聖書

Expositor's Bible Commentary Job 17:1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me. XIV. "MY WITNESS IN HEAVEN" Job 16:1-22 ; Job 17:1-16 Job SPEAKS IF it were comforting to be told of misery and misfortune, to hear the doom of insolent evildoers described again and again in varying terms, then Job should have been comforted. But his friends had lost sight of their errand, and he had to recall them to it. "I have heard many such things: Afflictive comforters are ye all. Shall vain words have an end?" He would have them consider that perpetual harping on one string is but a sober accomplishment! Returning one after another to the wicked man, the godless sinner, crafty, froward, sensual, overbearing, and his certain fate of disaster and extinction, they are at once obstinately ungracious and to Job’s mind pitifully inept. He is indisposed to argue afresh with them, but he cannot refrain from expressing his sorrow and indeed his indignation that they have offered him a stone for bread. Excusing themselves, they had blamed him for his indifference to the "consolations of God." All he had been aware of was their "joining words together" against him with much shaking of the head. Was that Divine consolation? Anything, it seemed, was good enough for him, a man under the stroke of God. Perhaps he is a little unfair to his comforters. They cannot drop their creed in order to assuage his grief. In a sense it would have been easy to murmur soothing inanities. "One writes that ‘Other friends remain,’ That ‘Loss is common to the race’- And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain." "That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break." Even so: the courteous superficial talk of men who said, Friend, you are only accidentally afflicted; there is no stroke of God in this: wait a little till the shadows pass, and meanwhile let us cheer you by stories of old times: - such talk would have served Job even less than the serious attempt of the friends to settle the problem. It is therefore with somewhat inconsiderate irony he blames them for not giving what, if they had offered it, he would have rejected with scorn. "I also could speak like you; If your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could join words together against you, And shake my head at you; I could strengthen you with my mouth, And the solace of my lips should assuage your grief." The passage is throughout ironical. No change of tone occurs in Job 16:5 , as the opening word but in the English version is intended to imply. Job means, of course, that such consolation as they were offering he never would have offered them. It would be easy, but abhorrent. So far in sad sarcasm; and then, the sense of desolation falling too heavily on his mind for banter or remonstrance, he returns to his complaint. What is he among men? What is he in himself? What is he before God? Alone, stricken, the object of fierce assault and galling reproach. After a pause of sorrowful thought he resumes the attempt to express his woes, a final protest before his lips are silent in death. He cannot hope that speaking will relieve his sorrow or mitigate his pain. He would prefer to bear on "In all the silent manliness of grief." But as yet the appeal he has made to God remains unanswered, for aught he knows unheard. It appears therefore his duty to his own reputation and his faith that he endeavour yet again to break the obstinate doubts of his integrity which still estrange from him those who were his friends. He uses indeed language that will not commend his case but tend to confirm every suspicion. Were he wise in the world’s way he would refrain from repeating his complaint against God. Rather would he speak of his misery as a simple fact of experience and strive to argue himself into submission. This line he has not taken and never takes. It is present to his own mind that the hand of God is against him. Whether men will join him by and by in an appeal from God to God he cannot tell. But once more all that he sees or seems to see he will declare. Every step may bring him into more painful isolation, yet he will proclaim his wrong. "Certainly, now, He hath wearied me out. Thou hast made desolate my company; Thou hast taken hold of me, And it is a witness against me; And my leanness riseth up against me Bearing witness to my face." He is exhausted; he has come to the last stage. The circle of his family and friends in which he once stood enjoying the love and esteem of all-where is it now? That hold of life is gone. Then, as if in sheer malice, God has plucked health from him, and doing so, left a charge of unworthiness. By the sore disease the Divine hand grasps him, keeps him down. The emaciation of his body bears witness against him as an object of wrath. Yes; God is his enemy, and how terrible an enemy! He is like a savage lion that tears with his teeth and glares as if in act to devour. With God, men also, in their degree, persecute and assail him. People from the city have come out to gaze upon him. Word has gone round that he is being crushed by the Almighty for proud defiance and blasphemy. Men who once trembled before him have smitten him upon the cheek reproachfully. They gather in groups to jeer at him. He is delivered into their hands. But it is God, not men, of whose strange work he has most bitterly to speak. Words almost fail him to express what his Almighty Foe has done. I was at ease, and He brake me asunder; Yea he hath taken me by the neck And dashed me to pieces: He hath also set me as His butt, His arrows compass me round about, He cleaveth my reins asunder and spareth not, He poureth my gall on the ground; He breaketh me with breach upon breach, He runneth upon me like a giant. Figure after figure expresses the sense of persecution by one full of resource who cannot be resisted. Job declares himself to be physically bruised and broken. The stings and sores of his disease are like arrows shot from every side that rankle in his flesh. He is like a fortress beleaguered and stormed by some irresistible enemy. His strength humbled to the dust, his eyes foul with weeping, the eyelids swollen so that he cannot see, he lies abased and helpless, stricken to the very heart. But not in the chastened mood of one who has done evil and is now brought to contrite submission. That is as far from him as ever. The whole account is of persecution, undeserved. He suffers, but protests still that there is no violence in his hands, also his prayer is pure. Let neither God nor man think he is concealing sin and making appeal craftily. Sincere he is in every word. At this point, where Job’s impassioned language might be expected to lead to a fresh outburst against heaven and earth, one of the most dramatic turns in the thought of the sufferer brings it suddenly to a minor harmony with the creation and the Creator. His excitement is intense. Spiritual eagerness approaches the highest point. He invokes the earth to help him and the mountain echoes. He protests that his claim of integrity has its witness and must be acknowledged. For