Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Job 24:1 Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days? 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. 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Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty. Job 24 Great crimes not always followed by great punishment in this life Homilist. I. GREAT CRIMES HAVE PREVAILED ON THE EARTH FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. Amongst the crimes specified in this chapter there is — 1. Theft. There were those who stole from others their lands and flocks, and robbed the widow and orphan of their food and clothing (vers. 2-8). There is — 2. Cruelty. "They plucked the fatherless from the breast," made "men groan out of the city." There is — 3. Murder. "The murderer, rising with the light, killeth the poor and needy." There is — 4. Adultery. "The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight," etc.The fact that these crimes prevailed in Job's land and times implies — 1. That in those distant scenes and times the same standard of morals existed that we have. They esteemed theft, cruelty, murder, and adultery wrong; so do we. 2. That in those distant scenes and times men had the same sinful propensities as they have now. II. THAT ALTHOUGH THE GREAT GOD IS COGNISANT OF THOSE CRIMES HE DOES NOT ALWAYS VISIT THEM WITH PUNISHMENT IN THIS LIFE. Job begins with the question, "Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know Him not see His days?" The meaning is, Why, since crimes are not hidden from the Almighty, do not His friends see His judgments? He shows that these great criminals fare as well here, both in life and death, as others. Why is this? Not because the Almighty is ignorant of their crimes, or because their crimes are not abhorrent to His nature. Whatever the cause, the fact is undeniable; and this fact Job brings out here to refute the doctrine of his friends, namely, that great suffering implies great crime. ( Homilist. ) Consideration for others J. Ruskin. "I would rather be a year or two longer in effecting my purposes than reach them by trampling on men's hearts and hearths." ( J. Ruskin. ) Men groan from out of the city. Job 24:12 The groans of the city Alfred Bowen Evans. The truth is, man as he walketh upon the surface of the earth, seeth but the surface of its inhabitants. Well is it that we see no more. Were we able to go under the surface, though it were but slightly, our knowledge might make us go mad. It ought to do so. The thought is terrible in its wonder, and astonishing in its terror of the knowledge which the "God of the spirits of all flesh" necessarily hath of the mighty aggregate of the earth's depravities, — embracing in His boundless vision every iniquity that is, or ever was, meditated or executed, from the first entry of evil into the sphere of His dominions, to the last accent of defiance that shall be hurled at His throne. The shudder of such a thought sometimes affrighteth saintly souls. It seems here to have been laying hold of the patriarch. His plea is that, though men "groan in the city," God, the judge of all, appears at present to be calling none of these to account for their misdeeds. With one of the moderns we might exclaim, "It is very startling to see so much of sin with so little of sorrow" (Dr. Arnold). But is Job altogether sceptical as to their punishment? Far from it. He is leaving Eliphaz to the inference, that if his reasoning be correct that a man must be guilty because he is afflicted, these evil-doers must be innocent because they are not afflicted. Did we, however, know the world as it is, not as it seems, — could we go under the surface of society, we might become acquainted with secrets of wickedness of which some of the wicked never dreamed, and with torments the existence of which the virtuous would scarcely believe. What misery would be revealed, where we see only the emblems of delight! Yea, what an empire of spiritual death in a universe of natural and artificial life! The patriarch's description of the city is as true and as fearful in its truth at this hour as in the day that he uttered it. As true of London or Paris now as of Babylon or Nineveh of old. The city is a place "from out of which men groan, and the soul of the wounded cry out." "The whole creation," through the apostasy of man, is represented by the great apostle as "groaning"; but the city being ever a vast concentration of guilt, what is true of the whole earth is preeminently true of it. In the city, transgression is a species of item — an enormous sum, indeed, in its daily concerns. All great cities are guilty of great sins. Those who inhabit the city are denizens of a place in which every day and every night multiplied iniquities are all but sure to be perpetrated, as surely as night and day succeed each other. Dreadful in the city are the groans of conscience. True, the world looks gay and thoughtless. Bright eyes and merry lips offer their enchantments on every side. Notwithstanding, it will be found that the awful verities of the eternal state have a stronger hold upon the majority of men than is generally imagined. Amongst the groans of the city are the groans of such as have dishonoured a Christian profession by open offences; groans these which for years may be without response but their own echoes; wounds inconceivably painful, blushing as they do with the crimson tide of God's Lamb "crucified afresh." Among these groans of the city are the groans of saintly men and holy women for the sins of those around them. Think of the world as it is, and withhold from it a groan, if you can. Hence doth the Christian groan in spirit for the sins of the world; being afflicted for Christ, as Christ was afflicted for him. ( Alfred Bowen Evans. ) Rebel against the light. Job 24:13 Light used figuratively Joseph Caryl. Light may be considered in two ways. Either properly or figuratively. 