聖書

Expositor's Bible Commentary Job 23:1 Then Job answered and said, XX. WHERE IS ELOAH? Job 23:1-17 ; Job 24:1-25 Job SPEAKS THE obscure couplet with which Job begins appears to involve some reference to his whole condition alike of body and mind. "Again today, my plaint, my rebellion! The hand upon me is heavier than my groanings." I must speak of my trouble and you will count it rebellion. Yet, if I moan and sigh, my pain and weariness are more than excuse. The crisis of faith is with him, a protracted misery, and hope hangs trembling in the balance. The false accusations of Eliphaz are in his mind; but they provoke only a feeling of weary discontent. What men say does not trouble him much. He is troubled because of that which God refuses to do or say. Many indeed are the afflictions of the righteous. But every case like his own obscures the providence of God. Job does not entirely deny the contention of his friends that unless suffering comes as a punishment of sin there is no reason for it. Hence, even though he maintains with strong conviction that the good are often poor and afflicted while the wicked prosper, yet he does not thereby clear up the matter. He must admit to himself that he is condemned by the events of life. And against the testimony of outward circumstance he makes appeal in the audience chamber of the King. Has the Most High forgotten to be righteous for a time? When the generous and true are brought into sore straits, is the great Friend of truth neglecting His task as Governor of the world? That would indeed plunge life into profound darkness. And it seems to be even so. Job seeks deliverance from this mystery which has emerged in his own experience. He would lay his cause before Him who alone can explain. "Oh that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, And fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me And understand what He would say unto me." Present to Job’s mind here is the thought that he is under condemnation, and along with this the conviction that his trial is not over. It is natural that his mind should hover between these ideas, holding strongly to the hope that judgment, if already passed, will be revised whet the facts are fully known. Now this course of thought is altogether in the darkness. But what are the principles unknown to Job, through ignorance of which he has to languish in doubt? Partly, as we long ago saw the explanation lies in the use of trial and affliction as the means of deepening spiritual life. They give gravity and therewith the possibility of power to our existence. Even yet Job had not realised that one always kept in the primrose path, untouched by the keen air of "misfortune" although he had, to begin, a pious disposition and a blameless record, would be worth little: the end to God or to mankind. And the necessity for the discipline of affliction and disappointment, even as it explains the smaller troubles, explains also the greatest. Let ill be heaped on ill, disaster on disaster, disease on bereavement, misery on sorrow, while stage by stage the life goes down into deeper circles of gloom and pain, it may acquire, it will acquire, if faith and faithfulness towards God remain, massiveness, strength, and dignity for the highest spiritual service. But there is another principle, not yet considered, which enters into the problem and still more lightens up the valley of experience which to Job appeared so dark. The poem touches the fringe of this principle again and again, but never states it. The author says that men were born to trouble. He made Job suffer more because he had his integrity to maintain than if he had been guilty of transgressions by acknowledging which he might have pacified his friends: The burden lay heavily upon Job because he was a conscientious man, a true man, and could not accept any make believe in religion. But just where another step would have carried him into the light of blessed acquiescence in the will of God the power failed, he could not advance. Perhaps the genuineness and simplicity of his character would have been impaired if he had thought of it. and we like him better because he did not. The truth, however, is that Job was suffering for others, that he was, by the grace of God, a martyr, and so far forth in the spirit and position of that suffering Servant of Jehovah of whom we read in the prophecies of Isaiah. The righteous sufferers, the martyrs, what are they? Always the vanguard of humanity. Where they go and the prints of their bleeding feet are left, there is the way of improvement, of civilisation, of religion. The most successful man, preacher or journalist or statesman, is popularly supposed to be leading the world in the right path. Where the crowd goes shouting after him, is that not the way to advance? Do not believe it. Look for a teacher, a journalist, a statesman who is not so successful as he might be, because he will, at all hazards, be true. The Christian world does not yet know the best in life, thought, and morality for the best. He who sacrifices position and esteem to righteousness, he who will not bow down to the great idol at the sound of sackbut and psaltery, observe where that man is going, try to understand what he has in his mind. Those who under defeat or neglect remain steadfast in faith have the secrets we need to know. To the ranks even of the afflicted and broken the author of Job turned for an example of witness bearing to high ideas and the faith in God which brings salvation. But he wrought in the shadow, and his hero is unconscious of his high calling. Had Job seen the principles of Divine providence which made him a helper of human faith, we should not now hear him cry for an opportunity of pleading his cause before God. "Would He contend with me in His mighty power? Nay, but He would give heed to me. Then an upright man would reason with Him; So should I get free forever from my Judge." It is in a sense startling to hear this confident expectation of acquittal at the bar of God. The common notion is that the only part possible to man in his natural state is to fear the judgment to come and dread the hour that shall bring him to the Divine tribunal. From the ordinary point of view the language of Job here is dangerous, if not profane. He longs to meet the Judge; he believes that he could so state his case that the Judge would listen and be convinced. The Almighty would not contend with him any longer as his powerful antagonist, but would pronounce him innocent and set him at liberty forever. Can mortal man vindicate himself before the bar of the Most High? Is not every one condemned by the law of nature and of conscience, much more by Him who knoweth all things? And yet this man who believes he would be acquitted by the great King has already been declared "perfect and upright, one that feareth God and escheweth evil." Take the declaration of the Almighty Himself in the opening scenes of the book, and Job is found what he claims to be. Under the influence of that Divine grace which the sincere and upright may enjoy he has been a faithful servant and has earned the approbation of his Judge. It is by faith he is made righteous. Religion and love of the Divine law have been his guides; he has followed them; and what one has done may not others do? Our book is concerned not so much with the corruption of human nature, as with the vindication of the grace of God given to human nature. Corrupt and vile as humanity often is, imperfect and spiritually ignorant as it always is, the writer of this book is not engaged with that view. He directs attention to the virtuous and honourable elements and shows God’s new creation in which He may take delight. We shall indeed find that after the Almighty has spoken out of the storm, Job says, "I repudiate my words and repent in dust and ashes." So he appears to come at last to the confession which, from one point of