this new and most pathetic effort to reach a benignant fidelity in God which all his cries have not yet stirred, the former speeches have made preparation. Rising from the thought that it was all one to God whether he lived or died since the perfect and the wicked are alike destroyed, bewailing the want of a daysman between him and the Most High, Job in the tenth chapter touched the thought that his Maker could not despise the work of His own hands. Again, in chapter 14, the possibility of redemption from Sheol gladdened him for a little. Now, under the shadow of imminent death, he abandons the hope of deliverance from the underworld. Immediately, if at all, his vindication must come. And it exists, written on the breast of earth, open to the heavens, somewhere in clear words before the Highest. Not vainly did the speaker in his days of past felicity serve God with all his heart. The God he then worshipped heard his prayers, accepted his offerings, made him glad with a friendship that was. no empty dream. Somewhere his Divine Friend lives still, observes still his tears and agonies and cries. Those enemies about him taunting him with sins he never committed, this horrible malady bearing him down into death; -God knows of these, knows them to be cruel and undeserved. He cries to that God, Eloah of the Elohim, Higher than the highest. O Earth, cover not my blood, And let my cry have no resting place! Even now, lo! my witness is in heaven, And He that voucheth for me is on high. My friends scorn me: Mine eye sheds tears unto God- That he would right a man against God, And a son of man against his friend. Now, in the present stage of being, before those years expire that lead him to the grave, Job entreats the vindication which exists in the records of heaven. As a son of man he pleads, not as one who has any peculiar claim, but simply as a creature of the Almighty; and he pleads for the first time with tears. The fact that earth, too, is besought to help him must not be overlooked. There is a touch of wide and wistful emotion, a sense that Eloah must regard the witness of His world. The thought has its colour from a very old feeling; it takes us back to primeval faith, and the dumb longing before faith. Is there in any sense a deeper depth in the faithfulness of God, a higher heaven, more difficult to penetrate, of Divine benignity? Job is making a bold effort to break that barrier we have already found to exist in Hebrew thought between God as revealed by nature and providence and God as vindicator of the individual life. The man has that in his own heart which vouches for his life, though calamity and disease impeach him. And in the heart of God also there must be a witness to His faithful servant, although, meanwhile, something interferes with the testimony God could bear. Job’s appeal is to the sun beyond the rolling clouds to shine. It is there; God is faithful and true. It will shine. But let it shine now! Human life is brief and delay will be disastrous. Pathetic cry-a struggle against what in ordinary life is the inexorable. How many have gone the way whence they shall not return, unheard apparently, unvindicated, hidden in calumny and shame! And yet Job was right. The Maker has regard to the work of His hands. The philosophy of Job’s appeal is this, that beneath all seeming discord there is one clear note. The universe is one and belongs to One, from the highest heaven to the deepest pit. Nature, providence, -what are they but the veil behind which the One Supreme is hidden, the veil God’s own hands have wrought? We see the Divine in the folds, of the veil, the marvellous pictures of the arras. Yet behind is He who weaves the changing forms, iridescent with colours of heaven, dark with unutterable mystery. Man is now in the shadow of the veil, now in the light of it, self-pitying, exultant, in despair, in ecstasy. He would pass the barrier. It will not yield at his will. It is no veil now, but a wall of adamant. Yet faith on this side answers to truth beyond; of this the soul is assured. The cry is for God to unravel the enigmas of His own providence, to unfold the principle of His discipline, to make clear what is perplexing to the mind and conscience of His thinking, suffering creature. None but He who weaves the web can withdraw it, and let the light of eternity shine on the tangles of time. From God the Concealer to God the Revealer, from God who hides Himself to God who is Light, in whom is no darkness at all, we appeal. To pray on-that is man’s high privilege, man’s spiritual life. So the passage we have read is a splendid utterance of the wayworn travelling soul conscious of sublime possibilities, -shall we not say, certainties? Job is God-inspired in his cry, not profane, not mad, but prophetic. For God is a bold dealer with men, and He likes bold sons. The impeachment we almost shuddered to hear is not abominable to Him because it is the truth of a soul. The claim that God is man’s witness is the true courage of faith: it is sincere, and it is justified. The demand for immediate vindication still urged is inseparable from the circumstances. For when a few years are come I shall go the way whence I shall not return. My spirit is consumed, my days extinct; The grave is ready for me. Surely there are mockeries with me And mine eye lodgeth in their provocation. Provide a pledge now; be surety for me with Thyself. Who is there that will strike hands with me? Moving towards the underworld, the fire of his spirit burning low because of his disease, his body preparing its own grave, the bystanders flouting him with mockeries under a sense of which his eyes remain closed in weary endurance, he has need for one to undertake for him, to give him a pledge of redemption. But who is there excepting God to whom he can appeal? What other friend is left? Who else would be surety for one so forlorn? Against disease and fate, against the seeming wreck of hope and life, will not God Himself stand up for His servant? As for the men his friends, his enemies, the Divine suretyship for Job will recoil upon them and their cruel taunts. Their hearts are "hid from understanding," unable to grasp the truth of the case; "Therefore Thou shalt not exalt them"-that is, Thou shalt bring them low. Yes, when God redeems His pledge, declares openly that He has undertaken for His servant, the proverb shall be fulfilled-"He that giveth his fellows for a prey, even the eyes of his children shall fail." It is a proverb of the old way of thinking and carries a kind of imprecation. Job forgets himself in using it. Yet how, otherwise, is the justice of God to be invoked against those who pervert judgment and will not receive the sincere defence of a dying man? "I am even made a byeword of the populace; I am become one in whose face they spit: Mine eye also fails by reason of sorrow." This is apparently parenthetical-and then Job returns to the result of the intervention of his Divine Friend. One reason why God should become his surety is the pitiable state he is in. But another reason is the new impetus that will be