Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/55

Rh 1. He is right in general, that God doth not pervert judgment, nor ever go contrary to any settled rule of justice, v. 3. Far be it from him that he should, and from us that we should suspect him. He never oppresses the innocent, nor lays more load on the guilty than they deserve. He is God, the Judge; and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen. xviii. 25. If there should be unrighteousness with God, how shall he judge the world? Rom. iii. 5, 6. He is Almighty, Shaddai, All-sufficient. Men pervert justice, sometimes, for fear of the power of others; but God is Almighty, and stands in awe of none. Men have respect to the favour of others; but God is all-sufficient, and cannot be benefited by the favour of any. It is man's weakness and impotency, that he often is unjust; it is God's omnipotence, that he cannot be so.

2. Yet he is not fair and candid in the application: he takes it for granted that Job's children (the death of whom was one of the greatest of his afflictions) had been guilty of some notorious wickedness, and that the unhappy circumstances of their death were sufficient evidence that they were sinners above all the children of the east, v. 4. Job readily owned that God did not pervert judgment; and yet it did not therefore follow either that his children were cast-aways, or that they died for some great transgression. It is true that we and our children have sinned against God, and we ought to justify him in all he brings upon us and ours; but extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces; and, in our judgment of another's case, (unless the contrary appears,) we ought to take the more favourable side, as our Saviour directs, Luke xiii. 2, 4. Here Bildad missed it.

III. He puts Job in hope, that, if he were indeed upright, as he said he was, he should yet see a good issue of his present troubles; "Although thy children have sinned against him, and are cast away in their transgression, they have died in their own sin, yet, if thou be pure and upright thyself, and, as an evidence of that, wilt now seek unto God, and submit to him, all shall be well yet," v. 5..7. This may be taken two ways: either,

1. As designed to prove Job a hypocrite, and a wicked man, though not by the greatness, yet by the continuance, of his afflictions. "When thou wast impoverished, and thy children killed, if thou hadst been pure and upright, and approved thyself so in the trial, God would, before now, have returned in mercy to thee, and comforted thee according to the time of thine affliction; but because he does not so, we have reason to conclude thou art not so pure and upright as thou pretendest to be. If thou hadst conducted thyself well under the former affliction, thou hadst not been struck with the latter." Herein Bildad was not in the right; for a good man may be afflicted for his trial, not only very sorely, but very long, and yet, if for life, it is, in comparison with eternity, but for a moment. But, since Bildad put it to this issue, God was pleased to join issue with him, and proved his servant Job an honest man, by Bildad's own argument; for, soon after, he blessed his latter end more than his beginning. Or,

2. As designed to direct and encourage Job, that he might not thus run himself into despair, and give up all for gone; yet there might be hope, if he would take the right course. I am apt to think Bildad here intended to condemn Job, yet would be thought to counsel and comfort him. (1.) He gives him good counsel, yet perhaps not expecting he would take it; the same that Eliphaz had given him, (ch. v. 8.) to seek unto God, and that betimes, that is, speedily and seriously, and not to be dilatory and trifling in his return and repentance. He advises him not to complain, but to petition, and to make his supplication to the Almighty with humility and faith; and to see that there was (what he feared had hitherto been wanting) sincerity in his heart, "Thou must be pure and upright;" and honesty in his house, " That must be the habitation of thy righteousness, and not filled with ill-gotten goods; else God will not hear thy prayers," Ps. lxvi. 18. It is only the prayer of the upright that is the acceptable and prevailing prayer, Prov. xv. 8. (2.) He gives him good hopes that he should yet again see good days, secretly suspecting, however, that he was not qualified to see them. He assures him, That if he would be early in seeking God, God would awake for his relief, would remember him, and return to him, though now he seemed to forget him and forsake him; That if his habitation were righteous it should be prosperous; for honesty is the best policy, and inward piety a sure friend to outward prosperity. When we return to God in a way of duty, we have reason to hope that he will return to us in a way of mercy. Let not Job object that he had so little left to begin the world with again, that it was impossible he should ever prosper as he had done; no, "Though thy beginning should be ever so small, a little meal in the barrel, and a little oil in the cruse, God's blessing shall multiply that to a great increase." This is God's way of enriching the souls of his people with graces and comforts, not per saltum—as by a bound, but per gradum—step by step. The beginning is small, but the progress is to perfection. Dawning light grows to noon-day; a grain of mustard-seed to a great tree. Let us not therefore despise the day of small things, but hope for the day of great things.

8. For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers; 9. (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) 10. Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? 11. Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? 12. Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. 13. So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish: 14. Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. 15. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. 16. He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden. 17. His roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the place of stones. 18. If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee. 19. Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow.

Bildad here discourses well of the sad catastrophe of hypocrites and evil-doers, and the fatal period of all their hopes and joys. He will not be so bold as to say, with Eliphaz, that none that were righteous were ever cut off thus; (ch. iv. 7.) yet he takes it for granted that God, in the course of his providence, does ordinarily bring wicked men, who seemed pious, and were prosperous, to shame and ruin in this world; and that, by making their prosperity short, he discovers their piety to be counterfeit. Whether this will certainly prove that all