view, he ought to have made at the first. But those words of penitence imply no acknowledgment of iniquity after all. They are confession of ignorant judgment. Job admits with sorrow that he has ventured too far in his attempt to understand the ways of the Almighty, that he has spoken without knowledge of the universal providence he had vainly sought to fathom. The author’s intention plainly is to justify Job in his desire for the opportunity of pleading his cause, that is, to justify the claim of the human reason to comprehend. It is not an offence to him that much of the Divine working is profoundly difficult to interpret. He acknowledges in humility that God is greater than man, that there are secrets with the Almighty which the human mind cannot penetrate. But so far as suffering and sorrow are appointed to a man and enter into his life, he is considered to have the right of inquiry regarding them, an inherent claim on God to explain them. This may be held the error of the author which he himself has to confess when he comes to the Divine interlocution. There he seems to allow the majesty of the Omnipotent to silence the questions of human reason. But this is really a confession that his own knowledge does not suffice, that he shares the ignorance of Job as well as his cry for light. The universe is vaster than he or any of the Old Testament age could even imagine. The destinies of man form part of a Divine order extending through the immeasurable spaces and the developments of eternal ages. Once more Job perceives or seems to perceive that access to the presence of the Judge is denied. The sense of condemnation shuts him in like prison walls and he finds no way to the audience chamber. The bright sun moves calmly from east to west; the gleaming stars, the cold moon in their turn glide silently over the vault of heaven. Is not God on high? Yet man sees no form, hears no sound. "Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet; Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." But Job is not able to conceive a spiritual presence without shape or voice. "Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; And backward, but I cannot perceive Him: On the left hand where He doth work, but I behold Him not: He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him." Nature, thou hast taught this man by thy light and thy darkness, thy glorious sun and thy storms, the clear shining after rain, the sprouting corn and the clusters of the vine, by the power of man’s will and the daring love and justice of man’s heart. In all thou hast been a revealer. But thou hidest whom thou dost reveal. To cover in thought the multiplicity of, thy energies in earth and sky and sea, in fowl and brute and man, in storm and sunshine, in reason, in imagination, in will and love and hope; -to attach these one by one to the idea of a Being almighty, infinite, eternal, and so to conceive this God of the universe-it is, we may say, a superhuman task. Job breaks down in the effort to realise the great God. I took behind me, into the past. There are the footprints of Eloah when He passed by. In the silence an echo of His step may be heard; but God is not there. On the right hand, away beyond the hills that shut in the horizon, on the left hand where the ways leads to Damascus and the distant north-not there can I see His form; nor out yonder where day breaks in the east. And when I travel forward in imagination, I who said that my Redeemer shall stand upon the earth, when I strive to conceive His form, still, in utter human incapacity, I fail. "Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself." And yet, Job’s conviction of his own uprightness, is it not God’s witness to his spirit? Can he not be content with that? To have such a testimony is to have the very verdict he desire. Well does Boethius, a writer of the old world though he belonged to the Christian age, press beyond Job where he writes: "He is always Almighty, because He always wills good and never any evil. He is always equally gracious. By His Divine power He is everywhere present. The Eternal and Almighty always sits on the throne of His power. Thence He is able to see all, and renders to every one with justice, according to his works. Therefore it is. not in vain that we have hope in God; for He changes not as we do. But pray ye to Him humbly, for He is very bountiful and very merciful. Hate and fly from evil as ye best may. Love virtues and follow them. Ye have great need that ye always do well, for ye always in the presence of the Eternal and Almighty God do all that ye do. He beholds it all, and He will recompense it all." Amiel, on the other hand, would fain apply to Job a reflection which has occurred to himself in one of the moods that come to a man disappointed, impatient of his own limitations. In his journal, under date January 29th, 1866, he writes: "It is but our secret self-love which is set upon this favour from on high; such may be our desire, but such is not the will of God. We are to be exercised, humbled, tried and tormented to the end. It is our patience which is the touchstone of our virtue. To bear with life even when illusion and hope are gone; to accept this position of perpetual war, while at the same time loving only peace; to stay patiently in the world, even when it repels us as a place of low company and seems to us a mere arena of bad passions; to remain faithful to one’s own faith without breaking with the followers of false gods; to make no attempt to escape from the human hospital, long-suffering and patient as Job upon his dunghill; -this is duty." An evil mood prompts Amiel to write thus. A thousand times rather would one hear him crying like Job on the great Judge and Redeemer and complaining that the Goal hides Himself. It is not in bare self-love or self-pity Job seeks acquittal at the bar of God; but in the defence of conscience, the spiritual treasure of mankind and our very life. No doubt his own personal justification bulks largely with Job, for he has strong individuality. He will not be overborne. He stands at bay against his three friends and the unseen adversary. But he loves integrity, the virtue, first; and for himself he cares as the representative of that which the Spirit of God gives to faithful men. He may cry, therefore, he may defend himself, he may complain; and God will not cast him off. "For He knoweth the way that I take; If He tried me, I should come forth as gold. My foot hath held fast to His steps, His way have I kept, and not turned aside. I have not gone back from the commandments of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my needful food." Bravely, not in mere vaunt he speaks, and it is good to hear him still able to make such a claim. Why do we not also hold fast to the garment of our Divine Friend? Why do we not realise and exhibit the resolute godliness that anticipates judgment: "If He tried me, I should come forth as gold"? The psalmists of Israel stood thus on their faith; and not in vain, surely, has Christ called us to be like our Father who is in heaven. But again from brave affirmation Job falls back exhausted. Oh thou Hereafter! on whose shore I stand- Waiting each toppling moment to engulf me. What am I? Say thou Present! say thou Past! Ye three wise children of Eternity- A life?-A death?-and an immortal?