given to religion, the awakening of good men out of their despondency, the reassurance of those who are pure in heart, the growth of spiritual strength in the faithful and true. A fresh light thrown on providence shall indeed startle and revive the world. "Upright men shall be amazed at this, And the innocent shall rouse himself against the godless. And the righteous shall keep his way, And he that hath clean hands wax stronger and stronger." With this hope, that his life is to be rescued from darkness and the faith of the good re-established by the fulfilment of God’s suretyship, Job comforts himself for a little-but only for a little, a moment of strength, during which he has courage to dismiss his friends:- "But as for you all, turn ye, and go; For I shall not find a wise man among you." They have forfeited all claim to his attention. Their continued discussion of the ways of God will only aggravate his pain. Let them take their departure then and leave him in peace. The final passage of the speech referring to a hope present to Job’s mind has been variously interpreted. It is generally supposed that the reference is to the promise held out by the friends that repentance will bring him relief from trouble and new prosperity. But this is long ago dismissed. It seems clear that my hope, an expression twice used, cannot refer to one pressed upon Job but never accepted. It must denote either the hope that God would after Job’s death lay aside His anger and forgive, or the hope that God would strike hands with him and undertake his case against all adverse forces and circumstances. If this be the meaning, the course of thought in the last strophe, from Job 17:11 onward, is the following, -Life is running to a low ebb with me, all I had once in my heart to do is arrested, brought to an end; so gloomy are my thoughts that they set night for day, the light is near unto darkness. If I wait till death come and Sheol be my habitation and my body is given to corruption, where then shall my hope of vindication be? As for the fulfilment of my trust in God, who shall see it? The effort once made to maintain hope even in the face of death is not forgotten. But he questions now whether it has the least ground in fact. The sense of bodily decay masters his brave prevision of a deliverance from Sheol. His mind needs yet another strain put upon it before it shall rise to the magnificent assertion-Without my flesh I shall see God. The tides of trust ebb and flow. There is here a low ebb. The next advance will mark the springtide of resolute belief. If I wait till Sheol is my house; Till I have spread my couch in darkness: If I shall have said to corruption, My father art thou, To the worm, My mother and my sister- Where then were my hope? As for my hope, who shall see it? It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, When once there is rest in the dust. How strenuous is the thought that has to fight with the grave and corruption! The body in its emaciation and decay, doomed to be the prey of worms, appears to drag with it into the nether darkness the eager life of the spirit. Those who have the Christian outlook to another life may measure by the oppression Job has to endure the value of that revelation of immortality which is the gift of Christ. Not in error, not in unbelief, did a man like Job fight with grim death, strive to keep it at bay till his character was cleared. There was no acknowledged doctrine of the future to found upon. Of sheer necessity each burdened soul had to seek its own Apocalypse. He who had suffered with bleeding heart a lifelong sacrifice, he who had striven to free his fellow slaves and sank at last overborne by tyrannous power, the brave defeated, the good betrayed, those who sought through heathen beliefs and those who found in revealed religion the promises of God-all alike stood in sorrowful ignorance before inexorable death, beheld the shadows of the underworld and singly battled for hope amidst the deepening gloom. The sense of the overwhelming disaster of death to one whose life and religion are scornfully condemned is not ascribed to Job as a peculiar trial, rarely mingling with human experience. The writer of the book has himself felt it and has seen the shadow of it on many a face. "Where," as one asks, "were the tears of God as He thrust back into eternal stillness the hands stretched out to Him in dying faith?" There was a religion which gave large and elaborate answer to the questions of mortality. The wide intelligence of the author of Job can hardly have missed the creed and ceremonial of Egypt; he cannot have failed to remember its "Book of the Dead." His own work, throughout, is at once a parallel and a contrast to that old vision of future life and Divine judgment. It has been affirmed that some of the forms of expression, especially in the nineteenth chapter, have their source in the Egyptian scripture, and that the "Book of the Dead" is full of spiritual aspirations which give it a striking resemblance to the Book of Job. Now, undoubtedly, the correspondence is remarkable and will bear examination. The soul comes before Osiris, who holds the shepherd’s crook and the penal scourge. Thoth (or Logos) breathes new spirit into the embalmed body, and the dead pleads for himself before the assessors-"Hail to thee, great Lord of Justice. I arrive near thee. I am one of those consecrated to thee on the earth. I reach the land of eternity. I rejoin the eternal country. Living is he who dwelleth in darkness; all his grandeurs live." The dead is in fact not dead, he is recreated; the mouth of no worm shall devour him. At the close of the "Book of the Dead" it is written, the departed "shall be among the gods; his flesh and bones shall be healthy as one who is not dead. He shall shine as a star forever and ever. He seeth God with his flesh." The defence of the soul in claiming beatitude is this: "I have committed no revenge in act or in heart, no excesses in love. I have injured no one with lies. I have driven away no beggars, committed no treacheries, caused no tears. I have not taken another’s property, nor ruined another, nor destroyed the laws of righteousness. I have not aroused contests, nor neglected the Creator of my soul. I have not disturbed the joy of others. I have not passed by the oppressed, sinning against my Creator, or the Lord, or the heavenly powers I am pure, pure." There are many evident resemblances which have been already studied and would repay further attention; but the questions occur, how far the author of the Book of Job refused Egyptian influences, and why, in the face of a solution of his problem apparently thrust upon him with the authority of ages, he yet exerted himself to find a solution of his own, meanwhile throwing his hero into the hopelessness of one to whom death as a physical fact is final, compelled to forego the expectation of a daysman who should affirm his righteousness before the Lord of all. The "Book of the Dead" was, for one thing, identified with polytheism, with idolatry and a priestly system; and a thinker whose