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While Job is held up as the model of patience and resignation under God's chastening hand, we are continually reminded of a certain irritability and restlessness which surprises and distresses us. But a similar difficulty is elsewhere found. David is the model of purity, while there is no saint whose memory is so stained with impurity. Moses is emphatically the type of meekness, while the salient point of his life which attracts our notice is extreme irritability. Manly straightforwardness is the leading feature in the character of Abraham, while a shuffling trick is the one fault by which his memory is marked. Examine this apparent inconsistency in Job. He is brought before our attention as a man deeply impressed with the sense of common fairness, and a dread at seeing success awarded to the wicked, and adversity to the good. His own ease fell under the latter clause, and with no selfish or interested view he makes his own position the opportunity of impugning God's providence. The leading inconsistency which we have to reconcile is the fact that God should have suspended the law of His moral kingdom in Job's case, and awarded suffering to the righteous. But if we look a little deeper, we shall see at once that the fairness and justice of God were vindicated and asserted, not infringed, in Job's case. A challenge had been made by Satan which impugned the justice of God's estimate of His servant in heaping upon him so many and such abundant blessings. No test could have been more severe than that to which Job was put, and in the end the entire and humble submission of the patriarch to the will of his Maker declared beyond controversy the justice of God's estimate of His servant, and manifested before Satan and the world the power of saving grace. The object of God is not simply the reward of the good by prosperity, and the punishment of the wicked, but it is also the vindication of His grace and power by the subjection of man to His will, and the manifestation of the sanctity of His elect. There is a seeming inconsistency between Job's actual life and the character given him. But it must be remembered that the character of the man is generally not the upper surface which catches the eye. It is not the irritated waves and billows of the sea, but that vast belt of waters which girdles the earth below the ever-moving and heaving bosom of the deep, which constitutes the nature of the ocean. That undercurrent of a man's will and ways is the result of many a contradiction to his natural disposition, and he does not deserve the title of a peculiar character until he has vindicated his right to it by overcoming the influences which are contradictory to it. The natural tendency of Job was that of patient trust in God; it needed the contradiction of circumstances most adverse to that disposition to test and confirm its tendency. Lessons —

1. We little know the reason and cause of God's dealing with us; we see the handwriting on the wall, but we see not the hand. We know nothing of remote and hidden causes; we only shall know them and understand them, when, at the end of the world, the handwriting is interpreted. We are inclined to blame God's fairness. But He is fair, He is just. But it is in the whole and complete fulfilment of His scheme that fairness is to be manifested — in the integrity of the drama, not in the isolated scenes.

2. Note the apparent inconsistency of Job's own character. He began with implicit, unquestioning resignation; his after conduct betrays impatience, and an inclination to argue against those who were apparently pleading the cause of God. The key is found in the last chapter. At the end, his resignation was the result of deep experience, of profound humiliation, and of personal intercourse with God. It is so with us all. A man's character involves the whole octave — the highest note of it is played in youth, the deepest at the end of the journey of life; the whole is played together in the perfect harmony of heaven.

3. Where lay the fault of Job's friends? They argued on false premises, and in an improper manner. Censoriousness and love of prejudging human actions are faults which interfere with God's prerogative, and violate the spirit of true charity.

4. Learn the power of intercession.

5. Very beautiful is the end of Job. Job is a type of the resurrection.

(E. Monte.)

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KJV: Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

WEB: "Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it."