-All? Is this the threefold mystery of man? The lower, darker Trinity of earth? It is vain to ask. Nought answers me-not God. The air grows thick and dark. The sky comes down. The sun draws round him streaky clouds-like God Gleaning up wrath. Hope hath leapt off my heart, Like a false sibyl, fear-smote, from her seat, And overturned it. So, as Bailey makes his Festus speak, might Job have spoken here. For now it seems to him that to call on God is fruitless. Eloah is of one mind. His will is steadfast, immovable. Death is in the cup and death will come. On this God has determined. Nor is it in Job’s case alone so sore a doom is performed by the Almighty. Many such things are with Him. The waves of trouble roll up from the deep dark sea and go over the head of the sufferer. He lies faint and desolate once more. The light fades, and with a deep sigh because he ever came to life he shuts his lips. Natural religion ends always with a sigh. The sense of God found in the order of the universe, the dim vision of God which comes in conscience, moral life and duty, in fear and hope and love, in the longing for justice and truth-these avail much; but they leave us at the end desiring something they cannot give. The Unknown God whom men ignorantly worshipped had to be revealed by the life and truth and power of the Man Christ Jesus. Not without this revelation, which is above and beyond nature, can our eager quest end in satisfying knowledge. In Christ alone the righteousness that justifies, the love that compassionates, the wisdom that enlightens are brought into the range of our experience and communicated through reason to faith. In chapter 24 there is a development of the reasoning contained in Job’s reply to Zophar in the second colloquy, and there is also a closer examination of the nature and results of evildoing than has yet been attempted. In the course of his acute and careful discrimination Job allows something to his friends’ side of the argument, but all the more emphasises the series of vivid touches by which the prosperous tyrant is represented. He modifies to some extent his opinion previously expressed that all goes well with the wicked. He finds that certain classes of miscreants do come to confusion, and he separates these from the others, at the same time separating himself beyond question from the oppressor on this side and the murderer and adulterer on that. Accepting the limits of discussion chosen by the friends he exhausts the matter between himself and them. By the distinctions now made and the choice offered, Job arrests personal accusation, and of that we hear no more. Continuing the idea of a Divine assize which has governed his thought throughout this reply, Job asks why it should not be held openly from time to time in the world’s history. "Why are times not set by the Almighty? And why do not they who know Him see His days?" Emerson says the world is full of judgment days; Job thinks it is not, but ought to be. Passing from his own desire to have access to the bar of God and plead there, he now thinks of an open court, a public vindication of God’s rule. The Great Assize is never proclaimed. Ages go by; the Righteous One never appears. All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Men struggling, sinning, suffering, doubt or deny the existence of a moral Ruler. They ask, Who ever saw this God? If He exists, He is so separate from the world by His own choice that there is no need to consider Him. In pride or in sorrow men raise the question. But no God means no justice, no truth, no penetration of the real by the ideal; and thought cannot rest there. With great vigour and large knowledge of the world the writer makes Job point out the facts of human violence and crime, of human condonation and punishment. Look at the oppressors and those who cringe under them, the despots never brought to justice, but on the contrary growing in power through the fear and misery of their serfs. Already we have seen how perilous it is to speak falsely for God. Now we see, on the other hand, that whoever speaks truly of the facts of human experience prepares the way for a true knowledge of God. Those who have been looking in vain for indications of Divine justice and grace are to learn that not in deliverance from the poverty and trouble of this world but in some other way they must realise God’s redemption. The writer of the book is seeking after that kingdom which is not meat and drink nor long life and happiness, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Observe first, says Job, the base and cruel men who remove landmarks and claim as their own a neighbour’s heritage, who drive into their pastures flocks that are not theirs, who even take away the one ass of the fatherless and the one ox the widow has for ploughing her scanty fields, who thus with a high hand overbear all the defenceless people within their reach. Zophar had charged Job with similar crimes, and no direct reply was given to the accusation. Now, speaking strongly of the iniquity of such deeds, Job makes his accusers feel their injustice towards him. There are men who do such things. I have seen them, wondered at them, been amazed that they were not struck down by the hand of God. My distress is that I cannot understand how to reconcile their immunity from punishment with my faith in Him whom I have served and trusted as my Friend. The next picture, from the fifth to the eighth verse ( Job 24:5-8 ) , shows in contrast to the tyrant’s pride and cruelty the lot of those who suffer at his hands. Deprived of their land and their flocks, herding together in common danger and misery like wild asses, they have to seek for their food such roots and wild fruits as can be found here and there in the wilderness. Half enslaved now by the man who took away their land they are driven to the task of harvesting his fodder and gathering the gleanings of his grapes. Naked they lie in the field, huddling together for warmth, and out among the hills they are wet with the impetuous rams, crouching in vain under the ledges of the rock for shelter. Worse things too are done, greater sufferings than these have to be endured. Men there are who pluck the fatherless child from the mother’s breast, claiming the poor little life as a pledge. Miserable debtors, faint with hunger, have to carry the oppressor’s sheaves of corn. They have to grind at the oil presses, and with never a cluster to slake their thirst tread the grapes in the hot sun. Nor is it only in the country cruelties are practised. Perhaps in Egypt the writer has seen what he makes Job describe, the misery of city life. In the city the dying groan uncared for, and the soul of the wounded crieth out. Universal are the scenes of social iniquity. The world is full of injustice. And to Job the sting of it all is that "God regardeth not the wrong." Men talk nowadays as if the penury and distress prevalent in our large towns proved the churches to be unworthy of their name and place. It may be so. If this can be proved, let it be proved; and if the institution called The Church cannot justify its existence and its Christianity where it should do so by freeing the poor from oppression and securing their rights to the weak, then let it go to the wall. But here is Job carrying the accusation a stage farther, carrying it, with what may appear blasphemous audacity, to the throne of God. He has no church to blame, for there is no church. Or, he himself represents what church there is. And as a witness for God, what does he find to be his portion? Behold him, where many a servant of Divine righteousness has been in past times and is now, down in the depths, poorest of the poor, bereaved, diseased, scorned, misunderstood, hopeless. Why is there suffering? Why are there many in our cities outcasts of society, such as society is? Job’s case is a partial explanation; and here the church is not to blame. Pariahs of society, we say. If society consists to any great extent of oppressors who are enjoying wealth unjustly gained, one is not so sure that there is any need to pity those who are excluded from society. Am I trying to make out that it may be well there are oppressors, because oppression is not the worst thing for a brave soul? No: I am only using the logic of the Book of Job in justifying Divine providence. The church is criticised and by many in these days condemned as worthless because it is not banishing poverty. Perhaps it might be more in the way of duty and