upon him It was wholly unexpected, and therefore the harder to bear. And when I waited for light, there came darkness. This may refer to periods, after his calamities began, when he had hopes that his prayers would be answered, and a rest or pause, an interval of repose, be granted him (Giobbe 9:34; Giobbe 10:20), but when his hopes were disappointed, and the darkness closed in upon him thicker and murkier than ever.
My bowels boiled, and rested not; rather, boil and rest not (see the Revised Version). It is his present condition of which Job speaks from verse 27 to verse 31. His "entrails," i.e. his whole innermost nature, is disturbed, tormented, thrown into confusion. The days of affliction prevented me; rather, are come upon me (comp. verse 16).
I went mourning without the sun; rather, I go about blackened, but not by the sun. Grief and suffering, according to Oriental notions, blackened the face (see Lamentazioni 4:8; Lamentazioni 5:10; Salmi 119:83; and below, Salmi 119:30).
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation; rather, I stand up in the assembly' and cry for help (see the Revised Version). Job feels this as the most pitiable feature in his ease. He is broken down; he can no longer endure. At first he could sit in silence for seven days (Giobbe 2:13); now he is reduced to uttering complaints and lamentations.
He is a brother, not to dragons, but to jackals. His laments are like the long melancholy cries that those animals emit during the silence of the night, so well known to Eastern travellers. He adds further that he is a companion, not to owls, but to ostriches; which, like jackals, have a melancholy cry.
My skin is black upon me (see the comment on Giobbe 30:28, Giobbe 30:29, ad init.), and my bones are burned with heat. The "burning pains" in the bones, which characterize at least one form of elephantiasis, have been already mentioned (see the comment on Giobbe 30:17). In ordinary elephantiasis there is often "intense pain in the lumbar region and groin," which the patient might think to be in his bones.
My harp also is turned to mourning. The result of all is that Job's harp is laid aside, either literally or figuratively. Its music is replaced by the sound of mourning (see verses 28, 29). And my organ (or rather, my pipe) into the voice of them that weep. The pipe also is no longer sounded in his presence; he hears only the voice of weeping and lamentation. Thus appropriately ends the long dirge in which he has bewailed his miserable fare.
HOMILETICS
Job's second parable: 2. A lamentation over fallen greatness.
I. THE CHARACTER OF JOB'S DERIDERS.
1. Juniors in respect of age. (Verse 1.) These were not the young princes of the city (Giobbe 29:8), by whom he had formerly been held in reverential regard, but "the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men" (Delitzsch) dwelling in the neighbourhood. Job's inferiors in point of years, they should have treated him with honour and respect (Levitico 19:32), especially when they beheld his intense wretchedness and misery.
That they failed to accord him such veneration as was due to seniority in age, and much more that they made him the butt of their contemptuous derision, was not only an express violation of the dictates of nature and religion, but a special mark of depravity in themselves, as well as a certain index to the social and moral degradation of the race to which they belonged. The good qualities of an advancing and the bad qualities of a retrograding people, infallibly discover themselves in the moral characteristics of the youthful portion of the community.
2. Base in respect of ancestry. (Verses 1, 8.) The foregoing inference from the ribald behaviour of the younger men Job confirms by describing them as "children of fools, yea, children of base men," literally, "of men without a name," and as men "whose sires" he "would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock." It is doubtful if Job does not in this and other expressions of this passage (verses 1-8) repay the contempt of his scornful assailants with fourfold liberality, thereby failing to evince that meekness in resenting injuries which good men should study to display, and perpetrating the same offence which he imputes to others, as well as talking about his fellow-men (God's creatures and God's children no less than himself) in a way that was scarcely excusable even in a patriarchal sage.
Nevertheless, what he purposes to convey through the medium of his heated, if also poetic, language is that his revilers were the offspring of a vile, worthless, degraded, brutalized race, who had well-nigh sunk to the level of the beasts that perish.
3. Worthless in respect of service. (Verse 2.) Like their fathers whom Job would have disdained to rank with the dogs of his flock, i.e. whom he regarded as not worthy of being compared to these wise and faithful animals who watched his sheep, they (i.e. these younger vagabonds) were idle and effeminate triflers, lazy, worthless rascals, as little able to work as willing, the ethnic deterioration they were undergoing revealing itself in enervated physical constitutions no less than in depraved moral dispositions.
The truth here enunciated with regard to nations and communities is also true of individuals, that sin, vice, immorality, has a tendency to impair the bodily strength, mental vigour, and moral power of such as yield to its fatal fascinations.
4. Furnished in respect of food. (Verses 3, 4.) Strangely blending pity with scorn, Job informs us that in great part the feebleness of those wretched creatures, who "could bring nothing to perfection" (Cox), and were not worth employing to do the work of a shepherd's dog, was due to the difficulty they had in finding nourishment. Lean and haggard, benumbed from want and hunger, they literally gnawed the desert, picking up such scanty sustenance as the barren steppe afforded, plucking mallows in the thicket, i.
e. "the salt-wort from off the stalk" (Fry), the salt-wort, or sea-purslain,- being a tall shrubby, plant which thrives in the desert as well as on the coast, "the buds and young leaves of which" also "are gathered and eaten by the poor" (Delitzsch); and taking the roots of broom for their bread, the broom abounding in the deserts and sandy places of Egypt and Arabia, and growing to a height sufficient to afford shelter to a person sitting down.
A melancholy picture of destitution, which has its counterpart not only among expiring races, effete desert tribes, and wretched Troglodytes, but also in many a centre of modern civilization. It is hardly questionable that in the lower strata of society in our large cities there are thousands for whom the physical conditions of life are as severe as those just depicted by the Poet.
5. Outcasts in respect of society. (Verse 5.) In consequence of their pilfering and marauding habits, they were banished forth from the pale of the organized community Nay, when it happened that they ventured near the precincts of civilized life, they at once became the objects of a hue and cry, men hallooing after them as they did after a thief, and chasing them away to their own miserable haunts of poverty and vice.
It is clear they were the criminal classes of patriarchal times, and were regarded with much the same abhorrence as the pariahs of modern society, who wage war against all constituted authority, prey upon the industry of the virtuous and law-abiding, and as a consequence live in a perpetual state of social ostracism.
6. Troglodytes in respect of habitation. (Verse 6.) Driven beyond the pale of civilized society, they were compelled "to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys," literally, "in the horror of glens," i.e. in dismal and gloomy gorges, like the Horites (or cave-men) of Mount Seir (Genesi 14:6), betaking themselves for shelter to the caves of the earth and the holes in the rocks.