1. We may understand the text of light in a proper sense, and some insist chiefly on that. They rebel against the very light of the sun, or the ordinary daylight. Wicked men love darkness; they hate even natural light, the light of the sun, because it seldom serves, but often hinders, their occasions. 2. Take light figuratively for the light of knowledge. So it is more true that wicked men rebel against it. The light rebelled against is rather an internal light, that light which shines into the soul, than that which shines to the eye; and there is a two-fold internal light, against which wicked men may be said to rebel.(1) The light of nature, or natural internal light; there is a light of the natural conscience, which every man carrieth about him, concerning good and evil, or what is to be done and what is to be left undone.(2) There is a light of Divine revelation, which shines into the soul from the Scriptures or written Word of God. Divine truths inspired and dictated by the Spirit of God are there written as with the beams of the sun. Yet the wicked man rebels against the clearest and fullest discoveries of the mind of God. 3. Some understand by the "light" here, God Himself, who is light. The very reason why the light of nature and the light of reason are rebelled against, is because the former hath somewhat of God in it, and the latter much of God in it. For as God is light, so all light is of God. ( Joseph Caryl. ) Rebelling against the light These evidently had the light, and this should be esteemed as no small privilege, since to wander on the dark mountains is a terrible curse. Yet this privilege may turn into an occasion of evil. Most of us have received light in several forms, such as instruction, conscience, reason, revelation, experience, the Holy Spirit. The degree of light differs, but we have each received some measure thereof. Light has a sovereignty in it, so that to resist it is to rebel against it. God has given it to be a display of Himself, for God is light; and He has clothed it with a measure of His majesty and power of judgment. Rebellion against light has in it a high degree of sin. It might be virtue to rebel against darkness, but what shall be said of those who withstand the light? resisting truth, holiness, and knowledge? I. DETECT THE REBELS. Well-instructed persons, who have been accustomed to teach others, and yet turn aside to evil; these are grievous traitors. Children of Christian parents who sin against their early training; upon whom prayer and entreaty, precept and example are thrown away. Hearers of the Word, who quench convictions deliberately, frequently, and with violence. Men with keen moral sense, who rush on, despite the reins of conscience which should restrain them. Lewd professors who, nevertheless, talk orthodoxy and condemn others, thereby assuredly pronouncing their own doom. II. DESCRIBE THE FORMS OF THIS REBELLION. Some refuse light, being unwilling to know more than would be convenient; therefore they deny themselves time for thought, absent themselves from sermons, neglect godly reading, shun pious company, avoid reproof, etc. Others scoff and fight against it, calling light darkness, and darkness light, Infidelity, ribaldry, persecution, and such like, become their resort and shelter. Persons run contrary to it in their lives; of set purpose, or through wilful carelessness. Walking away from the light is rebelling against it. Setting up your own wishes in opposition to the laws of morality and holiness, is open revolt against the light. Many presume upon their possession of light, imagining that knowledge and orthodox belief will save them. Many darken it for others, hindering its operations among men, hiding their own light under a bushel, ridiculing the efforts of others, etc. All darkness is a rebellion against light. Let us "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." III. DENOUNCE THE PUNISHMENT OF THIS REBELLION. To have the light removed. To lose eyes to see it even when present. To remain unforgiven, as culprits blindfolded for death, as those do who resist the light of the Holy Spirit. To sin with tenfold guilt, with awful wilfulness of heart. To descend forever into that darkness which increases in blackness throughout eternity. IV. DECLARE THE FOLLY OF THIS REBELLION. Light is our best friend, and it is wisdom to obey it; to resist it is to rebel against our own interest. Light triumphs still. Owls hoot, but the moon shines. Opposition to truth and righteousness is useless; it may even promote that which it aims to prevent. Light would lead to more light. Consent to it, for it will be beneficial to your own soul. Light would lead to heaven, which is the centre of light. Light even here would give peace, comfort, rest, holiness, and communion with God. Let us not rebel against light, but yield to its lead; yea, leap forward to follow its blessed track. Let us become the allies of light, and spread it. It is a noble thing to live as light bearers of "the Lord and Giver of Light." Let us walk in the light, as God is in the light; and so our personal enjoyment will support our life work. Light must be our life if our life is to be light. