Job 15 commentary

Eliphaz begins a second attack upon Job, instead of being softened by his complaints. He unjustly charges Job with casting off the fear of God, and all regard to him, and restraining prayer. See in what religion is summed up, fearing God, and praying to him; the former the most needful principle, the latter the most needful practice. Eliphaz charges Job with self-conceit. He charges him with contempt of the counsels and comforts given him by his friends. We are apt to think that which we ourselves say is important, when others, with reason, think little of it. He charges him with opposition to God. Eliphaz ought not to have put harsh constructions upon the words of one well known for piety, and now in temptation. It is plain that these disputants were deeply convinced of the doctrine of original sin, and the total depravity of human nature. Shall we not admire the patience of God in bearing with us? and still more his love to us in the redemption of Christ Jesus his beloved Son?

Eliphaz maintains that the wicked are certainly miserable: whence he would infer, that the miserable are certainly wicked, and therefore Job was so. But because many of God's people have prospered in this world, it does not therefore follow that those who are crossed and made poor, as Job, are not God's people. Eliphaz shows also that wicked people, particularly oppressors, are subject to continual terror, live very uncomfortably, and perish very miserably. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end miserably as here described? Then let the mischiefs which befal others, be our warnings. Though no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. No calamity, no trouble, however heavy, however severe, can rob a follower of the Lord of his favour. What shall separate him from the love of Christ?

CHAPTER 15

SECOND SERIES.

Job 15:1-35. Second Speech of Eliphaz.

2. a wise man--which Job claims to be.

vain knowledge--Hebrew, "windy knowledge"; literally, "of wind" (Job 8:2). In Ec 1:14, Hebrew, "to catch wind," expresses to strive for what is vain.

east wind--stronger than the previous "wind," for in that region the east wind is the most destructive of winds (Is 27:8). Thus here,--empty violence.

belly--the inward parts, the breast (Pr 18:8).

4. fear--reverence for God (Job 4:6; Psa 2:11).

prayer--meditation, in Psa 104:34; so devotion. If thy views were right, reasons Eliphaz, that God disregards the afflictions of the righteous and makes the wicked to prosper, all devotion would be at an end.

5. The sophistry of thine own speeches proves thy guilt.

6. No pious man would utter such sentiments.

7. That is, Art thou wisdom personified? Wisdom existed before the hills; that is, the eternal Son of God (Pr 8:25; Psa 90:2). Wast thou in existence before Adam? The farther back one existed, the nearer he was to the Eternal Wisdom.

8. secret--rather, "Wast thou a listener in the secret council of God?" The Hebrew means properly the cushions of a divan on which counsellors in the East usually sit. God's servants are admitted to God's secrets (Psa 25:14; Ge 18:17; Joh 15:15).

restrain--Rather, didst thou take away, or borrow, thence (namely, from the divine secret council) thy wisdom? Eliphaz in this (Job 15:8, 9) retorts Job's words upon himself (Job 12:2, 3; 13:2).

9. in us--or, "with us," Hebraism for "we are aware of."

10. On our side, thinking with us are the aged. Job had admitted that wisdom is with them (Job 12:12). Eliphaz seems to have been himself older than Job; perhaps the other two were also (Job 32:6). Job, in Job 30:1, does not refer to his three friends; it therefore forms no objection. The Arabs are proud of fulness of years.

11. consolations--namely, the revelation which Eliphaz had stated as a consolatory reproof to Job, and which he repeats in Job 15:14.

secret--Hast thou some secret wisdom and source of consolation, which makes thee disregard those suggested by me? (Job 15:8). Rather, from a different Hebrew root, Is the word of kindness or gentleness addressed by me treated by thee as valueless? [Umbreit].

12. wink--that is, why do thy eyes evince pride? (Pr 6:13; Psa 35:19).

13. That is, frettest against God and lettest fall rash words.

14. Eliphaz repeats the revelation (Job 4:17) in substance, but using Job's own words (see on Job 14:1, on "born of a woman") to strike him with his own weapons.

15. Repeated from Job 4:18; "servants" there are "saints" here; namely, holy angels.

heavens--literally, or else answering to "angels" (see on Job 4:18, and Job 25:5).

16. filthy--in Arabic "sour" (Psa 14:3; 53:3), corrupted from his original purity.

drinketh--(Pr 19:28).

17. In direct contradiction of Job's position (Job 12:6, &c.), that the lot of the wicked was the most prosperous here, Eliphaz appeals (1) to his own experience, (2) to the wisdom of the ancients.

18. Rather, "and which as handed down from their fathers, they have not concealed."

19. Eliphaz speaks like a genuine Arab when he boasts that his ancestors had ever possessed the land unmixed with foreigners [Umbreit]. His words are intended to oppose Job's (Job 9:24); "the earth" in their case was not "given into the hand of the wicked." He refers to the division of the earth by divine appointment (Ge 10:5; 25:32). Also he may insinuate that Job's sentiments had been corrupted from original purity by his vicinity to the Sabeans and Chaldeans [Rosenmuller].

20. travaileth--rather, "trembleth of himself," though there is no real danger [Umbreit].

and the number of his years, &c.--This gives the reason why the wicked man trembles continually; namely, because he knows not the moment when his life must end.

21. An evil conscience conceives alarm at every sudden sound, though it be in a time of peace ("prosperity"), when there is no real danger (Le 26:36; Pr 28:1; 2Ki 7:6).

22. darkness--namely, danger or calamity. Glancing at Job, who despaired of restoration: in contrast to good men when in darkness (Mi 7:8, 9).

waited for of--that is, He is destined for the sword [Gesenius]. Rather (in the night of danger), "he looks anxiously towards the sword," as if every sword was drawn against him [Umbreit].

23. Wandereth in anxious search for bread. Famine in Old Testament depicts sore need (Is 5:13). Contrast the pious man's lot (Job 5:20-22).

knoweth--has the firm conviction. Contrast the same word applied to the pious (Job 5:24, 25).

ready at his hand--an Arabic phrase to denote a thing's complete readiness and full presence, as if in the hand.

24. prevail--break upon him suddenly and terribly, as a king, &c. (Pr 6:11).

25. stretcheth ... hand--wielding the spear, as a bold rebel against God (Job 9:4; Is 27:4).

26. on his neck--rather, "with outstretched neck," namely, that of the rebel [Umbreit] (Psa 75:5).

upon ... bucklers--rather, "with--his (the rebel's, not God's) bucklers." The rebel and his fellows are depicted as joining shields together, to form a compact covering over their heads against the weapons hurled on them from a fortress [Umbreit and Gesenius].

27. The well-nourished body of the rebel is the sign of his prosperity.

collops--masses of fat. He pampers and fattens himself with sensual indulgences; hence his rebellion against God (De 32:15; 1Sa 2:29).

28. The class of wicked here described is that of robbers who plunder "cities," and seize on the houses of the banished citizens (Is 13:20). Eliphaz chooses this class because Job had chosen the same (Job 12:6).

heaps--of ruins.

29. Rather, he shall not increase his riches; he has reached his highest point; his prosperity shall not continue.

perfection--rather, "His acquired wealth--what he possesses--shall not be extended," &c.

30. depart--that is, escape (Job 15:22, 23).

branches--namely, his offspring (Job 1:18, 19; Psa 37:35).

dry up--The "flame" is the sultry wind in the East by which plants most full of sap are suddenly shrivelled.

his mouth--that is, God's wrath (Is 11:4).

31. Rather, "let him not trust in vanity or he will be deceived," &c.

vanity--that which is unsubstantial. Sin is its own punishment (Pr 1:31; Jr 2:19).

32. Literally, "it (the tree to which he is compared, Job 15:30, or else his life) shall not be filled up in its time"; that is, "he shall be ended before his time."

shall not be green--image from a withered tree; the childless extinction of the wicked.

33. Images of incompleteness. The loss of the unripe grapes is poetically made the vine tree's own act, in order to express more pointedly that the sinner's ruin is the fruit of his own conduct (Is 3:11; Jr 6:19).

34. Rather, The binding together of the hypocrites (wicked) shall be fruitless [Umbreit].

tabernacles of bribery--namely, dwellings of unjust judges, often reprobated in the Old Testament (Is 1:23). The "fire of God" that consumed Job's possessions (Job 1:16) Eliphaz insinuates may have been on account of Job's bribery as an Arab sheik or emir.

35. Bitter irony, illustrating the "unfruitfulness" (Job 15:34) of the wicked. Their conceptions and birthgivings consist solely in mischief, &c. (Is 33:11).

prepareth--hatcheth.

Should a wise man utter vain knowledge - Or rather, Should a wise man utter the science of wind? A science without solidity or certainty.

And fill his belly with the east wind? - בטן beten, which we translate belly, is used to signify any part of the cavity of the body, whether the region of the thorax or abdomen; here it evidently refers to the lungs, and may include the cheeks and fauces. The east wind, קדים kadim, is a very stormy wind in the Levant, or the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, supposed to be the same with that called by the Greeks ευροκλυδων, euroclydon, the east storm, mentioned Act 27:14. Eliphaz, by these words, seems to intimate that Job's speech was a perfect storm or tempest of words.

Should he reason with unprofitable talk? - Should a man talk disrespectfully of his Maker, or speak to him without reverence? and should he suppose that he has proved any thing, when he has uttered words of little meaning, and used sound instead of sense?

Thou castest off fear - Thou hast no reverence for God.

And restrainest prayer - Instead of humbling thyself, and making supplication to thy Judge, thou spendest thy time in arraigning his providence and justifying thyself. When a man has any doubts whether he has grieved God's Spirit, and his mind feels troubled, it is much better for him to go immediately to God, and ask forgiveness, than spend any time in finding excuses for his conduct, or laboring to divest it of its seeming obliquity. Restraining or suppressing prayer, in order to find excuses or palliations for infirmities, indiscretions, or improprieties of any kind, which appear to trench on the sacred limits of morality and godliness, may be to a man the worst of evils: humiliation and prayer for mercy and pardon can never be out of their place to any soul of man who, surrounded with evils, is ever liable to offend.

For thy mouth uttereth - In attempting to justify thyself, thou hast added iniquity to sin, and hast endeavored to impute blame to thy Maker.

The tongue of the crafty - Thou hast varnished thy own conduct, and used sophistical arguments to defend thyself. Thou resemblest those cunning persons, ערומים arumim, who derive their skill and dexterity from the old serpent, "the nachash, who was ערום arum, subtle, or crafty, beyond all the beasts of the field;" Gen 3:1. Thy wisdom is not from above, but from beneath.

Art thou the first man that was born? - Literally, "Wert thou born before Adam?" Art thou in the pristine state of purity and innocence? Or art thou like Adam in his first state? It does not become the fallen descendant of a fallen parent to talk as thou dost.

Made before the hills? - Did God create thee the beginning of his ways? or wert thou the first intelligent creature which his hands have formed?

Hast thou heard the secret of God? - "Hast thou hearkened in God's council?" Wert thou one of the celestial cabinet, when God said, Let Us make man in Our image, and in Our likeness?

Dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? - Dost thou wish us to understand that God's counsels were revealed to none but thyself? And dost thou desire that we should give implicit credence to whatsoever thou art pleased to speak? These are all strong sarcastic questions, and apparently uttered with great contempt.

What knowest thou - Is it likely that thy intellect is greater than ours; and that thou hast cultivated it better than we have done ours?

What understandest thou - Or, Dost thou understand any thing, and it is not with us? Show us any point of knowledge possessed by thyself, of which we are ignorant.

With us are both the gray-headed - One copy of the Chaldee Targum paraphrases the verse thus: "Truly Eliphaz the hoary-headed, and Bildad the long-lived, are among us; and Zophar, who in age surpasseth thy father." It is very likely that Eliphaz refers to himself and his friends in this verse, and not either to the old men of their tribes, or to the masters by whom they themselves were instructed. Eliphaz seems to have been the eldest of these sages; and, therefore, he takes the lead in each part of this dramatic poem.

Are the consolations of God small with thee? - Various are the renderings of this verse. Mr. Good translates the verse thus: "Are then the mercies of God of no account with thee?" or, "the addresses of kindness before thee?"

The Vulgate thus: - "Can it be a difficult thing for God to comfort thee? But thou hinderest this by thy intemperate speeches."

The Syriac and Arabic thus: - "Remove from thee the threatenings (Arabic, reproaches) of God, and speak tranquilly with thy own spirit."

The Septuagint thus: - "Thou hast been scourged lightly for the sins which thou hast committed; and thou hast spoken greatly beyond measure; or, with excessive insolence."

Houbigant thus: - "Dost thou not regard the threatenings of God; or, has there been any thing darkly revealed to thee."

Coverdale: - Dost thou no more regarde the comforte of God? But thy wicked wordes wil not suffre the.

Scarcely any two translators or interpreters agree in the translation, or even meaning of this verse. The sense, as expressed in the Vulgate, or in our own version, or that of Coverdale, is plain enough: - "Hast thou been so unfaithful to God, that he has withdrawn his consolations from thy heart? And is there any secret thing, any bosom sin, which thou wilt not give up, that has thus provoked thy Maker?" This is the sense of our version: and I believe it to be as near the original as any yet offered. I may just add the Chaldee - "Are the consolations of God few to thee? And has a word in secret been spoken unto thee?" And I shall close all these with the Hebrew text, and the literal version of Arius Montanus: - המעט ממך ינחומות אל hameat mimmecha tanchumoth el. ודבר לאט עמך vedabar laat immak.

Nonne parum a te consolationes Dei? Et verbum latet tecum? "Are not the consolations of God small to thee? And does a word (or thing) lie hidden with thee?"

Now, let the reader choose for himself.

Why doth thine heart carry thee away? - Why is it that thou dost conceive and entertain such high sentiments of thyself?

And what do thy eyes wink at - With what splendid opinion of thyself is thine eye dazzled? Perhaps there is an allusion here to that sparkling in the eye which is excited by sensations of joy and pleasing objects of sight, or to that furious rolling of the eyes observed in deranged persons. Rosenmuller translates thus: -

Quo te tuus animus rapit?

Quid occuli tui vibrantes? "Whither does thy soul hurry thee?

What mean thy rolling eyes?"

Thou seemest transported beyond thyself; thou art actuated by a furious spirit. Thou art beside thyself; thy words and thy eyes show it. None but a madman could speak and act as thou dost; for thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth, Job 15:13. This latter sense seems to agree best with the words of the text, and with the context.

That thou turnest thy spirit against God - The ideas here seem to be taken from an archer, who turns his eye and his spirit - his desire - against the object which he wishes to hit; and then lets loose his arrow that it may attain the mark.

What is man, that he should be clean? - מה אנוש mah enosh; what is weak, sickly, dying, miserable man, that he should be clean? This is the import of the original word enosh.

And - born of a woman, that he should be righteous? - It appears, from many passages in the sacred writings, that natural birth was supposed to be a defilement; and that every man born into the world was in a state of moral pollution. Perhaps the word יצדק yitsdak should be translated, that he should justify himself, and not that he should be righteous.

Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight - The Vulgate has, "Behold, among his saints, none is immutable; and the heavens are not clean in his sight."

Coverdale - Beholde, he hath found unfaithfulnesse amonge his owne sanctes, yea the very heavens are unclene in his sight.

Eliphaz uses the same mode of speech, Job 4:17-18 (note); where see the notes. Nothing is immutable but God: saints may fall; angels may fall; all their goodness is derived and dependent. The heavens themselves have no purity compared with his.

How much more abominable and filthy is man - As in the preceding verse it is said, he putteth no trust in his saints, it has appeared both to translators and commentators that the original words, אף כי aph ki, should be rendered how much Less, not how much More: How much less would he put confidence in man, who is filthy and abominable in his natures and profligate in his practice, as he drinks down iniquity like water? A man who is under the power of sinful propensities commits sin as greedily as the thirsty man or camel drinks down water. He thinks he can never have enough. This is a finished character of a Bad man; he hungers and thirsts after Sin: on the contrary, the Good man hungers and thirsts after Righteousness.

I will show thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare - Eliphaz is now about to quote a whole collection of wise sayings from the ancients; all good enough in themselves, but sinfully misapplied to the case of Job.

Unto whom alone the earth was given - He very likely refers to the Israelites, who got possession of the promised land from God himself; no stranger being permitted to dwell in it, as the old inhabitants were to be exterminated. Some think that Noah and his sons may be intended; as it is certain that the whole earth was given to them, when there were no strangers - no other family of mankind - in being. But, system apart, the words seem to apply more clearly to the Israelites.

The wicked man travaileth with pain - This is a most forcible truth: a life of sin is a life of misery; and he that Will sin Must suffer. One of the Targums gives it a strange turn: - "All the days of the ungodly Esau, he was expected to repent, but he did not repent; and the number of years was hidden from the sturdy Ishmael." The sense of the original, מתחולל mithcholel, is he torments himself: he is a true heautontimoreumenos, or self-tormentor; and he alone is author of his own sufferings, and of his own ruin.

A dreadful sound is in his ears - If he be an oppressor or tyrant, he can have no rest: he is full of suspicions that the cruelties he has exercised on others shall be one day exercised on himself; for even in his prosperity he may expect the destroyer to rush upon him.

That he shall return out of darkness - If he take but a few steps in the dark, he expects the dagger of the assassin. This appears to be the only meaning of the place. Some think the passage should be understood to signify that he has no hope of a resurrection; he can never escape from the tomb. This I doubt: in the days of the writer of this book, the doctrine of a future judgment was understood in every part of the East where the knowledge of the true God was diffused.

He wandereth abroad for bread - He is reduced to a state of the utmost indigence, he who was once in affluence requires a morsel of bread, and can scarcely by begging procure enough to sustain life.

Is ready at his hand - Is בידו beyado, in his hand - in his possession. As he cannot get bread, he must soon meet death.

Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid - He shall be in continual fear of death; being now brought down by adversity, and stripped of all the goods which he had got by oppression, his life is a mark for the meanest assassin.

As a king ready to the battle - The acts of his wickedness and oppression are as numerous as the troops he commands; and when he comes to meet his enemy in the field, he is not only deserted but slain by his troops. How true are the words of the poet: -

Ad generum Cereris sine caede et vulnere pauci

Descendunt reges, et sicca morte tyranni.

Juv. Sat., ver. 112. "For few usurpers to the shades descend

By a dry death, or with a quiet end."

He stretcheth out his hand against God - While in power he thought himself supreme. He not only did not acknowledge God, by whom kings reign, but stretched out his hand - used his power, not to protect, but to oppress those over whom he had supreme rule; and thus strengthened himself against the Almighty.

He runneth upon him - Calmet has properly observed that this refers to God, who, like a mighty conquering hero, marches against the ungodly, rushes upon him, seizes him by the throat, which the mail by which it is encompassed cannot protect; neither his shield nor spear can save him when the Lord of hosts comes against him.

Because he covereth his face - He has lived in luxury and excess; and like a man overloaded with flesh, he cannot defend himself against the strong gripe of his adversary. The Arabic, for maketh collops of fat on his flanks, has (Arabic) He lays the Pleiades upon the Hyades, or, He places Surreea upon aiyuk, a proverbial expression for, His ambition is boundless; He aspires as high as heaven; His head touches the stars; or, is like the giants of old, who were fabled to have attempted to scale heaven by placing one high mountain upon another: -

Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam

Scilicet, atque Ossae frondosum involvere Olympum

Ter Pater extructos disjecit fulmine montes.

Virg. Geor. i., ver. 281. "With mountains piled on mountains, thrice they strove

To scale the steepy battlements of Jove;

And thrice his lightning and red thunder play'd,

And their demolished works in ruins laid."

Dryden.

To the lust of power and the schemes of ambition there are no bounds; but see the end of such persons: the haughty spirit precedes a fall; their palaces become desolate; and their heaven is reduced to a chaos.

He dwelleth in desolate cities - It is sometimes the fate of a tyrant to be obliged to take up his habitation in some of those cities which have been ruined by his wars, and in a house so ruinous as to be ready to fall into heaps. Ancient and modern history afford abundance of examples to illustrate this.

He shall not be rich - The whole of what follows, to the end of the chapter, seems to be directed against Job himself, whom Eliphaz indirectly accuses of having been a tyrant and oppressor. The threatened evils are,

1. He shall not be rich, though he labors greatly to acquire riches.

2. His substance shall not continue - God will blast it, and deprive him of power to preserve it.

3. Neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof - all his works shall perish, for God will blot out his remembrance from under heaven.

He shall not depart out of darkness -

4. He shall be in continual afflictions and distress.

5. The flame shall dry up his branches - his children shall be cut off by sudden judgments.

6. He shall pass away by the breath of his mouth; for by the breath of his mouth doth God slay the wicked.

Let not him that is deceived -

7. He has many vain imaginations of obtaining wealth, power, pleasure, and happiness; but he is deceived; and he finds that he has trusted בשוא bashshav, in a lie; and this lie is his recompense.

It shall be accomplished before his time - I believe the Vulgate gives the true sense: Antequam dies ejus impleantur, peribit; "He shall perish before his time; before his days are completed."

8. He shall be removed by a violent death, and not live out half his days.

9. And his branch shall not be green - there shall be no scion from his roots; all his posterity shall fail.

He shall shake off his unripe grape -

10. Whatever children he may have, they shall never survive him, nor come to mature age. They shall be like wind-fall grapes and blasted olive blossoms. As the vine and olive, which are among the most useful trees, affording wine and oil, so necessary for the worship of God and the comfort of man, are mentioned here, they may be intended to refer to the hopeful progeny of the oppressor; but who fell, like the untimely grape or the blasted olive flower, without having the opportunity of realizing the public expectation.

The congregation of hypocrites -

11. Job is here classed with hypocrites, or rather the impious of all kinds. The congregation, or עדת adath, society, of such, shall be desolate, or a barren rock, גלמוד galmud. See this Arabic word explained in the note on Job 3:7 (note).

Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery -

12. Another insinuation against Job, that he had perverted justice and judgment, and had taken bribes.

They conceive mischief - The figure here is both elegant and impressive. The wicked conceive mischief, from the seed which Satan sows in their hearts; in producing which they travail with many pangs, (for sin is a sore labor), and at last their womb produces fraud or deception. This is an accursed birth, from an iniquitous conception. St. James gives the figure at full length, most beautifully touched in all its parts: When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death; Jam 1:15 (note), where see the note. Poor Job! what a fight of affliction had he to contend with! His body wasted and tortured with sore disease; his mind harassed by Satan; and his heart wrung with the unkindness, and false accusations of his friends. No wonder he was greatly agitated, often distracted, and sometimes even thrown off his guard. However, all his enemies were chained; and beyond that chain they could not go. God was his unseen Protector, and did not suffer his faithful servant to be greatly moved.

Fill - Satisfy his mind and conscience. East wind - With discourses not only unprofitable, but also pernicious both to himself and others; as the east - wind was in those parts.