According to modern scientific theory, they would exemplify man in the earliest or lowest stage of his development; according to the testimony of revelation, the Troglodytes would attest man's degeneracy from a primeval standard of perfection. And so persistent is this downward tendency in man apart from Divine grace, that almost every civilized community has its social and moral Troglodytes, who dwell in dismal valleys—its wretched outcasts, children of sin and shame, whose lurking-places are dens of infamy and haunts of vice.
7. Dehumanized in respect of nature. (Verse 7.) Having previously (Giobbe 24:5) described these evicted aborigines as leading a gregarious life, like wild asses roaming the desert under the guidance of a leader (Giobbe 39:5), Job recurs to the comparison to indicate, not the eager ferocity with which they scour the steppe for fodder, but how near to the brutes they have been brought by their misery, representing them as huddling themselves together under the bushes, and croaking out, in unintelligible jargon like the brayings of an ass, a doleful lamentation over their miserable condition.
Herodotus compares the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians to the screeching of bats. The speech of savage races is mostly composed of "growling gutturals and sharp clicks" (Cox). As a nation advances in civilization its tongue purifies and refines. Like the cave-men of Western Asia and Ethiopia, the moral Troglodytes of society have a jargon of their own; e.g. the language of thieves.
II. THE BEHAVIOUR OF JOB'S DERIDERS.
1. Mockery and contempt. (Verses 1, 9, 10.) Physically and morally degraded, this worthless rabble of marauders, half men and half beasts, having fallen in with Job in their wanderings, were so little touched by sympathy for his misfortunes, that they turned his miseries into merry jests, and made bywords of his groans. It is a special mark of depravity when youth mocks at age (2 Re 2:3) and laughs at affliction.
The experience of Job was reproduced in the eases of David (Salmi 35:15; Salmi 69:12), Jeremiah (Lamentazioni 3:14, Lamentazioni 3:63), and Christ (Matteo 27:43; Luca 23:35).
2. Insult and outrage. (Verse 10.) They gave open and undisguised expression to the abhorrence with which they regarded him, by fleeing far from him, or standing at a distance, and making their remarks upon him. If they ventured to come near him it was either to spit in his presence, "the greatest insult to an Oriental" (Carey), or perhaps to spit in his face (cf. Numeri 12:14; Deuteronomio 25:9), thus carrying their contempt and scorn to the lowest depth of indignity.
Job had fallen low indeed to be thus outraged by the vilest dregs of society; but not lower than did Christ, who was similarly treated by the rabble of Judaea (Matteo 26:67; Matteo 27:30), as long before it bad been predicted that he should be (Isaia 1:6). No doubt in all this Job's sufferings were typical of Christ's.
3. Hostility and violence. (Verses 12-15.) Not content with words and gestures, the young vagabonds proceeded to acts of open violence. Having found the poor fallen prince groaning in wretchedness and misery upon the ash-heap outside his house, they abstained not from direct hostility. Like a crowd of witnesses starting up on his right hand, they overwhelmed him with accusations; like an army of assailants thrusting his feet away, they disputed with him every inch of ground, compelling him to retire ever further and further back; pressing on like a tumultuous besieging host, they cast up their ways of destruction, i.
e. their military causeways, against him, tearing down his path so as to render escape impossible, breaking in upon him as through a wide breach, and causing him to flee in terror before their irresistible approach, so that his nobility was dispersed like the wind, and his prosperity swept away like a cloud.
III. THE MOTIVE JOB'S DERIDERS.
1. Not Job's unkindness. It was true that these insolent vagabonds, with their fathers, had been summarily evicted from their pristine settlements—had been compelled, not without cruel oppression and intolerable hardship, to retire before the superior race who had dislodged them; it may also be that of that conquering Arab tribe Job was a conspicuous member, and might on that account be held responsible for the indignities and wrongs that had been heaped upon the wretched aborigines; but, in point of fact, Job disclaims having taken part in those ruthless acts of tyranny which caused the poor of the land to slink away and hide themselves, naked and shivering, in the dens and caves of the earth, in the holes and crevices of the rocks (Giobbe 24:4), and rather indicates that he regarded their sorrowful lot with compassion, even while, with disgust and aversion, he shrank from any contact with themselves. But:
2. Their own wickedness. They simply saw that he, whom they once knew as a powerful prince, was overtaken by evil fortune, and they turned upon him accordingly. That they traced Job's calamities, as Job himself did, to the hand of God (verse 11), was unlikely. Yet the result was the same. God, according to Job—according to them, fate—had unloosed iris bow and sent a shaft through the heart of this imperious autocrat, or had loosened the cord which upheld the tent of his hitherto vigorous body, and had laid him prostrate beneath a loathsome and painful disease; and so they, casting off restraint, assailed him with unbridled arrogance, acting out, in these early times, the familiar story of the kicking ass and the dead lion,
"But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence."
('Julius Caesar,' Atti degli Apostoli 3. sc. 2.)
Learn:
1. The certainty that man may decade himself beneath the level of the beasts.
2. The right of society to protect itself against the lawless and depraved.
3. The tendency of all wickedness to lead to misery even on earth.
4. The infallibility with which moral depravity perpetuates itself.
5. The instability which attends all human greatness.
6. The length to which wicked men will go in persecuting and oppressing others when God grants permission.
7. The inevitable approach of a nation's doom when its youth has become corrupt and depraved.
Job's second parable: 3. A sorrowful survey of present misery.
I. JOB'S BODILY AFFLICTION.
1. Overpowering. It was no trifling ailment that wrung from the heart of this fallen great man the exquisitely plaintive lament of the present section. The malady which had struck its fangs into his vitals was one that made his bowels boil, and rest not (verse 27); that caused his heart to melt like wax in the midst of his bowels (Salmi 22:14); yea, that dissolved his soul in tears (verse 16).
Most men have reason to be thankful that the afflictions they are called to endure are not absolutely intolerable; for which the praise is due to God's mercy alone. Yet not unless the soul is suitably affected by the ills that assail the body do these latter bring forth their designed results, the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The case of Job suggests that through the union and sympathy of soul and body man possesses an almost infinite capacity for suffering pain; while the fact that pain may minister to man's improvement is a testimony to man's superiority over the creatures.
