Job 27 commentary

Job's friends now suffered him to speak, and he proceeded in a grave and useful manner. Job had confidence in the goodness both of his cause and of his God; and cheerfully committed his cause to him. But Job had not due reverence when he spake of God as taking away his judgment, and vexing his soul. To resolve that our hearts shall not reproach us, while we hold fast our integrity, baffles the designs of the evil spirit.

Job looked upon the condition of a hypocrite and a wicked man, to be most miserable. If they gained through life by their profession, and kept up their presumptuous hope till death, what would that avail when God required their souls? The more comfort we find in our religion, the more closely we shall cleave to it. Those who have no delight in God, are easily drawn away by the pleasures, and easily overcome by the crosses of this life. (Job 27:11-23)

Job's friends, on the same subject, spoke of the misery of wicked men before death as proportioned to their crimes; Job considered that if it were not so, still the consequences of their death would be dreadful. Job undertook to set this matter in a true light. Death to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country; but, to a wicked man, it is like a storm, that hurries him away to destruction. While he lived, he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will pour out upon him his wrath. When God casts down a man, there is no flying from, nor bearing up under his anger. Those who will not now flee to the arms of Divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. And what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and thus lose his own soul?

CHAPTER 27

Job 27:1-23.

It was now Zophar's turn to speak. But as he and the other two were silent, virtually admitting defeat, after a pause Job proceeds.

1. parable--applied in the East to a figurative sententious embodiment of wisdom in poetic form, a gnome (Psa 49:4).

continued--proceeded to put forth; implying elevation of discourse.

2. (1Sa 20:3).

taken away ... judgment--words unconsciously foreshadowing Jesus Christ (Is 53:8; Ac 8:33). God will not give Job his right, by declaring his innocence.

vexed--Hebrew, "made bitter" (Ru 1:20).

3. Implying Job's knowledge of the fact that the living soul was breathed into man by God (Ge 2:7). "All the while." But Maurer, "As yet all my breath is in me" (notwithstanding my trials): the reason why I can speak so boldly.

4. (Job 6:28, 30). The "deceit" would be if he were to admit guilt against the witness of his conscience.

5. justify you--approve of your views.

mine integrity--which you deny, on account of my misfortunes.

6. Rather, my "heart" (conscience) reproaches "not one of my days," that is, I do not repent of any of my days since I came into existence [Maurer].

7. Let ... be--Let mine enemy be accounted as wicked, that is, He who opposes my asseveration of innocence must be regarded as actuated by criminal hostility. Not a curse on his enemies.

8. "What hope hath the hypocrite, notwithstanding all his gains, when?" &c. "Gained" is antithetic to "taketh away." Umbreit's translation is an unmeaning tautology. "When God cuts off, when He taketh away his life."

taketh away--literally, "draws out" the soul from the body, which is, as it were, its scabbard (Job 4:21; Psa 104:29; Da 7:15). Job says that he admits what Bildad said (Job 8:13) and Zophar (Job 20:5). But he says the very fact of his still calling upon God (Job 27:10) amid all his trials, which a hypocrite would not dare to do, shows he is no "hypocrite."

9. (Psa 66:18).

10. Alluding to Job 22:26.

always call--He may do so in times of prosperity in order to be thought religious. But he will not, as I do, call on God in calamities verging on death. Therefore I cannot be a "hypocrite" (Job 19:25; 20:5; Psa 62:8).

11-23. These words are contrary to Job's previous sentiments (see on Job 21:22-33; Job 24:22-25). Job 21:22-33; 24:22-25). They therefore seem to be Job's statement, not so much of his own sentiments, as of what Zophar would have said had he spoken when his turn came (end of the twenty-sixth chapter). So Job stated the friends' opinion (Job 21:17-21; 24:18-21). The objection is, why, if so, does not Job answer Zophar's opinion, as stated by himself? The fact is, it is probable that Job tacitly, by giving, in the twenty-eighth chapter, only a general answer, implies, that in spite of the wicked often dying, as he said, in prosperity, he does not mean to deny that the wicked are in the main dealt with according to right, and that God herein vindicates His moral government even here. Job therefore states Zophar's argument more strongly than Zophar would have done. But by comparing Job 27:13 with Job 20:29 ("portion," "heritage"), it will be seen, it is Zophar's argument, rather than his own, that Job states. Granting it to be true, implies Job, you ought not to use it as an argument to criminate me. For (Job 28:1-28) the ways of divine wisdom in afflicting the godly are inscrutable: all that is sure to man is, the fear of the Lord is wisdom (Job 28:28).

by the hand--rather, concerning the hand of God, namely, what God does in governing men.

with the Almighty--the counsel or principle which regulates God's dealings.

Continued his parable - After having delivered the preceding discourse, Job appears to have paused to see if any of his friends chose to make any reply; but finding them all silent, he resumed his discourse, which is here called משלו meshalo, his parable, his authoritative weighty discourse; from משל mashal, to exercise rule, authority, dominion, or power - Parkhurst. And it must be granted that in this speech he assumes great boldness, exhibits his own unsullied character, and treats his friends with little ceremony.

Who hath taken away my judgment - Who has turned aside my cause, and has not permitted it to come to a hearing, where I might have justice done to me, but has abandoned me to the harsh and uncharitable judgment of my enemies? There appears to be a great want of reverence in these words of Job; he speaks with a degree of irritation, if not bitterness, which cannot be justified. No man should speak thus of his Maker.

All the while my breath is in me - As Job appears to allude to the creation of Adam, whom God made out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living soul, the whole of Job's assertion may be no more than a periphrasis for As long as I live and have my understanding. Indeed נשמתי nishmathi may be rendered my mind or understanding, and רוח אלוה ruach Eloah, the breath of God, the principle of animal life, the same that he breathed into Adam; for it is there said, Gen 2:7, He breathed into his nostrils, נשמת חיים nismath chaiyim, the breath of lives, or that principle from which animal and spiritual life proceeds; in consequence of which he became לנפש חיה lenephesh chaiyah, an intelligent or rational animal.

My lips shall not speak wickedness - As I have hitherto lived in all good conscience before God, as he knoweth, so will I continue to live.

God forbid - חלילה לי - di chalilah lli, far be it from me, that I should justify you - that I should now, by any kind of acknowledgment of wickedness or hypocrisy justify your harsh judgment. You say that God afflicts me for my crimes; I say, and God knows it is truth, that I have not sinned so as to draw down any such judgment upon me. Your judgment, therefore, is pronounced at your own risk.

My righteousness I hold fast - I stand firmly on this ground; I have endeavored to live an upright life, and my afflictions are not the consequence of my sins.