belief was entirely monotheistic, whose mind turned decisively from ritual, whose interests were widely humane, was not likely to accept as a revelation the promises of Egyptian priests to their aristocratic patrons, or to seek light from the mysteries of Isis and Osiris. Throughout his book our author is advancing to a conclusion altogether apart from the ideas of Egyptian faith regarding the trust of the soul. But chiefly his mind seems to have been repelled by the excessive care given to the dead body, with the consequent materialising of religion. Life to him meant so much that he needed a far more spiritual basis for its continuance than could be found in the preservation of the worn out frame; With rare and unsurpassed endeavour he was straining beyond time and sense after a vision of life in the union of man’s spirit with its Maker, and that Divine constancy in which alone faith could have acceptance and repose. No thought of maintaining himself in existence by having his body embalmed is ever expressed by Job. The author seems to scorn that childish dream of continuance. Death means decay, corruption. This doom passed on the body the stricken life must endure, and the soul must stay itself upon the righteousness and grace of God. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Job 17:9 The way of the righteous J. A. Picton, M. A. It may seem a work of supererogation to say anything upon such a subject as righteousness. But the subject labours under some obscurity. Many seem to think that righteousness in the Old Testament means something entirely different from righteousness in the New. We are enabled by the New Testament distinctly to recognise that which is in itself eternal truth in the Old Testament as well as the New. The righteousness of faith is grounded in the loyalty of the soul to God, and consists in the manifestation of this loyalty in words, in thoughts, and in deeds. Here, cleanness of hands is spoken of — singleness of intent, perfect simplicity of motive, There is no righteousness without this to some extent. The text speaks of the perseverance of such a man. "He shall hold on his way." Still, all promises concerning the moral nature must necessarily be conditional. It does not follow with a mechanical certainty that every righteous soul shall hold on his way. He has a way. It is not everyone in this world that has a way in the sense of the text. Some have no definite aim or way. Others have a way, but it is a wrong way. The righteous shall hold on his way. His way is before him, clear and plain, though steep. He has nothing to do but to keep on day by day in the Divinely appointed path, for every step brings him nearer to the goal. And the strength here spoken of is moral strength. It springs from energy of conviction, and grasp of faith, and fervour of resolution, and depth of emotion. They are of the new life, the sense of Divine life in the soul. If you will believe in God, do the right, and leave everything to Him, you also shall find that the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger. ( J. A. Picton, M. A. ) The laws of spiritual progress J. C. Macintosh. Weakness of all kinds is painful, inconvenient, and humiliating. So much indeed is power valued by us, that not a little of the world's hero worship has been the ardent adoration of strength in some one of its three principal manifestations, of either physical, or intellectual, or moral might. And all three have a glory, though not an equal glory. Intellectual power, by comparison with spiritual power, has had a large, and on the whole, a growing share of glory assigned to it. But physical force has had the most extensive sway in the world, and the longest reign. Look — I. AT THE KIND OF STRENGTH AND PROGRESS THAT IS PROMISED IN THE TEXT TO THE RIGHTEOUS. Our text speaks of a strength whose greatest triumphs in this world are still future, as Christ's greatest triumphs in and over men are still future. It is a benign strength this that lies calmly resting on the sure promises and unchanging faithfulness of God. This kind of strength is moral and spiritual might, active, aggressive, victorious goodness. The strength of our text is the strength of right in vanquishing wrong, the strength of moral goodness in overcoming moral evil, both in its possessor and around him. This spiritual strength is counted weakness by the world, because its triumphs are not only like itself, spiritual, but they are often not immediate. Men who walk by sense, seeing not the things which are invisible, cannot wait God's time and way. And yet to conquer sin and self is man's best and greatest triumph. Every man's noblest battlefield lies within, not without himself; lies within, not without his fellow man. In harmony with the world's prevailing false idea of greatness, the idol gods, and the human heroes that men have made or chosen for themselves, have for the most part been powerful, but not goad. Look at the gods of the heathen. Superhuman in power always, but human, and almost infra-human, in character often. It is not moral and spiritual power, but grosser forms of power, that most people admire most. The suffering attitude of Jesus seemed to His contemporaries, and still seems to the eye of the natural man, the weakest of all Divine displays of power. And yet this in truth is not only the highest kind of power, but it is the mightiest in moral result. For the Cross of Christ is the very "power of God unto salvation." Here in the Cross of Christ we see more of the peculiar power of God "who is love," than anywhere else. Here lies the power of the Gospel. It is the revelation of God's rich grace and love to the evil. God instructs us to seek as our best personal attainment, the possession of a goodness so strong, and pure, and lofty, that evil from within, us and from without us shall flee away ashamed and vanquished before its overcoming and subduing power. This strength needs to be all the more diligently cultivated by us because it is not natural to us. In our fallen state we are spiritually weak. But this best kind of strength may be obtained. It is the life of God in the soul of man, and it re-creates in God's image the soul that it enters, and its presence becomes in part visible. The men in whom this life not only exists, but is abundant, by their very presence, both at rest and in action, exert a beneficent moral power and influence. These are the men from whose moral being a felt virtue goes forth that good men seek, and bad men shun. For there are men, every movement of whose mind creates currents of healthful, healing, spiritual influence, and such God-inspired men are strong. The text holds before us the encouraging prospect, that the really good man shall, by the inherent laws of goodness, go on his way, and become stronger and stronger in goodness, more and more successful in gaining victories over evil. Intellectual greatness we ought all profoundly to revere as one of God's best gifts to man; but we ought not to dishonour the Holy God and His moral image in man by an unholy worship of intellect as disjoined from goodness. How much even in the service of religion is talent often exalted above grace! View the text as a Divine direction, and also as a positive promise of success, to every renewed soul that is trying to make progress in the Divine life, and asks by what means he may become strong. An answer to this inquiry is much needed. II. WHO ARE THEY THAT OBTAIN THE STRENGTH PROMISED IN THE TEXT? All do not. The man who would be strong and hold on his way must be in God's sense "righteous, and keep his hands clean." 