2. Sudden. This was one of the circumstances that rendered Job's affliction so unmanning. It had sprung upon him unawares, apprehending him, and holding him fast as a detective might do a criminal (verse 16), at the very moment when he had been saying to himself, "I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand" ( Giobbe 29:18), and offering congratulations to himself on the apparently permanent as well as inexhaustible sources of his wealth, and on the palpably stable and unfading character of his glory.
3. Wasting. A second circumstance which tended to dissolve the soul of Job as he reflected on his physical trouble was the revolting character of the disease by which he had been overtaken. According to one view, Job by a strong poetic figure personifies the night (verse 17; cf. Giobbe 3:2) as a wild beast, which had leapt upon him in the darkness, and rent him limb from limb—the allusion being to the terrible nature of the Lepra Arabica, which "feeds on the bones and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached" (Delitzsch). To this, also, the wasting character of the disease (verse 18) is believed by the just-named commentator to refer.
4. Unsightly. An additional source of grief to the patriarch in thinking over his malady was the disfigurement of his person which it had occasioned. "By its great strength the garment (of his skin) was changed" (Gesenius), probably through frequent purulent discharge, or through the foul incrustations which covered his body; his skin also had become black, and was peeling off from his emaciated skeleton, while his bones within him were being consumed by a parching heat (verse 30). It is a special cross when God, through disease, readers a man of displeasing aspect to his fellows.
5. Incessant. The pain which Job suffered was seemingly continuous and without interruption. Already frequently insisted on in previous discourses (Giobbe 3:24; Giobbe 7:3, Giobbe 7:4, Giobbe 7:13, Giobbe 7:15; Giobbe 10:20, etc.
), it is here presented in a fresh series of images, Job describing his sinews as taking no rest (verse 17), literally, "my gnawers," meaning either his tormenting pains (Gesenius), or the gnawing worms formed in his ulcers (Delitzsch), "rest not," and speaking of his disease as binding him fast, and sticking closely to him like the collar of his coat (verse 18), and finally adding that his bowels, as the seat of pain, boiled and rested not (verse 27).
6. Manifold. In this his last lament Job confines not his attention to the one point of his bodily ailment, but makes a survey of the whole course of his affliction—from the day when, bereft of his family and possessions, he went about the streets as a mourner, arrayed in sackcloth, without the sun (verse 28), i.e. in such a state of grief and dejection that even the gladdening sunshine failed to give him pleasure, to that moment when he had become as "a brother to dragons and a companion to owls" (verse 29).
7. Degrading. By reason of this terrible disease he had been cast into the mire, and had become like dust and ashes (cf. Giobbe 16:15, Giobbe 16:16); nay, lower even than that, he had been reduced to the level of jackals and ostriches, creatures whose dolorous howlings fill men with shuddering and dejection.
II. JOB'S MENTAL ANGUISH. The thought which most keenly lacerated Job's bosom was the fixed and immovable idea which had fastened on his soul, that the God whom he had loved and served had become to him a changed God, who treated him with unsparing cruelty (verse 21). Of this the proof to Job's mind lay in several considerations.
1. That God was the real Author of Job's sufferings. It was he and no other who had cast Job into the mire (verse 19). In a very real sense this was true, since Job's malignant and unsleeping adversary could have had no power over him, except it had been given him from above; but in the sense which Job meant it was a hideous misconception, Satan and not God having been the enemy who had touched his bones and his flesh. Saints should be careful not to impute to God the blame of what he only permits.
2. That God remained deaf to Job's entreaties. "I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me;" i.e. lookest fixedly at me (verse 20), meeting my earnest reverential upward glance with a stare of stony indifference, if not of hostile intent (cf. verse 24). A fearful perversion of the truth which Job's prolonged misery cannot justify.
God is the enemy of no man who does not first make himself an enemy of God. "The face of God is set against them that do evil;" but "God's eyes are ever towards the righteous" with looks of love and benignant compassion. Even when he forbears to help, and seems to be deaf to the good man's supplications, he hears and pities. If God answers not, it is in love rather than in hate. Whatever befalls a saint he should hold fast by the unchanging and unfaltering love of the Divine Father. Believers under the gospel should find this easier to do than Job did.
3. That God was insensible to Job's feebleness. With the strength of his omnipotent arm he Appeared to be making war upon one who was insignificant and frail, heedless of the agonies he inflicted or the terrors he inspired, lifting up his victim upon the fierce hurricane of tribulation, causing him to drive along before its howling blasts and to vanish in the crashing of the storm, as a thin cloud is caught by the whirling tempest, "blown with restless violence found about the pendent world," and finally dispersed by the violent agitation it endures (verses 21, 22).
4. That God had fixedly resolved on Job's destruction. In Job's anguish-laden mind it was a foregone conclusion that God had determined to pursue him to the grave, to bring him down to the dust of death; to shut him up in the house of assembly for all living (verse 23). Job's conception of the grave was sublimely true. It was and is "the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.
" Job's belief that God would eventually conduct him thither was likewise correct. "It is appointed unto all men once to die." Job's apprehension that his immediate dissolution was decreed was wrong. The times of all are in the hand of God; and it is not given to any to anticipate with certainty the day and the hour of departure from this sublunary scene. So also was Job's inference erroneous that prayer was unavailing when God had determined on a creature's destruction (verse 24).
It was not so in the case of Hezekiah, to whom God, in answer to his fervent supplication, added fifteen years (2 Re 20:1; Isaia 38:1). But even should God decline to move the shadow on the dial backward, it is still not in vain for dying men to call aloud to him in prayer, inasmuch as he can help them by his grace to meet that which by his hand he will not avert.
5. That God took no account of Job's philanthropies. Job had wept for him that was in trouble or whose day was hard, and his soul had been grieved for the needy (Giobbe 29:12, Giobbe 29:13). Yet God was to all appearance indifferent. This, however, was only another misconception on the part of Job.
The Almighty notes with loving eye every kind deed performed by his servants on earth, and will reward even a ernst of bread or a cup of cold water given in his name to a poor one. Only the time of recompense will be hereafter. Hence no one is entitled to expect, like Job, that his good actions shall be rewarded here. "Do good, hoping for nothing again," is the maxim prescribed to Christ's followers. Acted upon, it will save them from the disappointment which almost crushed the soul of Job (verse 26).
Learn:
1. The absolute impossibility of avoiding days of suffering.
2. The ease with which God can remove happiness from the lot of man.
3. The inability of any one to sustain the burden of affliction without Divine help.
4. The foolishness of glorying in either strength or beauty, since both can at a word be transformed into dust and ashes.