My heart shall not reproach me - I shall take care so to live that I shall have a conscience void of offense before God and man. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God;" 1Jn 3:21. This seems to be Job's meaning.

Let mine enemy be as the wicked - Let my accuser be proved a lying and perjured man, because he has laid to my charge things which he cannot prove, and which are utterly false.

What is the hope of the hypocrite - The word חנף chaneph, which we translate, most improperly, hypocrite, means a wicked fellow, a defiled, polluted wretch, a rascal, a knave, a man who sticks at nothing in order to gain his ends. In this verse it means a dishonest man, a rogue, who by overreaching, cheating, etc., has amassed a fortune.

When God taketh away his soul? - Could he have had any well grounded hope of eternal blessedness when he was acquiring earthly property by guilt and deceit? And of what avail will this property be when his soul is summoned before the judgment-seat? A righteous man yields up his soul to God; the wicked does not, because he is afraid of God, of death, and of eternity. God therefore takes the soul away - forces it out of the body. Mr. Blair gives us an affecting picture of the death of a wicked man. Though well known, I shall insert it as a striking comment on this passage: - "How shocking must thy summons be, O death!

To him that is at ease in his possessions;

Who, counting on long years of pleasures here;

Is quite unfurnished for that world to come!

In that dread moment how the frantic soul

Raves round the walls of her clay tenement;

Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help,

But shrieks in vain! How wishfully she looks

On all she's leaving, now no longer hers!

A little longer, yet a little longer,

O, might she stay, to wash away her stains,

And fit her for her passage! Mournful sight!

Her very eyes weep blood; and every groan

She heaves is big with horror. But the foe,

Like a stanch murderer, steady to his purpose,

Pursues her close, through every lane of life,

Nor misses once the track, but presses on;

Till, forced at last to the tremendous verge,

At once she sinks to everlasting ruin."

The Grave.

The Chaldee has, What can the detractor expect who has gathered together (ממון דשקר mamon dishkar, the mammon of unrighteousness) when God plucks out his soul? The Septuagint: Τις γαρ εστιν ετι ελπις ασεβει, ὁτι επεχει; Μη πεποιθως επι Κυριον ει αρα σωθησεται; "For what is the hope of the ungodly that he should wait for? shall he, by hoping in the Lord, be therefore saved?" Mr. Good translates differently from all the versions: - "Yet what is the hope of the wicked that he should prosper,

That God should keep his soul in quiet?"

I believe our version gives as true a sense as any; and the words appear to have been in the eye of our Lord, when he said, "For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Mat 16:26.

I will teach you by the hand of God - Relying on Divine assistance, and not speaking out of my own head, or quoting what others have said I will teach you what the mind of the Almighty is, and I will conceal nothing. Job felt that the good hand of his God was upon him, and that therefore he should make no mistake in his doctrines. In this way the Chaldee understood the words, ביד אל beyad El, by the hand of God, which it translates בנבואת אלהא binbuath Elaha, by the prophecy of God. Those who reject the literal meaning, which conveys a very good sense, may adopt the translation of Mr. Good, which has much to recommend it: "I will teach you concerning the dealings of God."

Ye yourselves have seen it - Your own experience and observation have shown you that the righteous are frequently in affliction, and the wicked in affluence.

Why then are ye thus altogether vain? - The original is very emphatical: הבל תהבלו hebel tehbalu, and well expressed by Mr. Good: "Why then should ye thus babble babblings!" It our language would allow it, we might say vanitize vanity.

This is the portion of a wicked man - Job now commences his promised teaching; and what follows is a description of the lot or portion of the wicked man and of tyrants. And this remuneration shall they have with God in general, though the hand of man be not laid upon them. Though he does not at all times show his displeasure against the wicked, by reducing them to a state of poverty and affliction, yet he often does it so that men may see it; and at other times he seems to pass them by, reserving their judgment for another world, that men may not forget that there is a day of judgment and perdition for ungodly men, and a future recompense for the righteous.

If his children be multiplied - As numerous families were supposed to be a proof of the benediction of the Almighty, Job shows that this is not always the case; for the offspring of the wicked shall be partly cut off by violent deaths, and partly reduced to great poverty.

Those that remain of him - שרידיו seridaiv, his remains, whether meaning himself personally, or his family.

Shall be buried in death - Shall come to utter and remediless destruction. Death shall have his full conquest over them, and the grave its complete victory. These are no common dead. All the sting, all the wound, and all the poison of sin, remains: and so evident are God's judgments in his and their removal, that even widows shall not weep for them; the public shall not bewail them; for when the wicked perish there is shouting. Mr. Good, following the Chaldee, translates: Entombed in corruption, or in the pestilence. But I see no reason why we should desert the literal reading. Entombed in corruption gives no nervous sense in my judgment; for in corruption are the high and the low, the wicked and the good, entombed: but buried in death is at once nervous and expressive. Death itself is the place where he shall lie; he shall have no redemption, no resurrection to life; death shall ever have dominion over him. The expression is very similar to that in Luk 16:22 (note), as found in several versions and MSS.: The rich man died, and was buried in hell; and, lifting up his eyes, being in torment, he saw, etc. See my note there.

Though he heap up silver - Though he amass riches in the greatest abundance, he shall not enjoy them. Unsanctified wealth is a curse to its possessor. Money, of all earthly possessions, is the most dangerous, as it is the readiest agent to do good or evil. He that perverts it is doubly cursed, because it affords him the most immediate means of sinful gratification; and he can sin more in an hour through this, than he can in a day or week by any other kind of property. On the other hand, they who use it aright have it in their power to do the most prompt and immediate good. Almost every kind of want may be speedily relieved by it. Hence, he who uses it as he ought is doubly blessed; while he who abuses it is doubly cursed.

The just shall put it on - Money is God's property. "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord;" and though it may be abused for a time by unrighteous hands, God, in the course of his providence, brings it back to its proper use; and often the righteous possess the inheritance of the wicked.

He buildeth his house as a moth - With great skill, great pains, and great industry; but the structure, however skillful, shall be dissolved; and the materials, however costly, shall be brought to corruption. To its owner it shall be only a temporary habitation, like that which the moth makes in its larve or caterpillar state, during its change from a chrysalis to a winged insect.

As a booth that the keeper maketh - A shed which the watchman or keeper of a vineyard erects to cover him from the scorching sun, while watching the ripening grapes, that they may be preserved from depredation. Travellers in the East have observed that such booths or sheds are made of the lightest and most worthless materials; and after the harvest or vintage is in, they are quite neglected, and by the winter rains, etc., are soon dissolved and destroyed.