more likely to succeed if it sought to banish excessive wealth. Are we of the twentieth Christian century to hold still by the error of Eliphaz and the rest of Job’s friends? Are we to imagine that those whom the gospel blesses it must of necessity enrich, so that in their turn they may be tempted to act the Pharisee? Let us be sure God knows how to govern His world. Let us not doubt His justice because many are very poor who have been guilty of no crimes and many very rich who have been distinguished by no virtues. It is our mistake to think that all would be well if no bitter cries were heard in the midnight streets and every one were secured against penury. While the church is partly to blame for the state of things, the salvation of society will not be found in any earthly socialism. On that side lies a slough as deep as the other from which it professes to save. The large Divine justice and humanity which the world needs are those which Christ alone has taught, Christ to whom property was only something to deal with on the way to spiritual good, -humility, holiness, love, and faith. The emphatic "These" with which Job 24:13 begins must be taken as referring to the murderer and adulterer immediately to be described. Quite distinct from the strong oppressors who maintain themselves in high position are these cowardly miscreants who "rebel against the light" ( Job 24:13 ), who "in the dark dig through houses" and "know not the light" ( Job 24:16 ), to whom "the morning is as the shadow of death," whose "portion is cursed in the earth." The passage contains Job’s admission that there are vile transgressors of human and Divine law whose unrighteousness is broken as a tree ( Job 24:20 ). Without giving up his main contention as to high-handed wickedness prospering in the world he can admit this; nay, asserting it, he strengthens his position against the arguments of his friends. The murderer who rising towards daybreak waylays and kills the poor and needy for the sake of their scanty belongings, the adulterer who waits for the twilight, disguising his face, and the thief who in the dark digs through the clay wall of a house these do find the punishment of their treacherous and disgusting crimes in this life. The coward who is guilty of such sin is loathed even by the mother who bore him and has to skulk in by ways, familiar with the terrors of the shadow of death, daring, not to turn in the way of the vineyards to enjoy their fruit. The description of these reprobates ends with the twenty-first verse, and then there is a return to the "mighty" and the Divine support they appear to enjoy. The interpretation of Job 24:18-21 which makes them "either actually in part the work of a popular hand, or a parody after the popular manner by Job himself," has no sufficient ground. To affirm that the passage is introduced ironically and that Job 24:22 resumes the real history of the murderer, the adulterer, and the thief is to neglect the distinction between those "who rebel against the light" and the mighty who live in the eye of God. The natural interpretation is that which makes the whole a serious argument against the creed of the friends. In their eagerness to convict Job they have failed to distinguish between men whose base crimes bring them under social reprobation and the proud oppressors who prosper through very arrogance. Regarding these the fact still holds that apparently they are under the protection of Heaven. Yet He sustaineth the mighty by His power, They rise up though they despaired of life. He giveth them to be safe, and they are unheld, And His eyes are upon their ways. They rise high: in a moment they are not; They are brought low, like all others gathered in. And cut off as the tops of corn. If not-who then will make me a liar, And to nothing bring my speech? Is the daring right-defying evildoer wasted by disease, preyed upon by terror? Not so. When he appears to have been crushed, suddenly he starts up again in new vigour, and when he dies, it is not prematurely but in the ripeness of full age. With this reaffirmation of the mystery of God’s dealings Job challenges his friends. They have his final judgment. The victory he gains is that of one who will be true at all hazards. Perhaps in the background of his thought is the vision of a redemption not only of his own life but of all those broken by the injustice and cruelty of this earth. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Oh, that I knew where I might find Him. Job 23:1-6 The cry for restored relations with God Charles O. Stewart. The language of the text is exclusively that of men on the earth, — although it also characterises the state and feelings only of some of the guilty children of men. Some among the human race have already sought God, and found Him a present help in the time of trouble. The desire expressed in the text is that of one under affliction. It is either the prayer of an awakened sinner, crying and longing for reconciliation, to God, under deep conviction, and full of sorrow and shame on account of it: or the cry of the backslider awakened anew to his danger and guilt, under God's chastisements, remembering the sweet enjoyment of brighter days, and ardently longing for its return. I. IT IMPLIES A PAINFUL SENSE OF DISTANCE FROM GOD. Men of no religion are far off from God, but this gives them no concern. The presence of Christ constitutes the believer's joy, and he mourns nothing so much as the loss of God's favour. Sad and comfortless as the state of distance from God must be to the believer, still he is painfully conscious of his own state, and crying like Job, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" The occasions that most generally give birth to the complaint and cry in the text are such as these. 1. Bodily suffering, or the pressure of severe and long-continued outward calamities, may contribute to enfeeble the mind, and lead the soul to conclude that it is forsaken by its God. The dispensations of Divine providence appear so complex and difficult, that faith is unable to explore them, or hope to rise above them. The mind magnifies its distresses, and dwells on its own griefs, to the exclusion of those grounds of consolation and causes of thankfulness afforded in the many mercies that tend to alleviate their bitterness. In reality God is not more distant from the soul, though He appears to be so. 2. Another and more serious occasion of distance and desertion is sin cherished, long indulged, unrepented of, and unpardoned. This alienates the soul from God. Sin is just the wandering of the soul in its thoughts, desires, and affections from God, and God graciously makes sin itself the instrument in correcting the backslider. The righteous desert of the soul's departure from God, is God's desertion of the soul. God is really ever near to man. "He is not far from any one of us." But sin indulged, whether open, secret, or presumptuous, grieves the Holy Spirit, expels Him from the temple He loved, and cheered by His presence. Let us thank God that distance is not utter desertion. When the misery of separation and distance from God is felt, the dawn of restoration and reconciliation begins. II. AS THE LANGUAGE OF EARNEST DESIRE. When "brought to himself" the backslider rests not satisfied with fruitless complaints, but the desire of his soul is towards his God. It is one thing to be conscious of distance from God, and quite another thing to be anxious to be brought near to Him by the blood of Christ. Conviction of guilt and misery is not conversion. What avails it, to know our separation from God, unless we are brought to this desire and anxiety, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" III. AS THE LANGUAGE OF HOLY FREEDOM. The text is a way of appeal by Job to God concerning his integrity. Though he had much to say in favour of his integrity before men, he did not rest on anything in himself