5. The extreme danger of allowing affliction to pervert the mind's views of God.
6. The error of supposing that God can regard any creature, much less any child of his own, with hate.
7. The propriety of frequently considering where life's journey terminates.
8. The certainty that death cannot be turned aside by either piety or prayers.
9. The evil case of him who can find no enjoyment in Heaven's mercies.
10. The sinfulness of giving free course to one's complaint, especially against God, in the time of affliction.
11. The inevitable tendency of trouble to deteriorate and debase those whom it does not exalt and refine.
12. The possibility of one who thinks himself a brother of jackals and companion of ostriches becoming a son of God and fellow of the angels.
13. The certainty that for all saints mourning will yet be turned into joy.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
The troubles of the present.
In contrast to the happy past of honour and respect on which he has been so wistfully dwelling in the previous chapter, Job sees himself now exposed to the scorn and contempt of the meanest of mankind; while a flood of miseries from the hand of God passes over him. From this last chapter we have learned the honour and authority with which it sometimes pleases God to crown the pious and the faithful.
From the present we see how at other times he crucifies and puts them to the proof. They must be tried on "the right hand and on the left" (2 Corinzi 6:7; comp. Filippesi 4:12). We are reminded, too, of the transiency of all worldly good. The heavens and the earth shall perish; how much more the glory, power, and happiness of the flesh (Isaia 40:1.)!
I. THE CONTEMPT OF MEN. (Verses 1-10.) The young men, who were wont to rise in his presence, laugh him to scorn; youths whose fathers, the lowest of mankind—thievish, faithless, and worthier, a—were of leas value than the watch-dogs of his flock (verse 1). Themselves, the young men had been of no service to him; they had failed of the full strength of manhood; dried up with want and hunger, they had derived their scanty subsistence from the desolate and barren steppe (verses 2, 3); plucking up the salt herbs and bushes and juniper roots for food (verse 4).
These wretches led the life of pariahs; driven forth from the society of men, the hunt-cry was raised after them as after thieves. Their place of dwelling was in horrid ravines and caves and rocks (verses 5, 6). Their wild shouts were heard in the bush; they lay and formed their plots of robbery among the nettles (verse 7). Sons of fools and base men, they were scourged out of the land (verse 8).
A fearful picture of the dregs of human life! Perhaps those Troglodytes (comp. Giobbe 24:4 :) were the Horites, the original inhabitants of the mountainous country of Seir, conquered by the Edomites (Genesi 36:6-1; Deuteronomio 2:12, Deuteronomio 2:22). Of these degraded beings Job has now become the scoffing-song, the derisive byword (verse 9).
They show towards him every mark of abhorrence, retreating from him, or only drawing near to spit in his face with the silent coarse language of contumely and disgust (verse 10; comp. Matteo 26:67; Matteo 27:30). Had Job in any way brought this treatment upon himself from the vilest of mankind? Certainly there is nothing in the story which leads us to cast the blame of haughty or heartless conduct upon the hero.
Still, it is ever true that we reap as we sow; but the sower and the reaper may be different persons. The cruel measure meted out to these unfortunates is now measured to the innocent Job. It is not in human nature to requite love with hatred or to give loathing in return for kindness. The responsibility of society for its outcasts is a deep lesson which we have only begun in modern times to learn.
All men, however fallen and low, must be treated as the creatures of God. If we treat them as wild beasts, we can but expect the wild-beast return. Said Rabbi Ben Azar, "Despise not any man, and spurn not anything. For there is no man that hath not his hour, nor is there anything that hath not its place." Says our own Wordsworth—
"He who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
That he hath never used, and thought with him
Is in its infancy."
And again—
"Be assured That least of all can aught that ever owned
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to, sink, howe'er depressed,
So low as to be scorned without a sin,
Without offence to God, cast out of view."
"Condescend to men of low estate." Gentleness and compassion to our inferiors is one of the chief lessons of our holy religion.
II. ABANDONMENT TO MISERY BY GOD. (Verses 11-15.) Health and happiness are ours when God holds us by his hand; sickness, languor, and mental misery when he loosens his grasp. Job's nerves are relaxed. The war-bands of the Almighty have loosed the bridle; angels and messengers of ill, diseases and plagues, hunt the unhappy sufferer down (verse 11).
This dark throng seems to rise up at his right hand—the place of the accuser (Salmi 109:6)—and to push away his feet, driving him into a narrow space, laying open before him their ways of destruction, heaping up against him besieging ramparts, thus tearing down his own path, his formerly undisputed way of life. They help forward his ruin, needing no assistance from others in the pernicious work (verses 12, 13).
On comes this terrible besieging host, as through a wide breach in the wall of life—rolls on with loud roar, while the defences fall into ruin (verse 14). Terrors turn against him, sudden horrors of death (comp. Giobbe 18:11, Giobbe 18:14; Giobbe 27:20) hunting after his honour—the honour depicted in Giobbe 29:20, seq.
His happiness, in consequence of these violent assaults, passes away suddenly and tracklessly as a cloud from the face of heaven (Giobbe 29:15; comp. Giobbe 7:9; Isaia 44:22). If God lays his hand upon the body or outward happiness of his children, there will seldom be release without inward conflict, anguish, fear, and terror. It is with such persons as with St. Paul; without is conflict, and within is fear (2 Corinzi 7:5).
III. INCONCEIVABLE INWARD DISTRESS. (Giobbe 29:16.) His soul is melted and poured out within him; his frame is dissolved in tears. Days of pain hold him in their grip, refuse to depart and leave him in peace (Giobbe 29:16). The night racks and pierces his bones, and allows his sinews no rest (Giobbe 29:17).
By the fearful power of God he is so withered up that his garment hangs loose about him, wraps him like the collar of a coat, nowhere fitting his body (Giobbe 29:18). God has cast him upon the ash-heap—a sign of the deepest humiliation (Giobbe 16:15)—till his skin resembles dust and ashes in its hue (Giobbe 29:19).
In this nerveless condition prayer itself seems unable to stir its loftiest, most hopeful energies. He can but cry, grievously and in supplication, but without the hope of being heard. "I stand, and thou lookest fixedly at me"—no sign of attention in thy glance, of favour in thine eye (Giobbe 29:20). The aspect of the almighty Father, seen through the medium of intense suffering, becomes one of cruelty and horror (Giobbe 29:21).
