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Zophar tells Job of his faults, and of God's secret knowledge of him, and winds up with the words of the text, which, while they are altogether inappropriate and undeserved in Job's case, are in principle grandly true, in form sweetly beautiful, and may well provide us with pleasant food. "If thou shalt prepare thy heart, and stretch out thine hands toward Him." That is the attitude of supplication, and doubtless has here the idea of prayer. But it has much more than that. It means that the heart and the hands are to go together, are to move in unison; that the hands must do what the heart prompts, and that as the heart is prepared to take in God, the hands are to be at the control of God. The prepared heart receives Christ as guest, and the willing hands are told off to wait upon Him all the time. The stretching of the hands here means also a habit of desire. It includes willing obedience. It is the attitude of one who is willing, waiting, and even eager to be of service. This consecration of the heart, and this dedication of the hands, will lead to the due fulfilment of the next verse, "If iniquity be in thine hands, put it far away." That is to say, all the misdoings of the past are to be sorrowed over, repented of, and put away. Heart and hands are alike to be clean, and a new leaf is to be turned over in the volume of life, no more to be blotted by guilt, or inscribed with the writing of self-condemning sin. Adapt the meaning of Zophar to our day, and it comes to this, no wickedness is to be permitted to dwell under any roof we can call our own. We are to turn it out, and keep it out of our homes, let it have no place by our hearthstones, no shelter in kitchen or parlour. True religious principle will not turn and trifle, will not dally with wrong-doing. "For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot." A manly religion, a godly fidelity will enable a man to look all the world in the face. "Thou shalt not fear." Only true religion can so endow a man. "Perfect love casteth out fear." "Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away." The good man's life is like a river, ever flowing, through various scenery of mingled barrenness and beauty. The rough, barren, sad, sorrowful, through which it passes, will never, never be reproduced.

(Good Company.)

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KJV: If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him;

WEB: "If you set your heart aright, stretch out your hands toward him.