Castest off - Heb. thou makes void fear; the fear of God, piety and religion, by thy unworthy speeches of God, and by those false and pernicious principles, that God makes no difference between good and bad in the course of his providence, but equally prospers or afflicts both: thou dost that which tends to the subversion of the fear and worship of God. Restrainest prayer - Thou dost by thy words and principles, as far as in thee lies, banish prayer out of the world, by making it useless and unprofitable to men.

Uttereth - Thy words discover the naughtiness of thy heart. Crafty - Thou speakest wickedly, and craftily: thou coverest thy impious principles with fair pretences of piety.

Are - Are those comforts, which we have propounded to thee on condition of thy repentance, small and contemptible in thine eyes? Secret - Hast thou any secret and peculiar way of comfort which is unknown to us, and to all other men?

Why - Why dost thou suffer thyself to be transported by the pride of thine heart, to use such unworthy expressions? Wink - Why dost thou look with such an angry, supercilious, and disdainful look?

Against God - Eliphaz here does in effect give the cause on Satan's side, and affirms that Job had done as he said he would, Curse God to his face.

Saints - In his angels, chap.4:18, who are called his saints or holy ones, Deut 33:2 Psal 103:20. Who though they were created holy, yet many of them fell. Heavens - The angels that dwell in heaven; heaven being put for its inhabitants. None of these are pure, simply and perfectly, and comparatively to God. The angels are pure from corruption, but not from imperfection.

Who - Who besides his natural proneness to sin, has contracted habits of sinning; and sins as freely, as greedily and delightfully, as men, especially in those hot countries, drink up water.

I - I will prove what I have affirmed, that such strokes as thine are peculiar to hypocrites. Seen - I speak not by hear - say, but from my own experience.

Hid - They judged it to be so certain and important a truth, that they would not conceal it in their own breasts.

To whom - By the gracious gift of God: this he alleges to make their testimony more considerable, because these were no obscure men, but the most worthy and famous men in their ages; and to confute what Job had said, chap.9:24, that the earth was given into the hand of the wicked. By the earth he means the dominion and possession of it. Stranger - No person of a strange nation and disposition, or religion. Passed - Through their land, so as to disturb, or spoil them, as the Sabeans and Chaldeans did thee. God watched over those holy men so, that no enemy could invade them; and so he would have done over thee, if thou hadst been such an one.

Pain - Lives a life of care, and fear, and grief, by reason of God's wrath, the torments of his own mind, and his outward calamities. Hidden - He knows not how short the time of his life is, and therefore lives in continual fear of losing it. Oppressor - To the wicked man: he names this one sort of them, because he supposed Job to be guilty of this sin, in opposition of what Job had affirmed of the safety of such persons, chap.12:6, and because such are apt to promise themselves a longer and happier life than other men.

A sound - Even when he feels no evil, he is tormented with perpetual fears. Come upon him - Suddenly and unexpectedly.

Believeth not - When he falls into trouble, he despairs of deliverance, by reason of his guilty conscience. Waited for - Besides the calamity which is upon him, he is in constant expectation of greater; the sword is used for any grievous affliction.

Knoweth - From his own guilty conscience.

For - Now he gives the reason of all the fore - mentioned calamities, which was his great wickedness. Against God - He sinned against God with an high hand. The Almighty - Which aggravates the madness of this poor worm that durst fight against the omnipotent God.

He - The wicked man. Neck - As a stout warrior who cometh close to his adversary and grapples with him. He acts in flat opposition to God, both to his precepts and providences. Bosses - Even where his enemy is strongest.

Because - This is mentioned as the reason of his insolent carriage towards God, because he was fat, rich, potent, and successful, as that expression signifies, Deut 32:15 Psal 78:31 Jer 46:21. His great prosperity made him proud and secure, and regardless of God and men. Fat - His only care is to pamper himself.

But - This is fitly opposed to the prosperity last mentioned, and is the beginning of the description of his misery.

Substance - What he had gotten shall be taken from him.

Depart - His misery shall have no end. Flame - God's anger and judgment upon him. Branches - His wealth, and power, and glory, wherewith he was encompassed, as trees are with their branches. His mouth - And this expression intimates, with how much ease God subdueth his enemies: his word, his blast; one act of his will is sufficient. Go - Heb. go back: that is, run away from God faster than he ran upon him, ver.26. So it is a continuation of the former metaphor of a conflict between two persons.

Vanity - In the vain and deceitful things of this world, he subjoins a general caution to all men to take heed of running into the same error and mischief. Vanity - Disappointment and dissatisfaction, and the loss of all his imaginary felicity. Recompence - Heb. his exchange; he shall exchange one vanity for another, a pleasing vanity for a vexatious vanity.

Accomplished - That vanity should be his recompence. Before - When by the course of nature, and common providence he might have continued much longer.

2. Should a wise man utter vain knowledge , and fill his belly with the east-wind !

Such as thou seemest and pretendest to be.

i. e. Empty words without any sense or solidity in them.

i. e. Satisfie his own Mind and Conscience, which being secret is compared to the Inwards of the Belly; as Chap. 32. 19. Prov. 20. 27. & 22. 18.

i. e. With Discourses which are not only flashy and unprofitable, and without any weight, but also boisterous and pernicious both to himself and others; as the East-wind was in those parts, Gen. 41. 6. Exod. 10. 13. Hos. 12. 1.

Marginal references: Heb. knowledge of wind.

3. Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good ?

Either to himself or others, but much hurt; which is implied by the contrary, as is usual.

4. Yea, thou castest off fear , and restrainest prayer before God.

Heb. Thou makest void fear; i. e. the fear of God, as the word is oft used for the word of God; or Piety and Religion, which oft cometh under the name of fear. This may be understood, either 1. of Iob himself; that he cast off all Reverence to God by uttering such bold and reproachful expressions concerning God and his Providence. Or 2. with respect to others; that by his insolent and unworthy speeches of and carriage towards God, and by those false and pernicious principles which he had laid down; as that God dealt with men in way of absolute Soveraignty, not of Justice; and that he made no difference between good and bad in the course of his Providence, but did equally prosper or afflict both of them: which tended to the subversion of the fear and worship of God.

As this Hebrew word signifies also, Psalm 102. 1. Or, meditation or speech; which well agrees to prayer which is accompanied with serious thoughts and expressions. The sense is, either 1. in stead of humble and servent prayer to God, which thy Condition calleth for, thou breathest forth false and blasphemous speeches against him. Or 2. Thou dost by thy words and examples, and principles, as far as in thee lies, banish prayer out of the world, by making it useless and unprofitable to men.

Marginal references: Heb. thou makest void.; Or, speech.

5. For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity , and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty .

i. e. Thy words discover the naughtiness of thy heart, and justifie my charge against thee, that thou castest off fear, &c.

Thou speakest wickedly, but craftily: thou coverest thy impious principles and passions with fair pretences of piety and respect to God, wherewith thou endeavourest to mock God, and deceive men.

Marginal references: Heb. thine iniquity teacheth thy mouth.

6. Thine own mouth condemneth thee , and not I: yea, thine own lips testifie against thee.

My condemnation of thee is grounded upon thine own words.

7. Art thou the first man that was born ? or wast thou made before the hills ?

Hast thou lived ever since the Creation of the World, and treasured up the experiences of all ages in thy own breast. that thou speakest so arrogantly and magisterially, and with such contempt of other men? Art thou the most ancient and the wisest of all mortal men? Whom dost thou make thy self?

Before the earth was made and distinguished into Mountains and Valleys.

8. Hast thou heard the secret of God ? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thy self ?

Hath God acquainted thee with all his secret Counsels whereby he governs the World, that thou doest pass so bold a censure upon all his Designs and Actions?

Art thou the onely wise man in the World, and we and all others but fools?

Marginal references: Rom. 11. 34.

9. What knowest thou that we know not ? what understandest thou, which is not in us?

He retorts upon Iob his own Expressions. Chapter 12. 3. and 13. 2.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] us, Chap. 10▪ 13.

10. With us are both the gray-headed, and very aged men, much elder than thy father.

i. e. Among us; either 1. some of us, who seem to have been very ancient; [illegible: 1+ letters]rom Chap. 32. 7. Or 2▪ some others with whom we have conversed, and who are of our Opinion in this mane[illegible: 1+ letters]. And this they oppose to that passage of Iob's, Ch. 12. 12.

11. Are the consolations of God small with thee ? is there any secret thing with thee ?

Are those Comforts, which we in the Name and according to the Mind, and by the Direction of God, have propounded to thee upon condition of thy true Repentance, Chap. 11. 13. 14, &c. small and contemptible in thine eyes.

Hast thou any secret and peculiar ground or way of Comfort which is unknown to us and to all other men except thy self; for which, or in comparison of which thou despisest our Consolations as mean and trivial? To pretend to this is vanity and impudence: And if thou hast not this, to despise and reject our Comforts is horrible pride and stubborness.

12. Why doth thine heart carry thee away ? and what do thine eyes wink at ,

Why doest thou suffer thy self to be transported by the pride and lusts of thine heart, to use such unworthy and unbecoming Expressions both concerning us, and concerning God and his Providence? i. e. what doest thou aim at? What benefit doest thou expect from such words and carriages? So it is a Metaphor from Archers, who wink when they take their aim at a Mark.

Or, why do thine eyes wink? i. e. Why doest thou look with such an angry, supercilious, and disdainful look, expressing both thy contempt of us, and thy rage against God? The Eye is observed both by God and men, as the great Discoverer of their hearts; and winking with the eye, is a note of a malicious mind, Psalm 35. 19. Prov. 6. 13. & 10. 10.

13. That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth?

Or, for, or surely.

i. e. Either thy breath; or thy rage; or thy soul: for all these the spirit signifies. Hebr. thou makest thy spirit to return to, or to return again against that God from whom thou didst receive it.

14. What is man , that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman , that he should be righteous ?

Heb, [illegible: 1+ letters]rail, or sick, or wretched man▪ His mean Original and corrupt Nature sheweth him to be unclean.

From whom he derives Infirmity and Corruption, and Guilt, and the Curse consequent upon it.

To wit, in his own Eyes, as thou, O Iob art.

Marginal references: 1 King▪ [illegible: 1 word] 2 Chro[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1 word] Chap. 14. Psal. 14. 3. Prov. 20. 9▪ Eccle[illegible: 1+ letters] 7. [illegible: 1 word] 1 Joh[illegible: 1+ letters] [illegible: 1 word]

15. Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints ; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.

i. e. In his Angels, as appears, by comparing Chap. 4. 18. who are called his saints or holy ones, Deut. 33. 2. Psalm 103. 20. Dan. 4. 13, 23. Mat. 18. 10. & 24. 36. Who though they were created holy, yet he could not be confident in them, nor they be confident in themselves, that they would continue in their integrity if they were left to themselves, and no[illegible: 1+ letters] upheld by God's special Grace and assistance. See the Notes o[illegible: 1+ letters] Iob 4. 18.

Heb. and the heavens i. e. Either 1. the Heavens properly so called; which though they be free from those drossie mixtures which are and appear in heavenly bodies, yet are not absolutely pure, but have some spots and blemishes in them; as Philosophers have discovered, and the allseeing God knoweth: Compare Chap. 25. 5. where the stars are said not to be p[illegible: 1+ letters]re: Unless the stars also there be metaphorically put for the Angels, as they are, Iob 38. 7. and for other holy Ministers of God, as Dan. 8. 10. Revel. 1. 16, 20. & 12. 1, 4. The Angels that dwell in heaven, being oft put for its Inhabitants; either for God, as Psalm 73. 9. Dan. 4. 26. Luke 15. 18, 21. Or for the Angels, as Psalm 89. 6. & 148. 1, 2. So this is a repetition of the same thing in other words. And these are not pure; to wit, simply and perfectly, and comparatively to God; in which and such like respects, God onely is said to be good and wise, and immortal. The Angels are pure from corruption, but not from imperfection, nor from a possibility of sinning, if God should withdraw his help from them.

Marginal references: Chap. 4[illegible: 1+ letters]

16. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water ?

Who besides his natural proneness to sin, hath contracted habits and customs of sinning, and sinneth as freely and easily, as greedily and delightfully, as frequently and abundantly as men, especially in those hot Countries, used to drink up water. But this did not Iob: And therefore though the things delivered by him and the rest be true in the general, yet they commit a great er [illegible: 1+ letters]our in misapplying them to Iob, for which therefore they are afterwards reproved.

17. I will shew thee , hear me, and that which I have seen , I will declare.

I will prove what I have affirmed, that such strokes as thine are peculiar to hypocrites and wicked men.

I speak not by hear-say onely, but from my own experience.

18. Which wise men have told from their fathers , and have not hid it :

Who are most able to be Witnesses and Judges in these matters.

Or Ancestors; who diligently observed this, and carefully transmitted their own judgment and experience successively, to their Posterity.

They judged it to be so certain and so important a truth that they would not conceal it in their own breasts, but made conscience of publishing it for the instruction and comfort of succeeding ages.

19. Unto whom alone the earth was given , and no stranger passed among them .

Either first, By the special and gracious gift of God: whereas wicked men invaded their parts of the earth, and took them away by force. Or 2. by the choice and consent of the people, who for their great and known wisdom and vertue conferred this power and trust upon them. This he alledgeth partly to make their Testimony more considerable, because these were not obscure, and mean, and foolish men, whose words are commonly despised, but the most worthy and famous men in their places and ages; and partly to contradict and confute what Iob had said, Chap. 9. 24. That the earth was given into the hand of the wicked. By the earth, he means either the dominion of the earth; to wit, of that part of the earth in or nigh which Iob and his Friends lived: Or rather, the possession of the earth; i. e. of a great portion of worldly goods: Or particularly, the land, or that land (as the word properly signifies) to wit, the land of Canaan, which was given by special gift unto Abraham (from whom it seems most probable that both Iob and his Friends were descended) and to Isaac and Iacob: who though they met with some common and ordinary afflictions, yet enjoyed a great measure of comfort and wealth, and honour, and power in the World, as the Fruits of God's Blessing, and of his Covenant made with good men, whilest wicked men were exposed to manifold Distresses and grievous Calamities. All which those holy Patriarchs diligently observed, and industriously imparted to their Children, to encourage them to continue and proceed in the ways of true Piety. But how was the Earth or Land given to them alone, as is here said? Answer, Either 1. Because Noah and his Sons (of whom some understand these words) had the sole possession and dominion of the Earth. Or 2. Because Canaan was given to Abraham and to his Seed alone: And some of Abraham's Children had the dominion of, or an ample possession in those parts where Job and his Friends lived, who also seem to be in the number of them. Or 3. Because they only had it either by God's special and gracious Providence, or by the choice and approbation of the people; whereas wicked men took it by Rapine and Violence, without asking leave either from God or men.

i. e. The Enemy; for such are called strangers both in Scripture; as Prov. 5. 10. Isa. 1. 7. Ezek. 11. 9. & 28. 10. and in other Authors. No person of a strange Nation and Disposition, or Religion.

i. e. Through their Land, as this phrase is used, Num. 20. 18. To wit, so as to molest or disturb, or spoil them, as the Sabe [illegible: 1 word] and Chaldeans did thee. God watched over those wise and holy men so carefully, that no Enemy should invade them; and so he would have done over thee, if thou hadst been such an one.

20. The wicked man travelleth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor .

i. e. Lives a life of care, and fear, and grief, by reason of God's W[illegible: 1+ letters]ath, and the Torments of his own Mind, and his manif[illegible: 1+ letters]ld and dreadful outward Calamities.

i. e. He knows not how short the time of his tyranny and life is, and therefore lives in continual fear of losing them. The number of a good man's years are also hid from him as well as they are from the wicked men: But to those this is a great torment and mischief; whereas it is not so to him. Or, and a few years (Heb. a number of years, put by a common Hypallage, for years of number; as few years are called, Iob 16. 22. because they are soon numbred; as men of number, is put for a few men, Gen▪ 34. 30. Deut. 4. 27. & 33. 6.) are laid, or treas[illegible: 1+ letters]d up; i. e. are allotted to him by God's secret Counsel; for God cuts off such men in the midst of their days, Psalm 55. 23. whereas long-life is promised and commonly given to righteous men.

i. e. To the wicked man: but he names this one sort of them, the Oppressors, partly because he supposed Iob to be guilty of this sin, Chap. 22. 6. partly in opposition to what Iob had affirmed of the safety and happiness of such persons, Chap. 12. 6. and partly because such are most apt to expect and promise to themselves a longer and happier life than other men, because of their singular preservatives and advantages of life above other men.

21. A dreadful sound is in his ears : in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him .

Even when he feels no evil, he is tormented with perpetual fears and expectations of it from the sense of his own guilt and of God's all-seeing eye and righteous judgment: See Levit. 26. 36. Deut. 28. 65.

Or, shall invade and destroy him suddenly and unexpectedly: which is a great aggravation of it.

Marginal references: Heb. a sound of fears.; 1 Thes. 5. 3.

22. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness ▪ and he is waited for of the sword .

i. e. When he falls into trouble, he despairs of God's mercy and of deliverance, by reason of his guilty Conscience: Which he speaks with particular reflection upon Iob who would receive no comfort nor matter of hope.

i. e. Besides the Calamity which is upon him, he is in constant expectation of further and greater miseries; for the sword is oft used for any grievous affliction; as Luke 2. 35.

23. He wandreth abroad for bread, saying, where is it ? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand .

His poverty is so great, that he is forced to wander hither and thither to seek for Bread, and cannot find it. A just punishment for him that took away the Bread and substance of others by violence.

i. e. The time of his total and irrecoverable and everlasting destruction.

i. e. Ready to seize upon him, or take him by the hand or shoulder like a Serjeant to arrest him. The words may well be rendred, was prepared by his hand; i. e. by his works or actions; which being most commonly done with the hand, are oft called by that name, as Exod. 14. 31. Iudg. 9. 16. Prov. 10. 4. & 12. 24. So the sen[illegible: 1+ letters]e is, He is conscious to himself that by his wicked life he hath prepared and stored up Calamities and Destruction for himself, and therefore he expected nothing less.

y He is assured of it from his own guilty Conscience.

Marginal references: Ps. 59. 15. & 109. 10.; Chap. 18. 12.

24. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid ; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battel .

i. e. When trouble comes, in stead of trusting and hoping, and comforting himself in God, as good men do in such cases; as 1 Sam. 30. 6. He is full of torment, and dread of the issue of it, and concludes it will end in his utter ruine, as he hath great reason to do.

Or, prepared or furnished; or disposed with his army round aboue him, as this word seems to signifie.

25. For he stretcheth out his hand against God , and strengthneth himself against the Almighty .

Now he gives the reason of all the forementioned Calamities which be[illegible: 1+ letters]el him, which was his great wickedness in the time of his peace and prosperity.

i. e. He commonly and customarily sinned against God with an high and out-stretched hand; i. e. boldly and presumptuously, as one that neither desired his favour, nor feared his anger.

i. e. He putteth his Forces in array, as if he would fight with him.

Which aggravates the madness of this poor contemptible Worm that durst fight against the Omnipotent God.

26. He runneth upon him , even on his neck , upon the thick bosses of his bucklers :

i. e. Assaults him, or rusheth upon him with great swiftness and [illegible: 1+ letters]ury; as this phrase signifies, Dan. 8. 6. This he, is either 1. God, who was expressed twice in the last Verse, and who is here produced as entring the Lists and fighting with his daring Adversary. Or rather 2. The wicked man, of whom and whose sin and misery he speaks in the whole Context, both before and after this; who in the last Verse was introduced as preparing for the Battel, and here as actually and impudently fighting with him.

As a stout Warrier who cometh close to his Adversary and grapples with him, and taketh him by the Neck to throw him down. Compare 2 Sam. 2. 16. Iob 16. 12. Or, with his neck. So it is a Metaphor from a mad and raging B[illegible: 1+ letters]ll, which runs upon his Enemy, with an hard and stiff Neck.

i. e. Even where his Enemy is strongest: He is not discouraged with the Enemies thick and strong, and eminent Shields, but boldly ventures in upon them and among them. Or, with the thick bosses (Heb. the thickness and eminency) of his shields, wherewith he invaded the Enemy, that so he might both defend himself, and offend his Enemy; for the ancient Shields were useful both ways, because they had a sharp Iron or Steel in the midst of them.

27. Because he covereth his face with his fatness , and maketh collops of fat on his flanks .

This is mentioned as the reason of his insolent carriage towards God, because he was fat; i. e. rich and potent, and successful, as that expression signifies, Deut. 32. 15. Psalm 78. 31. Ier. 46. 21. His great prosperity made him proud and secure, and regardless of God and men.

His onely care and study is to pamper and please himself, and obey his own mind and lusts, and in defence and pursuance of them he contends with God.

28. And he dwelleth in desolate places , and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps .

These words may note either 1. his tyranny and cruel[illegible: 1+ letters]y, whereby he makes the places of his abode and dominion desolate by his frequent Murders, Spoils and Oppressions, wherewith he destroyeth great numbers of his people, and forceth others to the out of his reach. Or 2. His pride and power, and wealth; which enabled and engaged him to build desolate Houses and Cities for his own glory and safety, and conveniency: Of which see the Notes, or Chap. 3. 14. Or 3. his punishment and misery, that for his Impiety towards God and Oppression of men, he was driven out of his Dominions and Possessions, and forced to flie into desolate places for safety and an habitation. This seems best to agree with the Hebrew words which run thus; But (for so the Particle and is commonly used, as hath been oft said) he shall dwell, &c. And so this is fitly opposed to this last-mentioned prosperity, and is the beginning of the description of his misery, which is continued in the following Verses.

Which were ready to fall and to be turned into an heap of stones.

29. He shall not be rich , neither shall his substance continue , neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof r upon the earth.

i e. Not abide rich, but shall become poor.

What he had gotten shall be taken from him; i. e. The perfection of his substance, or that compleat estate and glory which he hath attained, shall not be continued to him and to his Posterity. Or, neither shall their perfection (i. e. that prosperity and wealth, and power wherein they placed their perfection or happiness) spread it self, or be propagated or spread abroad, but shall be diminished and taken away: It is a Metaphor from a Tree. Compare Iob 8. 16.

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 .

His misery shall have no end.

God's anger and judgment upon him

Either 1. his Children. Or 2. Wealth, and Power, and Glory, wherewith he was encompassed aud adorned and secured, as Trees are with their Branches.

i. e. Of God's mouth, as appears both by comparing this with v. 25. where God is expressed as the Adversary with whom this wicked Wretch contendeth: and by the nature of the thing, and the whole Context, all this man's Calamities being manifestly the effects of God's anger; and by other places of Scripture, where the breath of God's mouth or lips are mentioned, as that whereby he destroyeth wicked men. as Iob 4. 9. Isa. 11. 4. 2 Thes. 2. 8. And this expression intimates to us, with how much facility God subdueth his Enemies, he needs no Arms or Instruments; his Word, his Blast, one Act of his Will is more than sufficient to do it.

Heb. go back; i. e. retreat and run away from God faster than he did run towards and upon him, v. 26. So it is a continuation of the former Metaphor of a Battel or Conflict between two persons.

Marginal references: That is, God's mouth.

