Job 9:1-4 Then Job answered and said,… Job was utterly unaware of the circumstances under which he was suffering. If Job had known that he was to be an example, that a great battle was being fought over him, that the worlds were gathered round him to see how he would take the loss of his children, his property, and his health, the circumstances would have been vitiated, and the trial would have been a mere abortion. Under such circumstances Job might have strung himself up to an heroic effort. If everything with us were plain and straightforward, everything would be proportionately easy and proportionately worthless. Trials, persecutions, and tests are meant for the culture of your strength, the perfecting of your patience, the consolidation of your hope and love. God will not explain the causes of our affliction to us, any more than He explained the causes of Job's affliction to the patriarch. But history comes to do what God Himself refrains from doing. What course does Job say he will take? A point of departure is marked in the tenth chapter. Now he speaks to Heaven. He will speak in the bitterness of his soul. That is right. Let us hear what Job's soul has to say. Do not be harsh with men who speak with some measure of indignation in the time of sorrow. We are chafed and vexed by the things which befall our life. Yet even in our very frankness we should strive at least to speak in chastened tones. Job says he will ask for a reason.Shew me wherefore Thou contendest with me? Job will also appeal to the Divine conscience, if the expression may be allowed (Job 10:3). We must have confidence in the goodness of God. Job then pleads himself — his very physiology, his constitution (Job 10:8-11). What lay so heavily upon Adam and upon Job, was the limitation of their existence. This life as we see it is not all; it is an alphabet which has to be shaped into a literature, and a literature which is to end in music. The conscious immortality of the soul, as that soul was fashioned in the purpose of God, has kept the race from despair. Job said, if this were all that we see, he would like to be extinguished. He would rather go out of being than live under a sense of injustice. This may well be our conviction, out of the agonies and throes of individual experience, and national convulsions, there shall come a creation fair as the noonday, quiet as the silent but radiant stars! (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then Job answered and said,WEB: Then Job answered, |
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