The rich man shall lie down - In the grave. But he shall not be gathered - Neither have a respectable burial among men, nor be gathered with the righteous in the kingdom of God. It may be that Job alludes here to an opinion relative to the state of certain persons after death, prevalent in all nations in ancient times, viz., that those whose funeral rites had not been duly performed, wander about as ghosts, and find no rest.

He openeth his eyes - In the morning of the resurrection.

And he is not - He is utterly lost and undone for ever. This seems to be the plain sense of the passage; and so all the versions appear to have understood it; but Reiske and some others, by making יאסף yeaseph an Arabic word, signifying, not the idea of gathering, but care, anxiety, etc., have quite altered this sense of the passage; and Mr. Good, who copies them, translates thus: Let the rich man lie down, and care not. I see no manner of occasion to resort to this interpretation, which, in my judgment, gives a sense inferior to that given above, or to the following: The rich man shall lie down - go to his rest, fully persuaded that his property is in perfect safety; but he shall not be gathered, or he shall not gather - make any farther addition to his stores: he openeth his eyes in the morning, when he is not - marauders in the night have stripped him of all his property, as in the case of Job himself; a case quite probable, and not unfrequent in Arabia, when a hostile tribe makes a sudden incursion, and carries off an immense booty. But I prefer the first meaning, as it is obtained without crucifying the text. Coverdale translates: When the rich man dyeth, he carieth nothinge with him: he is gone in the twincklinge of an eye.

Terrors take hold on him as waters - They come upon him as an irresistible flood; and he is overwhelmed as by a tempest in the night, when darkness partly hides his danger, and deprives him of discerning the way to escape.

The east wind carrieth him away - Such as is called by Mr. Good, a levanter, the euroclydon, the eastern storm of Act 27:14.

God shall cast upon him - Or, rather, the storm mentioned above shall incessantly pelt him, and give him no respite; nor can he by any means escape from its fury.

Men shall clap their hands at him - These two verses refer to the storm, which is to sweep away the ungodly; therefore the word God, in Job 27:22, and men in this verse, should be omitted. Job 27:22 : "For it shall fall upon him, and not spare: flying from its power he shall continue to fly. Job 27:23. It shall clap its hands against him, and hiss, וישרק veyishrok, shriek, him out of his place."

Here the storm is personified and the wicked actor is hissed and driven by it from off the stage. It seems it was an ancient method to clap the hands against and hiss a man from any public office, who had acted improperly in it. The populace, in European countries, express their disapprobation of public characters who have not pleased them in the same manner to the present day, by hisses, groans, and the like.

Parable - His grave and weighty discourse.

Who - Though he knows my integrity, yet doth not plead my cause against my friends.

Reproach - With betraying my own cause and innocency.

Let - I am so far from practicing wickedness, that I abhor the thoughts of it, and if I would wish to be revenged of my enemy, I could wish him no greater mischief than to be a wicked man.

Though - Though they prosper in the world. God, as the judge takes it away, to be tried, and determined to its everlasting state. And what will his hope be then? It will be vanity and a lie; it will stand him in no stead.

Delight - When he has nothing else to delight in? No: his delight is in the things of the world, which now sink under him. And those who do not delight in God, will not always, will not long, call upon him.

Have seen - I speak what is confirmed by your own, as well as others experiences. Vain - To condemn me for a wicked man, because I am afflicted.

Remain - Who survive that sword and famine. Widows - For they had many wives. Weep - Because they also, as well as other persons, groaned under their tyranny, and rejoice in their deliverance from it.

As clay - In great abundance.

A moth - Which settleth itself in a garment, but is quickly and unexpectedly dispossessed of its dwelling, and crushed to death. A booth - Which the keeper of a garden or vineyard suddenly rears up in fruit - time, and as quickly pulls down again.

Lie down - In death. Not gathered - Instead of that honourable interment with his fathers, his carcase shall lie like dung upon the earth. One openeth his eyes - That is, while a man can open his eyes, in the twinkling of an eye. He is as if he had never been, dead and gone, and his family and name extinct with him.

Terrors - From the sense of approaching death or judgment. Waters - As violently and irresistibly, as a river breaking its banks, or deluge of waters bears down all before it. A tempest - God's wrath cometh upon him like a tempest, and withal unexpectedly like a thief in the night.

East - wind - Some terrible judgment, fitly compared to the east - wind, which in those parts was most vehement, and pernicious. Carrieth him - Out of his palace wherein he expected to dwell forever; whence he shall be carried either by an enemy, or by death.

Cast - His darts or plagues one after another. Would flee - He earnestly desires to escape the judgments of God, but in vain. Those that will not be persuaded to fly to the arms of Divine grace, which are now stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them.

Clap - In token of their joy at the removal of such a publick pest, by way of astonishment: and in contempt and scorn, all which this gesture signifies in scripture use. His - In token of detestation and derision.

1. MOreover, Job continued his parable , and said,

When he had waited a while to hear what his Friends would reply, and perceived them to be silent.

His grave and weighty, but withal dark and difficult discourse, such as are oft called Parables, as Numb. 23. 7. & 24. 3, 15. Psal. 49. 4. & 78. 2. Prov. 26. 7.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] to take [illegible: 1 word].

2. As God liveth , who hath taken away my judgment , and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul:

He confirms the truth and sincerity of his Expressions by an Oath, because he found them very hard to believe all his professions.

Or, my right, or my cause, i. e. who, though he knows my Integrity and Piety towards him, yet doth not plead my cause against my Friends, not will admit me to plead my cause with him before them, as I have so oft and earnestly desired, nor doth deal with me according to those terms of Grace and Mercy wherewith he treateth other men and Saints, but useth me with great rigour and by his soveraign Power punisheth me sorely without discovering to me what singular cause I have given him to do so.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] my [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

3. All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;

Which is the constant Companion and certain sign of Life both coming in with it, Gen. 2. 7. and going out with it, 1 Kings 17. 17. Psal. 146. 4. Or, my Soul, or Life.

That Spirit or Soul which God breathed into me, Gen. 2. 7. and preserveth in me. Or rather, the breath of God, i. e. which God breathed into me, which eminently appears in a mans nostrils.

Marginal references: That is, [illegible: 1 word] breath [illegible: 1 word] God [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]

4. My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit .

I will speak nothing but the truth with all plainness and impartiality, neither defending my self and cause by vain and false Professions of those Virtues or Graces which I know I have not; nor yet in compliance with your desire and design, falsly accusing my self of those crimes wherewith you charge me, whereof I know my self to be innocent.

5. God forbid that I should justifie you : till I die, I will not remove my integrity from me.

i. e. Your opinion and censure concerning me, as one convicted to be impious or hypocritical; by Gods unusual and severe dealing with me.