Lifting him upon the storm-wind as upon a chariot, God causes him to be carried away, and dissolved as it were in the yeasty surging of the storm (Giobbe 29:22). He knows that God is carrying him to death, the place of assembly for all the living (Giobbe 29:23).
IV. FAILURE OF ALL HIS HOPES. (Job 29:24 -31.) According to human calculation, he must despair of life. But can the unhappy man be blamed if he stretches out his hand for help amidst the ruin of his fall, and sends forth his cry as he passes into destruction? Is not this a law for all living creatures (Giobbe 29:24)? Did not Job show compassion in all the misfortunes of others, and has he not, therefore, a right to complain, and expect compassion in his own (verse 25)? All the suffering of Job is condemned in the thought that, after the happiness of former days had bred hopes of the like future, he was visited by the deepest misery, and cast into the lowest distress (verses 26-31).
The light of former days glances upon him again, and so his address reverts to its beginning (Giobbe 29:1.). Hoping for good, there ensued evil (Isaia 59:9; Geremia 14:19); waiting for the light, deeper darkness came on. There is an inward seething of the mind. Days of affliction have fallen upon him.
He goes darkened, without the glow of the sun; his swarthy appearance is due to another cause—he is smeared with dust and ashes. He stands in the assembly, giving loud vent to his lamentation amidst the mourning company who surround him. A "brother to the jackals, a comrade of the ostriches," these desert creatures of the loud and plaintive cry, is be. His black skin parts and falls from him; his bones are parched by a consuming heat.
And then, in one beautiful poetic touch, the whole description of his woe is summed up, "My harp became mourning, and my shalm mournful tones." But he will yet learn to tune his harp again to gladness and praise. Now, however, his melancholy haunts him; and not one kindly glance pierces the gloom of his dark thoughts to give him comfort. But despair of self has never led Job to despair of God. There is still, therefore, a glimmering spark of hope amidst this wild storm.
He carries in his hand a bud which will yet unfold into a flower. This is no example of the fatal sorrow of the world, but of the life-giving power of the sorrow that is after God (compare Robertson's sermon on the 'Power of Sorrow,' vol. 2.).—J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
A sorrowful contrast.
Job's condition has become one of sorrowfulness, the humiliation of which stands in direct contrast to his former state. He graphically expresses it in a few words: "But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock." The picture of sorrowful humiliation, standing in contrast, to previous honour, wealth, and power, is very striking. It is a typical example, showing to what depths the loftiest may be reduced. The details are as follows.
I. THE CONTEMPTUOUS TREATMENT OF MEAN AND UNWORTHY MEN. "They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. And now am i their song, yes, I am their byword. They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my race.' It requires the utmost strength of righteous principle, and the most complete self-command and self-restraint, to endure such treatment without violent outbreaks of passion.
II. GREAT MENTAL AFFLICTION. "Terrors are turned upon me;" "My soul is poured out in me."
III. GREAT BODILY PAIN. a My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest."
IV. APPARENT INDIFFERENCE OF GOD TO HIS PRAYER. Saddest hour of all the sad hours of the human life is that when the one unfailing Helper closes his ear. The lowest depth of sorrow reached by the Man of sorrows found expression in "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
V. A ciò si aggiunge IL TIMORE CHE DIO STESSO GLI RIVOLGA LA MANO CONTRO DI LUI . "Sei diventato crudele con me." Le sue afflizioni gli appaiono come giudizi divini, eppure non sa perché è afflitto.
VI. IL TENEBROSO APPRENSIONE CHE TUTTI WILL FINE IN MORTE . "Tu mi condurrai alla morte." Nessuna luminosità in lontananza rallegra il malato. Non c'è prospettiva di luce a sera.
VII. A tutto si aggiunge IL SITTER dolore DI ESCLUSIONE . È un emarginato. Non c'è aiuto per lui nell'uomo. "Sono un fratello per i draghi e un compagno per i gufi." Amaro, infatti, è il calice mescolato di tali ingredienti. Forte il cuore che può così soffrire e non spezzarsi. —RG
OMELIA DI WF ADENEY
La caduta dall'onore al disprezzo.
I. SFORTUNA PORTA CONTEMPT , Job è stato appena recitando gli onori dei suoi giorni più felici. Con la perdita della prosperità è arrivata la perdita di quegli onori. Colui che è stato servilmente adulato in ricchezza e successo è crudelmente disprezzato nel tempo delle avversità. Questo è mostruosamente ingiusto, e Giobbe lo sente. Tuttavia, è solo vero per la vita. Gli uomini giudicano dall'aspetto esteriore.
Perciò chi sperimenta in una certa misura ciò che ha vissuto Giobbe non deve essere colto di sorpresa. Il giudizio del mondo vale poco. La buona opinione degli uomini può cambiare come una banderuola. Bisogna cercare una gloria più alta, più sicura, vera e duratura di quella dell'onore dell'uomo.
II. L'ORGOGLIO SI PREPARA AL DISprezzo . C'è una nota di orgoglio nel versetto 1, "I cui padri avrei disdegnato di mettere insieme ai cani del mio gregge". Una reliquia dell'alterigia aristocratica si insinua in questa espressione del patriarca umiliato. Se trattiamo gli uomini come cani, possiamo aspettarci che, quando avranno il calice per farlo, si rivolteranno contro di noi come cani. Possono rannicchiarsi e rabbrividire quando siamo forti, ma sono ansiosi di attaccarci quando arriva il nostro momento di debolezza.
III. LA NATURA MEDIA GIUDICA SUPERFICIALMENTE . Come li descrive Giobbe, le miserabili creature che si rivoltarono contro di lui erano la feccia stessa della popolazione. Erano fuorilegge e ladri e persone senza valore che erano state portate nelle caverne di montagna, fannulloni ed esseri degradati che estirpano erbacce per vivere. Chiaramente questi uomini devono essere distinti dai poveri il cui unico difetto è la mancanza di mezzi.
Eppure tra loro potrebbero esserci stati alcuni di quelli che nei suoi giorni più prosperi Giobbe 29:13 Giobbe per averli aiutati quando erano pronti a perire (vedere Giobbe 29:13 ). L'ingratitudine è fin troppo comune tra tutti gli uomini, e non possiamo stupirci di trovarla in persone di abitudini basse e brutali.
