Job 2:10 But he said to her, You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God… We have here put before us the highest and most perfect type of "patience," in the sense of simple resignation. It is the greatest picture ever drawn of that calm, unhesitating, and profound acquiescence in the will of God, which, to borrow the words of Dean Stanley, was one of the "qualities which marked Eastern religions, when to the West they were almost unknown, and which even now is more remarkably exhibited in Eastern nations than among ourselves." "Thy will be done" is "a prayer which lies at the very root of all religion." It stands among the foremost petitions of the Lord's Prayer. It is deeply engraven in the whole religious spirit of the sons of Abraham, even of the race of Israel. In the words, "God is great" (Allah Akbar), it expresses the best side of Mohammedanism, the profound submission to the will of a heavenly Master. It is embodied in the very words, Moslem and Islam. And we, servants of the Crucified One, must feel that to be ready to leave all in God's hands, not merely because He is great, but because we know Him to be wise, and feel Him to be good, is of the very essence of religion in its very highest aspect. Bishop Butler has well said that though such a passive virtue may have no field for exercise in a happier world, yet the frame of mind which it produces, and of which it is the fruit and sign, is the very frame of all others to fit man to be an active fellow worker with his God, in a larger sphere, and with other faculties. And the very highest type of such submission we have set before us in Job. Poor as he now is, he is rich in trust and in nearness to his God; and Christian souls, trained in the teaching of Christian centuries, will feel that if there is a God and Father above us, it is better to have felt towards Him as Job felt, than to have been the lord of many slaves and flocks and herds, and the possessor of unclouded happiness on a happy earth. (Dean Bradley.) Parallel Verses KJV: But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. |
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