To wit, declaratively, as real words are frequentl[illegible: 1+ letters] understood, or by renouncing or denying my Integrity, of which God and my own Conscience bear me witness. I will not to gratifie you say that I am an hypocrite, which I know to be false.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1+ letters].

6. My righteousness I hold fast , and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live .

Heb. I have held fast, i. e. I have not only begun well, but continued in well doing; which is a plain Evidence that I am no hypocrite. Or, the past tense is put for the future, as is usual, I will [illegible: 1 word] fast, declaratively, as before, I will maintain it, that howsoever you calumniate me, I am a righteous person.

i. e. My Conscience, as the [illegible: 1 word] is oft used, as 1 Sam 24. 5. & 25. 31, Ezek. 14. 5. 1 Iob. 3. 20, 21▪

Either 1. with betraying my own cause and innocency, and speaking what I know to be false, to wit, that I am an hypocrite. Or 2. for my former impiety or hypocrisie, wherewith you charge me.

Heb. From, or for, or concerning my days, i. e. the time of my Life, whether past or to come: Or the course of my Life, days, or times being put here, as it is elsewhere, for actions done in them by a Metonymy.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

7. Let mine enemy be as the wicked , and he that riseth up against me , as the unrighteous.

I am so far from loving and practising wickedness, whereof you accuse me, that I abhor the thoughts o[illegible: 1+ letters] it, and if I might and would wish to be revenged of mine Enemy, I could wish him no greater mischief than to be a wicked man.

Either 1. You my Friends, who instead of comforting me, are risen up to torment me. Or rather, my worst enemies.

8. For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained , when God taketh away his soul?

There is no reason why I should envy or desire the portion of wicked men, for though they oft-times prosper in the World, as I have said, and seem to be great gainers, yet death, which hasteneth to all men, and to me especially, will shew that they are far greater losers, and die in a most wretched and desperate condition; having no hope either of continuing in this life, which they chiefly desire, or of enjoying a better Life, which they never regarded. But I have a firm and well grounded hope, not of that temporal restitution which you promised me, but of a blessed immortality after death, and therefore am none of these hopeless Hypocrites, as you account me.

Or exp[illegible: 1+ letters]lleth. Or plucketh up: which notes violence, and that he died unwillingly; Compare Luk. 12. 20. when good men are said freely and chearfully to give themselves or their Souls unto God.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. 16. 26.

9. Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him ?

An hypocrite doth not pray to God with comfort, or any solid hope that God will hear him, as I know he will hear me, though not in the way which you think.

When his guilty Conscience will fly in his face, so as he dare not pray, and accuse him to God so as God will not hear him.

Marginal references: Psal. 18. 41. [illegible: 1+ letters] 109. [illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1 word]. 1. 28. [illegible: 1+ letters] [illegible: 1+ letters]8. 9. [illegible: 1 word]. 1. 15. Ezek. 8. 18. [illegible: 1 word]. 3. 4. Joh. 9. 31. [illegible: 1 word]. 4. 3.

10. Will he delight himself in the Almighty ? will he always call upon God ?

Will he be able to delight and satisfie himself with God alone, and with his Love and favour, when he hath no other matter of delight? This I now do, and this an hypocrite cannot do, because his heart is chiefly set upon the World, and when that fails him, his heart sinks, and the thoughts of God are unfavoury and troublesom to him.

He may by his afflictions be driven to Prayer but if God doth not speedily answer him, he falls into despair and neglect of God and of Prayer, whereas I constantly continue in Prayer, notwithstanding the grievousness, and the long continuance of my Calamities.

11. I will teach you by the hand of God : that which is with the Almighty , will I not conceal.

i. e. By Gods help and inspiration; as God is said to speak to the Prophet with or by a strong hand, Isa. 8. 11. I will not teach you my own vain conceits, but what God himself hath taught me. Or, concerning (as the prefix Beth is oft used, as Exod. 12. 43, 44. Psal. 63. 6. & 87. 3. Prov. 4. 11.) the hand of God, i. e. his Counsel and Providence in governing the World, or the manner of his dealing with men, and especially with wicked men, of whose portion he discourseth v. 13, 14. &c. shewing how far the hand of God is either for them, or upon them, and against them.

i. e. What is in his Breast or Counsel, and how he executes his secret purposes concerning them; or, the truth of God, the Doctrine which he hath taught his Church about these matters.

Marginal references: Or, being in [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word], &c.

12. Behold, all ye your selves have seen it , why then are ye thus altogether vain ?

I speak no false or strange things, but what is known and confirmed by your own as well as others experiences.

In maintaining such a foolish and false opinion against your own knowledge and experience. Why do you obstinately defend your opinion, and not comply with mine, for the truth of which I appeal to your own Consciences?

13. This is the portion of a wicked man with God , and the heritage of Oppressors , which they shall receive of the Almighty.

That which is mentioned in the following Verses. In which Iob delivers either 1. the opinion of his Friends, in whose person he utters them, and afterwards declares his dissent from them. Or rather 2. his own opinion, and how far he agreeth with them; for his sense differs but little from what Zophar said. Ch. 20. 29.

Either laid up with God, or in his Counsel and appointment; or, which he shall have from God, as the next words explain it.

Who are mighty, and fierce, and terrible, and mischievous to mankind, as this word implies, whom therefore men cannot destroy, but God will.

14. If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword : and his off-spring shall not be satisfied with bread .

That they may be cut off by the Sword either of War, or of Justice.

Shall be starved or want necessaries. A Figure called Meiosis.

Marginal references: Deut. 28. 41. Hos. 9. 13.

15. Those that remain of him shall be buried in death : and his Widows shall not weep .

Who survive and escape that Sword and Famine.

Either 1. Shall die and so be buried. Or 2. Shall be buried as soon as ever they are dead, either because their Relations or dependents feared lest they should come to themselves again, and trouble them and others longer; or because they were not able to bestow any funeral Pomp upon them, or thought them unworthy of it. Or 3. Shall be in [illegible: 1+ letters] manner utterly extinct in or by death; all their hope, and glory, and name, and memory (which they designed to perpetuate to all ages) shall be buried with them, and they shall never rise again to a blessed Life, whereas a good man hath hope in his death, and leaves his good-name alive and flourishing in the World, and rests in his Grave in assurance of Redemption from it, and of a glorious Resarrection to an happy and eternal Life.

For they had many Wives, either to gratifie their Lust, or to encrease and strengthen their Family and Interest.