IV. IT IS DOLOROSA DI SUBIRE DA CONTEMPT . Nella sua prosperità Giobbe avrebbe disprezzato l'opinione di coloro che ora lo tormentano con i loro insulti. Eppure non avrebbe mai potuto compiacersi sotto il disprezzo. È stato ben detto che l'uomo più grande del mondo proverebbe qualche disagio se venisse a sapere che la creatura più meschina della terra lo disprezzava dal profondo del suo cuore.
L'orgoglio che è del tutto indifferente alla buona o cattiva opinione degli altri non è una virtù. L'umiltà darà un certo valore al favore degli ultimi. Se abbiamo spirito di fratellanza non possiamo non desiderare di vivere in buoni rapporti con tutti i nostri vicini.
V. IT È POSSIBILE PER GIRARE DA IL DISPREZZO DI MAN PER IL RICONOSCIMENTO DI DIO . Il cristiano dovrebbe imparare a sopportare il disprezzo, poiché Cristo lo ha sopportato.
Fu "disprezzato e rigettato dagli uomini" ( Isaia 53:3 ). Come Giobbe, fu insultato e gli sputò addosso. Eppure sentiamo che tutti gli insulti di cui è stato caricato non lo hanno davvero umiliato. Al contrario, non ci appare mai così dignitoso come quando «non aprì bocca» in mezzo allo sdegno e all'oltraggio. In quella terribile scena della notte prima della crocifissione, sono i nemici di Cristo che ci appaiono abbassati e avviliti.
Ora sappiamo che la croce era il fondamento della più alta gloria di Cristo. «Per questo anche Dio lo ha sovranamente innalzato» ( Filippesi 2:9 ). La Chiesa ha incoronato d'onore le memorie dei suoi martiri. I cristiani disprezzati e sofferenti possono imparare a possedere la propria anima con pazienza se camminano alla luce del volto di Dio. —WFA
La schiavitù dell'afflizione.
Giobbe non sta solo attraversando le acque dell'afflizione; si sente afferrato e sopraffatto dai suoi guai. Vediamo cosa comporta questa condizione: lo stato di stallo della schiavitù ei suoi effetti.
I. LO STATO DI TRALDOMA . Ciò deriva semplicemente dal fatto che l'afflizione è salita a un'altezza tale da aver sopraffatto il malato.
1 . Il problema non può essere buttato via. Ci sono problemi da cui possiamo fuggire. Spesso possiamo abbattere le nostre circostanze avverse. Possiamo affrontare il nostro nemico e sconfiggerlo. Ma altri problemi non possono essere respinti. Quando il nemico arriva come un diluvio, nessuno sforzo umano può arginare il torrente.
2 . L' angoscia non può essere sopportata con calma. I problemi più lievi possono essere semplicemente sopportati con pazienza. Non possiamo scacciarli, ma possiamo imparare a trattarli come inevitabili. C'è una forza che nasce dalle avversità. La quercia cresce robusta nella lotta contro la tempesta. I muscoli del lottatore sono forti come il ferro. Ma l'angoscia può raggiungere un punto oltre il quale non può essere dominata. La pazienza è spezzata.
3 . L' afflizione assorbe tutta la vita. Il dolore sale a una tale altezza da dominare la coscienza ed escludere tutti gli altri pensieri. L'uomo è semplicemente posseduto dalla sua agonia. Enormi ondate di angoscia si riversano su tutto il suo essere e annegano ogni altro sentimento. Il sofferente non è altro che una vittima, l'azione si perde nel dolore pauroso. Il martire è disteso sulla rastrelliera. Il suo aguzzino lo ha privato di ogni energia e libertà.
II. GLI EFFETTI DI QUESTA CONDIZIONE . Un tale stato di schiavitù deve essere un male. È distruttivo dello sforzo personale. Esclude ogni servizio d'amore e la sottomissione della pazienza. Eppure può essere un mezzo per un buon fine.
1 . Dovrebbe essere un castigo salutare. Per il momento è grave. Nella sua fase più acuta potrebbe non permetterci di impararne di meno, ms. Ma quando comincia a placare la sua furia, e abbiamo un po' di calma con cui guardarci indietro, possiamo vedere che la tempesta ha ripulito l'aria e spazzato via una massa di spazzatura malsana.
2 . Dovrebbe essere un motivo per condurci a Dio . Una tale tremenda afflizione richiede l'unico rifugio perfetto per chi è in difficoltà. Finché possiamo sopportare i nostri problemi, siamo tentati di confidare nelle nostre forze; ma il misero crollo, il crollo totale, l'umiliante schiavitù, dimostrano la nostra impotenza e il nostro bisogno di Uno che è più potente di noi. Ora, la possibilità stessa di problemi così travolgenti è una ragione per cui dovremmo cercare il rifugio della grazia di Dio. È difficile trovare il rifugio quando la tempesta infuria intorno a noi. Abbiamo bisogno di essere fortificati in anticipo dalla forza interiore di Dio.
3. It should make us sympathetic with others. If we have escaped from the thraldom, it is our part to help those who are in it. We know its terrors and its despair.
4. It should lead us to make the best use of prosperous times. Then we can learn the way of Divine strength. Martyrs have triumphed where weaker men have been in bondage. The life of unselfish service, loyalty, and faith is a life of freedom. God will not permit such a life to be utterly enthralled by affliction. That awful late is the doom of the lost.—W.F.A.
Charging God with cruelty.
At the first onset of his afflictions it could be said of the patriarch, "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly" (Giobbe 1:22). But the aggravation of his troubles, followed by the vexatious advice of his friends, has since then more than once forced unwise words from his lips, and now he is directly charging God with becoming cruel to him.
I. GOD'S ACTION MAY APPEAR CRUEL TO MAN. God permits or inflicts pain. When man cries for relief, relief does not come—at least in the way expected. It is not easy to see why the suffering is sent. To us it seems unnecessary. We think we could have done our duty better without it.
There appears to be an iron fate bearing down upon us regardless of our needs, or deserts, or helplessness. This is brought home to us with peculiar poignancy, under the most trying circumstances.
1. An accumulation of troubles. One man has more than his share of them. Blow follows blow. The fallen is crushed. Tender wounds are chafed. This was Job's experience.
2. The suffering of the innocent. Bad men are seen to be flourishing while good men are in distress. This looks like indifference to moral claims.
3. The overthrow of the useful. Job had been a most helpful man in his time; his downfall meant the cessation of his kind services for many people in trouble. We see valuable lives cut off or made useless, while mischievous people thrive and grow fat.