as the ground of his justification before God. His language expresses a resolution to avail himself of the privilege of approaching the Most High with holy freedom and humble confidence, to present his petition. IV. AS THE LANGUAGE OF HOPE. Job could expect little from his earthly friends. All his hopes flowed from another — an Almighty Friend. Those who wait on God, and hope in His Word, will surely not be disappointed. Then never give way to a rebellious spirit. Give not way to languor in your affections, coldness in your desires, indifference as to the Lord's presence or absence, or to feebleness of faith. Let the desires of your soul be, as David's, a "panting after God." ( Charles O. Stewart. ) The great problem of life H. Black, M. A. This cry of Job is represented to us in this passage as a cry for justice. He has been tortured by the strange mystery of God's providence; he has had it brought before himself in his own painful experience, and from that has been led to look out on the world, where he sees the same mystery enlarged and intensified. — He sees wrong unredressed, evil unpunished, innocence crushed under the iron heel of oppression. He does not see clear evidences of God's moral government of the world, and he comes back ever to the personal problem with which he is faced, that he. though he is sure of his own innocence, is made to suffer, and he feels as if God had been unjust to him. He wants it explained; he would like to argue the case, and set forth his plea; he longs to be brought before God's judgment seat and plead before Him, and give vent to all the bitter thoughts in his mind. "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments." He feels God's very presence about him on every side, ever present, but ever eluding him; every. where near, but everywhere avoiding him. "Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him. On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him; He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him." It is not his own personal pain that makes the problem, except in so far as that has brought him before the deeper problem of God's providence which he now confronts. Everything would be clear and plain if he could but come into close relations with God, and that is just what meanwhile he cannot attain. "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" I. In perhaps a wider sense than its original application in the passage of our text, these words of Job are as THE VERY SIGH OF THE HUMAN HEART, ASKING THE DEEPEST QUESTION OF LIFE. Men have always boon conscious of God, as Job was, sure that He was near, and sure also, like Job, that in Him would be the solution of every difficulty and the explanation of every mystery. The race has been haunted by God. St. Paul's words to the Athenians on Mars Hill are a true reading of history, and a true reading of human nature; that all men are so constituted by essential nature that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. It is the deepest philosophy of human history. Even when men have no definite knowledge of God they are forced by the very needs of their nature, driven by inner necessity, to reach out after God. Though, like Job, when they go forward He is not there, and backward they cannot perceive Him. On the left hand and on the right hand they cannot see Him, yet they are doomed to seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him. Man is a religious being, it is in his blood; he feels himself related to a power above him, and knows himself a spirit longing for fellowship with the Divine. Thus religion is universal, found at all stages of human history and all ages; all the varied forms of religion, all its institutions, all its sorts of worship, are witnesses to this conscious need which the race has for God. Job may assent to Zophar the Naamathite's proposition that finite man cannot completely comprehend the infinite. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" But this assertion does not disprove the fact of which he is certain, that he has had fellowship with God, and has had religious experiences of which he cannot doubt. All forms of faith are witnesses to man's insatiable thirst for God, and many forms of unbelief and denial are only more pathetic witnesses still of the same fact. Many a denial of the Divine is just the bitter faith that He is a God that hideth Himself. When men come to consciousness of self they come also to consciousness of the unseen, a sense of relation to the power above them. The great problem of life is to find God; not to find happiness, not even by being satiated with that can the void be filled; but to find God; for being such as we are, with needs, longings, aspirations, we are beaten with unsatisfied desire, struck with restless fever, till we find rest in God. The true explanation is the biblical one, that man is made in the imago of God, that in spirit he is akin to the eternal Spirit, there is no great gulf fixed between God and man which cannot be bridged over. Man was created in the likeness of God, but was born a child of God. Fellowship is possible, therefore, since there is no inherent incapacity; there is something in man which corresponds to qualities in God. The conclusion, which is the instinctive faith of man, is that spirit with spirit can meet. God entered into a relation of love and fatherhood with man, man entered into a relationship of love and sonship with God. Certain it is that man can never give up the hope and the desire, and must be orphaned and desolate until he so does find God. II. If it be true, as it is true, that man has ever sought God, IT IS A DEEPER FACT STILL THAT GOD HAS EVER SOUGHT MAN. The deep of man's desire has been answered by the deep of God's mercy. For every reaching forth of man there has been the stooping down of God. History is more than the story of the human soul seeking God; in a truer and more profound sense still is it the record of God seeking the soul. The very fact that men have asked with some measure of belief, though struck almost with doubt at the wonder of it, "Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" is because God has dwelt with men, has entered into terms of communion. The history of man's attainment is the history of God's self-revelation. It is solely because God has been seeking man that man has stretched out groping hands if haply he might feel after Him and find Him. Faith has survived just because it justifies itself and because it embodies itself in experience. Religious history is not only the dim and blundering reaching out of man's intelligence towards the mystery of the unknown, it is rather the history of God approaching man, revealing His will to man, declaring Himself, offering relations of trust and fellowship. If Christ has given expression to the character of God, if He has revealed the Father, has He not consciously, conclusively, proved to us that the Divine attitude is that of seeking men, striving to establish permanent relations of devotion and love? He has also given us the assurance that to respond to God's love is to know Him, the assurance that to seek Him is to find Him, so that no longer need we ask in half despair, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" Prayer, trust, worship, self-surrender, never fail of Divine response, bringing peace and heart's ease. When to the knowledge that God is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, there is added the further knowledge that God is love, we receive a guarantee — do we not? — that not in vain is our desire after Him, a guarantee that to seek Him is to find Him. Ah, the tragedy is not that men who seek should have failed to find God, but that men should not seek, that men should be content to pass through life without desiring much, or much striving, to pierce the veil of mystery. It is man's nature to seek God, we have said, but this primitive