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Hatred of the light Sunday Circle. The devil fears the light, and this is one reason why we should keep it always burning. A governor of the Bahamas, who was about to return to England, promised to do his best to procure from the Home Government any favour the Colonists might desire. And what think you was their unanimous reply: "Tell them to tear down the lighthouses — they are ruining the Colony." The men were wreckers, and they hated the light! And the devil so hates the light that he would tear down every spiritual lighthouse in the land if he only could. ( Sunday Circle. ) The terrors of the shadow of death. Job 24:17 Death Alfred Port, B. D. Scripture speaks of death in two ways. Job calls death "the King of Terrors." Of a saint and martyr it is said, "He fell asleep." I. WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES DEATH TERRIBLE? 1. It is the rending asunder of what God has joined together. Body and soul. What life is, and what death is, we know by marked outward signs; but what the soul is, whence it comes, whither it goes, who knoweth, except so far as God has taught us? 2. It is the passage to judgment. "After this the judgment." 3. It is the breaking up of all we love, and desire, and care for here. II. Turn to the other side of the picture — WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES DEATH PEACEFUL? 1. The body and spirit shall again be joined. "In Christ shall all be made alive." 2. The judgment will be the "judgment seat of Christ." Judgment is terrible where sin is; but sin washed away in the blood of the Cross has no sting, no terror left. 3. The Christian's treasure is above, his hope is full of immortality. Death to the Christian is the sure and certain hope of a better life. ( Alfred Port, B. D. ) Yet His eyes are upon thy ways. Job 24:23 God observes the ways of the wicked George Hutcheson. to call them to account for them. We have here a threefold act of providence about wicked oppressors, whom yet God suffereth to prosper. 1. That God's eye is upon them, to mark all their debordings. 2. That after their exaltation for a little while, they are cut off. 3. That yet this is done but in an ordinary way, as befalls all others. As the tops of the ripe ears of corn are cut down and gathered in.Learn — 1. Outward safety is in itself a mercy. Therefore men ought to improve this mercy aright, and should be sensible of their ill-improvement thereof, when they are deprived of it. 2. Safety is from God, and gifted by Him. No man can secure himself without God. 3. God in His long suffering and indulgence may set the wicked in safety for a time, for a snare upon them. 4. It is a plague upon the wicked that they rest and secure in the enjoyment of outward mercies. 5. It is, in particular, a plague upon the wicked, that their outward security and safety quiets all their fears, so that they have no doubt of God's favour, or of their own good estate, so long as they are in such a condition. 6. God does not give safety to wicked men because He approves of them or seeth not their wickedness; but He hath an eye upon them all the while, and particularly notices how they abuse these providences. 7. Albeit the Lord be not still punishing the wicked, yet this is sad, that He is still observing and marking all their ways, to call them to account for them in a day of reckoning. ( George Hutcheson. ).

24:1-12 Job discourses further about the prosperity of the wicked. That many live at ease who are ungodly and profane, he had showed, ch. xxi. Here he shows that many who live in open defiance of all the laws of justice, succeed in wicked practices; and we do not see them reckoned with in this world. He notices those that do wrong under pretence of law and authority; and robbers, those that do wrong by force. He says, God layeth not folly to them; that is, he does not at once send his judgments, nor make them examples, and so manifest their folly to all the world. But he that gets riches, and not by right, at his end shall be a fool, Jer 17:11. 24:13-17 See what care and pains wicked men take to compass their wicked designs; let it shame our negligence and slothfulness in doing good. See what pains those take, who make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it: pains to compass, and then to hide that which will end in death and hell at last. Less pains would mortify and crucify the flesh, and be life and heaven at last. Shame came in with sin, and everlasting shame is at the end of it. See the misery of sinners; they are exposed to continual frights: yet see their folly; they are afraid of coming under the eye of men, but have no dread of God's eye, which is always upon them: they are not afraid of doing things which they are afraid of being known to do. 24:18-25 Sometimes how gradual is the decay, how quiet the departure of a wicked person, how is he honoured, and how soon are all his cruelties and oppressions forgotten! They are taken off with other men, as the harvestman gathers the ears of corn as they come to hand. There will often appear much to resemble the wrong view of Providence Job takes in this chapter. But we are taught by the word of inspiration, that these notions are formed in ignorance, from partial views. The providence of God, in the affairs of men, is in every thing a just and wise providence. Let us apply this whenever the Lord may try us. He cannot do wrong. The unequalled sorrows of the Son of God when on earth, unless looked at in this view, perplex the mind. But when we behold him, as the sinner's Surety, bearing the curse, we can explain why he should endure that wrath which was due to sin, that Divine justice might be satisfied, and his people saved.