31. Let not him that is deceived, trust in vanity : for vanity shall be his recompence .

i. e. In the vain and deceitful things of this World, such as Power, Riches, Honour, &c. of which and of the loss of them he had been largely discoursing; and now he subjoyns a general Caution to all men to take heed of running into the same errour and mischief with the fore-mentioned persons: And withal he secretly intimates Iob's great sin which was the cause of his ruine; to wit, his carnal confidence in those vain things, the Wealth, and Glory, and Children which God had given him: from which Crime he therefore vindicates himself hereafter.

i. e. Disappointment and dis[illegible: 1+ letters]atisfaction, and the vanishing or loss of all their imaginary felicity. The same word vanity, being elegantly repeated in another sense, as is usual in Scripture and all Authors.

Heb. his exchange; he shall exchange one vanity for another, a pleasing vanity for a vexa[illegible: 1+ letters]ious vanity. But this Verse is and may be rendred otherwise; the Hebrew Par[illegible: 1+ letters]icle al. being here, as it is elsewhere, taken for a simple Negation. Thus, He that is deceived with vanity (i. e with the vain things of this World, wherewith most men are deceived and bewitched) will not believe that vanity (i. e. emptiness and disappointment, and misery) shall be his recompence. And so this is an aggravation of his Calamity, that it surprized him when he was confident and secure from all [illegible: 1+ letters]ars of such an event.

32. It shall be accomplished before his time , and his branch shall not be green .

To wit, that which was last mentioned, that vanity should be his recompence. Or, it; i. e. his Branch mentioned in the next Clause of the Verse, from which it is understood in this former Clause, as is very usual in the holy Scripture, shall be consumed or cut off.

i. e. When by the course of Nature, and common Providence, it might have continued and flourished much longer.

Either 1. his Glory and Prosperity. Or rather 2. his Children; by comparing v. 34. where the desolation is said to fall upon all the Congregation and Tabernacles of these men: And so he reflects upon Iob who lost his Children.

i. e. Shall not continue to flourish, as it had done.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].; Ch. 22. 16. Psal. 55. 23.

33. He shall shake off his unripe grapes as the vine , and shall cast off his flower as the olive .

Either 1. the wicked man, who by his sins is the Author of his own ruine. Or 2. God, who is easily understood both from the Matter and Context.

Heb. Shall take away by violence.

i. e. His Fruit, his Children, or other Comforts before their time.

i. e. As the Vine either it self droppeth, or rather loseth its tender Grapes which are plucked off by a violent hand.

Which flourisheth much about the same time with the Vine, and is commonly handled in the same manner.

34. For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate , and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery .

i. e. Their Children, and Servants, and Friends, and Dependents.

i. e. Utterly destroyed.

i. e. Some eminent and terrible judgment of God, which is oft expressed by fire; as Isa. 9. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ & 26. 11.

i. e. Which were either built or maintained by extortion and bribery, and such like unrighteous Courses; whereof they thought Iob guilty, Chapter 22. 8.

35. They conceive mischief , and bring forth vanity , and their belly prepareth deceit .

i. e. They devise and contrive injurious and pernicious Enterprizes against others.

Or iniquity, or injury, or trouble; either 1. to others: They execute what they had contrived. Or 2. to themselves; the mischief they designed for others, falleth upon their own heads, and they reap what they sowed.

i. e. Their inward parts, their hearts and minds. See above on v. 2.

Either 1. for others, whom they design to cheat: Or 2. for themselves, who whilest they seek to deceive others, shall find that they themselves are most deceived, as being deprived of all their desires and hopes wherewith they fed themselves, and cast into all those Calamities, which they thought to prevent by these Artifices.

Marginal references: Psal. [illegible: 1+ letters]. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. Isa. 59. 4. Hos. 10. 13.; Or, [illegible: 1 word]

Job 15:1-6   1  Then began Eliphaz the Temanite, and said:   2  Doth a wise man utter vain knowledge,

And fill his breast with the east wind?   3  Contending with words, that profit not,

And speeches, by which no good is done?   4  Moreover, thou makest void the fear of God,

And thou restrainest devotion before God;   5  For thy mouth exposeth thy misdeeds,

And thou choosest the language of the crafty.   6  Thine own mouth condemneth thee and not I,

And thine own lips testify against thee.

The second course of the controversy is again opened by Eliphaz, the most respectable, most influential, and perhaps oldest of the friends. Job’s detailed and bitter answers seem to him as empty words and impassioned tirades, which ill become a wise man, such as he claims to be in assertions like Job 12:3; Job 13:2. החלם with He interr., like העלה, Job 13:25. רוּח, wind, is the opposite of what is solid and sure; and קדים in the parallel (like Hos 12:2) signifies what is worthless, with the additional notion of vehement action. If we translate בּטן by “belly,” the meaning is apt to be misunderstood; it is not intended as the opposite of לב fo et (Ewald), but it means, especially in the book of Job, not only that which feels, but also thinks and wills, the spiritually receptive and active inner nature of man (Psychol. S. 266); as also in Arabic, el - battin signifies that which is within, in the deepest mystical sense. Hirz. and Renan translate the inf. abs. הוכח, which follows in Job 15:3, as verb. fin.: se défend-il par des vaines paroles; but though the inf. abs. is so used in an historical clause (Job 15:35), it is not an interrogative. Ewald takes it as the subject: “to reprove with words-avails not, and speeches - whereby one does no good;” but though דּבר and מלּים might be used without any further defining, as in λογομαχεῖν (2Ti 2:14) and λογομαχία (1Ti 6:4), the form of Job 15:3 is opposed to such an explanation. The inf. abs. is connected as a gerund (redarguendo s. disputando) with the verbs in the question, Job 15:2; and the elliptical relative clause יסכּן לא is best, as referring to things, according to Job 35:3 : sermone (דּבד from דּבר, as sermo from serere) qui non prodest; בּם יועיל לא, on the other hand, to persons, verbis quibus nil utilitatis affert. Eliphaz does not censure Job for arguing, but for defending himself by such useless and purposeless utterances of his feeling. But still more than that: his speeches are not only unsatisfactory and unbecoming, אף, accedit quod (cumulative like Job 14:3), they are moreover irreligious, since by doubting the justice of God they deprive religion of its fundamental assumption, and diminish the reverence due to God. יראה in such an objective sense as Psa 19:10 almost corresponds to the idea of religion. שׂיחה לפני־אל is to be understood, according to Psa 102:1; Psa 142:3 (comp. Psa 64:2; Psa 104:34): before God, and consequently customary devotional meditation, here of the disposition of mind indispensable to prayer, viz., devotion, and especially reverential awe, which Job depreciates (גּרע, detrahere). His speeches are mostly directed towards God; but they are violent and reproachful, therefore irreverent in form and substance.

Job 15:7-10   7  Wast thou as the first one born as a man,

And hast thou been brought forth before the hills?   8  Hast thou attended to the counsel of Eloah,

And hast thou kept wisdom to thyself?   9  What dost thou know that we have not known?

Doest thou understand what we have not been acquainted with? 10  Both grey-haired and aged are among us,

Older in days than thy father.

The question in Job 15:7 assumes that the first created man, because coming direct from the hand of God, had the most direct and profoundest insight into the mysteries of the world which came into existence at the same time as himself. Schlottman calls to mind an ironical proverbial expression of the Hindus: “Yea, indeed, he is the first man; no wonder that he is so wise” (Roberts, Orient. Illustr. p. 276). It is not to be translated: wast thou born as the first man, which is as inadmissible as the translation of אחת מעט, Hag 2:6, by “a little” (vid., Köhler in loc.); rather ראישׁון (i.e., ראישׁון, as Jos 21:10, formed from ראשׁ, like the Arabic raı̂s, from ras, if it is not perhaps a mere incorrect amalgamation of the forms ראשׁון and רשׁון, Job 8:8) is in apposition with the subject, and אדם is to be regarded as predicate, according to Ges. §139, 2. Raschi’s translation is also impossible: wast thou born before Adam? for this Greek form of expression, πρῶτος μον, Joh 1:15, Joh 1:30; Joh 15:18 (comp. Odyss. xi. 481f., σεῖο μακάρτατος), is strange to the Hebrew. In the parallel question, Job 15:7, Umbr., Schlottm., and Renan (following Ewald) see a play upon Pro 8:24.: art thou the demiurgic Wisdom itself? But the introductory proverbs (Prov 1-9) are more recent than the book of Job (vid., supra, p. 24), and indeed probably, as we shall show elsewhere, belong to the time of Jehoshaphat. Consequently the more probable relation is that the writer of Pro 8:24. has adopted words from the book of Job in describing the pre-existence of the Chokma. Was Job, a higher spirit-nature, brought forth, i.e., as it were amidst the pangs of travail (חוללת, Pulal from חול, חיל), before the hills? for the angels, according to Scripture, were created before man, and even before the visible universe (vid., Job 38:4.). Hirz., Ew., Schlottm., and others erroneously translate the futt. in the questions, Job 15:8, as praes. All the verbs in Job 15:7, Job 15:8, are under the control of the retrospective character which is given to the verses by ראישׁון; comp. Job 10:10., where זכר־נא has the same influence, and also Job 3:3, where the historical sense of אוּלד depends not upon the syntax, but upon logical necessity. Translate therefore: didst thou attend in the secret council (סוד, like Jer 23:18, comp. Psa 89:8) of Eloah (according to the correct form of writing in Codd. and in Kimchi, Michlol 54 a, הבסוד, like Job 15:11 המעט and Job 22:13 הבעד, with Beth raph. and without Gaja),As a rule, the interrogative He, when pointed with Pathach, has Gaja against the Pathach 2Sa 7:5; this, however, falls away (among other instances) when the syllable immediately following the He has the tone, as in the two examples given above (comp. also האל, Job 8:3; הלאל, Job 13:7), or the usual Gaja (Metheg) which stands in the antepenultima (Bär, Metheg-Setzung, §23 and didst then acquire for thyself (גרע, here attrahere, like the Arabic, sorbere, to suck in) wisdom? by which one is reminded of Prometheus’ fire stolen from heaven. Nay, Job can boast of no extraordinary wisdom. The friends - as Eliphaz, Job 15:9, says in their name - are his contemporaries; and if he desires to appeal to the teaching of his father, and of his ancestors generally, let them know that there are hoary-headed men among themselves, whose discernment is deeper by reason of their more advanced age. גּם is inverted, like Job 2:10 (which see); and at the same time, since it is sued twice, it is correlative: etiam inter nos et cani et senes. Most modern expositors think that Eliphaz, “in modestly concealed language” (Ewald), refers to himself. But the reference would be obvious enough; and wherefore this modest concealing, which is so little suited to the character of Eliphaz? Moreover, Job 15:10 does not sound as if speaking merely of one, and in Job 15:10 Eliphaz would make himself older than he appears to be, for it is nowhere implied that Job is a young man in comparison with him. We therefore with Umbreit explain בּנוּ: in our generation. Thus it sounds more like the Arabic, both in words (kebı̂r Arab., usual in the signif. grandaevus) and in substance. Eliphaz appeals to the source of reliable tradition, since they have even among their races and districts mature old men, and since, indeed, according to Job’s own admission (Job 12:12), there is “wisdom among the ancient ones.”

Job 15:11-13 11  Are the consolations of God too small for thee,

And a word thus tenderly spoken with thee? 12  What overpowers thy hearts?

And why do thine eyes wink, 13  That thou turnest thy snorting against God,

And sendest forth such words from thy mouth?

By the consolations of God, Eliphaz means the promises in accordance with the majesty and will of God, by which he and the other friends have sought to cheer him, of course presupposing a humble resignation to the just hand of God. By “a word (spoken) in gentleness to him,” he means the gentle tone which they have maintained, while he has passionately opposed them. לאט, elsewhere לאט (e.g., Isa 8:6, of the softly murmuring and gently flowing Siloah), from אט (declined, אטּי), with the neutral, adverbial ל (as לבטה), signifies: with a soft step, gently, The word has no connection with לוּט, לאט, to cover over, and is not third praet. (as it is regarded by Raschi, after Chajug): which he has gently said to you, or that which has gently befallen you; in which, as in Fürst’s Handwörterbuch, the notions secrete (Jdg 4:21, Targ. בּרז, in secret) and leniter are referred to one root. Are these divine consolations, and these so gentle addresses, too small for thee (מעט ממך, opp. 1Ki 19:7), i.e., beneath thy dignity, and unworthy of they notice? What takes away (לקה, auferre, abripere, as frequently) thy heart (here of wounded pride), and why do thine eyes gleam, that thou turnest (השׁיב, not revertere, but vertere, as freq.) thy ill-humour towards God, and utterest מלּין (so here, not מלּים) words, which, because they are without meaning and intelligence, are nothing but words? רזם, ἅπ. γεγρ., is transposed from רמז, to wink, i.e., to make known by gestures and grimaces, - a word which does not occur in biblical, but is very common in post-biblical, Hebrew (e.g., חרשׁ רומז ונרמז, a deaf and dumb person expresses himself and is answered by a language of signs). Modern expositors arbitrarily understand a rolling of the eyes; it is more natural to think of the vibration of the eye-lashes or eye-brows. רוּח, Job 15:13, is as in Jdg 8:3; Isa 25:4, comp. Job 13:11, and freq. used of passionate excitement, which is thus expressed because it manifests itself in πνέειν (Act 9:1), and has its rise in the πνεῦμα (Ecc 7:9). Job ought to control this angry spirit, θυμός (Psychol. S. 198); but he allows it to burst forth, and makes even God the object on which he vents his anger in impetuous language. How much better it would be for him, if he would search within himself (Lam 3:39) for the reason of those sufferings which so deprive him of his self-control!

Job 15:14-16 14  What is mortal man that he should be pure,

And that he who is born of woman should be righteous? 15  He trusteth not His holy ones,

And the heavens are not pure in His eyes: 16  How much less the abominable and corrupt,

Man, who drinketh iniquity as water!

The exclamation in Job 15:14 is like the utterance: mortal man and man born flesh of flesh cannot be entirely sinless. Even “the holy ones” and “the heavens” are not. The former are, as in Job 5:1, according to Job 4:18, the angels as beings of light (whether קדשׁ signifies to be light from the very first, spotlessly pure, or, vid., Psalter, i. 588f., to be separated, distinct, and hence exalted above what is common); the latter is not another expression for the אנגּלי מרומא (Targ.), the “angels of the heights,” but שׁמים is the word used for the highest spheres in which they dwell (comp. Job 25:5); for the angels are certainly not corporeal, but, like all created things, in space, and the Scriptures everywhere speak of angels and the starry heavens together. Hence the angels are called the morning stars in Job 38:7, and hence both stars and angels are called צבא השׁמים and צבאות (vid., Genesis. S. 128). Even the angels and the heavens are finite, and consequently are not of a nature absolutely raised above the possibility of sin and contamination.

Eliphaz repeats here what he has already said, Job 4:18.; but he does it intentionally, since he wishes still more terribly to describe human uncleanness to Job (Oetinger). In that passage אף was merely the sign of an anti-climax, here כּי אף is quanto minus. Eliphaz refers to the hereditary infirmity and sin of human nature in Job 15:14, here (Job 15:16) to man’s own free choice of that which works his destruction. He uses the strongest imaginable words to describe one actualiter and originaliter corrupted. נתעב denotes one who is become an abomination, or the abominated = abominable (Ges. §134, 1); נאלח, one thoroughly corrupted (Arabic alacha, in the medial VIII conjugation: to become sour, which reminds one of ζύμη, Rabb. שׂאר שׁבּעסּה, as an image of evil, and especially of evil desire). It is further said of him (an expression which Elihu adopts, Job 34:7), that he drinks up evil like water. The figure is like Pro 26:6, comp. on Psa 73:10, and implies that he lusts after sin, and that it is become a necessity of his nature, and is to his nature what water is to the thirsty. Even Job does not deny this corruption of man (Job 14:4), but the inferences which the friends draw in reference to him he cannot acknowledge. The continuation of Eliphaz' speech shows how they render this acknowledgment impossible to him.

Job 15:17-19 17  I will inform thee, hear me!

And what I have myself seen that I will declare, 18  Things which wise men declare

Without concealment from their fathers - 19  To them alone was the land given over,

And no stranger had passed in their midst - :

Eliphaz, as in his first speech, introduces the dogma with which he confronts Job with a solemn preface: in the former case it had its rise in a revelation, here it is supported by his own experience and reliable tradition; for חזיתי is not intended as meaning ecstatic vision (Schlottm.). The poet uses חזה also of sensuous vision, Job 8:17; and of observation and knowledge by means of the senses, not only the more exalted, as Job 19:26., but of any kind (Job 23:9; Job 24:1; Job 27:12, comp. Job 36:25; Job 34:32), in the widest sense. זה is used as neuter, Gen 6:15; Exo 13:8; Exo 30:13; Lev 11:4, and freq.So also Psa 56:10, where I now prefer to translate “This I know,” זה neuter, like Pro 24:12, and referring forward as above, Job 15:17. (comp. the neuter הוּא, Job 13:16, and often), and זה־חזיתי is a relative clause (Ges. §122, 2): quod conspexi, as Job 19:19 quos amo, and Psa 74:2 in quo habitas, comp. Psa 104:8, Psa 104:26; Pro 23:22, where the punctuation throughout proceeds from the correct knowledge of the syntax. The waw of ואספרה is the waw apodosis, which is customary (Nägelsbach, §111, 1, b) after relative clauses (e.g., Num 23:3), or what is the same thing, participles (e.g., Pro 23:24): et narrabo = ea narrabo. In Job 15:18 ולא כחדו is, logically at least, subordinate to יגידו, as in Isa 3:9,Heidenheim refers to Hos 8:2 for the position of the words, but there Israel may also be an apposition: we know thee, we Israel. as the Targum of the Antwerp Polyglott well translates: “what wise men declare, without concealing (ולא מכדבין), from the tradition of their fathers;” whereas all the other old translations, including Luther’s, have missed the right meaning. These fathers to whom this doctrine respecting the fate of evil-doers is referred, lived, as Eliphaz says in Job 15:19, in the land of their birth, and did not mingle themselves with strangers, consequently their manner of viewing things, and their opinions, have in their favour the advantage of independence, of being derived from their own experience, and also of a healthy development undisturbed by any foreign influences, and their teaching may be accounted pure and unalloyed.

Eliphaz thus indirectly says, that the present is not free from such influences, and Ewald is consequently of opinion that the individuality of the Israelitish poet peeps out here, and a state of things is indicated like that which came about after the fall of Samaria in the reign of Manasseh. Hirzel also infers from Eliphaz' words, that at the time when the book was written the poet’s fatherland was desecrated by some foreign rule, and considers it an indication for determining the time at which the book was composed. But how groundless and deceptive this is! The way in which Eliphaz commends ancient traditional lore is so genuinely Arabian, that there is but the faintest semblance of a reason for supposing the poet to have thrown his own history and national peculiarity so vividly into the working up of the rôle of another. Purity of race was, from the earliest times, considered by “the sons of the East” as a sign of highest nobility, and hence Eliphaz traces back his teaching to a time when his race could boast of the greatest freedom from intermixture with any other. Schlottmann prefers to interpret Job 15:19 as referring to the “nobler primeval races of man” (without, however, referring to Job 8:8), but הארץ does not signify the earth here, but: country, as in Job 30:8; Job 22:8, and elsewhere, and Job 15:19 seems to refer to nations: זר = barbarus (perhaps Semitic: בּרבּר, ὁ ἔξω). Nevertheless it is unnecessary to suppose that Eliphaz' time was one of foreign domination, as the Assyrian-Chaldean time was for Israel: it is sufficient to imagine it as a time when the tribes of the desert were becoming intermixed, from migration, commerce, and feud.

Now follows the doctrine of the wise men, which springs from a venerable primitive age, an age as yet undisturbed by any strange way of thinking (modern enlightenment and free thinking, as we should say), and is supported by Eliphaz' own experience. (Note: Communication from Consul Wetzstein: If this verse affirms that the freer a people is from intermixture with other races, the purer is its tradition, it gives expression to a principle derived from experience, which needs no proof. Even European races, especially the Scandinavians, furnish proof of this in their customs, language, and traditions, although in this case certain elements of their indigenous character have vanished with the introduction of Christianity. A more complete parallel is furnished by the wandering tribes of the 'Aneze and Sharârât of the Syrian deserts, people who have indeed had their struggles, and have even been weakened by emigration, but have certainly never lost their political and religious autonomy, and have preserved valuable traditions which may be traced to the earliest antiquity. It is unnecessary to prove this by special instance, when the whole outer and inner life of these peoples can be regarded as the best commentary on the biblical accounts of the patriarchal age. It is, however, not so much the fact that the evil-doer receives his punishment, in favour of which Eliphaz appeals to the teaching handed down from the fathers, as rather the belief in it, consequently in a certain degree the dogma of a moral order in the world. This dogma is an essential element of the ancient Abrahamic religion of the desert tribes - that primitive religion which formed the basis of the Mosaic, and side by side with it was continued among the nomads of the desert; which, shortly before the appearance of Christianity in the country east of Jordan, gave birth to mild doctrines, doctrines which tended to prepare the way for the teaching of the gospel; which at that very time, according to historical testimony, also prevailed in the towns of the Higâz, and was first displaced again by the Jemanic idolatry, and limited to the desert, in the second century after Christ, during the repeated migrations of the southern Arabs; which gave the most powerful impulse to the rise of Islam, and furnished its best elements; which, towards the end of the last century, brought about the reform of Islamism in the province of Negd, and produced the Wahabee doctrine; and which, finally, is continued even to the present day by the name of Dîn Ibrâhîm, “Religion of Abraham,” as a faithful tradition of the fathers, among the vast Ishmaelitish tribes of the Syrian desert, “to whom alone the land is given over, and into whose midst no stranger has penetrated.” Had this cultus spread among settled races with a higher education, it might have been taught also in writings: if, however, portions of writings in reference to it, which have been handed down to us by the Arabic, are to be regarded as unauthentic, it may also in 'Irâk have been mixed with the Sabian worship of the stars; but among the nomads it will have always been only oral, taught by the poets in song, and contained in the fine traditions handed down uncorrupted from father to son, and practised in life.

It is a dogma of this religion (of which I shall speak more fully in the introduction to my Anthologie von Poesien der Wanderstâmme), that the pious will be rewarded by God in his life and in his descendants, the wicked punished in his life and in his descendants; and it may also, in Job 15:19, be indirectly said that the land of Eliphaz has preserved this faith, in accordance with tradition, purer than Job’s land. If Eliphaz was from the Petraean town of Têmân (which we merely suggest as possible here), he might indeed rightly assert that no strange race had become naturalized there; for that hot, sterile land, poorly supplied with water, had nothing inviting to the emigrant or marauder, and its natives remain there only by virtue of the proverb: lôlâ hhibb el - wattan quat . tâl , lakân dâr eṡsû' charâb, “Did not the love of one’s country slay (him who is separated from it), the barren country would be uninhabited.” Job certainly could not affirm the same of his native country, if this is, with the Syrian tradition, to be regarded as the Nukra (on this point, vid., the Appendix). As the richest province of Syria, it has, from the earliest time to the present, always been an apple of contention, and has not only frequently changed its rulers, but even its inhabitants.)