Either, because they durst not lament their death, which was entertained with publick joy: or, because they were overwhelmed and astonished with the greatness and strangeness of the Calamity, and therefore could not weep: or, because they also, as well as other persons, groaned under their Tyranny and cruelty, and rejoiced in their deliverance from it.

Marginal references: Psal. 78. 64.

16. Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay :

i. e. In great abundance.

17. He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on , and the innocent shall divide the silver.

Either because it shall be given to him by the Judge to recompence those Injuries which he received from that Tyrant: Or because the right of it is otherwise transferred upon him by divine Providence.

Either 1. To the poor: he shall distribute that which the oppressors hoarded up and kept as wickedly as he got it. So this suits with Prov. 28. 8. Eccles. 2. 26. Or 2. With others or to himself. He shall have a share of it, when by the Judges sentence those ill-gotten goods shall be restored to the right owners.

18. He buildeth his house as a moth , and as a booth that the keeper maketh .

Which settleth itself in a Garment, but is quickly, and unexpectedly brushed off, and dispossessed of its dwelling, and crushed to death.

Which the Keeper of a Garden or Vineyard suddenly rears up in Fruit-time, and as quickly and easily pulls it down again. See Isa. 1. 8. Lam. 2. 6.

Marginal references: Chap. 8. 15▪

19. The rich man shall lie down , but he shall not be gathered : he openeth his Eyes , and he is not .

Either 1. to sleep; as this word is used, Gen. 19. 35. Deut. 6. 7, &c. Or 2. in death, of which it is used 2 Sam. 7. 12.

To wit, in burial, of which this word is used 2 Kings 22. 20. Ier. 8. 2. & 25. 33. Instead of that honourable Interment and Burial with his Fathers, which he expected, he shall be buried with the burial▪ of an Ass, his Carkass shall lie like dung upon the Earth.

So the sense is either 1. he awaketh in the morning, promising to himself an happy day. Or 2. he looks about him for help and relief in his extremity. But the words are and may be rendred thus: One openeth his Eyes, i. e. whilest a man can open his Eyes, in a moment, or in the twinkling of an Eye.

He is as if he had never been, dead and gone, and his Family and name extinct with him.

Marginal references: 2 King. 2[illegible: 1+ letters]. 20.

20. Terrours take hold on him as Waters , a Tempest stealeth him away in the night .

From the sense of his approaching death or Judgment.

Either 1. in abundance, one terror after another. Or 2. violently and irresistibly, as a River breaking its Banks, or a Deluge of Waters bears down and overwhelms all that is before it.

Gods Wrath and judgment cometh upon him forcibly like a Tempest, and withal secretly and unexpectedly like a Thief in the night.

Marginal references: Ch. 18. 11.

21. The East-wind , carrieth him away , and he departeth: and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.

i. e. Some violent and terrible judgment, fitly compared to the East-wind, which in those parts was most vehement and furious, and withal pestilent and pernicions; of which see Exod. 10. 13. & 14. 21. Psal. 48. 7. & 78. 26. Hos. 13. 15. Iona. 4. 8.

Out of his place, as it follows, out of his stately Palace wherein he expected to dwell for ever; whence he shall be carried either by an enemy that shall take him and carry him into captivity, or by death.

22. For God shall cast upon him , and not spare : he would fain flee out of his hand ▪

His darts or plagues, one after another.

i. e. Shall shew no pity nor Mercy to him, when he crieth to God for it.

He earnestly desires and endeavours by all ways possible to escape the judgments of God, but all in va[illegible: 1+ letters].

Marginal references: In fleeing [illegible: 1 word] would flee.

23. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place .

Who shall see and observe these things.

Partly in token of their joy at the removal of such a publick Pest and Tyrant: and partly by way of astonishment: and partly in contempt, and scorn, or derision; all which this gesture signifies in Scripture use, of which see Lam 2. 15. Ezek. 25. 6. Na[illegible: 1+ letters]. 3. 19.

In token of their amazement. detestation and derision. See 1 King. 9. 8. 2 Chron. 29. 8. Ier. 25. 9. Mich. 6. 16.

Now thathe is out of his place and power, which they durst not do whilest he was in his place. Or, the men of his place that livedwith him or near him, and daily felt the effects of his Tyranny.

Job 27:1-7   1  Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said:   2  As God liveth, who hath deprived me of my right,

And the Almighty, who hath sorely saddened my soul -   3  For still all my breath is in me,

And the breath of Eloah in my nostrils -   4  My lips do not speak what is false,

And my tongue uttereth not deceit!   5  Far be it from me, to grant that you are in the right:

Till I die I will not remove my innocence from me.   6  My righteousness I hold fast, and let it not go:

My heart reproacheth not any of my days.   7  Mine enemy must appear as an evil-doer,

And he who riseth up against me as unrighteous.

The friends are silent, Job remains master of the discourse, and his continued speech is introduced as a continued שׂאת משׁלו (after the analogy of the phrase נשׂא קול), as in Num 23:7 and further on, the oracles of Balaam. משׁל is speech of a more elevated tone and more figurative character; here, as frequently, the unaffected outgrowth of an elevated solemn mood. The introduction of the ultimatum, as משׁל, reminds one of “the proverb (el - methel) seals it” in the mouth of the Arab, since in common life it is customary to use a pithy saying as the final proof at the conclusion of a speech.