1. The righteous, — the upright, honest, virtuous, pious. Our obligations to God and man not only lie near together, but at many points intersect and overlap each other. Righteousness is a name which covers over and enters into the whole web of human duty. The Bible name "righteous" denotes a well-defined class of men who are not now what they once were, but have been "born again." Our text does not speak of any man in his natural unrenewed state; but it speaks of man when under a supernatural tuition, of man the subject of Divine grace. Life comes before strength, and is more important. Get life, and strength will fellow. III. THE LAWS THAT REGULATE THIS GROWTH OF STRENGTH. The reasons why the righteous grow stronger are both natural and supernatural. Note — 1. The operation of the natural law that the exercise of our faculties strengthens them. This is a law of the mind as well as a law of the body. The religion of the Bible perfectly harmonises with all Divine law. It is a reasonable service which yet rises above reason. Mature piety is ordinarily the ripened product of years well spent. 2. The righteous man who has clean hands holds on his way, and ever grows stronger through the ordinary operation of the great law of habit. Habit makes all things castor, and among others the most difficult Christian duties. The law of habit comes into action in favour of duty as well as in favour of sin. 3. The righteous man, and of clean hands, holds on his way, and waxes stronger and stronger by the teachings of experience. 4. The righteous man holds on his way, because religion is a life of which Christ is the source. But all life is much affected by food, climate, and exercise; and so is this higher life. Divine truth is the fit food of this life. 5. The great reason is that the righteous man's God and Father holds him up and strengthens him. And He is the living God. When others stumble and fall, the righteous man rises and stands upright, because God strengthens and upholds him. Clean hands, and such alone can lay a firm hold upon God, and lovingly constrain Him in His visits to leave a blessing behind Him. Polluted hands have no such power. The man who seeks and finds this Helper must hold on his way and grow stronger. The whole atmosphere of Scripture is strongly provocative of robust spiritual health. The Godward attitude continued in makes weak men to become strong, and strong men to become stronger and stronger. ( J. C. Macintosh. ) The nature of the doctrine of the saint's final perseverance J. H. Evans, M. A. I. A CHARACTER SPOKEN OF. "Righteous." As persons who are taught to discard their own righteousness, and are clothed upon with the righteousness of another. Clad in that righteousness, they are taught to live "soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world." II. THESE RIGHTEOUS ONES ARE DESCRIBED AS ON THEIR "WAY." There is but one way, and Jesus is that way — the way of acceptance with God, the way in which alone we can walk so as to please God. It is the only way of happiness, and may be a way of self-denial. III. THE PROMISE. "Shall hold on." It is as positive as language can express it. He shall do it. Discouragements he may have, and shall have; trial of his patience, his hope, and his love — this he stands continually in need of, day by day, and hour by hour; through want of watchfulness he may slumber; through want of diligence he may stumble; withholding prayer, he ceases to fight; through self-confidence he may fall; but "the righteous shall hold on his way." It is the "mouth of the Lord that hath spoken it." ( J. H. Evans, M. A. ) The hope of Job George Wagner. What does "righteous" mean? We understand by it one in whom there is something more than a moral life; more than convictions of sin; more than religious impressions; more than sensations of joy arising from the Word of God; more even than one on whose mind there are certain influences of the Spirit; for the grace of God may enlighten the understanding, arouse the conscience, and move the affections, and yet with all this, the will may be unsubdued, and there may be no full and complete surrender of the heart to God. By the "righteous," then, we understand one who believes with the heart in Jesus. Nor is there any essential difference between the Old Testament and the New in this; for the righteous under the first dispensation, believed in a Saviour to come. The righteous now believe in a Saviour already come. A righteous man is one who trusts in a Redeemer; who, in a special sense, belongs to Christ, and in Christ to God. Of such an one the text speaks. It is a difficult way on which he holds his way. The word "his" refers to the righteous man, and yet it is God's way. The way which God has marked out for him; the way into which God has led him. It is no easy way. It is so narrow that you cannot carry the world with you along it; so steep, that if self-indulgent, you will never get up it; so rough, that if faint-hearted, you will fear the labour; and so long, that it requires much perseverance. But it is a happy way, the only happy way. It is a wonderful thing to see the righteous hold on his way; to see him out of weakness made strong, defeat changed into victory, his soul restored, his strength renewed. How are we to account for this triumph? The secret lies not in himself, but in God the Father who loved him, the Son who redeemed him, the Spirit who sanctifies him. ( George Wagner. ) The saint's perseverance The Christian is frequently compared to a traveller; but no traveller reaches his journey's end merely by starting upon the road. If it should be a journey of seven weeks' length, if he shall sit down after journeying six weeks, he certainly will not reach the goal of his desires. It is necessary, if I would reach a certain city, that I should go every mile of the road; for one mile would not take me there; nor if the city be a hundred miles distant, would ninety-nine miles bring me to its streets. I must journey all the length if I would reach the desired place. Frequently, in the New Testament, the Christian is compared to a runner — he runs in a race for a great prize; but it is not by merely starting, it is not by making a great spurt, it is not by distancing your rival for a little time, and then pulling up to take breath, or sauntering to either side of the road, that you will win the race: we must never stop till we have passed the winning post; there must be no loitering throughout the whole of the Christian career, but onward, like the Roman charioteer, with glowing wheels, we