Job 15:20-24 20  So long as the ungodly liveth he suffereth,

And numbered years are reserved for the tyrant. 21  Terrors sound in his ears;

In time of peace the destroyer cometh upon him. 22  He believeth not in a return from darkness,

And he is selected for the sword. 23  He roameth about after bread: “Ah! where is it?”

He knoweth that a dark day is near at hand for him. 24  Trouble and anguish terrify him;

They seize him as a king ready to the battle.

All the days of the ungodly he (the ungodly) is sensible of pain. רשׁע stands, like Elohim in Gen 9:6, by the closer definition; here however so, that this defining ends after the manner of a premiss, and is begun by הוּא after the manner of a conclusion. מתחולל, he writhes, i.e., suffers inward anxiety and distress in the midst of all outward appearance of happiness. Most expositors translate the next line: and throughout the number of the years, which are reserved to the tyrant. But (1) this parallel definition of time appended by waw makes the sense drawling; (2) the change of עריץ (oppressor, tyrant) for רשׁע leads one to expect a fresh affirmation, hence it is translated by the lxx: ἔτη δὲ ἀριθμητὰ δεδομένα δυνάστῃ. The predicate is, then, like Job 32:7, comp. Job 29:10; Job 2:4 (Ges. §148), per attractionem in the plur. instead of in the sing., and especially with מספּר followed by gen. plur.; this attraction is adopted by our author, Job 21:21; Job 38:21. The meaning is not, that numbered, i.e., few, years are secretly appointed to the tyrant, which must have been sh'nôth mispâr , a reversed position of the words, as Job 16:22; Num 9:20 (vid., Gesenius’ Thes.); but a (limited, appointed) number of years is reserved to the tyrant (צפן as Job 24:1; Job 21:19, comp. טמן, Job 20:26; Mercerus: occulto decreto definiti), after the expiration of which his punishment begins. The thought expressed by the Targ., Syr., and Jerome would be suitable: and the number of the years (that he has to live unpunished) is hidden from the tyrant; but if this were the poet’s meaning, he would have written שׁניו, and must have written מן־העריץ.

With regard to the following Job 15:21-24, it is doubtful whether only the evil-doer’s anxiety of spirit is described in amplification of הוא מתחולל, or also how the terrible images from which he suffers in his conscience are realized, and how he at length helplessly succumbs to the destruction which his imagination had long foreboded. A satisfactory and decisive answer to this question is hardly possible; but considering that the real crisis is brought on by Eliphaz later, and fully described, it seems more probable that what has an objective tone in Job 15:21-24 is controlled by what has been affirmed respecting the evil conscience of the ungodly, and is to be understood accordingly. The sound of terrible things (startling dangers) rings in his ears; the devastator comes upon him (בוא seq. acc. as Job 20:22; Pro 28:22; comp. Isa 28:15) in the midst of his prosperity. He anticipates it ere it happens. From the darkness by which he feels himself menaced, he believes not (האמין seq. infin. as Psa 27:13, לראות, of confident hope) to return; i.e., overwhelmed with a consciousness of his guilt, he cannot, in the presence of this darkness which threatens him, raise to the hope of rescue from it, and he is really - as his consciousness tells him - צפוּ (like עשׂוּ, Job 41:25; Ges. §75, rem. 5; Keri צפוי, which is omitted in our printed copies, contrary to the testimony of the Masora and the authority of correct MSS), spied out for, appointed to the sword, i.e., of God (Job 19:29; Isa 31:8), or decreed by God. In the midst of abundance he is harassed by the thought of becoming poor; he wanders about in search of bread, anxiously looking out and asking where? (abrupt, like הנה, Job 9:19), i.e., where is any to be found, whence can I obtain it? The lxx translates contrary to the connection, and with a strange misunderstanding of the passage: κατατέτακται δὲ δἰς σῖτα γυψίν (איּה לחם, food for the vulture). He sees himself in the mirror of the future thus reduced to beggary; he knows that a day of darkness stands in readiness (נכון, like Job 18:12), is at his hand, i.e., close upon him (בּידו, elsewhere in this sense ליד, Psa 140:6; 1Sa 19:3, and על־ידי, Job 1:14).

In accordance with the previous exposition, we shall now interpret וּמצוּקה צר, Job 15:24, not of need and distress, but subjectively of fear and oppression. They come upon him suddenly and irresistibly; it seizes or overpowers him (תּתקפהוּ with neutral subject; an unknown something, a dismal power) as a king עתיד לכּידור. lxx ὥσπερ στρατηγὸς πρωτοστάτης πίπτων, like a leader falling in the first line of the battle, which is an imaginary interpretation of the text. The translation of the Targum also, sicut regem qui paratus est ad scabellum (to serve the conqueror as a footstool), furnishes no explanation. Another Targum translation (in Nachmani and elsewhere) is: sicut rex qui paratus est circumdare se legionibus. According to this, כידור comes from כּדר, to surround, be round (comp. כּתר, whence כּתר, Assyr. cudar, κίδαρις, perhaps also הזר, Syr. חדר, whence chedor, a circle, round about); and it is assumed, that as כּדּוּר signifies a ball (not only in Talmudic, but also in Isa 22:18, which is to be translated: rolling he rolleth thee into a ball, a ball in a spacious land), so כּידור, a round encampment, an army encamped in a circle, synon. of מעגּל. In the first signification the word certainly furnishes no suitable sense in connection with עתיד; but one may, with Kimchi, suppose that כידור, like the Italian torniamento, denotes the circle as well as the tournament, or the round of conflict, i.e., the conflict which moves round about, like tumult of battle, which last is a suitable meaning here. The same appropriate meaning is attained, however, if the root is taken, like the Arabic kdr, in the signification turbidum esse (comp. קדר, Job 6:16), which is adopted of misfortunes as troubled experiences of life (according to which Schultens translates: destinatus est ad turbulentissimas fortunas, beginning a new thought with עתיד, which is not possible, since כמלך by itself is no complete figure), and may perhaps also be referred to the tumult of battle, tumultus bellici conturbatio (Rosenm.); or of, with Fleischer, one starts from another turn of the idea of the root, viz., to be compressed, solid, thick, which is a more certain way gives the meaning of a dense crowd.The Arab. verb kdr belongs to the root kd, to smite, thrust, quatere, percutere, tundere, trudere; a root that has many branches. It is I. transitive cadara (fut. jacduru, inf. cadr) - by the non-adoption of which from the original lexicons our lexicographers have deprived the whole etymological development of its groundwork - in the signification to pour, hurl down, pour out, e.g., cadara-l-mâa, he has spilt, poured out, thrown down the water; hence in the medial VII. form incadara intransitive, to fall, fall down, chiefly of water and other fluids, as of the rain which pours down from heaven, of a cascade, and the like; then improperly of a bird of prey which shoots down from the air upon its prey (e.g., in the poetry in Beidhâwi on Sur. 81, 2: “The hawk saw some bustards on the plain f'ancadara, and rushed down”); of a hostile host which rushes upon the enemy first possible signification for כידור]; of a man, horse, etc., which runs very swiftly, effuse currit, effuso curru ruit; of the stars that shall fall from heaven at the last day (Sur. 81, 2). Then also II. intransitive cadara (fut. jacdiru) with the secondary form cadira (fut. jacdaru) and cadura (fut. jacduru), prop. to be shaken and jolted; then also of fluid things, mixed and mingled, made turgid, unclean, i.e., by shaking, jolting, stirring, etc., with the dregs (the cudâre or cudâde); then gen. turbidum, non limpidum (opp. Arab. ṣf'), with a similar transition of meaning to that in turbare (comp. deturbare) and the German trüben (comp. traben or trappen, treiben, treffen). The primary meaning of the root takes another III. turn in the derived adjectives cudur, cudurr, cundur, cunâdir, compressed, solid, thick; the last word with us (Germans) forms a transition from cadir, cadr, cadîr, dull, slimy, yeasty, etc., inasmuch as we speak of dickes Bier (thick beer), etc., cerevisia spissa, de la bière épaisse. Here the point of contact of the word כידור, tumult of battle, κλόνος ἀνδρῶν, seems indicated: a dense crowd and tumult, where one is close upon another; as also נלחם, מלחמה, signify not reciprocal destruction, slaughter, but to press firmly and closely upon one another, a dense crowd. - Fl.

Since, therefore, a suitable meaning is obtained in two ways, the natural conjecture, which is commended by Pro 6:11, עתיד לכּידון, paratus ad hastam = peritus hastae (Hupf.), according to Job 3:8) where ערר = לערר), may be abandoned. The signification circuitus has the most support, according to which Saadia and Parchon also explain, and we have preferred to translate round of battle rather than tumult of conflict; Jerome’s translation, qui praeparatur ad praelium, seems also to be gained in the same manner.

Job 15:25-30 25  Because he stretched out his hand against God,

And was insolent towards the Almighty; 26  He assailed Him with a stiff neck,

With the thick bosses of his shield; 27  Because he covered his face with his fatness,

And addeth fat to his loins, 28  And inhabited desolated cities,

Houses which should not be inhabited,

Which were appointed to be ruins. 29  He shall not be rich, and his substance shall not continue

And their substance boweth not to the ground. 30  He escapeth not darkness;

The flame withereth his shoots;

And he perisheth in the breath of His mouth.

This strophe has periodic members: Job 15:25-28 an antecedent clause with a double beginning (כּי־נטה because he has stretched out, כּי־כסּה because he has covered; whereas ירוּץ may be taken as more independent, but under the government of the כי that stands at the commencement of the sentence); Job 15:29, Job 15:30, is the conclusion. Two chief sins are mentioned as the cause of the final destiny that comes upon the evil-doer: (1) his arrogant opposition to God, and (2) his contentment on the ruins of another’s prosperity. The first of these sins is described Job 15:25-27. The fut. consec. is once used instead of the perf., and the simple fut. is twice used with the signification of an imperf. (as Job 4:3 and freq.). The Hithpa. התגּבּר signifies here to maintain a heroic bearing, to play the hero; התעשּׁר to make one’s self rich, to play the part of a rich man, Pro 13:7. And בּצוּאר expresses the special prominence of the neck in his assailing God אל רוּץ, as Dan 8:6, comp. על, Job 16:14); it is equivalent to erecto collo (Vulg.), and in meaning equivalent to ὕβρει (lxx). Also in Psa 75:6, בצואר (with Munach, which there represents a distinctive)Vid., Dachselt’s Biblia Accentuata, p. 816.) is absolute, in the sense of stiff-necked or hard-headed; for the parallels, as Psa 31:19; Psa 94:4, and especially the primary passage, 1Sa 2:3, show that עתק is to be taken as an accusative of the object. The proud defiance with which he challengingly assails God, and renders himself insensible to the dispensations of God, which might bring him to a right way of thinking, is symbolized by the additional clause: with the thickness (עבי cognate form to עבי) of the bosses of his shields. גּב is the back (Arab. dhr) or boss (umbo) of the shield; the plurality of shields has reference to the diversified means by which he hardens himself. Job 15:27, similarly to Psa 73:4-7, pictures this impregnable carnal security against all unrest and pain, to which, on account of his own sinfulness and the distress of others, the nobler-minded man is so sensitive: he has covered his face with his fat, so that by the accumulation of fat, for which he anxiously labours, it becomes a gross material lump of flesh, devoid of mind and soul, and made fat, i.e., added fat, caused it to accumulate, upon his loins (כּסל for כּסליו); עשׂה (which has nothing to do with Arab. gšâ, to cover) is used as in Job 14:9, and in the phrase corpus facere (in Justin), in the sense of producing outwardly something from within. פּימה reminds one of πιμ-ελή (as Aquila and Symmachus translate here), o-pim-us, and of the Sanscrit piai , to be fat (whence adj. pı̂van , pı̂vara , πιαρός, part. pı̂na , subst. according to Roth pı̂vas); the Arabic renders it probable that it is a contraction of פּאימה (Olsh. §171, b). The Jewish expositors explain it according to the misunderstood פּים,   1Sa 13:21, of the furrows or wrinkles which are formed in flabby flesh, as if the ah were paragogic.

Job 15:28 describes the second capital sin of the evil-doer. The desolated cities that he dwells in are not cities that he himself has laid waste; Job 15:28 distinctly refers to a divinely appointed punishment, for התעתּדוּ does not signify: which they (evil-doers) have made ruins (Hahn), which is neither probable from the change of number, nor accords with the meaning of the verb, which signifies “to appoint to something in the future.” Hirzel, by referring to the law, Deu 13:13-18 (comp. 1Ki 16:34), which forbids the rebuilding of such cities as are laid under the curse, explains it to a certain extent more correctly. But such a play upon the requirements of the Mosaic law is in itself not probable in the book of Job, and here, as Löwenthal rightly remarks, is the less indicated, since it is not the dwelling in such cities that is forbidden, but only the rebuilding of them, so far as they had been destroyed; here, however, the reference is only to dwelling, not to rebuilding. The expression must therefore be understood more generally thus, that the powerful man settles down carelessly and indolently, without any fear of the judgments of God or respect for the manifestations of His judicial authority, in places in which the marks of a just divine retribution are still visible, and which are appointed to be perpetual monuments of the execution of divine judgments.For the elucidation of this interpretation of the passage, Consul Wetzstein has contributed the following: “As one who yields to inordinate passion is without sympathy cast from human society because he is called muqâtal rabbuh, 'one who is beaten in the conflict against his God' (since he has sinned against the holy command of chastity), and as no one ventures to pronounce the name of Satan because God has cursed him (Gen 3:14), without adding 'alêh el-la'ne, 'God’s curse upon him!' so a man may not presume to inhabit places which God has appointed to desolation. Such villages and cities, which, according to tradition, have perished and been frequently overthrown (maqlûbe, muqêlîbe, munqualibe) by the visitation of divine judgment, are not uncommon on the borders of the desert. They are places, it is said, where the primary commandments of the religion of Abraham (Dîn Ibrâhim) have been impiously transgressed. Thus the city of Babylon will never be colonized by a Semitic tribe, because they hold the belief that it has been destroyed on account of Nimrod’s apostasy from God, and his hostility to His favoured one, Abraham. The tradition which has even been transferred by the tribes of Arabia Petraea into Islamism of the desolation of the city of Higr (or Medâin Sâlih) on account of disobedience to God, prevents any one from dwelling in that remarkable city, which consists of thousands of dwellings cut in the rock, some of which are richly ornamented; without looking round, and muttering prayers, the desert ranger hurries through, even as does the great procession of pilgrims to Mekka, from fear of incurring the punishment of God by the slightest delay in the accursed city. The destruction of Sodom, brought about by the violation of the right of hospitality (Gen 19:5, comp. Job 31:32), is to be mentioned here, for this legend certainly belongs originally to the 'Din Ibrâhîm' rather than to the Mosaic. At the source of the Rakkâd (the largest river of the Golan region) there are a number of erect and remarkably perforated jasper formations, which are called 'the bridal procession' (el-fârida). This bridal procession was turned to stone, because a woman of the party cleaned her child that had made itself dirty with a bread-cake (qurss). Near it is its village (Ufûne), which in spite of repeated attempts is no more to be inhabited. It remains forsaken, as an eternal witness that ingratitude (kufrân en-ni'ma), especially towards God, does not remain unpunished.

Only by this rendering is the form of expression of the elliptical clause לא־ישׁבוּ למו explained. Hirz. refers למו to בּתּים: in which they do not dwell; but ל ישׁב does not signify: to dwell in a place, but: to settle down in a place; Schlottm. refers למו to the inhabitants: therein they dwell not themselves, i.e., where no one dwelt; but the אשׁר which would be required in this case as acc. localis could not be omitted. One might more readily, with Hahn, explain: those to whom they belong do not inhabit them; but it is linguistically impossible for למו to stand alone as the expression of this subject (the possessors). The most natural, and also an admissible explanation, is, that yshbw refers to the houses, and that למו, which can be used not only of persons, but also of things, is dat. ethicus. The meaning, however, is not: which are uninhabited, which would not be expressed as future, but rather by אין בהם יושׁב or similarly, but: which shall not inhabit, i.e., shall not be inhabited to them (ישׁב to dwell = to have inhabitants, as Isa 13:10; Jer 50:13, Jer 50:39, and freq.), or, as we should express it, which ought to remain uninhabited.

Job 15:29 begins the conclusion: (because he has acted thus) he shall not be rich (with a personal subject as Hos 12:9, and יעשּׁר to be written with a sharpened שׁ, like יעצר above, Job 12:15), and his substance shall not endure (קוּם, to take place, Isa 7:7; to endure, 1Sa 13:14; and hold fast, Job 41:18), and מנלם shall not incline itself to the earth. The interpretation of the older expositors, non extendet se in terra, is impossible - that must be בּארץ eb tsum taht - elbi ינּטה; whereas Kal is commonly used in the intransitive sense to bow down, bend one’s self or incline (Ges. §53, 2). But what is the meaning of the subject מנלם? We may put out of consideration those interpretations that condemn themselves: לם מן, ex iis (Targ.), or לם מן, quod iis, what belongs to them (Saad.), or מלּם, their word (Syr. and Gecatilia), and such substitutions as σκιάν (צלם or צללם) of the lxx, and radicem of Jerome (which seems only to be a guess). Certainly that which throws most light on the signification of the word is כּנּלתך (for כּהנלתך with Dag. dirimens, as Job 17:2), which occurs in Isa 33:1. The oldest Jewish lexicographers take this הנלה (parall. התם .ll) as a synonym of כּלּה in the signification, to bring to an end; on the other hand, Ges., Knobel, and others, consider כּכלּתך to be the original reading, because the meaning perficere is not furnished for נלה from the Arab. nâl, and because נל, standing thus together, is in Arabic an incompatible root combination (Olsh. §9, 4). This union of consonants certainly does not occur in any Semitic root, but the Arab. nâla (the long a of which can in the inflection become a short changeable bowel) furnishes sufficient protection for this one exception; and the meaning consequi, which belongs to the Arab. nâla , fut. janı̂lu , is perfectly suited to Isa 33:1 : if thou hast fully attained (Hiph. as intensive of the transitive Kal, like הזעיק, הקנה) to plundering. If, however, the verb נלה is established, there is no need for any conjecture in the passage before us, especially since the improvement nearest at hand, מכלם (Hupf. מגּלה), produces a sentence (non figet in terra caulam) which could not be flatter and tamer; whereas the thought that is gained by Olshausen’s more sensible conjecture, מגּלם (their sickle does not sink to the earth, is not pressed down by the richness of the produce of the field), goes to the other extreme.Carey proposes to take מנלם = נמלם, their cutting, layer for planting; but the verb-group מלל, מול, נמל (vid., supra, p. 224) is not favourable to the supposition of a substantive נמל in this signification, according to the usual application of the language.

Juda b. Karisch (Kureisch) has explained the word correctly by Arab. mnâlhm : that which they have offered (from nâla , janûlu) or attained (nâla , janı̂lu), i.e., their possessionFreytag has erroneously placed the infinitives nail and manâl under Arab. nâl med. Wau, instead of under Arab. nâl me. Je, where he only repeats nail, and erroneously gives manâl the signification donum, citing in support of it a passage from Fâkihat al-chulafâ, where 'azîz al-manâl (a figure borrowed from places difficult of access, and rendered strong and impregnable by nature or art) signifies “one who was hard to get at” (i.e., whose position of power is made secure). The true connection is this: Arab. nâl med. Wau signifies originally to extend, reach, to hand anything to any one with outstretched arm or hand, the correlatum Arab. nâl med. Je: to attain, i.e., first to touch or reach anything with outstretched arm or hand, and then really to grasp and take it, gen. adipisci, consequi, assequi, impetrare, with the ordinary infinitives nail and manâl. Therefore manâl (from Arab. nâl med. Je) signifies primarily as abstract, attainment; it may then, however, like nail and the infinitives generally, pass over to the concrete signification: what one attains to, or what one has attained, gotten, although I can give no special example in support of it. - Fl. (not: their perfection, as it is chiefly explained by the Jewish expositors, according to נלה = כלה). When the poet says, “their prosperity inclines not to the ground,” he denies to it the likeness to a field of corn, which from the weight of the ears bows itself towards the ground, or to a tree, whose richly laden branches bend to the ground. We may be satisfied with this explanation (Hirz., Ew., Stickel, and most others): מנלם from מנלה (with which Kimchi compares מכרם, Num 20:19, which however is derived not from מכרה, but from מכר), similar in meaning to the post-biblical ממון, μαμωνᾶς; the suff., according to the same change of number as in Job 15:35; Job 20:23, and freq., refers to רשׁעים.

In Job 15:30, also, a figure taken from a plant is interwoven with what is said of the person of the ungodly: the flame withers up his tender branch without its bearing fruit, and he himself does not escape darkness, but rather perishes by the breath of His mouth, i.e., God’s mouth (Job 4:9, not of his own, after Isa 33:11). The repetition of יסוּר (“he escapes not,” as Pro 13:14; “he must yield to,” as 1Ki 15:14, and freq.) is an impressive play upon words.