intuition can be overborne by the weight of material interest, by the mass of secondary concerns, by the lust of flesh and the lust of eye and pride of life. A thousand-fold better than this deadness of soul is it to be still unsatisfied, still turning the eyes to the light for the blissful vision; to be still in want, crying to the silent skies, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" But even that need not be our condition. If we seek God, as we surely can, as we surely do, in the face of Jesus Christ, the true picture is not man lost in the dark, not man seeking God his home with palsied steps and groping hands. The true picture is the seeking God, come in Christ to seek and save the lost. ( H. Black, M. A. ) Man's cry for fellowship with God Homilist. The provision to satisfy this longing of the soul must involve — I. A PERSONAL MANIFESTATION OF GOD TO THE SOUL. It is not for some thing, but for some person that the soul cries. Pantheism may gratify the instinct of the speculative, or the sentiment of the poetic, but it meets not this profoundest craving of our nature. II. A BENEVOLENT MANIFESTATION OF GOD TO THE SOUL. For an unemotional God the soul has no affinity; for a malevolent one it has a dread. It craves for one that is kind and loving. Its cry is for the Father; nothing else will do. III. A PROPITIABLE MANIFESTATION OF GOD TO THE SOUL. A sense of sin presses heavily on the race. So mere benevolence will not do. God may be benevolent and yet not propitiable. Does then our Bible meet the greatest necessity of human nature? Does it give a personal, benevolent, and propitiable God? ( Homilist. ) Job looking round for God Joseph Parker, D. D. Job looks round for God, as a man might look round for an old acquaintance, an old but long-gone friend. Memory has a great ministry to discharge in life; old times come back, and whisper to us, correct us or bless us, as the ease may be. After listening to all new doctors the heart says, "Where is your old friend? where the quarter whence light first dawned? recall yourself; think out the whole case." So Job would seem now to say, Oh that I knew where I might find Him! I would go round the earth to discover Him; I would fly through all the stars if I could have but one brief interview with Him; I would count no labour hard if I might see Him as I once did. We are not always benefited by a literally correct experience, a literally correct interpretation, even. Sometimes God has used other means for our illumination and release, and upbuilding in holy mysteries. So Job might have strange ideas of God, and yet those ideas might do him good. It is not our place to laugh even at idolatry. There is no easier method of provoking an unchristian laugh, or evoking an unchristian plaudit, than by railing against the gods of the heathen. Job's ideas of God were not ours, but they were his; and to be a man's very own religion is the beginning of the right life. Only let a man with his heart hand seize some truth, hold on by some conviction, and support the same by an obedient spirit, a beneficent life, a most charitable temper, a high and prayerful desire to know all God's will, and how grey and dim soever the dawn, the noontide shall be without a cloud, and the afternoon shall be one long quiet glory. Hold on by what you do know, and do not be laughed out of initial and incipient convictions by men who are so wise that they have become fools. Job says, Now I bethink me, God is considerate and forbearing. "Will He plead against me with His great power? No; but He would put strength in me" (ver. 6). It is something to know so much. Job says, Bad as I am, I might be worse; after all I am alive; poor, desolated, impoverished, dispossessed of nearly everything I could once handle and claim as my own, yet still I live, and life is greater than anything life can ever have. So I am not engaged in a battle against Omnipotence; were I to fight Almightiness, why I should be crushed in one moment. The very fact that I am spared shows that although it may be God who is against me, He is not rude in His almightiness, He is not thundering upon me with His great strength; He has atmosphered Himself, and is looking in upon me by a gracious accommodation of Himself to my littleness. Let this stand as a great and gracious lesson in human training, that however great the affliction it is evident that God does not plead against us with His whole strength; if He did so, He who touches the mountains and they smoke has but to lay one finger upon us — nay, the shadow of a finger — and we should wither away. So, then, I will bless God; I will begin to reckon thus, that after all that has gone the most has been left me; I can still inquire for God, I can still even dumbly pray; I can grope, though I cannot see; I can put out my hands in the great darkness, and feel something; I am not utterly cast away. Despisest thou the riches of His goodness? Shall not the riches of His goodness lead thee to repentance? Hast thou forgotten all the instances of forbearance? Is not His very stroke of affliction dealt reluctantly? Does He not let the lifted thunder drop? Here is a side of the Divine manifestation which may be considered by the simplest minds; here is a process of spiritual reckoning which the very youngest understandings may conduct. Say to yourself, Yes, there is a good deal left; the sun still warms the earth, the earth is still willing to bring forth fruit, the air is full of life; I know there are a dozen graves dug all round me, but see how the flowers grow upon them everyone; did some angel plant them? Whence came they? Life is greater than death. The life that was in Christ abolished death, covered it with ineffable contempt, and utterly set it aside, and its place is taken up by life and immortality, on which are shining forever the whole glory of heaven. Job will yet recover. He will certainly pray; perhaps he will sing; who can tell? He begins well; he says he is not fighting Omnipotence, Omnipotence is not fighting him, and the very fact of forbearance involves the fact of mercy. ( Joseph Parker, D. D. ) How to find God Canon J. P. Norris, B. D. There are many senses in which we may speak of "finding God"; and in one or other of these senses it may be we have all of us yet need to find Him. 1. Some there are who will confess at once that they are at times — not always, not often perhaps, but sometimes — troubled with speculative doubts about God's existence. So many thoughtful, earnest men around them seem to regard it as an open question whether the problems of nature may not be solved on some other hypothesis. 2. Others dislike controversy, and would rather not enter upon the question whether they have found God. These are Christians, and the first article of their creed is, "I believe in God." 3. Some are ready timidly to confess that again and again they have found their faith in God's presence fail them, when they have most needed it. 4. A happier group, by a well-ordered life of devotion, and daily attendance on the ordinances of the Church, are keeping themselves near to God. And yet even these may have a misgiving that they are growing too dependent on these outward helps for the sustaining of their faith. Job's words may well awaken an echo in all our hearts. "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" There is comfort in the fact that holy men of old felt this same desire to find God in some deeper sense than they had yet attained to. If they felt it, we need not be unduly distressed if we feel it also. How then are we to seek to find God? Intellectually or otherwise? Not to mere intellect, but to a higher faculty, the moral and spiritual faculty. When we speak of knowing a thing intellectually, we mean that we know it by demonstration of sense or reason. When we speak of knowing a thing morally or spiritually, we mean that we either know it intuitively