Job begins with an asseveration of his truthfulness (i.e., the agreement of his confession with his consciousness) by the life of God. From this oath, which in the form bi - hajât allâh has become later on a common formula of assurance, R. Joshua, in his tractate Sota, infers that Job served God from love to Him, for we only swear by the life of that which we honour and love; it is more natural to conclude that the God by whom on the one hand, he believes himself to be so unjustly treated, still appears to him, on the other hand, to be the highest manifestation of truth. The interjectional clause: living is God! is equivalent to, as true as God liveth. That which is affirmed is not what immediately follows: He has set aside my right, and the Almighty has sorely grieved my soul (Raschi); but הסיר משׁפטי and המר נפשׁי are attributive clauses, by which what is denied in the form of an oath introduced by אם (as Gen 42:15; 1Sa 14:45; 2Sa 11:11, Ges. §155, 2, f) is contained in Job 27:4; his special reference to the false semblance of an evil-doer shows that semblance which suffering casts upon him, but which he constantly repudiates as surely not lying, as that God liveth. Among moderns, Schlottm. (comp. Ges. §150, 3), like most of the old expositors, translates: so long as my breath is in me,...my lips shall speak no wrong, so that Job 27:3 and Job 27:4 together contain what is affirmed. By (1) כּי indeed sometimes introduces that which shall happen as affirmed by oath, Jer 22:5; Jer 49:13; but here that which shall not take place is affirmed, which would be introduced first in a general form by כּי explic. s. recitativum, then according to its special negative contents by אם, - a construction which is perhaps possible according to syntax, but it is nevertheless perplexing; (2) it may perhaps be thought that “the whole continuance of my breath in me” is conceived as accusative and adverbial, and is equivalent to, so long as my breath may remain in me (כל עוד, as long as ever, like the Arab. cullama, as often as ever); but the usage of the language does not favour this explanation, for 2Sa 1:9, נפשׁי בי כל־עוד, signifies my whole soul (my full life) is still in me; and we have a third instance of this prominently placed כל per hypallagen in Hos 14:3, עון כל־תשׂא, omnem auferas iniquitatem, Ew. §289, a (comp. Ges. §114, rem. 1). Accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., Hahn, and most modern expositors, we take Job 27:3 as a parenthetical confirmatory clause, by which Job gives the ground of his solemn affirmation that he is still in possession of his full consciousness, and cannot help feeling and expressing the contradiction between his lot of suffering, which brand shim as an evil-doer, and his moral integrity. The נשׁמתי which precedes the רוח signifies, according to the prevailing usage of the language, the intellectual, and therefore self-conscious, soul of man (Psychol. S. 76f.). This is in man and in his nostrils, inasmuch as the breath which passes in and out by these is the outward and visible form of its being, which is in every respect the condition of life (ib. S. 82f.). The suff. of נשׁמתי is unaccented; on account of the word which follows being a monosyllable, the tone has retreated (נסוג אחור, to use a technical grammatical expression), as e.g., also in Job 19:25; Job 20:2; Psa 22:20. Because he lives, and, living, cannot deny his own existence, he swears that his own testimony, which is suspected by the friends, and on account of which they charge him with falsehood, is perfect truth.

Job 27:4 is not to be translated: “my lips shall never speak what is false;” for it is not a resolve which Job thus strongly makes, after the manner of a vow, but the agreement of his confession, which he has now so frequently made, and which remains unalterable, with the abiding fact. Far be from me - he continues in Job 27:5 - to admit that you are right (חלילה לּי with unaccented ah, not of the fem., comp. Job 34:10, but of direction: for a profanation to me, i.e., let it be profane to me, Ew. §329, a, Arab. hâshâ li , in the like sense); until I expire (prop.: sink together), I will not put my innocence (תּמּה, perfection, in the sense of purity of character) away from me, i.e., I will not cease from asserting it. I will hold fast (as ever) my righteousness, and leave it not, i.e., let it not go or fall away; my heart does not reproach even one of my days. מיּמי is virtually an obj. in a partitive sense: mon coeur ne me reproche pas un seul de mes jours (Renan). The heart is used here as the seat of the conscience, which is the knowledge possessed by the heart, by which it excuses or accuses a man (Psychol. S. 134); חרף (whence חרף, the season in which the fruits are gathered) signifies carpere, to pluck = to pinch, lash, inveigh against. Jos. Kimchi and Ralbag explain: my heart draws not back) from the confession of my innocence) my whole life long (as Maimonides explains נחרפת, Lev 19:20, of the female slave who is inclined to, i.e., stands near to, the position of a free woman), by comparison with the Arabic inḥarafa , deflectere; it is not, however, Arab. ḥrf , but chrf , decerpere, that is to be compared in the tropical sense of the prevailing usage of the Hebrew specified. The old expositors were all misled by the misunderstood partitive מימי, which they translated ex (= inde a) diebus meis. There is in Job 27:7 no ground for taking יהי, with Hahn, as a strong affirmative, as supposed in Job 18:12, and not as expressive of desire; but the meaning is not: let my opponents be evil-doers, I at least am not one (Hirz.). The voluntative expresses far more emotion: the relation must be reversed; he who will brand me as an evil-doer, must by that very act brand himself as such, inasmuch as the מרשׁיע of a צדיק really shows himself to be a רשׁע, and by recklessly judging the righteous, is bringing down upon himself a like well-merited judgment. The כּ is the so-called Caph veritatis, since כּ, instar, signifies not only similarity, but also quality. Instead of קימי, the less manageable, primitive form, which the poet used in Job 22:20 (comp. p. 483), and beside which קם (קום,   2Ki 16:7) does not occur in the book, we here find the more usual form מתקוממי (comp. Job 20:27).In Beduin the enemy is called qômâni (vid., supra, on Job 24:12, p. 505), a denominative from qôm, Arab. qawm , war, feud; but qôm has also the signification of a collective of qômâni, and one can also say: entum wa - ijânâ qôm , you and we are enemies, and bênâtna qôm , there is war between us. - Wetzst.

The description of the misfortune of the ungodly which now follows, beginning with כי, requires no connecting thought, as for instance: My enemy must be accounted as ungodly, on account of his hostility; I abhor ungodliness, for, etc.; but that he who regards him as a רשׁע is himself a רשׁע, Job shows from the fact of the רשׁע having no hope in death, whilst, when dying, he can give no confident hope of a divine vindication of his innocence.

Job 27:8-12   8  For what is the hope of the godless, when He cutteth off,

When Eloah taketh away his soul?   9  Will God hear his cry

When distress cometh upon him? 10  Or can he delight himself in the Almighty,

Can he call upon Eloah at all times? 11  I will teach you concerning the hand of God,

I will not conceal the dealings of the Almighty. 12  Behold, ye have all seen it,

Why then do ye cherish foolish notions?

In comparing himself with the רשׁע, Job is conscious that he has a God who does not leave him unheard, in whom he delights himself, and to whom he can at all times draw near; as, in fact, Job’s fellowship with God rests upon the freedom of the most intimate confidence. He is not one of the godless; for what is the hope of one who is estranged from God, when he comes to die? He has no God on whom his hope might establish itself, to whom it could cling. The old expositors err in many ways respecting Job 27:8, by taking בצע, abscindere (root בץ), in the sense of (opes) corradere (thus also more recently Rosenm. after the Targ., Syr., and Jer.), and referring ישׁל to שׁלה in the signification tranquillum esse (thus even Blumenfeld after Ralbag and others). נפשׁו is the object to both verbs, and בצע נפשׁ, abscindere animam, to cut off the thread of life, is to be explained according to Job 6:9; Isa 38:12. שׁלח נפשׁ, extrahere animam (from שׁלה, whence שׁליח Arab. salan, the after-birth, cogn. שׁלל . Arab. sll , נשׁל Arab. nsl , nṯl , nšl), is of similar signification, according to another figure, wince the body is conceived of as the sheath (נדנה, Dan 7:15) of the soulOn the similar idea of the body, as the kosha (sheath) of the soul, among the Hindus, vid., Psychol. S. 227. (comp. Arab. sll in the universal signification evaginare ensem). The fut. apoc. Kal ישׁל (= ישׁל) is therefore in meaning equivalent to the intrans. ישּׁל, Deu 28:40 (according to Ew. §235, c, obtained from this by change of vowel), decidere; and Schnurrer’s supposition that ישׁל, like the Arab. ysl, is equivalent to ישׁאל (when God demands it), or such a violent correction as De Lagarde'sAnm. zur griech. Uebers. der Proverbien (1863), S. VI.f., where the first reason given for this improvement of the text is this, that the usual explanation, according to which ישׁל and יבצע have the same subj. and obj. standing after the verb, is altogether contrary to Semitic usage. But this assertion is groundless, as might be supposed from the very beginning. Thus, e.g., the same obj. is found after two verbs in Job 20:19, and the same subj. and obj. in Neh 3:20. (when he is in distress יצק, when one demeans his soul with a curse ישּׁאל בּאלה), is unnecessary.