Job 15:31-35 31  Let him not trust in evil-he is deceived,

For evil shall be his possession. 32  His day is not yet, then it is accomplished,

And his palm-branch loseth its freshness. 33  He teareth off as a vine his young grapes,

And He casteth down as an olive-tree his flower. 34  The company of the hypocrite is rigid,

And fire consumeth the tents of bribery. 35  They conceive sorrow and bring forth iniquity,

And their inward part worketh self-deceit. אל does not merely introduce a declaration respecting the future (Luther: he will not continue, which moreover must have been expressed by the Niph.), but is admonitory: may he only not trust in vanity (Munach here instead of Dechî, according to the rule of transformation, Psalter, ii. 504, §4) - he falls, so far as he does it, into error, or brings himself into error (נתעה,   3 praet., not part., and Niph. like Isa 19:14, where it signifies to be thrust backwards and forwards, or to reel about helplessly), - a thought one might expect after the admonition (Olsh. conjectures נתעב, one who is detestable): this trusting in evil is self-delusion, for evil becomes his exchange (תּמוּרה not compensatio, but permutatio, acquisitio). We have translated שׁוא by “evil” (Unheil), by which we have sought elsewhere to render און, in order that we might preserve the same word in both members of the verse. In Job 15:31, שׁוא (in form = שׁוא from שׁוא, in the Chethib שוּ, the Aleph being cast away, like the Arabic sû', wickedness, form the v. cavum hamzatum sâ-'a = sawu'a) is waste and empty in mind, in Job 15:31 (comp. Hos 12:12) waste and empty in fortune; or, to go further from the primary root, in the former case apparent goodness, in the latter apparent prosperity - delusion, and being undeceived “evil” in the sense of wickedness, and of calamity. תּמּלא, which follows, refers to the exchange, or neutrally to the evil that is exchanged: the one or the other fulfils itself, i.e., either: is realized (passive of מלּא,   1Ki 8:15), or: becomes complete, which means the measure of the punishment of his immorality becomes full, before his natural day, i.e., the day of death, is come (comp. for expression, Job 22:16; Ecc 7:17). The translation: then it is over with him (Ges., Schlottm., and others), is contrary to the usage of the language; and that given by the Jewish expositors, תּמּלא = תּמּלל (abscinditur or conteritur), is a needlessly bold suggestion. - Job 15:32. It is to be observed that רעננה is Milel, and consequently 3 praet., not as in Sol 1:16 Milra, and consequently adj. כּפּה is not the branches generally (Luzzatto, with Raschi: branchage), but, as the proverbial expression for the high and low, Isa 9:13; Isa 19:15 (vid., Dietrich, Abhandlung zur hebr. Gramm. S. 209), shows, the palm-branch bent downwards (comp. Targ. Est 1:5, where כּפּין signifies seats and walks covered with foliage). “His palm-branch does not become green, or does not remain green” (which Symm. well renders: οὐκ εὐθαλήσει), means that as he himself, the palm-trunk, so also his family, withers away. In Job 15:33 it is represented as בּסר (= בּסר), wild grapes, or even unripe grapes of a vine, and as נצּה, flowers of an olive.In order to appreciate the point of the comparison, it is needful to know that the Syrian olive-tree bears fruit plentifully the first, third, and fifth years, but rests during the second, fourth, and sixth. It blossoms in these years also, but the blossoms fall off almost entirely without any berries being formed. The harvest of the olive is therefore in such years very scanty. With respect to the vine, every year an enormous quantity of grapes are used up before they are ripe. When the berries are only about the size of a pea, the acid from them is used in housekeeping, to prepare almost every kind of food. The people are exceedingly fond of things sour, a taste which is caused by the heat of the climate. During the months of June, July, and August, above six hundred horses and asses laden with unripe grapes come daily to the market in Damascus alone, and during this season no one uses vinegar; hence the word בסרא signifies in Syriac the acid (vinegar) κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν. In Arabic the unripe grapes are exclusively called hhossrum (Arab. htsrm), or, with a dialectic distinction, hissrim. - Wetzst.

In Job 15:32 the godless man himself might be the subject: he casts down, like an olive-tree, his flowers, but in Job 15:32 this is inadmissible; if we interpret: ”he shakes off (Targ. יתּר, excutiet), like a vine-stock, his young grapes,” this (apart from the far-fetched meaning in יחמס) is a figure that is untrue to nature, since the grapes sit firmer the more unripe they are; and if one takes the first meaning of חמס, “he acts unjustly, as a vine, to his omphax” (e.g., Hupf.), whether it means that he does not let it ripen, or that he does not share with it any of the sweet sap, one has not only an indistinct figure, but also (since what God ordains for the godless is described as in operation) an awkward comparison. The subject of both verbs is therefore other than the vine and olive themselves. But why only an impersonal “one”? In Job 15:30 רוח פיו was referred to God, who is not expressly mentioned. God is also the subject here, and יחמס, which signifies to act with violence to one’s self, is modified here to the sense of tearing away, as Lam 2:6 (which Aben-Ezra has compared), of tearing out; כגפן, כזית, prop. as a vine-stock, as an olive-tree, is equivalent to even as such an one.

Job 15:34 declares the lot of the family of the ungodly, which has been thus figuratively described, without figure: the congregation (i.e., here: family-circle) of the ungodly (חנף according to its etymon inclinans, propensus ad malum, vid., on Job 13:16) is (as it is expressed from the standpoint of the judgment that is executed) גּלמוּד, a hard, lifeless, stony mass (in the substantival sense of the Arabic galmûd instead of the adject. גלמודה, Isa 49:21), i.e., stark dead (lxx θάνατος; Aq., Symm., Theod., ἄκαρπος), and fire has devoured the tents of bribery (after Ralbag: those built by bribery; or even after the lxx: οἴκους δωροδεκτῶν). The ejaculatory conclusion, Job 15:35, gives the briefest expression to that which has been already described. The figurative language, Job 15:35, is like Psa 7:15; Isa 59:4 (comp. supra, p. 257); in the latter passage similar vividly descriptive infinitives are found (Ges. §131, 4, b). They hatch the burdens or sorrow of others, and what comes from it is evil for themselves. What therefore their בּטן, i.e., their inward part, with the intermingled feelings, thoughts, and strugglings (Olympiodorus: κοιλίαν ὅλον τὸ ἐντὸς χωρίον φησὶ καὶ αὐτὴν τῆν ψυχήν), prepares or accomplishes (יכין similar to Job 27:17; Job 38:41), that on which it works, is מרמה, deceit, with which they deceive others, and before all, themselves (New Test. ἀπάτη).

With the speech of Eliphaz, the eldest among the friends, who gives a tone to their speeches, the controversy enters upon a second stage. In his last speech Job has turned from the friends and called upon them to be silent; he turned to God, and therein a sure confidence, but at the same time a challenging tone of irreverent defiance, is manifested. God does not enter into the controversy which Job desires; and the consequence is, that that flickering confidence is again extinguished, and the tone of defiance is changed into despair and complaint. Instead of listening to the voice of God, Job is obliged to content himself again with that of the friends, for they believe the continuance of the contest to be just as binding upon them as upon Job. They cannot consider themselves overcome, for their dogma has grown up in such inseparable connection with their idea of God, and therefore is so much raised above human contradiction, that nothing but a divine fact can break through it. And they are too closely connected with Job by their friendship to leave him to himself as a heretic; they regard Job as one who is self-deluded, and have really the good intention of converting their friend.

Eliphaz' speech, however, also shows that they become still more and more incapable of producing a salutary impression on Job. For, on the one hand, in this second stage of the controversy also they turn about everywhere only in the circle of their old syllogism: suffering is the punishment of sin, Job suffers, therefore he is a sinner who has to make atonement for his sin; on the other hand, instead of being disconcerted by an unconditioned acceptation of this maxim, they are strengthened in it. For while at the beginning the conclusio was urged upon them only by premises raised above any proof, so that they take for granted sins of Job which were not otherwise known to them; now, as they think, Job has himself furnished them with proof that he is a sinner who has merited such severe suffering. For whoever can speak so thoughtlessly and passionately, so vexatiously and irreverently, as Job has done, is, in their opinion, his own accuser and judge. It remains unperceived by them that Job’s mind has lost its balance by reason of the fierceness of his temptation, and that in it nature and grace have fallen into a wild, confused conflict. In those speeches they see the true state of Job’s spirit revealed. What, before his affliction, was the determining principle of his inner life, seems to them now to be brought to light in the words of the sufferer. Job is a godless one; and if he does affirm his innocence so solemnly and strongly, and challenges the decision of God, this assurance is only hypocritical, and put on against his better knowledge and conscience, in order to disconcert his accusers, and to evade their admonitions to repentance. It is לשׁון ערומים, a mere stratagem, like that of one who is guilty, who thinks he can overthrow the accusations brought against him by assuming the bold bearing of the accuser. Seb. Schmid counts up quinque vitia, with which Eliphaz in the introduction to his speech (Job 15:1-13) reproaches Job: vexatious impious words, a crafty perversion of the matter, blind assumption of wisdom, contempt of the divine word, and defiance against God. Of these reproaches the first and last are well-grounded; Job does really sin in his language and attitude towards God. With respect to the reproach of assumed wisdom, Eliphaz pays Job in the same coin; and when he reproaches Job with despising the divine consolations and gentle admonitions they have addressed to him, we must not blame the friends, since their intention is good. If, however, Eliphaz reproaches Job with calculating craftiness, and thus regards his affirmation of his innocence as a mere artifice, the charge cannot be more unjust, and must certainly produce the extremest alienation between them. It is indeed hard that Eliphaz regards the testimony of Job’s conscience as self-delusion; he goes still further, and pronounces it a fine-spun lie, and denies not only its objective but also its subjective truth. Thus the breach between Job and the friends widens, the entanglement of the controversy becomes more complicated, and the poet allows the solution of the enigma to ripen, by its becoming increasingly enigmatical and entangled.

In this second round of the friends’ speeches we meet with no new thoughts whatever; only “in the second circle of the dispute everything is more fiery than in the first” (Oetinger): the only new thing is the harsher and more decided tone of their maintenance of the doctrine of punishment, with which they confront Job. They cannot go beyond the narrow limits of their dogma of retribution, and confine themselves now to even the half of that narrowness; for since Job contemns the consolations of God with which they have hitherto closed their speeches, they now exclusively bring forward the terrible and gloomy phase of their dogma in opposition to him. After Eliphaz has again given prominence to the universal sinfulness of mankind, which Job does not at all deny, he sketches from his own experience and the tradition of his ancestors, which demands respect by reason of their freedom from all foreign influence, with brilliant lines, a picture of the evil-doer, who, being tortured by the horrors of an evil conscience, is overwhelmed by the wrath of God in the midst of his prosperity; and his possessions, children, and whole household are involved in his ruin. The picture is so drawn, that in it, as in a mirror, Job shall behold himself and his fate, both what he has already endured and what yet awaits him. מרמה is the final word of the admonitory conclusion of his speech: Job is to know that that which satisfies his inward nature is a fearful lie.

But what Job affirms of himself as the righteous one, is not מרמה. He knows that he is טמא מטמא (Job 14:4), but he also knows that he is as צדיק תמים (Job 12:4). He is conscious of the righteousness of his endeavour, which rests on the groundwork of a mind turned to the God of salvation, therefore a believing mind, - a righteousness which is also accepted of God. The friends know nothing whatever of this righteousness which is available before God. Fateor quidem, says Calvin in his Institutiones, iii. 12, in libro Iob mentionem fieri justitiae, quae excelsior est observatione legis; et hanc distinctionem tenere operae pretium est, quia etiamsi quis legi satisfaceret, ne sic quidem staret ad examen illius justitiae, quae sensus omnes exsuperat. Mercier rightly observes: Eliphas perstringit hominis naturam, quae tamen per fidem pura redditur. In man Eliphaz sees only the life of nature and not the life of grace, which, because it is the word of God, makes man irreproachable before God. He sees in Job only the rough shell, and not the kernel; only the hard shell, and not the pearl. We know, however, from the prologue, that Jehovah acknowledged Job as His servant when he decreed suffering for him; and this sufferer, whom the friends regard as one smitten of God, is and remains, as this truly evangelical book will show to us, the servant of Jehovah.

Second Address of Eliphaz. (b. c. 1520.)

1 Then answered Eliphaz the Temanite, and said, 2 Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? 3 Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? 4 Yea, thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God. 5 For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty. 6 Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee. 7 Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? 8 Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? 9 What knowest thou, that we know not? what understandest thou, which is not in us? 10 With us are both the grayheaded and very aged men, much elder than thy father. 11 Are the consolations of God small with thee? is there any secret thing with thee? 12 Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thy eyes wink at, 13 That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth? 14 What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? 15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 16 How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

Eliphaz here falls very foul upon Job, because he contradicted what he and his colleagues had said, and did not acquiesce in it and applaud it, as they expected. Proud people are apt thus to take it very much amiss if they may not have leave to dictate and give law to all about them, and to censure those as ignorant and obstinate, and all that is naught, who cannot in every thing say as they say. Several great crimes Eliphaz here charges Job with, only because he would not own himself a hypocrite.

I. He charges him with folly and absurdity (v. 2, 3), that, whereas he had been reputed a wise man, he had now quite forfeited his reputation; any one would say that his wisdom had departed from him, he talked so extravagantly and so little to the purpose. Bildad began thus (ch. viii. 2), and Zophar, ch. xi. 2, 3. It is common for angry disputants thus to represent one another's reasonings as impertinent and ridiculous more than there is cause, forgetting the doom of him that calls his brother Raca, and Thou fool. It is true, 1. That there is in the world a great deal of vain knowledge, science falsely so called, that is useless, and therefore worthless. 2. That this is the knowledge that puffs up, with which men swell in a fond conceit of their own accomplishments. 3. That, whatever vain knowledge a man may have in his head, if he would be thought a wise man he must not utter it, but let it die with himself as it deserves. 4. Unprofitable talk is evil talk. We must give an account in the great day not only for wicked words, but for idle words. Speeches therefore which do no good, which do no service either to God or our neighbour, or no justice to ourselves, which are no way to the use of edifying, were better unspoken. Those words which are as wind, light and empty, especially which are as the east wind, hurtful and pernicious, it will be pernicious to fill either ourselves or others with, for they will pass very ill in the account. 5. Vain knowledge or unprofitable talk ought to be reproved and checked, especially in a wise man, whom it worst becomes and who does most hurt by the bad example of it.

II. He charges him with impiety and irreligion (v. 4): "Thou castest off fear," that is, "the fear of God, and that regard to him which thou shouldst have; and then thou restrainest prayer." See what religion is summed up in, fearing God and praying to him, the former the most needful principle, the latter the most needful practice. Where no fear of God is no good is to be expected; and those who live without prayer certainly live without God in the world. Those who restrain prayer do thereby give evidence that they cast off fear. Surely those have no reverence of God's majesty, no dread of his wrath, and are in no care about their souls and eternity, who make no applications to God for his grace. Those who are prayerless are fearless and graceless. When the fear of God is cast off all sin is let in and a door opened to all manner of profaneness. It is especially bad with those who have had some fear of God, but have now cast it off—have been frequent in prayer, but now restrain it. How have they fallen! How is their first love lost! It denotes a kind of force put upon themselves. The fear of God would cleave to them, but they throw it off; prayer would be uttered, but they restrain it; and, in both, they baffle their convictions. Those who either omit prayer or straiten and abridge themselves in it, quenching the spirit of adoption and denying themselves the liberty they might take in the duty, restrain prayer. This is bad enough, but it is worse to restrain others from prayer, to prohibit and discourage prayer, as Darius, Dan. vi. 7. Now,

1. Eliphaz charges this upon Job, either, (1.) As that which was his own practice. He thought that Job talked of God with such liberty as if he had been his equal, and that he charged him so vehemently with hard usage of him, and challenged him so often to a fair trial, that he had quite thrown off all religious regard to him. This charge was utterly false, and yet wanted not some colour. We ought not only to take care that we keep up prayer and the fear of God, but that we never drop any unwary expressions which may give occasion to those who seek occasion to question our sincerity and constancy in religion. Or, (2.) As that which others would infer from the doctrine he maintained. "If this be true" (thinks Eliphaz) "which Job says, that a man may be thus sorely afflicted and yet be a good man, then farewell all religion, farewell prayer and the fear of God. If all things come alike to all, and the best men may have the worst treatment in this world, every one will be ready to say, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it to keep his ordinances? Mal. iii. 14. Verily I have cleansed my hands in vain, Ps. lxxiii. 13, 14. Who will be honest if the tabernacles of robbers prosper? ch. xii. 6. If there be no forgiveness with God (ch. vii. 21), who will fear him? Ps. cxxx. 4. If he laugh at the trial of the innocent (ch. ix. 23), if he be so difficult of access (ch. ix. 32), who will pray to him?" Note, It is a piece of injustice which even wise and good men are too often guilty of, in the heat of disputation, to charge upon their adversaries those consequences of their opinions which are not fairly drawn from them and which really they abhor. This is not doing as we would be done by.

2. Upon this strained innuendo Eliphaz grounds that high charge of impiety (v. 5): Thy mouth utters thy iniquity—teaches it, so the word is. "Thou teachest others to have the same hard thoughts of God and religion that thou thyself hast." It is bad to break even the least of the commandments, but worse to teach men so, Matt. v. 19. If we ever thought evil, let us lay our hand upon our mouth to suppress the evil thought (Prov. xxx. 32), and let us by no means utter it; that is putting an imprimatur to it, publishing it with allowance, to the dishonour of God and the damage of others. Observe, When men have cast off fear and prayer their mouths utter iniquity. Those that cease to do good soon learn to do evil. What can we expect but all manner of iniquity from those that arm not themselves with the grace of God against it? But thou choosest the tongue of the crafty, that is, "Thou utterest thy iniquity with some show and pretence of piety, mixing some good words with the bad, as tradesmen do with their wares to help them off." The mouth of iniquity could not do so much mischief as it does without the tongue of the crafty. The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. See Rom. xvi. 18. The tongue of the crafty speaks with design and deliberation; and therefore those that use it may be said to choose it, as that which will serve their purpose better than the tongue of the upright: but it will be found, at last, that honesty is the best policy. Eliphaz, in his first discourse, had proceeded against Job upon mere surmise (ch. iv. 6, 7), but now he has got proof against him from his own discourses (v. 6): Thy own mouth condemns thee, and not I. But he should have considered that he and his fellows had provoked him to say that which now they took advantage of; and that was not fair. Those are most effectually condemned that are condemned by themselves, Tit. iii. 11; Luke xix. 22. Many a man needs no more to sink him than for his own tongue to fall upon him.

III. He charges him with intolerable arrogancy and self-conceitedness. It was a just, and reasonable, and modest demand that Job had made (ch. xii. 3), Allow that I have understanding as well as you; but see how they seek occasion against him: that is misconstrued, as if he pretended to be wiser than any man. Because he will not grant to them the monopoly of wisdom, they will have it thought that he claims it to himself, v. 7-9. As if he thought he had the advantage of all mankind, 1. In length of acquaintance with the world, which furnishes men with so much the more experience: "Art thou the first man that was born; and, consequently, senior to us, and better able to give the sense of antiquity and the judgment of the first and earliest, the wisest and purest, ages? Art thou prior to Adam?" So it may be read. "Did not he suffer for sin; and yet wilt not thou, who art so great a sufferer, own thyself a sinner? Wast thou made before the hills, as Wisdom herself was? Prov. viii. 23, &c. Must God's counsels, which are as the great mountains (Ps. xxxvi. 6), and immovable as the everlasting hills, be subject to thy notions and bow to them? Dost thou know more of the world than any of us do? No, thou art but of yesterday even as we are," ch. viii. 9. Or, 2. In intimacy of acquaintance with God (v. 8): "Hast thou heard the secret of God? Dost thou pretend to be of the cabinet-council of heaven, that thou canst give better reasons than others can for God's proceedings?" There are secret things of God, which belong not to us, and which therefore we must not pretend to account for. Those are daringly presumptuous who do. He also represents him, (1.) As assuming to himself such knowledge as none else had: "Dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself, as if none were wise besides?" Job had said (ch. xiii. 2), What you know, the same do I know also; and now they return upon him, according to the usage of eager disputants, who think they have a privilege to commend themselves: What knowest thou that we know not? How natural are such replies as these in the heat of argument! But how simple do they look afterwards, upon the review! (2.) As opposing the stream of antiquity, a venerable name, under the shade of which all contending parties strive to shelter themselves: "With us are the gray-headed and very aged men, v. 10. We have the fathers on our side; all the ancient doctors of the church are of our opinion." A thing soon said, but not so soon proved; and, when proved, truth is not so soon discovered and proved by it as most people imagine. David preferred right scripture-knowledge before that of antiquity (Ps. cxix. 100): I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. Or perhaps one or more, if not all three, of these friends of Job, were older than he (ch. xxxii. 6), and therefore they thought he was bound to acknowledge them to be in the right. This also serves contenders to make a noise with to very little purpose. If they are older than their adversaries, and can say they knew such a thing before their opponents were born, this will not serve to justify them in being arrogant and overbearing; for the oldest are not always the wisest, ch. xxxii. 9.

IV. He charges him with a contempt of the counsels and comforts that were given him by his friends (v. 11): Are the consolations of God small with thee? 1. Eliphaz takes it ill that Job did not value the comforts which he and his friends administered to him more than it seems he did, and did not welcome every word they said as true and important. It is true they had said some very good things, but, in their application to Job, they were miserable comforters. Note, We are apt to think that great and considerable which we ourselves say, when others perhaps with good reason think it small and trifling. Paul found that those who seemed to be somewhat, yet, in conference, added nothing to him, Gal. ii. 6. 2. He represents this as a slight put upon divine consolations in general, as if they were of small account with him, whereas really they were not. If he had not highly valued them, he could not have borne up as he did under his sufferings. Note, (1.) The consolations of God are not in themselves small. Divine comforts are great things, that is, the comfort which is from God, especially the comfort which is in God. (2.) The consolations of God not being small in themselves, it is very lamentable if they be small with us. It is a great affront to God, and an evidence of a degenerate depraved mind, to disesteem and undervalue spiritual delights and despise the pleasant land. "What!" (says Eliphaz) "is there any secret thing with thee? Hast thou some cordial to support thyself with, that is a proprium, an arcanum, that nobody else can pretend to, or knows any thing of?" Or, "Is there some secret sin harboured and indulged in thy bosom, which hinders the operation of divine comforts?" None disesteem divine comforts but those that secretly affect the world and the flesh.

V. He charges him with opposition to God himself and to religion (v. 12, 13): "Why doth thy heart carry thee away into such indecent irreligious expressions?" Note, Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, Jam. i. 14. If we fly off from God and our duty, or fly out into anything amiss, it is our own heart that carries us away. If thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. There is a violence, an ungovernable impetus, in the turnings of the soul; the corrupt heart carries men away, as it were, by force, against their convictions. "What is it that thy eyes wink at? Why so careless and mindless of what is said to thee, hearing it as if thou wert half asleep? Why so scornful, disdaining what we say, as if it were below thee to take notice of it? What have we said that deserves to be thus slighted—nay, that thou turnest thy spirit against God?" It was bad that his heart was carried away from God, but much worse that it was turned against God. But those that forsake God will soon break out in open enmity to him. But how did this appear? Why, "Thou lettest such words go out of thy mouth, reflecting on God, and his justice and goodness." It is the character of the wicked that they set their mouth against the heavens (Ps. lxxiii. 9), which is a certain indication that the spirit is turned against God. He thought Job's spirit was soured against God, and so turned from what it had been, and exasperated at his dealings with him. Eliphaz wanted candour and charity, else he would not have put such a harsh construction upon the speeches of one that had such a settled reputation for piety and was now in temptation. This was, in effect, to give the cause on Satan's side, and to own that Job had done as Satan said he would, had cursed God to his face.

VI. He charges him with justifying himself to such a degree as even to deny his share in the common corruption and pollution of the human nature (v. 14): What is man, that he should be clean? that is, that he should pretend to be so, or that any should expect to find him so. What is he that is born of a woman, a sinful woman, that he should be righteous? Note, 1. Righteousness is cleanness; 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 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 clean. 4. 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. Is it not a filthy thing, and enough to make any one sick, to see a man eating swine's food or drinking some nauseous and offensive stuff? 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 recompence. 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 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 those 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,

1. That those who are wise and good do ordinarily prosper in this world. This he only hints at (v. 19), that those of whose mind he was were such as had the earth given to them, and to them only; they enjoyed it entirely and peaceably, and no stranger passed among them, either to share with them or give disturbance to them. Job had said, The earth is given into the hand of the wicked, ch. ix. 24. "No," says Eliphaz, "it is given into the hands of the saints, and runs along with the faith committed unto them; and they are not robbed and plundered by strangers and enemies making inroads upon them, as thou art by the Sabeans and Chaldeans." But because many of God's people have remarkably prospered in this world, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not therefore follow that those who are crossed and impoverished, as Job, are not God's people.