or take it on trust. We do not mean that the evidence in this latter case is less certain than in the former; it may be far more certain. Scepticism in religion is simply that failure of faith which is sure to result from an endeavour to grasp religious truths by a faculty that was never intended to grasp them. But how am I to know what is a Divine revelation, and what is not? He who is in direct correspondence with God, holding direct intercourse with God, will not need any further evidence of God's existence. If any here would find God, let him first go to the four Gospels, and try to see clearly there what Christ promises to do for him. Then let him take this promise on trust, as others have done, and act upon it. And if perseveres, he will sooner or later most surely find God. ( Canon J. P. Norris, B. D. ) The universal cry David Merson, B. D. When Job uttered this cry he was in great distress. That God is just is a fact; that men suffer is also a fact; and both these facts are found side by side in the same universe governed by one presiding will. How to reconcile the two, how to explain human suffering under the government of a righteous Ruler, is the great problem of the Book of Job. It is a question which has occupied the thoughts of the thinking in every age. The form in which it presents itself here is this, — Is God righteous in afflicting an innocent man? The friends say there are just two ways of it. Either you are guilty or God is unjust. It is not so much the character of Job that is at stake as the character of God Himself; the Almighty Himself stands at the bar of human reason. The patriarch felt assured that there was a righteous God who would not afflict unjustly, and he cries, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" Obviously he was not ignorant of the Divine Being, not ignorant of His existence, but ignorant how He was to be approached. I. THE CRY OF THE HUMAN SOUL AFTER GOD. Notice the object of the cry. It is for God. It goes straight to the mark, right over all lower objects and minor aims. He felt he had come to a crisis in his life, when none but God could avail. Give me God, and I have enough. When Job uttered this cry he unconsciously struck the keynote of universal desire. It is the cry of the human race after God. It is the instinctive cry of the human soul. Nature told men that there was a God, but it could not lead them to His seat. The sages went to philosophy for an answer, but philosophy said, "It is not for me." In view of this fruitless search, a question might be started, a question easier to ask than to answer, — Why did God keep Himself and His plans hidden from mankind so long? This is one of the secret things that belong to God. We cannot tell, and we need not speculate. II. THE GOSPEL ANSWER TO THE TEXT. Christ in human form satisfies the longing of the human spirit. He is Immanuel, — God with us. You will find the Father in the Son, you will find God in Christ. This cry may come from a soul who has never known God at all, or it may come from one who has lost the sense of His favour and longs for restoration. In either case the cry can be answered only in Christ. Have you found God? If you will take Christ as your guide, He will lead you up to God. ( David Merson, B. D. ) The soul's inquiry after a personal God T. Hughes. It is characteristic of man to ask questions. Question asking proceeds from personal need, curiosity, or love of knowledge, either for its own sake or its relative usefulness. We feel that we are dependent upon others for some direction or solution of difficulties; hence we ask for direction or instruction, because the limited character of our nature, and our dependence upon one another demand it. There are questions man asks himself, in his secret communion and examination with and of himself; there are some he asks of the universe; but the greatest and gravest are those he asks direct of God in sighs and supplications both by night and day. The sentence of the text is a question which the soul, in its search after God, continually asks; which is one of the greatest questions of life. I. THE NEED OF THE SOUL OF A PERSONAL GOD. The human soul ever cries for God. It never ceases in its cry, and is weary in its search and effort in seeking the absolute reality and good of life. The soul needs an object to commune with, and this it finds in a Divine personality, and nowhere else. The soul asks, Where is the living One? The soul needs security, and that is not to be found according to the language of conviction but in a personal God. The soul seeks unity, hence it seeks a personal God. II. THE SOUL IN SEARCH AFTER A PERSONAL GOD. So near is the relation between conviction of the need of God, and the search after Him, that in the degree one is felt, the other is done. The soul is not confined to one place, or one mode of means in the search. III. THE PERPLEXITY OF THE SOUL IN ITS SEARCH FOR THE PERSONAL GOD. The perplexity arises partly from the mystery of the object of search. IV. THE SECRET CONFIDENCE OF THE SOUL IN THE PERSONAL GOD WHOM IT SEEKS. There is a general confidence in God's mercy and in His all-sufficiency. ( T. Hughes. ) Craving for God T. M. Herbert, M. A. These words are the utterance of a yearning and dissatisfied soul. The words were put into the mouth of Job, the well-known sufferer, whose patience under accumulated calamities is proverbial. Perhaps Job was not a real individual, but the hero of a majestic poem, through which the writer expresses his thoughts on the world-old problem that suffering is permitted by a good God to afflict even the righteous. Nevertheless, the writer may have had some special sufferer in his eye. No man without experience could have drawn these sublime discussions from his own fancy. They reflect too truly the sorrows and perplexities of human hearts in this life of trial. This man cries out, almost in despair, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!" Find whom? God, the Almighty and Eternal, the Maker and Ruler of all. What a longing! What a search! In the mere fact of that search the downcast soul proclaims its lofty nature. And whoever is prompted by his needs and sorrows to cherish this desire, is raised and bettered thereby. I. THE SEARCH FOR GOD. Among the acts possible to man only, is that he alone can search for God. Strange are the contrasts which human nature exhibits. Language cannot describe the elevation to which man is capable of rising — the lofty self-devotion, the quest for truth, above all, the earnest search for God. Of all the many things men seek, surely this is the noblest, this search for God. II. THE SEARCH FOR GOD UNAVAILING. This is an exclamation of despair about finding God. It seems to be Job's chief trouble that he cannot penetrate the clouds and darkness which surround his Maker. III. THE SEARCH FOR GOD REWARDED. The deep, unquenchable craving of frail, suffering, sinful men to find their Maker, and to find Him their friend, is met in Jesus Christ. ( T. M. Herbert, M. A. ) Oh that I knew where I might find Him J. Summerfield, A. M. ! — As these words are often the language of a penitent heart seeking the Saviour, Comforter, and Sanctifier, inquire — I. WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS THAT EMPLOY THIS LANGUAGE? 1. The sinner under conviction. 2. Believers in distress. 3. Penitent backsliders. II. POINT OUT WHERE THE LORD MAY BE FOUND. 1. In His works, as a God of power. 2. In providence, as a God of wisdom and goodness. 3. In the human breast, as a God of purity and justice. 4. In the ordinances of religion, as a God of grace. It is chiefly on the throne of mercy that He is graciously found. III. FROM WHAT SOURCES YOU DRAW ARGUMENTS. 1. From His power. 2. His goodness. 3. His mercy. 4. His truth. 5. His impartiality. 