must fly more and more rapidly till we actually obtain the crown. The Christian is sometimes, by the apostle Paul, who somewhat delights to quote from the ancient games, compared to the Grecian wrestler, or boxer. But it is of little avail for the champion to give the foe one blow or one fall: he must continue in the combat until his adversary is beaten. Our spiritual foes will not be vanquished until we enter where the conquerors receive their crowns, and therefore we must continue in fighting attitude. It is in vain for us to talk of what we have done or are doing just now, he that continueth to the end, the same shall be saved, and none but he. The believer is commonly compared to a warrior — he is engaged in a great battle, a holy war. Like Joshua, he has to drive out the Canaanites, that have chariots of iron, before he can fully take possession of his inheritance; but it is not the winning of one battle that makes a man a conqueror: nay, though he should devastate one province of his enemies' territories, yet, if he should be driven out by-and-by, he is beaten in the campaign, and it will yield him but small consolation to win a single battle, or even a dozen battles, if the campaign as a whole should end in his defeat. It is not commencing as though the whole world were to be cleared by one display of fire and sword, but continuing, going from strength to strength, from victory to victory, that makes the man the conqueror of his foe. The Christian is also called a disciple or scholar. But who does not know that the boy by going to school for a day or two does not therefore become wiser? If the lad should give himself most diligently to his grammar for six months, yet he will never become a linguist unless he shall continue perseveringly in his classic studies. The great mathematicians of our times did not acquire their science in a single year; they pressed forward with aching brow; they burnt the midnight oil and tortured their brains; they were not satisfied to rest, for they could never have become masters of their art if they had lingered on the road. The believer is also called a builder, but you know of whom it was said, "This man began to build, but was not able to finish." The digging out of the foundation is most important, and the building up of stone upon stone is to be carried on with diligence; but though the man should half finish the walls, or even complete them, yet if he do not roof in the structure, he becomes a laughing stock to every passer-by. A good beginning, it is said, is more than half, but a good ending is more than the whole. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The Christian's persistency That master allegorist, John Bunyan , has not pictured Christian as carried to heaven while asleep in an easy chair. He makes Christian lose his burden at the cross foot, he ascribes the deliverance of the man from the burden of his sin, entirely to the Lord Jesus; but he represents him as climbing the Hill Difficulty — ay, and on his hands and knees too. Christian has to descend into the Valley of Humiliation, and to tread that dangerous pathway through the gloomy horrors of the Shadow of Death. He has to be urgently watchful to keep himself from sleeping in the Enchanted Ground. Nowhere is he delivered from the necessities incident to the way, for even at the last he fords the black river, and struggles with its terrible billows. Effort is used all the way through, and you that are pilgrims to the skies will find it to be no allegory, but a real matter of fact: your soul must gird up her loins; you need your pilgrim's staff and armour, and you must foot it all the way to heaven, contending with giants, fighting with lions, and combating Apollyon himself. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Completing the good work R. Vaughan. The present life is the only scene of probation of man; if he should fail in the scene in which he is now placed, he fails forever. How encouraging, then, to be assured that he who has begun the good work will carry it on amid all the perils of our present state, until we reach the state where no danger can arrive. I. THE CHARACTER OF THOSE WHO ARE HERE INTRODUCED. They have already commenced the course of the Christian life. The expression "clean hands" denotes their freedom from those pollutions which are connected with human nature in its unconverted state. The language further suggests an open and honest profession of their attachment to the ways of God and righteousness. The man who partakes of this character will necessarily be concerned that he may hold on his way, and wax stronger and stronger. II. THE CONSIDERATIONS WHICH LED YOU TO SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM THE WORLD AND TO DEVOTE YOURSELF TO GOD. All these claims are now at hand, and possess all the claim they ever possessed. Hold on your way, and look to the exercise of that cleanness of spirit which every honest mind will be concerned to possess. Look to the exercise of purity of intention, to the testimony which God has connected with His Word, that it may come home to your heart, and work mightily there. ( R. Vaughan. ) Clean-handed righteousness John Davies. I. THE PERSONS SPOKEN OF. The "righteous" are those who have "clean hands." The former term describes their state, the latter their character. Righteous is a forensic term. There can only be two ways of being righteous — either by never having sinned, or by being delivered, in some way or other, from the condemnation due to sin. The former applies to the angels. For fallen man another kind of righteousness must be devised, which is, the imputation of Christ's righteousness unto him. II. WHAT IS SAID CONCERNING THEM? "Shall hold on his way." They are going onward in the way to heaven; in this way they meet many obstacles — as from false brethren, false teachers, false waymarks. There are obstacles both in the way of faith and of conduct. Nevertheless, they shall "hold on their way." This must necessarily follow. 1. From a consideration of the character of God. He is faithful and immutable. 2. From a consideration of the death of Christ. He died for us, not leaving it doubtful what effects would be produced by His death. 3. From a consideration of the nature and constitution of the covenant of grace. It is God's will that saints should have strong consolation, upon the ground of their final perseverance. 4. From a consideration of the nature of real conversion, and the work of God the Holy Spirit. 5. From a consideration of the intercession of Christ, which must be ever prevalent. 6. From a consideration of the nature of that principle which is implanted within them. It is an immortal principle; an "incorruptible seed." ( John Davies. ) The godly man G. Warner. Consider the character in the text. I. HE IS RIGHTEOUS. The character in the text is right with God. