Job 16:2














Job is able to rise above his foolish, narrow-minded friends, and look down upon them with good-humoured, pitying irony. So little do they understand him! So proudly do they trust in their empty words! And it is all a delusion. Job is almost ready to forget their impertinence as he turns to the far more important question of God's dealings with him. But first he gives them their true character. They are all "miserable comforters."

I. MISERABLE COMFORTERS FAIL FOR LACK OF SYMPATHY. This thought is continually recurring in the course of the dramatic dialogue. It is at the root of the whole controversy. All the elaborate argumentation of the three wise men is so much empty wind, because they lack the first condition of consolation. We can never be reminded too often that sympathy is the first and absolute condition of all mutual helpfulness. But how is it that well-meaning friends lack it? There can be but one answer. The enemy of sympathy is selfishness. While we think much of ourselves, our own opinions, position, conduct, we must fail in sympathy, and our attempts to help others must come to the ground without any good results. In visiting the poor, nursing the sick, raising the fallen, saving the lost, teaching children, sympathy is the primary requisite for success. Christ is the true Friend of the suffering, because Christ sympathizes profoundly with all sufferings. We make a mistake when, like Job's comforters, we try to console by offering advice. The sufferer wants not advice, but sympathy. Why should his misfortune give us a right to pose as his counsellors? He is more fitted to be our teacher, for he has been to the best of schools, the school of affliction.

II. MISERABLE COMFORTERS ADD TO THE GRIEFS WHICH THEY VAINLY TRY TO ASSUAGE. Thus Rousseau writes, "Consolation indiscreetly pressed upon us, when we are suffering under affliction, only serves to increase our pain and to render our grief more poignant." The reasons for this are not difficult to discover.

1. Disappointment. We expect something better from a friend. He should give us his sympathy, and if he fails to do so we feel ourselves to be unkindly treated, or at least we miss a comfort for which we were looking.

2. Weariness. The sufferer wants quiet. The look and tear of sympathy may console him, but many words are wearying to him. He is too full of iris own sad thoughts to find room for the ill-judged observations of untimely advisers.

3. Injustice. You cannot be just to a man without sympathy, because you cannot understand him till you enter into his deeper feelings. But nothing is more distressing than unjust treatment. Much of Job's greatest trouble came from this source.

III. WE NEED DIVINE GRACE TO HELP US TO BE TRUE COMFORTERS. Perhaps we shrink from the task, seeing its difficulties. We would avoid the house of mourning lest our bungling attempts at consolation should add to its sorrows. But this is not brotherly. The Christian duty is to "weep with them that weep" (Romans 12:15). To be true sympathizers we need to have self conquered by the grace of Christ. Perhaps one reason why some of us have much trouble is that we may be able to understand the trouble of other people, and so may become true comforters. - W.F.A.

Not for any injustice in mine hands.
In these words Job delivers us —

1. The confidence of a godly man.

2. That kind of infirm anguish and indignation, that half-distemper, that expostulation with God, which sometimes comes to an excess even in good and godly men.

3. The foundation of his confidence, and his deliverance from this his infirmity.

(John Donne.)

My witness is in heaven and my record is on high.
I. IN REFERENCE TO JOB.

1. A declaration of his belief.

2. An avowal of his sincerity.

3. A proof of his devotion.

II. IN REFERENCE TO OURSELVES.

1. In seasons of self-suspicion.

2. Under the assaults of calumny.

3. In the prospect of death.

(G. Brooks.)

People
Job, Ruffians
Places
Uz
Topics
Comforters, Ears, Frequently, Grievous, Miserable, Sorry, Trouble
Outline
1. Job reproves his friends for unmercifulness
17. He maintains his innocence

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Job 16:2

     5805   comfort
     5946   sensitivity
     8415   encouragement, examples

Job 16:2-3

     5356   irony

Library
Epistle Xlv. To Theoctista, Patrician .
To Theoctista, Patrician [153] . Gregory to Theoctista, &c. We ought to give great thanks to Almighty God, that our most pious and most benignant Emperors have near them kinsfolk of their race, whose life and conversation is such as to give us all great joy. Hence too we should continually pray for these our lords, that their life, with that of all who belong to them, may by the protection of heavenly grace be preserved through long and tranquil times. I have to inform you, however, that I have
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

The Case of the Christian under the Hiding of God's Face.
1. The phrase scriptural.--2. It signifies the withdrawing the tokens of the divine favor.--3 chiefly as to spiritual considerations.--4. This may become the case of any Christian.--5. and will be found a very sorrowful one.--6. The following directions, therefore, are given to those who suppose it to be their own: To inquire whether it be indeed a case of spiritual distress, or whether a disconsolate frame may not proceed from indisposition of body,--7. or difficulties as to worldly circumstances.--8,
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate,
CLEARLY EXPLAINED, AND LARGELY IMPROVED, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL BELIEVERS. 1 John 2:1--"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." By JOHN BUNYAN, Author of "The Pilgrim's Progress." London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms, in the Poultry, 1689. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This is one of the most interesting of Bunyan's treatises, to edit which required the Bible at my right hand, and a law dictionary on my left. It was very frequently republished;
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

The Birth of Jesus Proclaimed by Angels to the Shepherds.
(Near Bethlehem, b.c. 5.) ^C Luke II. 8-20. ^c 8 And there were shepherds in the same country [they were in the same fields from which David had been called to tend God's Israel, or flock] abiding in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock. [When the flock is too far from the village to lead it to the fold at night, these shepherds still so abide with it in the field, even in the dead of winter.] 9 And an angel of the Lord stood by them [He stood upon the earth at their side, and did
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Mr. Bunyan's Last Sermon:
Preached August 19TH, 1688 [ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR] This sermon, although very short, is peculiarly interesting: how it was preserved we are not told; but it bears strong marks of having been published from notes taken by one of the hearers. There is no proof that any memorandum or notes of this sermon was found in the autograph of the preacher. In the list of Bunyan's works published by Chas. Doe, at the end of the 'Heavenly Footman,' March 1690, it stands No. 44. He professes to give the title-page,
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Job
The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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