Homilist Job 10:18-22 Why then have you brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!… The patriarch had already in the previous verses expressed to the Almighty that his sufferings were — (1) Too great to render any efforts at self-consolation effective, (2) Too deserved to justify any hope of relief, (3) Too overwhelming to check the expression of his complaint, and now as(4) Too crushing to give to existence anything but an intolerable curse, His sufferings, judging from his language here, had destroyed within him for a time three of the primary instincts of the soul. I. A SENSE OF DUTY. Sense of obligation to the Supreme is an instinct as universal as man, as deep as life itself; but the patriarch, in wishing that he had never been, or that his first breath had been extinguished, had lost all feeling in relation to the wonderful mercies which his Creator had conferred upon him during the past years of his existence.What were those mercies? 1. Great material wealth. 2. Great domestic enjoyment. 3. Immense social influence. II. A LOVE OF LIFE. Seldom do we find, even amongst the most miserable of men, one who struggles not to perpetuate his existence. But this instinct Job now seems to have lost, if not its existence, its power. Existence has become so intolerable that he wishes he had never had it, and yearns for annihilation. Two thoughts are here suggested. 1. There may be something worse for man than annihilation. 2. This annihilation is beyond the reach of creatures. III. HOPE OF A HEREAFTER. Hope for future good is another of the strongest instincts of our nature. "Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts." Indeed it is one of those powers within us that, like a mainspring, keeps every wheel in action. Man never is but always to be blest. Job seems to have lost this now. Hence his description of the future. "Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness, and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." He saw a future, but what was it? 1. Darkness. A starless, moonless midnight, a vast immeasurable abyss — "the land of darkness." His hereafter was black, not a ray of light streamed from the firmament. 2. Confusion. "Without any order." Small and great, young and old, all together in black chaos.Conclusion — 1. That great suffering in this world in the case of individuals does not mean great sin. 2. The power of the devil over man. 3. The value of the Gospel. This man had no clear revelation of a blessed future. Hence one scarcely wonders at his frequent and impassioned complaints. How different our life to his! (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! |
    |