4. The refusal to deliver. Job had not been proud, unbelieving, self-contained. He had prayed. But God appeared not to hear or regard him (verse 20).
II. GOD IS NEVER CRUEL TO MAN. Job was now charging God foolishly. We have to judge of a man's character by his deeds till we know him. Then, if we become fully assured that he is good, we reverse the process, and estimate any dubious-looking conduct by the clear character of the man In the same way, after we have come to know that God is a true Father, that his nature is love, our wisest course is not to fling off our faith, and charge God with cruelty when he deals with us in what looks to us like a harsh manner.
He cannot be false to his nature. But our eyes are dim; our sight is short; our self-centred experience perverts our judgment. We have to learn to trust the constant character of God when we cannot understand his present conduct.
III. NARROW RELIGIOUS VIEWS LEAD TO UNJUST CHARGES AGAINST GOD. Job's three friends were to a large extent responsible for the patriarch's condition of mind, in which he was driven to charge God with cruelty. They had set up an impossible rule, and the evident falsehood of it had driven Job to desperation.
A harsh orthodoxy is responsible for very much unbelief. Self-elected advocates of God have thus a good deal of mischief to answer for. In attempting to defend the Divine government some of these people have presented it in a very ugly light. Whilst they have been dinning their formal precepts into men's ears on what they regard as the authority of revelation, they have been rousing a spirit of revolt, till what is most Divine in man, his conscience, has risen up and protested against their dogmas.
From the days of Job till our own time theology has too often darkened the world's idea of God. If we turn from man to God himself, we shall discover that he is better than his advocates represent him to be. When it is our duty to speak of religion, let us be careful not to fall into the error of Job's friends, and generate hard thoughts of God by narrow, un-Christ-like teachings.—W.F.A.
The house of death.
Job expects nothing better than death, which he regards as "the house appointed for all living," or rather as the house for the meeting of all living.
I. IL VIAGGIO DELLA VITA FINE È LA CASA DELLA MORTE . I vivi stanno marciando verso la morte. Sant'Agostino, seguendo Seneca, in un brano suggestivo de 'La città di Dio', descrive come si muore sempre, perché dal primo momento della vita ci avviciniamo alla morte.
Non possiamo restare sulle ruote dei nostri carri. Il fiume non smetterà di scorrere e ci sta portando nell'oceano della morte. È difficile per i giovani e i forti accettare l'idea che non vivranno per sempre, e arriviamo al pensiero della morte con una sorta di shock. Ma questo significa solo che non possiamo vedere la fine della strada mentre si snoda in uno scenario piacevole che distoglie la nostra attenzione dalla prospettiva più lontana.
II. LA CASA DELLA MORTE È IN OSCURO CONTRASTO CON IL VIAGGIO DELLA VITA . Sono i vivi che sono destinati a entrare in questa casa spaventosa. Ecco uno dei più grandi contrasti possibili: vita e morte; ecco una delle transizioni più straordinarie: dalla vita alla morte.
Tutte le nostre rivoluzioni sulla terra sono nulla in confronto a questo tremendo cambiamento. La morte è solo la fine e la cessazione della vita, mentre tutte le altre esperienze, anche le più grandi e sconvolgenti, non sono che modifiche della vita che ancora conserviamo. Non è meraviglioso, quindi, che questa oscura casa di morte abbia fortemente influenzato l'immaginazione degli uomini. La cosa sorprendente è che tanti dovrebbero esserne indifferenti.
III. LA CASA DELLA MORTE È PER OGNI UOMO VIVENTE . Nessun truismo è più banale dell'affermazione che tutti gli uomini sono mortali. Ecco un luogo comune che non può essere smentito, ma il suo carattere molto evidente dovrebbe sottolinearne il significato.
La morte è il grande livellatore. Nella vita andiamo in molti modi; finalmente andiamo tutti allo stesso modo. Ora alcuni passano attraverso le porte del palazzo e altri attraverso i portali delle segrete; alla fine tutti devono passare per la stessa stretta porta. Questa comunanza del destino non dovrebbe forse aiutare ad avvicinare tutti i mortali nella vita?
IV. LA CASA DELLA MORTE È UN LUOGO DI INCONTRO . È descritto da Giobbe come una casa di assemblaggio. Moltitudini sono raccolte lì. Coloro che se ne vanno vanno a «unirsi alla maggioranza». Là abitano molti che abbiamo conosciuto sulla terra, alcuni che abbiamo amato.
Molto mistero circonda la casa della morte; ma non può essere un luogo del tutto strano se tanti che ci sono stati vicini sulla terra ci stanno aspettando lì. La gioia della riunione dovrebbe disperdere le tenebre della morte. Ogni persona cara persa sulla terra ci rende più di una casa nell'invisibile.
V. LA CASA DI MORTE CAVI PER IL REGNO DI VITA PER TUTTI CHE SONNO IN CRISTO . Non è una prigione cupa. È solo un'oscura anticamera di un regno di luce e beatitudine.
La morte, infatti, non è una dimora, ma un passaggio. Non abbiamo motivo di pensare che la morte sia una condizione duratura nel caso di coloro le cui anime non muoiono nel peccato; per gli impenitenti, infatti, è un terribile destino delle tenebre. Ma per coloro che hanno in sé la nuova vita di Cristo, la morte può essere solo l'atto momentaneo del morire. Certamente non è la loro condizione eterna. Parliamo dei beati morti; dovremmo pensare alla vita glorificata, nata nello stato immortale di beatitudine celeste. —WFA
Delusione.
Giobbe era deluso nell'incontrare mali spaventosi quando cercava il bene. Una delusione come la sua è rara; eppure in qualche modo è l'esperienza frequente di tutti noi. Consideriamo il significato della delusione.
I. DELUSIONE E ' UNO DEI LE INEVITABILI PROVE DELLA VITA . Non dovremmo essere sopraffatti dalla disperazione quando la incontriamo. Fa parte della comune sorte dell'uomo, parte del comune destino della natura. Quanti fiori primaverili cadono a terra gelati e senza frutto! Quante speranze di uomini non sono che "castelli in Spagna"! Se tutto ciò che avevamo sognato di ottenere diventasse nostro, la terra non sarebbe il mondo che conosciamo, ma un raro paradiso.