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. II. HE IS HOLY. He has "clean hands." The hand is the instrument of action; it is moved by the heart — the pulsations of which are right, and so he can lift them up to God "without wrath or doubting." He is not afraid for God to see them, nor for Him to know the principles whence these actions emanate. A man has just as much religion in his business as he has in his closet; the same in the counting house as he has on his knees. There is no reason why labour should not be a psalm, and commerce a ritual in the best sense of the word. The time shall come when "holiness to the Lord" shall be written upon the bells of the horses; and then, whether men eat or drink, or whatever they do, they "do all for the glory of God." III. HE IS PERSISTENT. "He shall hold on," etc. At an important period of his existence, Gibbon said of his prospects, "All is dark and doubtful." Of this character's future, all is bright and hopeful — "Glory, honour, immortality, eternal life," are in the future. "He shall hold on his way." The wind, and tide, and sea may be against the steamers which reach your port, but through the power of the steam within, they hold on their way. Outward circumstances may appear to be all against the character of the text; but by the power of the principle within he "holds on his way." This is a moral duty. Final perseverance is an article for the code, rather than for the creed. This is a law of the Divine life. The leaven is put in to leaven the whole lump. You must go on, or recede; you cannot stand still. The purest water that ever fell from heaven will corrupt if it be stagnant. IV. HE IS GROWING. The Bible beckons you on to better things, and urges you to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is also confirmed by experience. There is also a power in the habit of goodness. The more you exercise faith, the easier you can do so. The more you do for God, the more delightful becomes the exercise. In every conflict with hell in which you conquer, you learn the tactics of war, and become mightier for further engagements. What a bright vista opens before the soul which is morally right! ( G. Warner. ) The penitence of perfect Job J. Clifford, D. D. (ver. 9, with Job 42:5, 6 ): — 1. It is not possible to set out the salient features of Job's strength with even a slight approximation to completeness, without taking into account the immense energy he derived from his burning consciousness of unimpeachable integrity. Not that Job made no mistakes. He made many. He misconceived God's methods, misjudged God's heart, flung censures to right of him and censures to left of him, spoke rashly and petulantly. But never did he sink into an insincerity, or clothe himself with a sham; but maintained an unbroken consciousness of integrity of spirit and purity of heart. Integrity is power. Sincerity is a high form of human energy. Righteousness as a passion of the heart, and an element in character and life, is a manifest and undeniable source of imperial force. Wickedness is, in spite of seeming strength, actual imbecility. 2. Nevertheless, the closing picture of this hero, Job, is not that of a conqueror, but a confessor; not of an enthroned prince, but a kneeling penitent. This is not what we expected. The language of genuine sorrow and deep self-abasement loads his lips, and his far-shining integrity is not worth a moment's lip defence by the side of his failure to keep the law of God. Sincerity is good, but it is not sinlessness. Indisputable integrity of purpose, and inflexible honesty of heart, are jewels of unspeakable worth, but they will not atone for rash speech, misjudgment of God, and hatred of weak and faulty men. Be true, by all means; but think of Job's penitence, and remember that the heroic virtue of integrity and wholeness, superlatively good as it is, is not enough. 3. It is the special charm of Job's story that it exhibits this high-strung and strenuous integrity dwelling in the same spirit with the acutest penitence and throbbing self-loathing. We can recognise these qualities apart, and appreciate them in their singleness, but that they should blend in the same life, tenant the same spirit, and be sources of power to the same character, conflicts with our habitual thought. Yet the minds of culminating power in the vast brotherhood of the world's workers and redeemers, have not been more deeply marked by their persistent devotion to purity of thought, uncompromising fidelity to fact, and aspiration after perfection, than by their quivering sensitiveness to the smallness of their achievements, acute sense of personal fault, and prevailing consciousness — often attended by spasms of weakening pain — of absolute failure. The righteous Job in his penitence anticipates the Church of the first-born in heaven. It is fidelity to the clearest laws of advancing human life which marries in one and the same progressive spirit, inflexible consecration to reality and right, and deep and true penitence for failure and sin. 4. Whence came this penitential mood? What induced this change of feeling? The unexpected revolution is effected by the revelation of God to the eye of the soul. "Mine eye seeth Thee." He passes out of the realm of mere "hearsays" about God, to that of inward experience and actual communion. The eyes give fuller and clearer knowledge than the ear. Job knows God as he did not know Him before. The character of his knowledge is changed, heightened, vitalised, intensified, personalised. 5. Was not Job led to this renewing sight of God by the voice that addressed, startled, and overwhelmed him out of the whirlwind, forcing in upon his mind an oppressive and overwhelming conception of the creative and administrative power of the Almighty? Is not the ear the way to the spiritual eye, as surely as the sight of God is the way to repentance, and repentance the way to life? 6. Here, then, is one signal value of the knowledge of God, even of His immense power and greatness. It is the ground and spring of a true conception of ourselves, of our limitations and possibilities, our actual condition and ethical ideal. 7. Such God-inspired penitence swiftly vindicates itself in the pure sincerity and holy brotherliness it creates, and the reconciliations it effects between man and man, and man and his lot. Sin divides; repentance unites. Humbled before the Lord, Job becomes a priest. Set the tree of penitence in such a Divine soil, and it must bear this kind of fruit. ( J. Clifford, D. D. ) The righteous holding on his way I remind you that while final perseverance is necessary, it is extremely difficult. The way itself renders if so. The way to heaven is no smooth-shaven lawn. 1. It is a rough road, up hill, down dale, across rivers, and over mountains. 2. Moreover, the road is long. It is a life-long road. 3. Besides that, the road is so contrary to fallen nature. It is a way of faith. