Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/86

78 it makes us acceptable to God, and easy to ourselves, Ps. xviii. 24. 2. Man, in his fallen state, cannot pretend to be clean and righteous before God, either to acquit himself to God's justice, or recommend himself to his favour. 3. He is therefore to be adjudged unclean and unrighteous, because born of a woman, from whom he derives a corrupt nature, which is both his guilt and his pollution. With these plain truths Eliphaz thinks to convince Job, whereas he had just now said the same; (ch. xiv. 4.) Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? But does it therefore follow that Job is a hypocrite, and a wicked man, which is all that he denied? By no means. Though man, as born of a woman, is not clean, yet, as born again of the Spirit, he is.

Further to evince this, he here shows,

(1.) That the brightest creatures are imperfect and impure before God, v. 15. God places no confidence in saints and angels; he employs both, but trusts neither with his service, without giving them fresh supplies of strength and wisdom for it, as knowing they are not sufficient of themselves, neither more nor better than his grace makes them. He takes no complacency in the heavens themselves. How pure soever they seem to us, in his eye they have many a speck and many a flaw; The heavens are not clean in his sight. If the stars (says Mr. Caryl) have no light in the sight of the sun, what light has the sun in the sight of God? See Isa. xxiv. 23.

(2.) That man is much more so; (v. 16.) How much more abominable and filthy is man! If saints are not to be trusted, much less sinners. If the heavens are not pure, which are as God made them, much less man, who is degenerated. Nay, he is abominable and filthy in the sight of God, and, if ever he repent, he is so in his own sight, and therefore he abhors himself. Sin is an odious thing, it makes men hateful. The body of sin is so, and is therefore called a dead body, a loathsome thing. Such is the filthiness of man, that he drinks iniquity (that abominable thing which the Lord hates) as greedily, and with as much pleasure, as a man drinks water when he is thirsty. It is his constant drink; it is natural to sinners to commit iniquity. It gratifies, but does not satisfy, the appetites of the old man. It is like water to a man in a dropsy. The more men sin, the more they would sin.

17. I will show thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare; 18. Which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it: 19. Unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them. 20. The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. 21. A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. 22. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. 23. He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 24. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. 25. For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. 26. He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers; 27. Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks. 28. And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. 29. He shall not be rich; neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. 30. He shall not depart out of darkness: the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away. 31. Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity; for vanity shall be his recompense. 32. It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green. 33. He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive. 34. For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. 35. They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.

Eliphaz, having reproved Job for his answers, here comes to maintain his own thesis, upon which he built his censure of Job. His opinion is, That those who are wicked are certainly miserable; whence he would infer, that those who are miserable are certainly wicked, and that therefore Job was so. Observe,

I. His solemn preface to this discourse, in which he bespeaks Job's attention, which he had little reason to expect, he having given so little heed to, and put so little value upon, what Job had said; (v. 17.) "I will show thee that which is worth hearing, and not reason, as thou dost, with unprofitable talk." Thus apt are men, when they condemn the reasonings of others, to commend their own. He promises to teach him, 1. From his own experience and observation; "That which I have myself seen in divers instances, I will declare." It is of good use to take notice of the providences of God concerning the children of men, from which many a good lesson may be learned. What good observations we have made, and have found benefit by ourselves, we should be ready to communicate for the benefit of others: and we may then speak boldly, when we declare what we have seen. 2. From the wisdom of the ancients, (v. 18.) which wise men have told from their fathers. Note, The wisdom and learning of the moderns are very much derived from that of the ancients. Good children will learn a good deal from their good parents: and what we have learned from our ancestors we must transmit to our posterity, and not hide from the generations to come. See Ps. lxxviii. 3··6. If the thread of the knowledge of many ages be cut off by the carelessness of one, and nothing be done to preserve it pure and entire, all that succeed, fare the worse. The authorities Eliphaz vouched, were authorities indeed, men of rank and figure, (v. 19.) unto whom alone the earth was given, and therefore you may suppose them favourites of Heaven, and best capable of making observations concerning the affairs of this earth. The dictates of wisdom come with advantage from those who are in places of dignity and power, as Solomon; yet there is a wisdom which none of the princes of this world knew, 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8.

II. The discourse itself. He here aims to show,