hopes to secure himself by his partnership with them; but that is in vain too, v. 34, 35. The congregation of them, the whole confederacy, they, and all their tabernacles, shall be desolate, and consumed with fire. Hypocrisy and bribery are here charged upon them; that is, deceitful dealing both with God and man: God affronted, under colour of religion, man wronged, under colour of justice. It is impossible that these should end well. Though hand join in hand for the support of these perfidious practices, yet shall not the wicked go unpunished.
(3.) The use and application of all this. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end thus miserably? Then, (v. 31.) Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity. Let the mischiefs which befall others be our warnings, and let not us rest on that broken reed which always failed those who leaned on it. [1.] Those who trust to their sinful ways of getting wealth, trust in vanity, and vanity will be their recompense, for they shall not get what they expected. Their arts will deceive them, and perhaps ruin them in this world. [2.] Those who trust to their wealth when they have gotten it, especially to the wealth they have gotten dishonestly, trust in vanity, for it will yield them no satisfaction. The guilt that cleaves to it, will ruin the joy of it. They sow the wind, and will reap the whirlwind, and will own, at length, with the utmost confusion, that a deceived heart turned them aside, and that they cheated themselves with a lie in their right hand.
CHAP. XVI.
This chapter begins Job's reply to that discourse of Eliphaz which we had in the foregoing chapter; it is but the second part of the same song of lamentation with which he had before bemoaned himself, and set to the same melancholy tune. 1. He upbraids his friends with their unkind usage of him, v. 1..5. II. He represents his own case as very deplorable upon all accounts, v. 6..16. III. He still holds fast his integrity, concerning which he appeals to God's righteous judgment, from the unrighteous censures of his friends, v. 17..22.
1.THEN Job answered and said, 2. I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all. 3. Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest? 4. I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. 5. But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.
Both Job and his friends took the same way that disputants commonly take, which is, to undervalue one another's sense, and wisdom, and management. The longer the saw of contention is drawn, the hotter it grows; and the beginning of this sort of strife is as the letting forth of water, therefore leave it off before it be meddled with. Eliphaz had represented Job's discourses as idle and unprofitable, and nothing to the purpose; and Job here gives his the same character. Those who are free in passing such censures, must expect to have them retorted; it is easy, it is endless: but Cui bono?—What good does it do? It will stir up men's passions, but will never convince their judgments, nor set truth in a clear light.
Job here reproves Eliphaz,
1. For needless repetitions; (v. 2.) "I have heard many such things. You tell me nothing but what I knew before; nothing but what you yourselves have before said; you offer nothing new, it is the same thing over and over again;" which Job thinks as great a trial of his patience as almost any of his troubles. The inculcating of the same things thus by an adversary, is indeed provoking and nauseous, but by a teacher it is often necessary, and must not be grievous to the learner, to whom precept must be upon precept, and line upon line. Many things we have heard, which it is good for us to hear again, that we may understand and remember them better, and be more affected with them, and influenced by them.
2. For unskilful applications. They came with a design to comfort him, but they went about it very awkwardly, and, when they touched Job's case, quite mistook it; "Miserable comforters are ye all, who, instead of offering any thing to alleviate the affliction, add affliction to it, and make it yet more grievous." The patient's case is sad indeed, when his medicines are poisons, and his physicians his worst disease. What Job says here of his friends, is true of all creatures, in comparison with God, and, one time or other, we shall, be made to see it and own it, that miserable comforters are they all. When we are under convictions of sin, terrors of conscience, and the arrests of death, it is only the blessed Spirit that can comfort effectually; all others, without him, do it miserably, and sing songs to a heavy heart, to no purpose.
3. For endless impertinence. Job wishes that vain words might have an end, v. 3. If vain, it were well that they were never begun, and the sooner they are ended the better. Those who are so wise as to speak to the purpose, will be so wise as to know when they have said enough of a thing, and when it is time to break off.
4. For causeless obstinacy. What emboldeneth thee, that thou answerest? It is very rash and unjust confidence, with Eliphaz, to charge men with those crimes which we cannot prove upon them, to pass a judgment on men's spiritual state, upon the view of their outward condition, and to re-advance those objections which have been again and again answered.
5. For the violation of the sacred laws of friendship; doing by his brother as he would not have been done by, and as his brother would not have done by him. This is a cutting reproof, and very affecting, v. 4, 5.
(1.) He desires his friends, in imagination, for a little while, to change conditions with him, to put their souls in his soul's stead; to suppose themselves in misery like him, and him at ease like them. This was no absurd or foreign supposition, but what might quickly become true in fact; so strange, so sudden, frequently, are the vicissitudes of human affairs, and such the turns of the wheel, that the spokes soon change places. Whatever our brethren's sorrows are, we ought by sympathy to make them our own, because we know not how soon they may be so.
(2.) He represents the unkindness of their conduct toward him, by showing what he could do to them, if they were in his condition. I could speak as ye do. It is an easy thing to trample upon those that are down, and to find fault with what those say that are in extremity of pain and affliction. "I could heap up words against you, as you do against me; and how would you like it? How would you bear it?"
(3.) He shows them what they should do, by telling them what, in that case, he would do; (v. 5.) "I would strengthen you, and say all I could to assuage your grief, but nothing to aggravate it." It is natural to sufferers to think what they would do, if the tables were turned; but perhaps our hearts may deceive us; we know not what we should do. We find it easier to discern the reason-
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