2. That wicked people, and particularly oppressors and tyrannizing rulers, are subject to continual terrors, live very uncomfortably, and perish very miserably. On this head he enlarges, showing that even those who impiously dare God's judgments yet cannot but dread them and will feel them at last. He speaks in the singular number—the wicked man, meaning (as some think) Nimrod; or perhaps Chedorlaomer, or some such mighty hunter before the Lord. I fear he meant Job himself, whom he expressly charges both with the tyranny and with the timorousness here described, ch. xxii. 9, 10. Here he thinks the application easy, and that Job might, in this description, as in a glass, see his own face. Now,

(1.) Let us see how he describes the sinner who lives thus miserably. He does not begin with that, but brings it in as a reason of his doom, v. 25-28. It is no ordinary sinner, but one of the first rate, an oppressor (v. 20), a blasphemer, and a persecutor, one that neither fears God nor regards man. [1.] He bids defiance to God, and to his authority and power, v. 25. Tell him of the divine law, and its obligations; he breaks those bonds asunder, and will not have, no, not him that made him, to restrain him or rule over him. Tell him of the divine wrath, and its terrors; he bids the Almighty do his worst, he will have his will, he will have his way, in spite of him, and will not be controlled by law, or conscience, or the notices of a judgment to come. He stretches out his hand against God, in defiance of him and of the power of his wrath. God is indeed out of his reach, but he stretches out his hand against him, to show that, if it were in his power, he would ungod him. This applies to the audacious impiety of some sinners who are really haters of God (Rom. i. 30), and whose carnal mind is not only an enemy to him, but enmity itself, Rom. viii. 7. But, alas! the sinner's malice is as impotent as it is impudent; what can he do? He strengthens himself (he would be valiant, so some read it) against the Almighty. He thinks with his exorbitant despotic power to change times and laws (Dan. vii. 25), and, in spite of Providence, to carry the day for rapine and wrong, clear of the check of conscience. Note, It is the prodigious madness of presumptuous sinners that they enter the lists with Omnipotence. Woe unto him that strives with his Maker. That is generally taken for a further description of the sinner's daring presumption (v. 26): He runs upon him, upon God himself, in a direct opposition to him, to his precepts and providences, even upon his neck, as a desperate combatant, when he finds himself an unequal match for his adversary, flies in his face, though, at the same time, he falls on his sword's point, or the sharp spike of his buckler. Sinners, in general, run from God; but the presumptuous sinner, who sins with a high hand, runs upon him, fights against him, and bids defiance to him; and it is easy to foretel what will be the issue. [2.] He wraps himself up in security and sensuality (v. 27): He covers his face with his fatness. This signifies both the pampering of his flesh with daily delicious fare and the hardening of his heart thereby against the judgments of God. Note, The gratifying of the appetites of the body, feeding and feasting that to the full, often turns to the damage of the soul and its interests. Why is God forgotten and slighted, but because the belly is made a god of and happiness placed in the delights of sense? Those that fill themselves with wine and strong drink abandon all that is serious and flatter themselves with hopes that tomorrow shall be as this day, Isa. lvi. 12. Woe to those that are thus at ease in Zion, Amos vi. 1, 3, 4; Luke xii. 19. The fat that covers his face makes him look bold and haughty, and that which covers his flanks makes him lie easy and soft, and feel little; but this will prove poor shelter against the darts of God's wrath. [3.] He enriches himself with the spoils of all about him, v. 28. He dwells in cities which he himself has made desolate by expelling the inhabitants out of them, that he might be placed alone in them, Isa. v. 8. Proud and cruel men take a strange pleasure in ruins, when they are of their own making, in destroying cities (Ps. ix. 6) and triumphing in the destruction, since they cannot make them their own but by making them ready to become heaps, and frightening the inhabitants out of them. Note, Those that aim to engross the world to themselves, and grasp at all, lose the comfort of all, and make themselves miserable in the midst of all. How does this tyrant gain his point, and make himself master of cities that have all the marks of antiquity upon them? We are told (v. 35) that he does it by malice and falsehood, the two chief ingredients of his wickedness who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, They conceive mischief, and then they effect it by preparing deceit, pretending to protect those whom they design to subdue, and making leagues of peace the more effectually to carry on the operations of war. From such wicked men God deliver all good men.

(2.) Let us see now what is the miserable condition of this wicked man, both in spiritual and temporal judgments.

[1.] His inward peace is continually disturbed. He seems to those about him to be easy, and they therefore envy him and wish themselves in his condition; but he who knows what is in men tells us that a wicked man has so little comfort and satisfaction in his own breast that he is rather to be pitied than envied. First, His own conscience accuses him, and with the pangs and throes of that he travaileth in pain all his days, v. 20. He is continually uneasy at the thought of the cruelties he as been guilty of and the blood in which he has imbrued his hands. His sins stare him in the face at every turn. Diri conscia facti mens habet attonitos—Conscious guilt astonishes and confounds. Secondly, He is vexed at the uncertainty of the continuance of his wealth and power: The number of years is hidden to the oppressor. He knows, whatever he pretends, that they will not last always, and has reason to fear that they will not last long and this he frets at. Thirdly, He is under a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation (Heb. x. 27), which puts him into, and keeps him in, a continual terror and consternation, so that he dwells with Cain in the land of Nod, or commotion (Gen. iv. 16), and is made like, Pashur, Magor-missabib—a terror round about, Jer. xx. 3, 4. A dreadful sound is in his ears, v. 21. He knows that both heaven and earth are incensed against him, that God is angry with him and that all the world hates him; he has done nothing to make his peace with either, and therefore he thinks that every one who meets him will slay him, Gen. iv. 14. Or he is like a man absconding for debt, who thinks every man a bailiff. Fear came in, at first, with sin (Gen. iii. 10) and still attends it. Even in prosperity he is apprehensive that the destroyer will come upon him, either some destroying angel sent of God to avenge his quarrel or some of his injured subjects who will be their own avengers. Those who are the terror of the mighty in the land of the living usually go down slain to the pit (Ezek. xxxii. 25), the expectation of which makes them a terror to themselves. This is further set forth (v. 22): He is, in his own apprehension, waited for of the sword; for he knows that he who killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword, Rev. xiii. 10. A guilty conscience represents to the sinner a flaming sword turning every way (Gen. iii. 24) and himself inevitably running on it. Again (v. 23): He knows that the day of darkness (or the night of darkness rather) is ready at his hand, that it is appointed to him and cannot be put by, that it is hastening on apace and cannot be put off. This day of darkness is something beyond death; it is that day of the Lord which to all wicked people will be darkness and not light and in which they will be doomed to utter, endless, darkness. Note, Some wicked people, though they seem secure, have already received the sentence of death, eternal death, within themselves, and plainly see hell gaping for them. No marvel that it follows (v. 24), Trouble and anguish (that inward tribulation and anguish of soul spoken of Rom. ii. 8, 9, which are the effect of God's indignation and wrath fastening upon the conscience) shall make him afraid of worse to come. What is the hell before him if this be the hell within him? And though he would fain shake off his fears, drink them away, and jest them away, it will not do; they shall prevail against him, and overpower him, as a king ready to the battle, with forces too strong to be resisted. He that would keep his peace, let him keep a good conscience. Fourthly, If at any time he be in trouble, he despairs of getting out (v. 22): He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, but he gives himself up for gone and lost in an endless night. Good men expect light at evening time, light out of darkness; but what reason have those to expect that they shall return out of the darkness of trouble who would not return from the darkness of sin, but went on in it? Ps. lxxxii. 5. It is the misery of damned sinners that they know they shall never return out of that utter darkness, nor pass the gulf there fixed. Fifthly, He perplexes himself with continual care, especially if Providence ever so little frown upon him, v. 23. Such a dread he has of poverty, and such a waste does he discern upon his estate, that he is already, in his own imagination, wandering abroad for bread, going a begging for a meal's meat, and saying, Where is it? The rich man, in his abundance, cried out, What shall I do? Luke xii. 17. Perhaps he pretends fear of wanting, as an excuse of his covetous practices; and justly may he be brought to this extremity at last. We read of those who were full, but have hired out themselves for bread (1 Sam. ii. 5), which this sinner will not do. He cannot dig; he is too fat (v. 27): but to beg he may well be ashamed. See Ps. cix. 10. David never saw the righteous so far forsaken as to beg their bread; for, verily, they shall be fed by the charitable unasked, Ps. xxxvii. 3, 25. But the wicked want it, and cannot expect it should be readily given them. How should those find mercy who never showed mercy?

[2.] His outward prosperity will soon come to an end, and all his confidence and all his comfort will come to an end with it. How can he prosper when God runs upon him? so some understand that, v. 26. Whom God runs upon he will certainly run down; for when he judges he will overcome. See how the judgments of God cross this worldly wicked man in all his cares, desires, and projects, and so complete his misery. First, He is in care to get, but he shall not be rich, v. 29. His own covetous mind keeps him from being truly rich. He is not rich that has not enough, and he has not enough that does not think he has. It is contentment only that is great gain. Providence remarkably keeps some from being rich, defeating their enterprises, breaking their measures, and keeping them always behind-hand. Many that get much by fraud and injustice, yet do not grow rich: it goes as it comes; it is got by one sin and spent upon another. Secondly, He is in care to keep what he has got, but in vain: His substance shall not continue; it will dwindle and come to nothing. God blasts it, and what came up in a night perishes in a night. Wealth gotten by vanity will certainly be diminished. Some have themselves lived to see the ruin of those estates which have been raised by oppression; but, where this is not the case, that which is left goes with a curse to those who succeed. De male quæsitis vix gaudet tertius hæres—Ill-gotten property will scarcely be enjoyed by the third generation. He purchases estates to him and his heirs for ever; but to what purpose? He shall not prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth; neither the credit nor the comfort of his riches shall be prolonged; and, when those are gone, where is the perfection of them? How indeed can we expect the perfection of any thing to be prolonged upon the earth, where every thing is transitory, and we soon see the end of all perfection? Thirdly, He is in care to leave what he has got and kept to his children after him. But in this he is crossed; the branches of his family shall perish, in whom he hoped to live and flourish and to have the reputation of making them all great men. They shall not be green, v. 32. The flame shall dry them up, v. 30. he shall shake them off as blossoms that never knit, or as the unripe grape, v. 33. They shall die in the beginning of their days and never come to maturity. Many a man's family is ruined by his iniquity. Fourthly, He is in care to enjoy it a great while himself; but in that also he is crossed. 1. He may perhaps be taken from it (v. 30): By the breath of God's mouth shall he go away, and leave his wealth to others; that is, by God's wrath, which, like a stream of brimstone, kindles the fire that devours him (Isa. xxx. 33), or by his word; he speaks, and it is done immediately. This night thy soul shall be required of thee; and so the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, the worldling in his worldliness. 2. It may perhaps be taken from him, and fly away like an eagle towards heaven: It shall be accomplished (or cut off) before his time (v. 32); that is, he shall survive his prosperity, and see himself stripped of it. Fifthly, He is in care, when he is in trouble, how to get out of it (not how to get good by it); but in this also he is crossed (v. 30): He shall not depart out of darkness. When he begins to fall, like Haman, all men say, "Down with him." It was said of him (v. 22), He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness. He frightened himself with the perpetuity of his calamity, and God also shall choose his delusions and bring his fears upon him (Isa. lxvi. 4), as he did upon Israel, Num. xiv. 28. God says Amen to his distrust and despair. Sixthly, He is in care to secure his partners, and hopes to secure himself by his partnership with them; but that is in vain too, v. 34, 35. The congregation of them, the whole confederacy, they and all their tabernacles, shall be desolate and consumed with fire. Hypocrisy and bribery are here charged upon them; that is, deceitful dealing both with God and man—God affronted under colour of religion, man wronged under colour of justice. It is impossible that these should end well. Though hand join in hand for the support of these perfidious practices, yet shall not the wicked go unpunished. (3.) The use and application of all this. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end thus miserably? Then (v. 31) let not him that is deceived trust in vanity. Let the mischiefs which befal others be our warnings, and let not us rest on that broken reed which always failed those who leaned on it. [1.] Those who trust to their sinful ways of getting wealth trust in vanity, and vanity will be their recompence, for they shall not get what they expected. Their arts will deceive them and perhaps ruin them in this world. [2.] Those who trust to their wealth when they have gotten it, especially to the wealth they have gotten dishonestly, trust in vanity; for it will yield them no satisfaction. The guilt that cleaves to it will ruin the joy of it. They sow the wind, and will reap the whirlwind, and will own at length, with the utmost confusion, that a deceived heart turned them aside, and that they cheated themselves with a lie in their right hand.

CHAP. XV. Verſe 1. Then anſwered Eliphaz the Temanice, and ſaid.]

LApides, locutus eſt: In this ſecond encounter, Eliphaz falls upon Job, not ſo much with ſtronger Arguments, as with harder words; reproving him ſharply, or rather reproaching him bitterly, Facundiâ quadam caninâ, with more Eloquence then charity. So hard a thing is it (ſaith Beza) eſpetially in diſputing and reaſoning, to avoid ſelf-love, as even in theſe times experience daily teacheth us. He hinteth (I ſuppoſe) at the publick Conference betwixt himſelf and Jacobus Andreas at Mompelgard, Lib. 35. Hiſt. whereby the ſtrife was rather ſtirred then ſtinted, as Thuanus complaineth. Or elſe at the Diſputation at Poſſiacum, wherein Beza, Speaker for the Proteſtant party,Hiſt. of Counc. of Trent 453. (before the Queen Mother of France, the young King Charles and many Princes of the Blood) entring into the matter of the Euchariſt, ſpake with ſuch heat (unleſſe the Hiſtorian wrongs him); that he gave but ill ſatisfaction to thoſe of his own ſide, ſo that he was commanded to conclude. Such meetings are ſeldome ſucceſſeful (ſaith Luther); becauſe men come with confidence and wit for victory rather then verity. In this reply of Eliphaz to Job. we may ſee what an evil thing it is to be carried away with prejudice and pertinacy, which make a man forget all modeſty, and fall foule upon his beſt friends. Here's enough ſaid to have driven this ſorrowful man into utter deſpaire, had not God upheld his ſpirit whiles, he is fiercely charged for a wicked man,Non affert ulla[illegible: 2 letters] conſolationem, non invitat eum ad panitentiam: ſed poti[illegible: 2 letters] ad deſperationem complelas. Lav. and hated of God: neither doth any of his friends henceforth afford him one exhortation to repentance, or one comfortable promiſe; as Lavater well obſerveth.

Verſe 2. Should a wiſe man utter vain knowledg.] Heb. Knowledg of the wind; light, frothy, empty diſcourſes, that have no tack or ſubſtance in them, but only words that are no better then wind, a meer flaſh or Aiery nothing. Solomon thinks, a wiſe man ſhould beware of falling into this fault, leſt he forfeit his reputation, Eccleſ. 10.1. Dead flyes cauſe the Oyntments of the Apothecary to ſend forth a ſtinking ſavour. ſo doth a little folly, him that is in reputation for wiſdom and honour; as ſpots are ſooneſt obſerved in the whiteſt and fineſt garments; and envy, like wormes and moths, doth uſually feed on the pureſt cloth. Neh. 6.11. A great many dead flies may be found in a Tar-box, and no hurt done, but one of them falne into a pot of ſweet Odours, or precious Perfumes, may ſoone taint and corrupt them.

And fil his belly with the Eaſt-wind.] Per ventrem, mentem intellige, & per ventum Orientalem, vanam opinionem, ſaith Vatablus; By belly underſtand the mind, and by the Eaſt wind a vain conceit, or frothy knowledg, blown forth out of a ſwelling breaſt, to the hurt of others, for the Eaſt wind is deſtructive to herbs and fruits. Hoſ. 12.1. Gen. 41.6. But doth not Eliphaz here by theſe bubble of words, and bluſtering queſtions, betraying much choler and confidence, fall into the very ſame fault which he findeth with Job: Doth not he alſo fill his belly with heat. (ſo the Vulgar rendreth this Text) which kindling in his boſom, blazeth out at his lips? Doth not this angry man exalt folly, and ſhew himſelf none of the wiſeſt, though he were the oldeſt in all the company.

Verſe 3. Should he reaſon with unprofitable talk?] Why? But if he do, ſhould he therefore be thus rippled up, and rough-hewed? And not rather reduced and rectified with hard Arguments and ſoft words? Man is a croſs crabbed creature: Duci vult, trahi non vult; Perſwade him you may, compel him you cannot. A fit time alſo muſt be taken to perſwade him to better, for elſe you may looſe your ſweet words upon him. The Husbandman ſoweth not in a ſtorm: The Mariner hoyſeth not ſail in every wind: Good Phyſicians evacuate not the body in extremity of heat and cold. A brother offend[illegible: 1 letter]d is harder to be [illegible: 1 span] a ſtrong City, Prov. 18.19. This Eliphaz ſhould have conſidered, and not ſo raſhly cenſured Job for a fool, and his talk for traſh, but rather handled him tenderly, conſidering his condition, and deſired him to explain ſuch of his ſpeeches as he thought not ſo well and wiſely uttered.

Or with ſpeeches where with he can do no good?] This is but the ſame with the former; and indeed this whole verſe is but a ſaying of that plainly, which in the foregoing verſe he had ſaid figuratively.

Varſe 4. Yea thou caſteſt off fear.] Heb. Thou makeſt void ſear; that is, Religion, whereof the fear of God is both the beginning, Prov. 1.7. and the end, Eccleſ. 12.1. This is an heavy charge indeed; as if Job, by ſaying, the extreme miſeries of this life are common to the godly and the wicked, had by conſequence taught men to caſt off all Religion as unprofitable, which none but ſuch a ſhameleſſe man as thy ſelf, ſaith Eliphaz, would ever have averred. It cannot be denyed, but that Job, through the bitterneſſe of his grief, and the unreaſonableneſſe of his adverſaries, was ſomewhat carried beyond the bounds of that reverence which is doe unto God, and reaſoneth the matter ſomewhat hotly with God; but that thereby he bewrayed his manifeſt contempt of his Majeſty, caſting off all awful regard and recourſe thereto by Prayer, as the wicked, who call not upon God, Pſal. 14.4. This was a meet [illegible: 1 letter]avil, or rather an unſufferable injury done to the good man, who gave ſufficient teſtimony of his ſearing God, and eſtſoons poured out his prayer in his preſence. All which notwithſtanding, he heareth in the next words,

And reſtraineſt prayer before God.] Thou forbeareſt to pray thy ſelf, and thou diſcourageſt others. If this had been true, it had been a foul fault indeed, for whiles Prayer ſtandeth ſtill, the whole Trade of godlineſſe ſtandeth ſtill likewiſe, and to caſt off Prayer, is to caſt off God: Jer. 10.25. We muſt take heed of falling from the affections of Prayer, though we continue doing the Duty. As veſſels of Wine, when firſt tapped, are very ſmart and quick, but at laſt grow exceeding flat: ſo do many Chriſtians, (through unbelief, and worldly cares an buſineſſes, or domeſtical diſcords, or ſome other diſtempers, whereby prayers are hindred, 1 Pet. 3.7.) either they pray not frequently, or not fervently, but in a cuſtomary formal bedulling way. And this Eliphaz might ſuſpect Job of, and aſſigne it as the cauſe of all his miſcarriages in word and deed. Sure it is, that as ſleep compoſeth drunkenneſſe, ſo doth prayer the affections: a man may pray himſelf ſober again,Dr. Preſton. as a Reverend man gathereth out of this Text.

Verſe 5. For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity.] Heb. Thy crooked, wry diſpoſition that ſtandeth acroſſe to God and goodneſſe, Pſal. 51.5. Homo eſt inverſus decalogus. Solomon ſpeaketh of perverſe lips, as if the upper lip ſtood where the neather ſhould, Prov. 4.24. And Saint Jude ſpeaketh of hard ſpeeches, uttered by ungodly ſinners, Jude 15. ſuch as Job was none, whatever Eliphaz by miſ-interpreting, made of him, wreſting his words to a wrong ſenſe, as Pſal. 56.5. and by a ſpiritual unmannerlineſſe, making the worſt of that he ſpake; there being not any thing that may not be taken with the left hand. Now if this befel Job from his friends and thoſe godly perſons, what wonder though the like, and worſe be done to us by wicked enemies.

Qui ià quod boni eſt excer punt, dicunt quod mali eſt.Terent. Phorm Nibil eſt quin malè narrando poſſit depravarier.

And thou chuſeſt the tongue of the crafty] Then the which, nothing is a greater enemy to piety, ſaith an Interpreter. Politicians formallize and enervate the power of truth, till at length they leave us a heartleſſe and ſapleſſe Religion, ſaith another. Such an one Eliphaz makes Job to be: q.d. Thou waſt wont to ſpeak prayer, but now thou ſpeakeſt Policy, yea, Thou chuſeſt to do it, thou loveſt evil more then good, and lying rather then to ſpeak right. Pſal. 523. Thou haſt as many turnings and windings in thy mind, as the Serpent hath in his body (ſo the Hebrew word ſeemeth to ſignifie, Gen. 3.1.) Thus he heightneth his charge, and layeth on yet more load.

Verſe 6. Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I.] Yes you, and none but you. Jobs heart condemned him not (and thence his confidence toward God, 1 John 3.21) much leſſe his month, had not his words been miſconſtrued. But as charity maketh a good ſenſe of doubtful ſpeeches and paſſages; ſo prejudice and diſpleaſure takes all things (though well meant) at the worſt, and as Logicians do, Sequitur partem deteriorem. Eliphaz diggeth up evil, Prov. 16.27. and is like Achilles, of whom Homer ſaith, that he was a great find-fault.

[non-Latin text not transcribed] Iliad. l. 9.

Yea, thine own lips teſtifie againſt thee] Heb. Anſwer againſt thee. For Witneſſes ordinarily anſwer to Interrogatories. So the pride of Iſrael (breaking forth as a great maſter-pock in his fore-head) teſtified to his face, Hoſ. 5.5. and the Heretick is condemned of himſelf, Tit. 3.11. Virtually he doth ſo, though not formally. But Job did neither good Eliphaz.

Verſe 7. Art thou the firſt man that was born?] Or, Waſt thou made before Adam? Out of the mouth of Ad[illegible: 1 letter]m, Ut vox Riſhon non ſignificet primus, ſed prius. Lavat. Bucholc. as from a fountaine, flowed whatſoever profitable Learning, Skill or Wiſdom, is found in the world, ſaith the divine Chronologer. Job had taxed Zophar for a young puny and a Novice, chap 12. This, Eliphaz. kindleth at, and taketh upon him to anſwer in Zophars behalf. As indeed theſe three ſpeakers, Eliphaz. Zophar and Bildad ſtood to one another, as much as any one of them did for himſelf, as if they had all entred bond, and given ſecurity for reciprocal aſſiſtance. Here then Eliph[illegible: 1 letter]z asketh. Art thou the firſt man born? that is, Art thou the wiſeſt man alive? and muſt we all be taught by thee, as Adams Nephewes were by him, in things divine and humane.

