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The sufferer still pleads the extremity of his sorrows as accounting for his rebellious complaint, and affirms that the hand laid on him was even heavier than his groaning. If he could only find God, he would stand before His tribunal, lay out his case before Him, and argue it out fully there, where he would learn from Himself the grounds of what seemed wholly inexplicable, and understand why He had so dealt with His servant. Far from meeting with fresh trial there, or such scorn as his friends poured on him, he was confident that God would use His power to strengthen his weakness. The hands of God were infinitely preferable to man's, even were he the oldest of his friends, and he was confident, being assured of his own integrity. He should thus get quit of his judge, instead of enduring the lingering suspicion of those who reasoned from the outside show of things, without a single fact to justify it. Nothing is harder to disprove than that which has its only, but deep, root in the minds of opponents who assume to have God's mind, and commit themselves thoroughly to saying so.

But there was his fresh trouble: he knew not where to find God. If he went east or west, it was equally vain; either He was not there, or Job could not perceive Him. If he turned to the north, with its hail and snows, where He works, he could not get a glimpse ; much less where He veils the south in mist and cloud. But of this he was sure, that God knew the way with Job, and that, after His trial of him, he should come forth as gold; for, as he so frequently says, his foot had held firmly to His step, and he had, without turning aside, kept His way. From the commandment of His

lips he had not swerved: more than his law (for Job used to speak and act as a prince) had he kept the sayings of His mouth.

But then there was the serious reflection that, as God was assuredly in these extraordinary afflictions, Job felt the impossibility of turning Him aside from His inscrutable purpose, and that what was appointed to him would come to pass without fail, for He has His mind, and does it always. Therefore was Job confounded before His face, and fear grew as he considered it. For El unnerved his heart, and Shaddai confounded him. Eliphaz might talk of the darkness which he owned did surround him, and he might impute it to hidden iniquity; it was God's doing so that appalled and perplexed him. Some understand the last sentence to mean that he had this sense of dread because God did not cut him off before the darkness came, and He had not covered the thick blackness from his face.

So the beginning of chapter xxiv. has furnished room for no small debate, many moderns preferring to understand and divide it thus: Why are times not reserved by the Almighty, and do His friends [literally, knowers] not see His days? The times are judicial terms when He dispenses justice, and the days are an even more common expression of like intervention. The difference is that the latter clause makes the sense of the former still narrower, or more definite. I have given what most approves itself to my mind, and distinguished between the times not hid from Shaddai, and those who know Him not seeing His days of retribution. It would not have been strange in those ignorant

of Him. It is the enigma of psalms and prophets, and must be till Christ solves it.

Then Job expands on the allowed evil of men, who profit by it shamelessly. Who of men can reckon up the shades of human fraud and force, of corruption and violence, without and within, but above all on the defenceless and the poor? The country and the city, the desert and the sea, are the varied scenes of wickedness as varied, where men embezzle and plunder; and in the abodes of civilization the darkness before the day calls them out to intrigues and crimes as dark, without a notice from God; while the restless sea gives scope to a deeper restlessness; yet they die, and are buried just as others. Again, family ties yield as little guarantee against cruelty as the public life where a despot reigns, regardless of everything but his own will.

It is not that Job doubted all to be under the eye of God, though as yet His hand be not on the world, while death comes in to cut off the highest when they least expect it. He is sure that his estimate cannot be gainsaid.

CHAPTER XXV.

THIRD DISCOURSE OF BILDAD.

THIS brief chapter contains the final discourse of Bildad. It is plain that the three friends are all but silenced. We shall see ere long that Zophar has not a word more to add. Job has much in proof that they, none of them, saw aright even the surface of his trial, not to speak of God's ways underneath. Yet Bildad speaks grandly of God's dominion as suited to overwhelm all thought of human righteousness, and sets out the sun and stars as pale and impure in presence of His light how much more a mortal, son of Adam! And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said, With Him [are] dominion and fear; He maketh peace in His high places. Is their number to His armies?

And on whom ariseth not His light?

And how is mortal man righteous with God (El)?
And how is he pure, born of a woman?

Behold, to the moon, and it shineth not,
And the stars are not pure in His eyes:
How much less mortal man, a maggot;
And the son of man, a worm!

Such is the closing effort of Bildad, evidently wishing to say something, rather than having something to say. So far as it is a reply, it seems directed against the opening of Job's answer to Eliphaz (chap. xxiii.), as has been noticed by others. The main point is the

awful majesty of God, who must resent the unhallowed thought of man's drawing near to His throne, above all, to debate with Him as if He could mistake, or the creature vindicate itself against His dealings. What gross forgetfulness of His countless hosts, as if His power could be measured by man; and what ignorance of His all-reaching light, which penetrates and manifests the remotest and otherwise hidden objects in the universe!

But he does injustice to Job's asseverations of integrity, if he alludes to them in the latter part (for Job in no way denied man's natural impurity), but had, on the contrary, already heard, in reply to himself, a full demolition of every pretension to righteousness in chap. ix. Job simply repudiated the imputation of deep evil, cloaked by high professions of piety, on his part, as the cause of his exceeding trial. But he was as far as Bildad from putting the creature on a false level with the Creator, least of all man, morally corrupt as he is. The lights of heaven lack lustre in his eyes: what is a sinner accounted? Abstractly, what he urges is unquestionable truth; as a reply and application to Job, it is perverse and futile.

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