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) My purposes are broken off. Job 17:11 Broken purposes J. J. S. Bird. What mental anguish is concentrated in these few words! They raise the sufferings of Job from one of mere physical pain to one of mental despair: Let us glance, first, at some objects of human ambition — their wreck, their loss, and their gain. I. THE CHERISHED PURPOSES OF LIFE. The generality of persons live without forming any purposes at all. They drift along the current, and laying aside the strength and glory of manhood are nothing but logs. The true purposes of life are not mere languid dreams, or objectless hopes, or anticipations of pleasure, and we must not confound these with the ambition alluded to by Job. But they are the thought out plans and aspirations of a vigorous mind in true earnest. 1. Sometimes these purposes are selfish. 2. Sometimes these ambitions are philanthropic. 3. Sometimes these purposes are religious.There is the longing to lead a notably pious life, to be a pattern for others to copy, to bring up a godly family, to convert sinners, and to be worthy soldiers of the cross. II. THE BROKEN PURPOSES OF LIFE. How often are ambitions formed; how seldom are they realised! Our purposes are always being broken. We have had a cherished plant, and longed to see it flower. But the frost has nipped the bud, and it has withered and drooped. We have had a loved child for whom we cherished a hope of carrying forward the work of our lives. But the loved one had been taken from us altogether or has turned out a sorrow instead of a joy. We have intended to go hither or thither, but the storm has intervened and we have been left behind. III. THE HAND OF GOD IN THE PURPOSES OF LIFE. Job did not realise that his purposes had been cut off by God, and that there was an object underlying the sorrow which filled his heart. Neither do men understand that there may be a reason that they cannot fathom which has hindered the success of their cherished hopes. Eternity will show that man's purposes are broken — 1. Because if successful they would have been injurious to ourselves. Many souls have been saved by being kept from riches or power. Many have been kept from ruin by having their cherished idol taken away. 2. Because they might work some evil for others. We often see instances of misdirected philanthropy. But how seldom we can see behind the scenes, and how little do we know what will really benefit our fellow creatures! 3. Because God sees that we are not fitted for the work, 4. Because He has higher and better purposes for us. 5. Because He desires to bring us to a state of perfect trust in Himself. He crushes our plans to show us how weak, how foolish we are, and to lay us low in humility. How much wiser are His arrangements! ( J. J. S. Bird. ) Broken purposes The Study. I. MEN FORM PURPOSES. Mind is active and made to think. Men speculate and resolve. Pleasure and wealth, honour and worldly position eagerly sought. II. THESE PURPOSES NOT ALWAYS FULFILLED. Broken off as threads of the web cut off from the loom ( Isaiah 32 ). Impossible to realise. Providence intervenes; man proposeth, God disposeth. Greeks represented the fates as spinning the threads of human life. Procrastination prevents performance. Satan hinders ( 1 Thessalonians 2:18 ). III. THIS IS A SAD FACT IN EXPERIENCE. "My" purposes. Good resolutions formed and never carried out; plans adopted and forsaken; principles never come to maturity, and life wasted in attempting, and nothing done! ( The Study. ) Broken purposes Anon. The world is full of broken columns. Every heart carries its own crowded cemetery. The cemeteries in which you lay dead flesh and bones are not the true cemeteries. The graveyards are in the heart. "My purposes are broken off"; this is the cry of a disappointed man; the muffled moan of a baffled hope. It is not the peculiar cry of a Jew, or of a Gentile, of an Orientalist, or an Occidentalist, it is simply the voice of universal man. God has graciously enriched the world with example men; men who have been made to show in their melancholy experience how vain is ambition, how uncertain is expectation, how unstable is strength. Job is such man. I. AS REVEALING THE SPECULATIVE SIDE OF HUMAN LIFE. All men have purposes. Man cannot live by history alone; he must strengthen himself by hope. Man puts out his hand and plucks of the tree of tomorrow. Every man speculates concerning the future, and feels himself inspired as he dwells on the charms of the coming time. Man's power of speculation always exceeds man's power of realisation. The poetic fancy is in advance of the toiling hand. The wanderer's mind is at the destination long before the wanderer's foot has taken the first step of the journey! The power of speculation and the power of realisation are not coordinate. We paint many a fire which we never can enkindle. We plant olive yards which bear no fruit, and dig wells which hold no water. Yet we would not give up this power of projecting ourselves into the future! We would not like to be barred in the small prison called "today." Not a man but is pleasing himself with some dream of fancy. Each is saying, "The times will change for the better; the cold winds will die out; the sky will be a cloudless arch; I shall walk on a carpet of violets through palaces of perfume." II. AS DISCLOSING THE REAL SIDE OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. "Purposes"! — that is poetry; "Broken"! - that is history! This is a sad combination of words! Life is full of half-built towers. Men had begun to build, but were not able to finish. Life is a pile of fragments. Nowhere is there aught complete. Life is all beginnings; there is no finished pinnacle! III. AS SUGGESTING MAN'S TRUE COURSE AS A SPECULATIST AND AS A WORKER. "Go to now, ye that say to

17:1-9 Job reflects upon the harsh censures his friends had passed upon him, and, looking on himself as a dying man, he appeals to God. Our time is ending. It concerns us carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for eternity. We see the good use the righteous should make of Job's afflictions from God, from enemies, and from friends. Instead of being discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage this faithful servant of God met with, they should be made bold to proceed and persevere therein. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end, will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they may meet with. 17:10-16 Job's friends had pretended to comfort him with the hope of his return to a prosperous estate; he here shows that those do not go wisely about the work of comforting the afflicted, who fetch their comforts from the possibility of recovery in this world. It is our wisdom to comfort ourselves, and others, in distress, with that which will not fail; the promise of God, his love and grace, and a well-grounded hope of eternal life. See how Job reconciles himself to the grave. Let this make believers willing to die; it is but going to bed; they are weary, and it is time that they were in their beds. Why should not they go willingly when their Father calls them? Let us remember our bodies are allied to corruption, the worm and the dust; and let us seek for that lively hope which shall be fulfilled, when the hope of the wicked shall be put out in darkness; that when our bodies are in the grave, our souls may enjoy the rest reserved for the people of God.