Or waſt thou made before the bills?] i.e. Before the Angels, as ſome ſenſe it. But take it literally for the Mountaines, called for their Antiquity, the everlaſting hils Gen. 49.26. Hab. 3.6. becauſe they were from the beginning, and ſhall continue to the end. Theſe appeared firſt at the ſeparation of the waters, Gen. 1. And Chriſt, to ſet forth his eternity, ſaith, Prov 8.25. Before the mountains were ſetled, before the hills, was I brought forth. So Pſal. 90.21.

Verſe 8. Haſt thou heard the ſecret of God?] Thus he goes on to jear Job, and to accuſe him of inſolent Arrogancy, as if he had taken himſelf to be of Gods Cabinet-Councel,Biliefi & bellicoſi. and ſo to have known more of his mind then any other. Now this never came into Jobs heart: but theſe hot ſpirited people, when their choler is once up, wil not ſtick to ſay any thing againſt another whom they deſire to gall, and to make the worſt of his words, when as themſelves cannot take a reproof, though never ſo juſt.

And doſt thou reſtrain wiſdom to thy ſelf?] Haſt thou engroſſed all the wiſdom in the world? and muſt it needs live and dye with thee? Is every man a fool preſently,An ſolus ſapis, ita ut te pareunte ſit ipſa ſapientia peritura? Vatabl. who is not of thy mind and make? Epicurius indeed had ſuch a conceit; and Palaemon, in Suetonius, and Laurentius Valla, with ſome others of late: but Job was far from it, as appeareth by his many ſelf-abaſing expreſſions: and it had been well for him, if his three friends, had taken out that leſſon in wiſdomes ſchool; viz. to judge thoſe certaine good things found in another, better then they are, and certaine evils, leſſe, doubtful good things, certaine, and doubtful evil things, none.

Verſe 9. What knoweſt thou, that we know not?] Here Eliphaz inveigheth againſt Jobs pride, ſed majori cum faſtu, but with greater pride, elſe what meaneth this arrogant compariſon? Did not a deceived heart burn him aſide, as the Prophet ſpeaketh in another caſe? and might it not be ſaid of him, as it was once of Antony, That he hated a Tyrant, but not Tyranny. See the Notes above on chap. 12.3. and 13.2.

Verſe 10. With us are the gray-headed, &c.] Job had ſaid, chap. 12.12. With the ancient is wiſdom, and in length of dayes is underſtanding. This, though modeſtly ſpoken, yet was very ill taken; and is here replyed unto with a great deal of heat; Sed ita ſolent importuni homines, &c. ſaith Mercer here: But ſuch is the courſe and cuſtome of unreaſonable men, to take every thing in the worſt way, and to deal rather by reproaches, then by reaſons; as Eccius, Sanderus, Gen[illegible: 1 letter]brardus, the whole generation of Jeſuites, of whom A[illegible: 1 letter]relius the Sorboniſt ſaith, and truly, that they are a ſort of men, qui nihil magis habent qu[illegible: 1 letter]m arrogantiam T[illegible: 1 letter]eologica[illegible: 1 letter] ni[illegible: 1 letter]il minus poſſident quàm Theologica[illegible: 1 letter] [illegible: 1 letter]cienti[illegible: 1 letter]m; Arrogant and yet ignorant; for whiles they think they know all things, they know nothing at all as they ought to know, 1 Cor. 8.2. As for Antiquity, (here ſo ſ[illegible: 1 letter]iffely pleaded) it muſt have no more Authority then what it can maintain. Papiſts boaſt much of it, as once the Gibeonites did of old, ſhooes and mouldy bread. But antiquity ſevered from verity is of no value: for as Cyprian ſaith well, Conſuet[illegible: 1 letter]do mala, vetustas erroris eſt. And our Saviour ſaith not, I am cuſtome, but, I am the Way, the Truth, &c. And God ſaith, by the Prophet Ezekiel, Walk ye not in the ſtatutes of your Fathers, neither obſerve their judgments, &c. but walk in my ſtatutes, and keep my judgments, and do them, chap. 20.18, 19. See the Notes on chap. 8.8, 9, 10. and on 12.12.

Verſe 11. Are the conſolations of God.] Sic faſtu[illegible: 1 letter]ſe ſuas conſolationes appellat & ſociorum, ſaith Mercer: ſo Eliphaz. with ſtate enough, calleth the comforts that he and his fellowes had miniſtred to Job, promiſing him mercy from God upon his ſound repentance; but telling him withal, that unleſſe he would yeeld himſelf an hypocrite, thoſe promiſes would profit him nothing at all. Had Job ſlighted the precious promiſes, thoſe conduits of comfort, he had been much to blame, as he was doubtleſſe, who ſaid, My ſoul refuſed comfort, Pſal. 77.2. Like ſome ſullen child, that will not eat his milk, becauſe he hath it not in the golden diſh. The ſoul is ready to turn the back of the hand, and not the palm, to the ſtaff of divine conſolations, ſaying, Oh my ſtubbornneſſe! &c. and rather to ſhift and ſhark in every by corner for comfort, then to ſuck it out of thoſe breaſts of conſolation, and be ſatisfied, Iſai. 60.11. The Apoſtle taxeth his Hebrewes, that they had forgotten the conſolation (ſo the words may be read) which ſpake unto them as unto children ſaying, My ſon, &c. Heb. 12.[illegible: 1 letter]. Wrangling with God by caviling Objections, when they ſhould rather have wraſtled with him by earneſt ſupplications, putting the Promiſes in ſuit, and drawing waters with joy, out of thoſe wells of conſolation, Iſai. 12.3. Job was not altogether clear of this fault. He was ſo poor and ſore without, and within ſo full of horrour and terrour, that he was ready with Rachel, to refuſe to be comforted. Mercies were offered unto him, but he was ſcarce in caſe to receive them. The ear which taſteth words as the mouth doth meat, was ſo filled with choler, that he could hardly relliſh any comfort. The eaſieſt Medicines or Waters are troubleſome to ſore eyes. The fleſh with her roarings and repinings maketh ſuch a din, that the voice of the Comforter cannot well be heard in the beſt heart ſometimes. The Spirit knocks but there is none to open: Hence he goes away grieving, and that ſhould not be.

Is there any ſecret thing with thee?] Haſt thou meat to eat that we know not of? Are there with thee conſolations of thine own better then thoſe of God, which we have miniſtred unto thee? Some render it, And lyeth there any hidden thing within thee? that is, Either ſome greater and more profound wiſdome then every man knoweth; or elſe ſome ſecret ſin which muſt be caſt out ere comforts can faſten. For as the wound cannot cloſe and heal, as long as any part of the iron weapon remaineth in it; ſo herein the Cordiaca paſſio, or paſſion of heart, the heart i[illegible: 1 letter] ſo oppreſſed and over-covered, that the moſt refreſhing cordials cannot come at it, ſo that it is even ſuffocated with ſorrow. In alluſion whereunto, the Church prayes, La[illegible: 1 letter]. 3.65. Give them ſorrow of heart. This was Spira's caſe; and for the time might be Jobs. Poſſibly ſome ſin or ſorrow might lye at the fountain-head, and ſtop the courſe of his comforts. This Eliphaz fiſheth after, and would have found out, and remedied.

Verſe 12. Why doth thine heart carry thee away?] Violently tranſport thee; ſcil. beyond all bounds of reaſon and modeſty. There is another charge,Quis te furor cordis exagitas? Pineda. and higher then the former, as if he had been emotae mentis, not well in his wits, but wild and wood as they call it; or at leaſt; that his paſſions were ſo far too hard for his reaſon, as they did Rectam de cardine tollere mentem,

We are in no ſmal danger of our naughty hearts: It was no ill prayer of one, Lord, keep me from that naughty man, my ſelf. Nor was it any ill counſel of another,Domine libera me à malo homine, meipſo. Ita cave tibi ut cave as teipſum; who ſaid, So take heed to thy ſelf, that thou beware of thy ſelf. Though there were no devil, yet our corrupt nature would act Satans part againſt it ſelf; it would have a ſupply of wickedneſſe (as a Serpent hath of poiſon) from it ſelf, it hath a ſpring to feed it. Keep thy heart therefore with all cuſtody, Prov. 4.24. it will get away elſe, and carry thee away with it.

And what do thine eyes wink at?] Nictant, celeriterſcilicit, & ſubtiliter. Poſſibly Job, through pain and anguiſh might be made to wink whiles he was ſpeaking to them, or they to him; and this they miſconſtrue as done in contempt. See Pſal 35.19. Or that he was plotting ſome miſchief, Prov. 10.10. and 16.30. or pretending to ſome extraordinary devotion, and therefore ſhutting his eyes that he might be the more reſerved to God. The Vulgar hath it, Why doth thine heart life thee up? and, as if thou wert thinking of ſome great things, why are thine eyes ſo ſet? It is for no goodneſſe ſure.

Verſe 13. That thou turneſt thy ſpirit againſt God.] A fowle fault ſurely, but meerly for want of a faire Interpretation. It is as if Eliphaz ſhould have ſaid, Thy ſpirit was right when thou bravely bareſt up under the afflicting hand of God, chap. 1. but becauſe patience hath not had her perfect work as appeareth by thine angry expoſtulations,Quid tumet contra Deum Spiritus tuus. thy conteſting with God, and chatting againſt him and his proceedings, therefore I conclude that thou art not perfect and [illegible: 1 letter]utire all is not right. Why doth thy ſpirit ſwell againſt God? (ſo the Vulgar rendreth it) Behold his ſoul which is liſted up, is not upright in him, that's certain, Hab. 2.4.

And letteſt ſuch words go d[illegible: 1 letter]t of thy mouth.] Contumelious and blaſphemous words not fit to he named. Bona verba, quaeſo Eliphaz. True it is, Job had ſpoken ſome things more freely then was fitting, and not without a tincture of bitterneſſe. But charity would have made the beſt of thoſe ſpeeches which you thus odiouſly aggravate againſt him; and have taught you to uſe the ſame equity toward others, that you would have others uſe towards your ſelf. That faith (and ſo that love) is eaſily wrought, which teacheth men to believe and think well of themſelves, and worſe of others. We will make a good expoſition, if we have but a good diſpoſition.

Verſe 14. What is man that he ſhould be clean?] Eliphaz hath now done chiding (it is but time he ſhould) and falls to reaſoning; wherein nevertheleſſe he ſheweth himſelf an empty and troubleſome Diſputer urging again the ſame Arguments as before, chap. 14.17, 18, 19. and not reſting ſatisfied in a ſufficient anſwer. Did Job ever aſſert himſelf clean? Said he not the clean contrary in many places? ſee chap. 14.4. Only as waſhed, ſanctified, and juſtified in the name of the Lord Jeſus, and by the Spirit of his God, 1 Cor. 6.11. he diſcourſed of his integrity and righteouſneſſe; not denying himſelf otherwiſe tainted with Original ſin, and guilty of actual; which he begged pardon for, according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace. And therefore Eliphaz might have ſpared theſe words, and better beſtowed his pains in comforting Job, and exhorting him to patience. The Jeſuites have at this day a device in handling Texts of Scripture by their nice diſtinctions to perplex and obſcure the cleareſt places; and for thoſe that are doubtful, not at all to diſtinguiſh or illuſtrate them. Again, in points of controverſie they make a great putther about that which we deny not, but ſay little or nothing to the maine buſineſſe.

Hac que deſperant reniteſcere poſſe relinquunt.

Verſe 15 Behold he putteth no truſt in his Saints] Here he proceedeth to prove that which Job never denyed; and Bildad alſo hath the ſame chap. 25. Lege ejus verba, nam non malè huc quadrant, ſaith Lavater; Lay his words to theſe, and they will lend light to each other. See alſo the Notes on chap. 4.18. There they are called his ſervants. here his Saints or holy ones; theſe were the old Patriarks, ſay the Septuagint, with whom God at ſometimes was angry; and although he was a God that for gave them, yet took he vengeance of their inventions, Pſal. 99.8. Others underſtand it of the Saints in heaven, or the holy Angels.

And the heavens are not clean in his ſight.] Nor they of heaven be clean in his eyes, ſo Broughton rendreth it. The Angels are called angels of heaven, Marth. 24.36. and Gal. 1.8. Becauſe made with and in the higheſt heavens, and appointed there to inhabite. Howbeit in the Apoſtate Angels, and in heaven, Gods holy and pure eyes found uncleanneſſe, and delivered them therefore into chaines of darkneſſe, 2 Pet. 2.4. Again, to be clean in Gods ſight is another manner of matter then to be ſimply clean: like as to be juſt is one thing, and to be juſt before God, another, Luke 1.6. Sordat in conſpect[illegible: 1 letter] judicis quodfulget in conceptu operantis. Some underſtand the Text of the viſible heavens, the pureſt of all inanimate creatures (and therefore Chryſoſtom ſpeaking of thoſe praying Saints that prayed Peter out of priſon, Act. 12. ſaith, that they were ipſo coelo puri[illegible: 1 letter]res afflictione facti, more pure then the heavens, yet are they not pure in the ſight of God, but have their ſpots which we count their beauty ſpo[illegible: 2 letters].

Verſe 16. How much more abominable and filthy is man?] And therefore abominable becauſe filthy, or ſtinking and noiſome, as putrified meat is to the noſe and palate. Now this is every mans caſe by nature, Pſal. 14.3. there being never a barrel better herring, but all in a pickle, though few believe it.Ka[illegible: 1 letter]ol [non-Latin text not transcribed] Prov Pſal. 49. ult. Tremel. Circumciſion of old taught them, that that which was begotten by that part deſerved in like ſort, as abominable and accurſed, to be cut off and thrown away by God. And what elſe doth Baptiſm ſtill teach us? See Col. 2.11, 12, 13. 1 Pet. 3.21. David compareth man to the beaſts that periſh, pecoribus mortici[illegible: 2 letters], to beaſts that dye of the Murrain, and ſo become carrion, and are good for nothing. He lyeth notting in the graves of ſin, wrapt up in the winding ſheet of hardneſſe of heart, and (as a carcaſs crawleth with worms) ſwarming with noiſome luſts, ſuch as Gods ſoul abhorreth. This is his nature: and for his life,

He drinketh iniquity like water] He is as it were altogether ſteeped and ſoaked in ſin? he ſucks it in with delight as an Ox doth water, or a drunkard Wine, who had as liefe you take away his life as his Liquor, and could find in his heart to be drowned in a Butt of Malmſey: as George Duke of Clarence was in the Tower of London, and as ſome ſay, by his own Election. Sure it is that a draught of ſin is the only Merry-go-down to a carnal man; he drinks it frequently and abundantly, even till he ſwelleth therewith. One obſerveth here, that Eliphaz ſaith not, Man eateth, but, drinketh iniquity: becauſe to eat a man muſt chew, and this taketh up ſome time, and leaveth a liberty to ſpit out what he liketh not: but drink goeth down without delay, and we uſually drink oftner then we eat: So here

Verſe 17. I will ſhew thee, hear me.] Here Eliphaz uſeth a ſhort but a lofty preface, calling hard for attention, and raiſing in Job an expectation of no mean matters. But Quid dignum tanto feret hic promiſſor hiatu.Horat.

This is his Argument:

That is to be held for true which experience evinceth, and wiſe men teach us, as themſelves have learned of their religious Anceſtors.

But, both continued experience, and conſent of men teach us, that wicked men have terrors within, and troubles without.

Therefore this is to be taken for a truth. Therefore alſo by conſequence, that is falſe which thou haſt ſpoken concerning the proſperity of wicked men, chap. 12.6. Neither canſt thou avoid the charge of wickedneſſe who doſt ſuffer the puniſhments of the wicked. Now what is all this more then Eliphaz had ſaid in a former diſcourſe? (ſo that Job might have cried out, Apage coccyſmum) only there he groundeth his Argument upon a night-viſion; here upon the teſtimony and conſent of certain wiſe men, commended by their power and juſtice. Some think he meaneth Noah and his pious poſterity.

That which I have ſeen, I will declare] Wilt thou not believe in eye-witneſſe? What can be more ſure then ſight? 1 John 1.1. Surely, if we were well read in the Story of our own lives, and had laid up our experiences, we might have a divinity of our own. The 119 Pſalm is made up of experiments; and David oft telleth us what he had ſeen and obſerved.

Verſe 18. Which wiſe men have told from their fathers,] Who have carefully and faithfully tranſmitued it as a doctrinal truth to us their poſterity, from hand to hand. For in Jobs time 'tis likely that the Scriptures were not yet written. Which, or, Which things wiſe men] who did in their generations, Deum rectè cognoſcere & c[illegible: 1 letter]l[illegible: 1 letter]r[illegible: 1 letter], rightly know and worſhip God, which is the higheſt wiſdome, ſaith Lactanti[illegible: 2 letters]. Have told] Have ſpoken it ſo plainly and plentifully, as if they had ſhewed us the things acted before our eyes. From their Fathers] Who were careful to inſtil good inſtructions and heavenly truths into the minds of their children, their familiars and families, as did Abraham, Gen. 18. and others according to Gods own appointment, Deut. 6.

And have not hid it] But communicated it for the good of many. Light in diffuſive of it ſelf. Knowledg is perfected while it is communicated. The more you teach and impart to others,Bodin. theat. Nat. p. 9. eo ditior ac doctior fias, ſaith One, the richer and skilfuller you become. It is not powring out. but want of pouring out that dryeth up the ſtreames of grace, as of that Oyle, 2 King. 4.6. See Prov. 11.24, 25. Pſal. 78.2, 3, 4.

Verſe 19.Merlin. Bold. To whom alone the earth was given] Noah and his pious poſterity (as was above noted) whom Methodins and other Ancients call, Misudi chiliarchas, the Lords of the whole word, given them by the Poſſ[illegible: 1 letter]ſſor of heaven and earth, as Melchiſedech firſt calleth God,Gen. 23. Gen. 14. and from him Abraham another Prince of God; as thoſe Heathens acknowledged him, and heir of the whole world, Rom. 4. As for Melchiſedec (commonly taken to be Sem) he was King in Salem and no ſtranger, that is, no enemy moleſted him; no not thoſe great ſpoilers. Kedarlaomer and his Complices; theſe never medled with Melchiſeaec and his ſubjects (probably out of reſpect to his wiſdome and holineſſe, for which he was famous) no not when marching againſt the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, they waſted and ſmot all the neighbour Countries. So true of his ſubjects and territories was that which followeth here.

And no ſtranger paſſed among them] viz. in an hoſtile way, in a warlike manner, Nah. 1.15. Some read, No ſtrangs thing paſſed among them; As not the devouring ſword, ſo neither the peſtilence that walketh in darkneſſe, nor the deſtruction that waſteth at noon day, Pſal 91.6. Such as was the raigne of Ferdinando the third, King of Spain for five and thirty yeares ſpace. In quibus nee fames nec peſtes fuit in regno ſaith L[illegible: 1 letter]piz, Gloſſ in Prolog. par. 1. wherein there fell out neither Famine not Peſtilence.

Verſe 20. The wicked man travelleth with pain all his dayes.] He tormenteth himſelf, or thruſteth himſelf through (ſo ſome read it) 1 Tim. 6.10. He takes no more reſt then one upon a Rack; he hath his hands on his loynes, as a woman in travel, Jer. 30.6. he ſmiteth upon his thigh; ſicut mulierculae in puerperio facere ſolent, ſaith Luther in his Marginal Note on Jea. 31.19. And if he would do ſo for his ſin (as he doth for his miſery) pia eſſet illa triſtitia. & (ſi dici poteſt) beata miſeria, as Auſtin hath it;Aug Epiſt. 545. his grief would be godly, and his miſery a bleſſing, God would pity him as he did his moan-making Ephraim and earneſtly remember him ſtill, ver. 20. But alas, the wicked wight, the hypocrite in heart, as he heaps up wrath, ſo he cryeth not, when God bindeth him, Job 36.16. Or if he do cry, 'tis perii. and not peccavi, I am undone, and not, I have done amiſſe. Hence God many times turneth looſe upon him thoſe three Vultures, Care, Fear and Grief, to feed upon his heart. It is ſeldome ſeen that God alloweth unto the greateſt darlings of the world a perfect contentment. In the very purſuit of theſe outward vanities is much anguiſh, many grievances, fears, jealouſies, diſgraces, interruptions, di[illegible: 1 letter]contentments. In the unſanctified enjoyment of them, ſomething the wicked ſhall have to complain of, that ſhal give an unſavoury verdure to their ſweeteſt morſels; and make their very felicity miſerable; witneſſe Ahab, Human, &c. But then followeth the ſting of conſcience, that maketh a Cain, a Paſhur, a Richard the third, to be a terrour to himſelf. And with this pain ſome wicked men travel all their dayes here, but hereafrer it ſhall infallibly and inexpreſſibly torment the ſouls of them all, through all eternity. And this with the following illuſtrations is that Oracle or divine ſentence which Eliphaz received from thoſe famous men above mentioned, and which he not obſcurely applyeth and wreſteth againſt Job, whom herehence he would prove a wicked man by his own conceſſions, chap. 3.25, 26. and 7.13; 14. compared with Devit. 26, 36. Deu[illegible: 1 letter]. 28.65. for that which Eliphaz had heard from his Anceſtors, was but the ſame Law, for ſubſtance, that was afterwards written by Moſes.

And the number of years is hidden to the Oppreſſour] Heb. to the terrible Tyrans, who as he hath not a more cruel Executioner, then his own conſcience, ſo not a more ſenſible diſpleaſure, then to know that he is mortal, and yet to be ignorant when his Tyranny muſt end, The number of the years of his Tyranny is uncertain, ſaith the Vulgar tranſlation. And from this uncertainty which he knoweth not how to remedy (though he run to light a candle at the devil ſometimes, viz. by conſulting with Soothſayers and Sorcerers to know of them how long he ſhall live, and who ſhall ſucceed him, as Tiberius and other Tyrants did) followeth ſuſpicion and fear, ſaith Aquinas upon this Text.

Verſe 21. A dreadful ſound is in his ears] Heb. A ſound of fear and terrors; Not one but many at once, ſo that he is a Magor-miſſabib, factus à corde ſuo fugitivus, Tertul. as Cain that Caitiff, and thoſe Hivites with their hornets of a clamorous conſcience, worſe to them then if their bodies had been tormented with ſtings, or torn with ſtripes.Exod. 23.28 What a ſound of terrour in their ears frighted thoſe Syrians, 2 Kings 7.6? And thoſe Perſians and Saracen[illegible: 1 letter] overcome by Theodoſius? Panice terrore incuſſo, ſaith the Hiſtorian, afraid of their own ſhadowes, they deſperately caſt themſelves into the River Euphrates, and there periſhed above an hundred thouſand of them, Auno Dom. 394.Fuſic. The wicked flyeth when none purſueth. Prov. 28.1. The ſound of a ſhaken leaf chaſeth him, Lev. 26.36. when the righteous is bold as a Lion, and not diſmayed at evil tidings, Pſal. 112.7. His heart is balanced with the fear of God; and thence it is that he floateth ſteddily, blow what wind it will, he ſailes to the Port; ſtormes and tempeſts do but beat him into it.