The ungodly man, Job goes on to say, has no God to hear his cry when distress comes upon him; he cannot delight himself (יתענּג, pausal form of יתענג, the primary form of יתענג) in the Almighty; he cannot call upon Eloah at any time (i.e., in the manifold circumstances of life under which we are called to feel the dependence of our nature). Torn away from God, he cannot be heard, he cannot indeed pray and find any consolation in God. It is most clearly manifest here, since Job compares his condition of suffering with that of a חנף, what comfort, what power of endurance, yea, what spiritual joy in the midst of suffering (התענג, as Job 22:26; Psa 37:4, Psa 37:11; Isa 55:2; Isa 58:13), which must all remain unknown to the ungodly, he can draw from his fellowship with God; and seizing the very root of the distinction between the man who fears God and one who is utterly godless, his view of the outward appearance of the misfortune of both becomes changed; and after having allowed himself hitherto to be driven from one extreme to another by the friends, as the heat of the controversy gradually cools down, and as, regaining his independence, he stands before them as their teacher, he now experiences the truth of docendo discimus in rich abundance. I will instruct you, says he, in the hand, i.e., the mode of action, of God (בּ just as in Psa 25:8, Psa 25:12; Psa 32:8; Pro 4:11, of the province and subject of instruction); I will not conceal עם־שׁדּי אשׁר, i.e., according to the sense of the passage: what are the principles upon which He acts; for that which is with (אם) any one is the matter of his consciousness and volition (vid., on Job 23:10).Job 27:12 is of the greatest importance in the right interpretation of what follows from Job 27:13 onwards. The instruction which Job desires to impart to the friends has reference to the lot of the evil-doer; and when he says: Behold, ye yourselves have beheld (learnt) it all, - in connection with which it is to be observed that אתּם כּלּכם does not signify merely vos omnes, but vosmet ipsi omnes, - he grants to them what he appeared hitherto to deny, that the lot of the evil-doer, certainly in the rule, although not without exceptions, is such as they have said. The application, however, which they have made of this abiding fact of experience, as and remains all the more false: Wherefore then (זה makes the question sharper) are ye vain (blinded) in vanity (self-delusion), viz., in reference to me, who do not so completely bear about the characteristic marks of a רשׁע? The verb הבל signifies to think and act vainly (without ground or connection), 2Ki 17:15 (comp. ἐματαιώθησαν, Rom 1:21); the combination הבל הבל is not to be judged of according to Ges. §138, rem. 1, as it is also by Ew. §281, a, but הבל may also be taken as the representative of the gerund, as e.g., עריה, Hab 3:9.

In the following strophe (Job 27:13) Job now begins as Zophar (Job 20:29) concluded. He gives back to the friends the doctrine they have fully imparted to him. They have held the lot of the evil-doer before him as a mirror, that he may behold himself in it and be astounded; he holds it before them, that they may perceive how not only his bearing under suffering, but also the form of his affliction, is of a totally different kind.

Job 27:13-18 13  This is the lot of the wicked man with God,

And the heritage of the violent which they receive from the Almighty: 14  If his children multiply, it is for the sword,

And his offspring have not bread enough. 15  His survivors shall be buried by the pestilence,

And his widows shall not weep. 16  If he heapeth silver together as dust,

And prepareth garments for himself as mire: 17  He prepareth it, and the righteous clothe themselves,

And the innocent divide the silver among themselves. 18  He hath built as a moth his house,

And as a hut that a watchman setteth up.