6. His justice.The text is the language of sincere regret; restless desire; guilty fear; anxious inquiry; willing submission. ( J. Summerfield, A. M. ) Man desiring God Joseph Parker, D. D. God comes only into the heart that wants Him. Do I really, with my whole heart, desire to find God, and to give myself wholly into His hands? Do not mistake, if you please. This is the starting point. If you be wrong at this point my lesson will be taught entirely in vain. Everything depends upon the tone and purpose of the heart. If there is one here, really and truly, with all the desire of the soul, longing to find God, there is no reason why He should not be found, by such a seeker, ere the conclusion of the present service. How is it with our hearts? Do they go out but partially after God? Then they will see little or nothing of Him. Do they go out with all the stress of their affection, all the passion of their love, — do they make this their one object and all-consuming purpose? Then God will be found of them; and man and his Maker shall see one another, as it were, face to face, and new life shall begin in the human soul. Let me say, truly and distinctly, that it is possible to desire God under the impulse of merely selfish fear, and that such desire after God seldom ends in any good. It is true that fear is an element in every useful ministry. We would not, for one moment, undervalue the importance of fear in certain conditions of the human mind. At the same time, it is distinctly taught in the Holy Book that men may, in certain times, under the influence of fear, seek God, and God will turn His back upon them, will shut His ears when they cry, and will not listen to the voice of their appeal. Nothing can be more distinctly revealed than this awful doctrine, that God comes to men within certain seasons and opportunities, that He lays down given conditions of approach, that He even fixes times and periods, and that the day will come when He will say, "I will send a famine upon the earth." Not a famine of bread, or a thirst of water, but of hearing the Word of the Lord. When men are in great physical pain, when cholera is in the air, when smallpox is killing its thousands week by week, when wheat fields are turned into graveyards, when God's judgments are abroad in the earth, there be many who turn their ashen faces to the heavens! What if God will not hear their cowardly prayer? When God lifts His sword, there be many that say, "We would flee from this judgment." And when He comes in the last, grand, terrible development of His personality, many will cry unto the rocks, and unto the hills to hide them from His face; but the rocks and the hills will hear them not, for they will be deaf at the bidding of God! I am obliged, therefore, you see, as a Christian teacher, to make this dark side of the question very plain indeed; because there are persons who imagine that they may put off these greatest considerations of life until times of sickness, and times of withdrawment from business, and times of plague, and seasons that seem to appeal more pathetically than others to their religious nature. God has distinctly said, "Because I called, and they refused; I stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; I will mock at their calamity, I will laugh at their afflictions, I will mock when their fear cometh — when their fear cometh as desolation, and judgment cometh upon them as a whirlwind! Then they will cry unto Me, but I will not hear!" Now, lest any man should be under thee impression that he can call upon God at any time and under any circumstances, I wish to say, loudly, with a trumpet blast, There is a black mark at a certain part of your life; up to that you may seek God and find Him, — beyond it you may cry, and hear nothing but the echo of your own voice! How then does it stand with us in this matter of desire? Is our desire after God living, loving, intense, complete? Why, that desire itself is prayer; and the very experience of that longing brings heaven into the soul! Let me ask you again, Do you really desire to find God, to know Him, and to love Him? That desire is the beginning of the new birth; that longing is the pledge that your prayers shall be accomplished in the largest, greatest blessing that the living God can bestow upon you. Still it may be important to go a little further into this, and examine what our object is in truly desiring to find God. It may be possible that even here our motive may be mixed; and if there is the least alloy in our motive, that alloy will tell against us. The desire must be pure. There must be no admixture of vanity or self-sufficiency; it must be a desire of true, simple, undivided love. Now, how is it with the desire which we at this moment may be presumed to experience? Let me ask this question, What is your object in desiring to find God? Is it to gratify intellectual vanity? That is possible. It is quite conceivable that a man of a certain type and cast of mind shall very zealously pursue theological questions without being truly, profoundly religious. It is one thing to have an interest in scientific theology, and another tiring really and lovingly to desire God for religious purposes. Is it not perfectly conceivable that a man shall take delight in dissecting the human frame, that he may find out its anatomy and understand its construction; and yet do so without any intention ever to heal the sick,

23:1-7 Job appeals from his friends to the just judgement of God. He wants to have his cause tried quickly. Blessed be God, we may know where to find him. He is in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself; and upon a mercy-seat, waiting to be gracious. Thither the sinner may go; and there the believer may order his cause before Him, with arguments taken from his promises, his covenant, and his glory. A patient waiting for death and judgment is our wisdom and duty, and it cannot be without a holy fear and trembling. A passionate wishing for death or judgement is our sin and folly, and ill becomes us, as it did Job. 23:8-12 Job knew that the Lord was every where present; but his mind was in such confusion, that he could get no fixed view of God's merciful presence, so as to find comfort by spreading his case before him. His views were all gloomy. God seemed to stand at a distance, and frown upon him. Yet Job expressed his assurance that he should be brought forth, tried, and approved, for he had obeyed the precepts of God. He had relished and delighted in the truths and commandments of God. Here we should notice that Job justified himself rather than God, or in opposition to him, ch. 32:2. Job might feel that he was clear from the charges of his friends, but boldly to assert that, though visited by the hand of God, it was not a chastisement of sin, was his error. And he is guilty of a second, when he denies that there are dealings of Providence with men in this present life, wherein the injured find redress, and the evil are visited for their sins. 23:13-17 As Job does not once question but that his trials are from the hand of God, and that there is no such thing as chance, how does he account for them? The principle on which he views them is, that the hope and reward of the faithful servants of God are only laid up in another life; and he maintains that it is plain to all, that the wicked are not treated according to their deserts in this life, but often directly the reverse. But though the obtaining of mercy, the first-fruits of the Spirit of grace, pledges a God, who will certainly finish the work which he has began; yet the afflicted believer is not to conclude that all prayer and entreaty will be in vain, and that he should sink into despair, and faint when he is reproved of Him. He cannot tell but the intention of God in afflicting him may be to produce penitence and prayer in his heart. May we learn to obey and trust the Lord, even in tribulation; to live or die as he pleases: we know not for what good ends our lives may be shortened or prolonged.