In proſperity the deſtroyer ſhall come upon him.] Heb. In peace, when he ſhal ſay, Peace and ſafety. 1 Theſ. 5.3. When he is at the higheſt he ſhall be deſtroyed, Dan. 4.30, 31. In the fulneſſe of his ſufficiency he ſhall be in ſtraits, Job 20.22. his ſhort Spring ſhall have an eternal Winter, Pſal. 92.7. Ʋltimus ſanitat is gradut eſt morbo proximus, ſay Phyſicians, the utmoſt degree of health is neareſt to ſickneſs; ſo the wicked when neareſt miſery, have greateſt proſperity.

Verſe 22. He believeth not that he ſhall return out of darkneſs] He deſpondeth and deſpaireth of a better condition, ſighing out that doalful ditty,Deſperat qui ſummus eſt diffidentiae greadus. Jun. Spes & fortuna valete, he looks for no further light and delight of former comforts; he knowes that they that go down into the dark pit, cannot hope for Gods truth, Iſas. 38.18. There being left them neither hope of better, nor place of worſe.

And he is waited for of the ſword.] Or, looked upon by the ſword, which waiteth, as it were, an opportunity to ſlay him. Circumſpectans undique gladium, ſo the Vulgar; He looketh this way and that way as fearing the Murderer; his guilt repreſenting to him on all ſides nothing but naked ſwords; he believeth that they will aſſaſſine him in his bed. This was the caſe of Saul, who ſuſpected his beſt ſervants: of Dionyſius the Tyrant, who durſt not truſt his own daughter with his throat: Of Alexander Pheraeus, who would not go to bed to his wife Thebe whom he loved,Tul. Offic. lib. 2. till he had firſt ſearched the room and her pocket for edge-tools.Dan. Hiſt. 249. Of Richard the third, who after the death of his two innocent Nephewes, had fearful dreames and apprehenſions, inſomuch that he did often leap out of his bed in the dark, and catching his ſword (which alway naked ſtuck by his ſide) he did go diſtractedly about the Chamber, every where ſeeking to find out the cauſe of his own occaſioned diſquiet, ſaith the Chronologer. Tiberius felt the remorſe of conſcience ſo violent,Tacit. that he proteſted to the Senate, that he ſuffered death daily through fear of death; whereupon the Hiſtorian maketh this profitable Obſervation, Tandem fa[illegible: 1 letter]inora & f[illegible: 1 letter]agitia in ſupplicium vertuntur; Heinous ſins will at length have heavy puniſhments.

Verſe 23. He wandreth abroad for bread, ſaying, Where is it?] He is hard put to it for neceſſaries, and would be glad of a piece of bread, as 1 Sam. 25.36.Herodot. This was the caſe of Pythias, once ſo rich, that he entertained a million of men (even Xerx[illegible: 1 letter]s his whole huge Hoſte) for three dayes ſpace, at his own proper charge, but afterwards ſo poor, that he dyed through hunger. And the like befell Gillimer, King of Vandales, of whom it is ſtoried, that being overcome and beleagured by Belliſarius, he ſent to him for a Sponge to dry his tears, a Cittern to eaſe his grief, and a piece of bread to ſave his life. Belliſarius himſelf was afterwards glad to beg his bread. And Henry the fourth, Emperour of Germany, after ten years Raign, was deſpoſed and driven to the like exigent; whereupon he is ſaid to have made uſe of thoſe words of Job, chap. 19.21. Have pity upon me have pity upon me O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. And there is no doubt but Eliphaz glanceth at Job in all theſe expreſſions as if he were the man whom he here deſcribeth with much Eloquence, but ſmall charity.

He knoweth that the day of darkneſſe is ready at his hand.] His conſcience telleth him, that he is not yet at worſt; he knowes in himſelf, ſay the Septuagint, that further evil ſhall be upon him, that his miſery is inevitable, and at next door by; and this knowledg, being ful of feare, is alſo full of torment: it is even hell afore hand, and above ground.

Verſe 24. Trouble and anguiſh ſhall make him afraid] Or, Scare him, not only out of his comforts, Mentis inops moritur. Epiſt. Hiſt. Gal. Plut. but out of his wits and ſenſes too, as it did Charles the great Cardinal of Lorrain. See Deut. 28.34. Tullus Hoſtilius the third King of Romans deriding the Religion of his Predeceſſour Numa, as that which did emaſculate mens minds, was afterwards ſo terrified, that he ſet up and worſhipped two new gods; viz Pavorem & Pallorem, Trouble and anguiſh, which he had perpetually preſent with him, as Lactantius reporteth. What a pitiful agony Vitellius the Emperor was in, [non-Latin text not transcribed] when Veſpaſians Army marched toward Rome, is notably ſet forth by Dio in his life. Not long after that at the ſack of Jeruſalem, ſome Jewes killed themſelves, left they ſhould fall into the hands of Veſpaſians ſouldiers.

Hic rego; non furor eſt, ne moriare, mori?

They ſhall prevail againſt him:] Or, begirt him as a King is inviron'd in peace, by his Guard, in War by his Army. Or, They ſhall deſtroy him, as a King ready to the battle doth his enemies forces, which he routeth and ruineth. Fear hath a deadly force upon feeble ſpirits; neither is it nay wonder that they ring their bells backward, when things begin once to be on fire.

Verſe 25. For he ſtretcheth out his hand againſt God.] Worthy therefore to have a dead Palſie transfuſed into it, or dryed up, as Jeroboams was, when but ſtretched out againſt a Prophet: and as Valens the Emperors hand was made unable to hold a pen, when he would have ſubſcribed a Warrant for the baniſhing of Baſit. Such a Giant-like generation there are to this day among men; as face the heavens, caſt down the gantlet againſt God, Erecto collo valido impetu, arrogantiâ incurvi cervicâ, ſaith Brentius upon the Text, with ſtiff necks, full force, and inſufferable inſolence, as it were on purpoſe to croſſe the Almighty, and to wreſtle a fall with him: they ſin with an high hand, Levit. 26.21. Numb. 15.30. and do as wickedly as they can, Jer. 3.5. yea, with both hands earneſtly, Mich 7.3. Perſecuting his people who are unto him as the apple of his eye,Act. 7.51 and reſiſting the Holy Ghoſt alwayes. Surely, he would even deſtroy God if he could, for he hateth him, Rom. 1.30. With an helliſh hatred (as the word there ſignifieth) ſuch as ſtriketh at Gods very eſſence, Pſal. 10.41. confer 1 Joh. 3.15. [non-Latin text not transcribed]

And ſtrengthneth himſelf againſt the Almighty] Sed vana ſine viribus ire. To his ſinewes of iron, he hath added browes of braſſe, Iſai. 48.4. To his natural croſneſſe, habitual hardneſſe and hardineſſe: ſo that now, like a ſtout Warrior, he bends all his ſtrength againſt the Almighty, but with no better ſucceſſe, then to be broken in pieces, Iſai. 8.9. with his it on Mace, Pſal. 2.9. Sennacherib for inſtance. See the Note above on chap. 9.4.

Verſe 26. He runneth upon him, even on his neck:] Vulgar, He runneth upon him (God) with an erected-neck: ſuch is his audaciouſneſſe and impudence, daring to do any heinous wickedneſſe, and not fearing to run againſt the ſtrongeſt part of Gods Armour, though able to grind him to powder. Sin hath woaded ſuch an impudency in his face, that he dare with a full forehead encounter God, even upon the points of his Juſtice and righteous Judgments, wherein he is the ableſt to give us the ſhock, &c. Thus ſome ſenſe the Text. Others (of good note alſo,) refer the word, runneth, to God, and render it thus, God runneth upon him, even upon the neck, &c. He breaking his ſhields, how many and how thick ſoever they be, drags him by the neck as a miſerable vanquiſhed wretch, and layes upon him exquiſite and high puniſhments, according to that chap. 31.3. Is not deſtruction to the wicked? and a ſtrange puniſhment to the workers of iniquity?

Ʋpon the thick boſſes of his buckler.] Wherewith the Belialiſt, this Champion for hell, thinks himſelf beſt armed and ſecured, againſt the dint of the divine diſpleaſure. Bucklers, beſides other boſſes for ornament, had one great boſſe in the middle, with a ſharp pike in it for uſe, to pierce and wound the Adverſary. Now God runs upon this alſo, and is no whit hindred thereby from puniſhing the refractories, theſe high attempters, theſe monſtrous men of condition, that ſo fiercely and ſo fearleſly lift up their hands againſt heaven, as if they would pull God out of his throne, and throw the houſe, yea, the world out at the window. Surely, as Pride reſiſteth God in a ſpecial manner, ſo doth God in a ſpecial manner reſiſt it, 1 Pet. 5.5. The reaſon whereof is given by Boetius. All other vices (ſaith he) flye from God, only Pride flyes at him, ſtands out, and makes head againſt him.

Verſe 27. Becauſe he covereth his face with his fatneſſe.] This is given in as one chief cauſe of his inſolency; he is a belly-god, he maketh plaits upon the panch, ſo Broughron rendreth it: He hath larded his guts, ſo Calvin: He maketh it his buſineſſe to pamper his body; his heart alſo is fat as greaſe. Pſal. 119.70.Benè curavit cutem ſuam in hoc munde. Vat. He is waxen fat, that is proſperity-proud, and kicketh, Dent. 32.15. Pride and fulneſſe of bread were Sodoms twin-ſins. Ezek. 16.49. When people are Provender-prick'd, (as we call it) they eaſily turn the grace of God into laſciviouſneſſe. Jude 4. and that fulneſſe breeds forgetfulneſſe; as the fed Hawk ſoon forgets his Maſter, and the Moon at fulleſt gets furtheſt off the Sun. Senſualliſts who love feaſt, Judg. 14.10. are void of the Spirit, Jude 19. A full belly maketh a fowle heart. The rankeſt weeds grow out of the fatteſt ſoil: and thoſe that make their gut a gulph, well they may have collops in their flanks, but they have leanneſſe in their ſoules; indeed they have (as Swine) their ſoules for ſalt onely, to keep their bodies from putrefying.

And maketh collops of fat on his flanks.] Heb And maketh mouths, that is, wrinkles upon his flanks: He is active about it, and makes it his buſineſſe to make proviſion for the fleſh, Rom. 13. ult. He labours for the meat that periſheth, Joh 16.27. He lives to eat, and laughs himſelf fat, till his heart now hardned by the deceit fulneſs of his ſin, becomes as inſenſible as Dionyſius the Heracleot, who felt not when men thruſt needles into his fat belly; or thoſe Beares in Pliny, that could not be ſtirred with the ſharpeſt prickles.

Verſe 28. And he dwelleth in deſolate Cities] Such as had been before deſolated, but are now by him re-edified, to get him a name and renown amongſt men,Ad numinis contemptum & hominum terrorem. Merlin. and to make himſelf formidable, as thoſe do, who build themſelves ſtrong holds upon high Rocks, as if they would wage war againſt heaven. Peradventure (ſaith Deodate here) he meaneth thoſe Kings of violent Empires, who repaired or built great Cities after the Deluge, as Nimrod, Aſhur and others, Gen. 10.8. Job 3.14. Iſai. 23.13. and raiſed themſelves upon other mens ruines. Eliphaz his ſcope is to ſhew, that a man that hath great power amongſt men, begins to think himſelf ſtrong enough for God alſo.

And in houſes where no man inhabiteth] For he hath driven away the Inhabitants through his oppreſſions. This is that crying ſin of Depopulatours, who build themſelves deſolate places, Job 3.14. And Encloſers, who betray Townes, as Rome did Carthage, with a diſtinction, We will ſave the City, but deſtroy the Town. This hath been noted as a great fault in our Nation, and therefore Goropius thinks the Engliſh were called Angli. becauſe they were good Anglers, and had skill to lay diverſe baites when they fiſhed for others mens livings. But that's his miſtake (though perhaps wilful,) for we were ſo called from the old Angli who came in with the Saxons, and were ſubdued by the Normans, whoſe Duke, William the Conqueror, paid dear for his depopulations at New Forreſt, wherein ſix and thirty Pariſh Churches had been demoliſhed, and the Inhabitants removed, to make room for beaſts or dogs game. Diverſe of his ſons and Nephews came there to untimely ends, ſo dangerous it is for men to prove Abaddons or Deſtroyers.

Which are ready to become heapes.] Heaps of ſtones, the ſtrongeſt ſtructures in the world are ſubject to ruine. Make ſure of heaven, which the Philoſopher fondly dreamt to be made of ſtone (arch-work) and would one day come to raine. But whatever becometh of the viſible heavens, which ſhall be purged by the fire of the laſt day, upon the inviſible we may well write, as Hyppocrates telleth us it was engraven on the gates of a certain City, Intacta manet, it remaineth untouched: And as the Venetians boaſt of their City, that ſhe is ſtill a Virgin, becauſe from the firſt founding thereof (which is 1200 years ſince, or neer upon) it never came into the hands of a forraine enemy.

Verſe 29. he ſhall not be rich, neither ſhall his ſubſtance, &c.] If he be rich, it is for a miſchief, neither is it likely long to continue with him, for God will blow upon, and blaſt his ſubſtance, which is the fort and ſtrength, Iſai. 10.14. He reſolvs he will be rich, 1 Tim. 6.9. and is ſet upon it: God to croſſe him, ſaith here, He ſhall not be rich, but I will make a poor fool of him, according to that. Jer. 17.11. As the Partridge ſitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not; ſo he that getteth riches and not by right, ſhall leave them in the midſt of his dayes, and at his end ſhall be a fool. There is a curſe upon unlawful practiſes, though men be induſtrious, as in Jehoiachim; Jer. 22. it is God that giveth power to get wealth, Deut. 8.18. Our care can no more add a penny to our eſtate, then it can a cubit to our ſtature, Mat. 6.27.

He ſhall not prolong the perfection thereof.] Vulgar, He ſhall not ſend forth his root in the earth, A man ſhall not be eſtabliſhed by wickedneſſe (ſaith Solomon) but the root of the righteous ſhall continue. Prov. 12.3. See the Note there.

Verſe 30. he ſhall not depart out of darkneſſe] But be held under remedileſſe miſery, being ever blaſted and benighted, till God at laſt breathe forth upon him his final diſpleaſure. When God hath brought wicked men into ſtraits, there he holdeth them; not ſo the godly, Pſal. 34.19. they are ſure of deliverance in due ſeaſon. And as before the morning light, is the thickeſt darkneſſe; ſo before help, hardeſt trials. Poſt tenebras lux, Hom. 16. is the Chriſtians motto; not ſo the ungodly; they are ex tenebris in tenebras, infeliciter excluſi, infelicius excludendi, as Auſtin hath it, to paſſe out of one darkneſſe into another, till they be caſt into utter darknes.

The flame ſhall dry up his branches] That Ventus urens & exi[illegible: 1 letter]cans of Gods wrath ſhal blaſt and conſume, not his Off-ſpring only, but all his beauty and bravery: hee ſhall be as a tree that is thunder-ſtruck. Zack. 11.16.

and by the breath of his mouth ſhall he go away] God will blow him to deſtruction his very breath ſhall leave him breathleſſe, Iſai. 11.4. Pſal. 18.15. Job 4.9. See the Note there. Others underſtand it of the wicked mans mouth, and make this to be the ſenſe, He ſhall be ſo cholerick and impatient in his trouble, that he ſhall ſend out his laſt breath ſuddenly in a paſſionate fit. So did Nerva the Emperor, likewiſe Valentinian, Wenceſlaus King of Bohemia, and our Henry the ſecond.

Verſe 31. Let not him that it deceived, truſt in vanity.] Let it ſuffice him that he hath been once already deceived by the uncertainty of riches, which were never true to thoſe which truſted them, nor never will be, 1 Tim. 6.17. As Charendas was wont to ſay of going to ſea, (and another of going to Law) That he wondred not at thoſe that go once, but at thoſe who go a ſecond time. So may we at thoſe that having found the deceitfulneſſe of ſin, and the inſtability of Creature-comforts, that they ſhould again be drawn in and deceived. This folly Eliphaz here forewarneth Job of, and would not have him twice ſtumble at the ſame ſtone, but deliver his ſoul, (if ever God ſhould reſtore him again) and ſay, Is there not a lye in my right hand? Why feed I upon aſhes? &c. Iſai. 44.20.

For vanity ſhalt be his recompence.] i.e. Poverty and miſery ſhall be his portion, as ſhame ſhall be the portion of fools, Prov. 3.35. As he hath ſowed the wind, ſo he ſhall reap the whirlewind, whereof he is likely to have a great catch, Hoſ. 8.7. See the Note there.

Verſe 32. It ſhall be accompliſhed before his time.] Heb. in not his day. That recompence forementioned of calamity and death ſhall be haſtened, ſo that they ſhall not live out half their dayes. Pſal. 55.22 but dye tempora non ſuo, Eccleſ. 7.15. then when it were better for them to do any thing rather then to dye, ſith they periſh in their corruptions, they are killed with death, Rev. 12.33. See Prov. 10.37. Death ever taketh a wicked man unprovided,Brent. in loc. Haec enim vena nobis ab Adam agnata eſt, ut nullam [illegible: 1 word] ad ſuſpendi[illegible: 1 letter]m aptam invenium poſſimus: neque unquam caro [illegible: 2 letters]urtem eliget, niſi p[illegible: 1 letter]eſſa judicio. We naturally dream of an immortality here, neither yeild we to dye till there be a neceſſity.Lavat. in loc. Miſerandum eſt autem, ſaith one: but it is a pitiful thing that being all ſo deſirous of life, we ſhould ſo little care for thoſe things that would lengthen out lives (ſuch as are piety, juſtice, temperance, &c) we forget that ſhort way to long life, Pſal. 34.12.

His branch ſhall not be green] Heb. His crooked or bowed down branch; this is his full eſtate or numerous iſſue, thoſe boughs of his, laden and bowed down with fruit, ſhall not be green, but blaſted and dryed up: ramificans ejus non vireſcet: It is a miſery to be the branch of a wicked ſtock, for ſuch, as they leave the reſt of their ſubſtance to their little ones, Pſal. 17.14. So they leave them Gods curſe, as Joabs Legacy, 2 Sam. 3.29. or as Gehazies Leproſie, 2 King. 5.27. a wretched bequeath.

Verſ. 33. He ſhall ſhake off his unripe grapes as the vine] Filios intelligit per batra, & pueros per florem, ſaith Vatablus: i.e. By unripe grapes he meaneth the wicked mans ſons growne up; and by flowers of the Olive, his little ones; and ſo it is the ſame with the former, only flouriſhed over with two ſimilitudes. He (that is God) will ſnap off his ſowre grapes as she vines: ſo Broughton rendreth it;Epiſt. 7. Luct[illegible: 1 letter]oſa foecunditas (ſuch as was that of Laetae in Hierome, who buried many children) is a ſore affliction. If the bud or flower decay, what hope can there be of fruit? Others underſtand it of the untimely death, as before, or of the decay of his wealth and poſſeſſions.

Verſe 34. For the congregation of hypocrites ſhalt be deſolate] Heb. Of the hypocrite; where he ſeemeth to point at Job. as by the unripe grapes, and blaſted flowers of the Olive, he had underſtood Jobs children and poſſeſſions, verſ. 33. Now the whole congregation or train and retinue of the hypocrite, God will nuneſt and ruinate, ſaith Eliphaz: they ſhall all be as one deſolated, ſo the Original hath it.

And fire ſhall conſume the Tabernacles of bribery] Heb. The Tabernacles of a bribe. Under theſe two heads, ſaith one, we may reduce all ſorts of ſinners; ſinners againſt God under the notion of Hypocrites; and ſinners againſt men under the notion of Bribe-takers; [non-Latin text not transcribed], ſay the Septuagint; that is, Receivers of Gifts;Muncra ſunt honor aria vel corruptoria Lavat. in loc. and the Hebrew word ſignifieth, a Gift in general: it is taken alſo for a bribe, becauſe very many gifts are bribes. Now houſes built by bribes or very many gifts, ſhall be conſumed and come to nothing; Jer. 22.13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Hab. 2.9, 10, 11, 12. See the Note there. This Eliphaz caſteth in Jobs teeth, but herein he dealt with him as injuriouſly as Bonner did with Philpot the Martyr, when he ſaid to him,Act. & Non: ſol. 16 50. Alſo I lay to thy charge, that thou killedſt thy father, and waſt accurſed of thy mother on her death-bed, &c.

Verſe 35. They conceive miſchief, and bring forth vanity] Here Eliphaz for a cloſe, by an elegant and uſual Metaphor taken from child bearing, ſheweth that all ſuch as conceive with guile or wrong to others, by that time they have reckoned their months aright, though they grow never ſo big, ſhall bring forth nothing but wind and vanity. Like as a woman that thinks ſhe hath conceived and is deceived pleaſeth her ſelf with the thoughts of a child, but brings forth nothing but wind, water, or ſome dead maſs. Brentius exemplifieth this by the Papiſts deviſing tot modos & formas confitendi & Miſſandi, ſo many wayes and formes of Confeſſing and Maſſing. Poor ſouls when ſtung by the Fryers Sermons, or otherwayes troubled in mind, run to thoſe practices for help, but all in vain: for though ſtilled for a while, yet conſcience recoileth upon them, and making them miſerable, leaveh them deſperate, as Popery is a Doctrine of deſperation Mean while, till they are conſuted by the event, wicked men pleaſe themſelves not a little in their ſinful conceptions; they have a kind of a ſenſ[illegible: 2 letters] veneris (which Scaliger will have to be the ſixth ſenſe,In male agendo voluptatem quaeſierunt. Merlin. Spec. Europ. beſides thoſe five commonly counted of) a ſenſual delight in the[illegible: 1 letter] ſinful projects. As one ſpeaking of the Councel of Trent, ſaith, That it was carried on by the Pope with ſuch infinite guile and craft, as that themſelves will even ſmile in the tryumphs of their own wits, (when they hear it but mentioned) as at a maſter ſtratagem. theſe heathens (ſo they are called, Re[illegible: 2 letters] 11.2.) conſider not, that whites they thus [illegible: 1 letter]umultuate, they do but imagine a vain thing Pſal. 2.1. and that the childs name is Vanity, as here.

And their belly prepareth deceit] Not their head, but their belly prepareth (accurately and ſtrongly prepareth, ſo the word ſignifieth) deceit, ſelf-deceit (ſo ſome ſenſe it) or rather to deceive and undo others whom they cannot over-come by might to overcome by [illegible: 1 letter]eight And in theſe guileful projects they delight and take a contemplative kind of pleaſure, as the voluptuous perſon doth in his luſt, Pſal. 52.1, 2.