II. LA DELUSIONE AGGRAVA I PROBLEMI . La sua inevitabilità non attira il suo pungiglione. Aspettarsi il bene e tuttavia incontrare il male è doppiamente angosciante. Dà uno shock come quello che si prova incontrando un gradino discendente dove ci si preparava a fare un gradino ascendente. Si perde ogni senso di sicurezza e si avverte una dolorosa sorpresa.
La sensazione è solo sperimentata nel passaggio da una condizione all'altra, e la violenza della transizione intensifica la sensazione. Quando l'occhio è regolato per vedere una luce brillante, l'oscurità di un luogo buio è ancora più profonda. Il sanguigno soffre di dolori che le nature più ottuse non sono preparate a provare.
III. DELUSIONE MOLLE DA IGNORANZA . Ci deve essere stato un errore da qualche parte. O giudicavamo dalle apparenze, o ci affidavamo troppo ai desideri del nostro cuore. Dio non può mai essere deluso, perché Dio sa tutto e vede la fine dall'inizio. Da qui la sua pazienza e longanimità. È bene vedere che Dio che così sa tutto è sommamente beato. Nessuna delusione può dissipare la sua gioia perfetta. Quindi non il male e il dolore, ma il bene e la gioia, devono essere in definitiva supremi nell'universo.
IV. LA DELUSIONE È UNA DISCIPLINA SANA . Dio ci lascia delusi per poter trarre profitto dall'esperienza dolorosa. A volte ci siamo affidati a una speranza indegna; allora è meglio che l'idolo venga infranto. Se una qualche speranza terrena è stata idolatrata, perderla può essere un bene, portandoci al nostro vero Dio.
È possibile, tuttavia, essere il peggiore per la delusione, che può amareggiare l'anima e portare alla misantropia e alla disperazione. Abbiamo bisogno di una fede solida per resistere ai colpi di problemi imprevisti.
V. DELUSIONE SARA MAI DISTRUGGERE IL VERO CRISTIANO SPERANZA . Le speranze terrene possono svanire in fumo, ma la speranza in Cristo è certa. Anche questo può essere perso di vista poiché la luce del faro è oscurata dalla tempesta impetuosa; ma non si spegne. Perché la nostra speranza cristiana riposa sull'eterna costanza di Dio, e non riguarda le cose terrene fragili e sbiadite, ma le verità eterne del cielo. Browning descrive l'uomo il cui cuore e la cui vita sono forti contro la delusione:
"Uno che non ha mai voltato le spalle,
ma ha marciato a petto in avanti;
Non ha mai dubitato che le nuvole si sarebbero spezzate;
Non ha mai sognato, anche se il bene fosse stato sconfitto, il
male avrebbe trionfato Se
fossimo caduti per rialzarci, siamo sconcertati per combattere meglio,
Dormi per svegliarti."
WFA
L'arpa si trasformò in lutto.
Questo è deludente e incongruo. L'arpa non è come le cornamuse usate ai funerali orientali per i lamenti. È uno strumento per la musica gioiosa. Eppure l'arpa di Giobbe si trasforma in lutto.
I. L' UOMO HA UNA FACOLTÀ NATURALE DELLA GIOIA . Giobbe aveva la sua arpa, o quella in lui di cui l'arpa era simbolica. Alcune persone sono di disposizione più melanconiche di altre, ma nessuno è così costituito da essere incapace di provare la gioia. Consideriamo giustamente la malinconia stabilizzata come una forma di follia. La gioia non è solo la nostra eredità; è una cosa necessaria. La gioia del Signore è la nostra forza ( Nehemia 8:10 ). Nehemia 8:10
II. I TRISTI UNA VOLTA ERANO GIOIOSI . L'arpa di Giobbe è sintonizzata sul lutto. Quindi il suo uso doveva essere pervertito prima che potesse essere pensato come uno strumento di lamento. Fu quindi affidato a un nuovo, inusuale impiego. Ciò implica che era stato familiarmente conosciuto come uno strumento gioioso. Nel dolore non consideriamo a sufficienza quanta gioia abbiamo avuto nella vita, o, se guardiamo indietro alle scene più luminose del passato, troppo spesso questo è semplicemente per contrastarle con il presente, e quindi per approfondire il nostro sentimento di angoscia. Ma sarebbe più giusto e grato per noi vedere le nostre vite nella loro interezza e riconoscere quanta gioia hanno contenuto come motivo di gratitudine a Dio.
III. LA VITA È SEGNATA DA ESPERIENZE ALTERNATIVE . Poche vite sono senza un barlume di sole, e nessuna vita è senza un'ombra di dolore. L'una forma di esperienza passa all'altra, spesso con uno shock di sorpresa. Siamo fin troppo facilmente abituati a stabilirci nella forma attuale dell'esperienza, come se fosse destinata a essere permanente.
Ma la cosa più saggia è prendere le vicissitudini della vita, non come convulsioni innaturali, come rivoluzioni contro l'ordine della natura; ma, come le stagioni mutevoli, come accade i, il corso ordinato e regolare degli eventi.
IV. IT IS POSSIBILE DI AVERE MUSICA IN TRISTEZZA . Giobbe non si descrive come quei prigionieri di Babilonia che appendevano le loro arpe ai salici ( Salmi 137:2 ). La sua arpa suona ancora, ma la musica deve accordarsi con i sentimenti del tempo, e l'allegria deve lasciare il posto a note lamentose.
Quindi la melodia è in tono minore. C'è ancora la melodia. Il Libro di Giobbe, che tratta in gran parte del dolore, è un poema: è composto in linguaggio musicale. Il dolore è una grande fonte di ispirazione per la poesia. Quanta musica si perderebbe se si cancellassero tutte le armonie che sono venute da soggetti tristi! Se, poi, il dolore può ispirare il canto e la musica, è naturale concludere chiacchiere che il canto e la musica adatti dovrebbero consolare il dolore.
Le anime deboli gemono nella disperazione discorde, ma le anime forti armonizzano i loro dolori con tutta la loro natura; e sebbene possano non percepirlo in quel momento, quando riflettono nei giorni successivi, sentono l'eco di una musica solenne nel ricordo della loro dolorosa esperienza. Quando l'angelo del dolore prende in mano l'arpa e fa vibrare le corde, risuonano note strane, terribili, elettrizzanti, molto più ricche e profonde di quelle che saltano e danzano al tocco della gioia. Il mistero divino del dolore che si raccoglie intorno alla croce di Cristo non è aspro, ma musicale con la dolcezza dell'amore eterno. —WFA