We have already had the combination אדם רשׁע for אישׁ רשׁע in Job 20:29; it is a favourite expression in Proverbs, and reminds one of ἄνθρωπος ὁδίτης in Homer, and ἄνθρωπος σπείρωϚ, ἐχθρός, ἔμπορος, in the parables Matt 13. Psik (Pasek) stands under רשׁע, to separate the wicked man and God, as in Pro 15:29 (Norzi). למו, exclusively peculiar to the book of Job in the Old Testament (here and Job 29:21; Job 38:40; Job 40:4), is ל rendered capable of an independent position by means of מו = מה, Arab. mâ. The sword, famine, and pestilence are the three punishing powers by which the evil-doer’s posterity, however numerous it may be, is blotted out; these three, חרב, רעב, and מות, appear also side by side in Jer 15:2; מות, instead of ממותי, diris mortibus, is (as also Jer 18:21) equivalent to דּבר in the same trio, Jer 14:12; the plague is personified (as when it is called by an Arabian poet umm el - farit , the mother of death), and Vavassor correctly observes: Mors illos sua sepeliet, nihil praeterea honoris supremi consecuturos. Böttcher (de inferis, §72) asserts that במות can only signify pestilentiae tempore, or better, ipso mortis momento; but since בּ occurs by the passive elsewhere in the sense of ab or per, e.g., Num 36:2; Hos 14:4, it can also by נקבר denote the efficient cause. Olshausen’s correction במות לא יקברו, they will not be buried when dead (Jer 16:4), is still less required; “to be buried by the pestilence” is equivalent to, not to be interred with the usual solemnities, but to be buried as hastily as possible.Job 27:15 (common to our poet and the psalm of Asaph, 78:64, which likewise belongs to the Salomonic age) is also to be correspondingly interpreted: the women that he leaves behind do not celebrate the usual mourning rites (comp. Gen 23:2), because the decreed punishment which, stroke after stroke, deprives them of husbands and children, prevents all observance of the customs of mourning, and because the shock stifles the feeling of pity. The treasure in gold which his avarice has heaped up, and in garments which his love of display has gathered together, come into the possession of the righteous and the innocent, who are spared when these three powers of judgment sweep away the evil-doer and his family. Dust and dirt (i.e., of the streets, חוצות) are, as in Zec 9:3, the emblem of a great abundance that depreciates even that which is valuable. The house of the ungodly man, though a palace, is, as the fate of the fabric shows, as brittle and perishable a thing, and can be as easily destroyed, as the fine spinning of a moth, עשׁ (according to the Jewish proverb, the brother of the סס), or even the small case which it makes from remnants of gnawed articles, and drags about with it; it is like a light hut, perhaps for the watchman of a vineyard (Isa 1:8), which is put together only for the season during which the grapes are ripening.The watchman’s hut, for the protection of the vineyards and melon and maize fields against thieves, herds, or wild beasts, is now called either ‛arı̂she and mantara (מנטרה) if it is only slightly put together from branches of trees, or chême (הימה) if it is built up high in order that the watcher may see a great distance. The chême is the more frequent; at harvest it stands in the midst of the threshing-floors (bejâdir) of a district, and it is constructed in the following manner: - Four poles (‛awâmı̂d) are set up so as to form the corners of a square, the sides of which are about eight feet in length. Eight feet above the ground, four cross pieces of wood ('awârid) are tightly bound to these with cords, on which planks, if they are to be had, are laid. Here is the watcher’s bed, which consists of a litter. Six or seven feet above this, cross-beams are again bound to the four poles, on which boughs, or reeds (qasab), or a mat (hası̂ra, חצירה) forms a roof (sath, שׂטח), from which the chême has its name; for the Piel-forms ערּשׁ, חיּם, and שׂטּח signify, “to be stretched over anything after the manner of a roof.” Between the roof and the bed, three sides of the che=me are hung round with a mat, or with reeds or straws (qashsh, קשׁ) bound together, in order both to keep off the cold night-winds, and also to keep the thieves in ignorance as to the number of the watchers. A small ladder, sullem (סלּם), frequently leads to the bed-chamber. The space between the ground and this chamber is closed only on the west side to keep off the hot afternoon sun, for through the day the watcher sits below with his dog, upon the ground. Here is also his place of reception, if any passers-by visit him; for, like the village shepherd, the field-watcher has the right of showing a humble hospitality to any acquaintances. When the fruits have been gathered in, the chême is removed. The field-watchman is now called nâtûr (Arab. nâṭûr), and the verb is natar, נטר, “to keep watch,” instead of which the quadriliteral nôtar, נוטר (from the plur. Arab. nwâṭı̂r, “the watchers”), has also been formed. In one part of Syria all these forms are written with צ (d) instead of ט fo da, and pronounced accordingly. The נצר in this passage is similarly related to the נטר in Sol 1:6; Sol 8:11-12. - Wetzst.

Job 27:19-23 19  He lieth down rich, and doeth it not again,

He openeth his eyes and-is no more. 20  Terrors take hold of him as a flood;

By night a tempest stealeth him away. 21  The east wind lifteth him up, that he departeth,

And hurleth him forth from his place. 22  God casteth upon him without sparing,

Before His hand he fleeth utterly away. 23  They clap their hands at him,

And hiss him away from his place.

The pointing of the text ולא יאסף is explained by Schnurr., Umbr., and Stick.: He goes rich to bed and nothing is taken as yet, he opens his eyes and nothing more is there; but if this were the thought intended, it ought at least to have been ואין נאסף, since לא signifies non, not nihil; and Stickel’s translation, “while nothing is carried away,” makes the fut. instead of the praet., which was to be expected, none the more tolerable; also אסף can indeed signify to gather hastily together, to take away (e.g., Isa 33:4), when the connection favours it, but not here, where the first impression is that רשׁע is the subj. both to ולא יאסף and to ואיננו. Böttcher’s translation, “He lieth down rich and cannot be displaced,” gives the words a meaning that is ridiculed by the usage of the language. On the other hand, ולא יאסף can signify: and he is not conveyed away (comp. e.g., Jer 8:2; Eze 29:5; but not Isa 57:1, where it signifies to be swept away, and also not Num 20:26, where it signifies to be gathered to the fathers), and is probably intended to be explained after the pointing that we have, as Rosenm. and even Ralbag explain it: “he is not conveyed away; one opens his eyes and he is not;” or even as Schlottm.: “he is not conveyed away; in one moment he still looks about him, in the next he is no more;” but the relation of the two parts of the verse in this interpretation is unsatisfactory, and the preceding strophe has already referred to his not being buried. Since, therefore, only an unsuitable, and what is more, a badly-expressed thought, is gained by this reading, it may be that the expression should be regarded with Hahn as interrogative: is he not swept away? This, however, is only a makeshift, and therefore we must see whether it may not perhaps be susceptible of another pointing. Jerome transl.: dives cum dormierit, nihil secum auferet; the thought is not bad, but מאוּמה is wanting, and לא alone does not signify nihil. Better lxx (Ital., Syr.): πλούσιος κοιμηθήσεται καὶ ου ̓ προσθήσει. This translation follows the form of reading יאסף = יוסיף, gives a suitable sense, places both parts of the verse in the right relation, and accords with the style of the poet (vid., Job 20:9; Job 40:5); and accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we decide in favour of this reading: he lieth down to sleep rich, and he doeth it no more, since in the night he is removed from life and also from riches by sudden death; or also: in the morning he openeth his eyes without imagining it is the last time, for, overwhelmed by sudden death, he closes them for ever. Job 27:20 and Job 27:20 are attached crosswise (chiastisch) to this picture of sudden destruction, be it by night or by day: the terrors of death seize him (sing. fem. with a plur. subj. following it, according to Ges. §146, 3) like a flood (comp. the floods of Belial, Psa 18:5), by night a whirlwind (גּנבתּוּ סוּפה, as Job 21:18) carrieth him away. The Syriac and Arabic versions add, as a sort of interpolation: as a fluttering (large white) night-moth, - an addition which no one can consider beautiful.

Job 27:21 extends the figure of the whirlwind. In Hebrew, even when the narrative has reference to Egyptian matters (Gen 41:23), the קדים which comes from the Arabian desert is the destructive, devastating, and parching wind κατ ̓ εξοχὴν.In Syria and Arabia the east wind is no longer called qadı̂m, but exclusively sharqı̂ja, i.e., the wind that blows from the rising of the sun (sharq). This wind rarely prevails in summer, occurring then only two or three days a month on an average; it is more frequent in the winter and early spring, when, if it continues long, the tender vegetation is parched up, and a year of famine follows, whence in the Lebanon it is called semûm (שׂמוּם), which in the present day denotes the “poisonous wind” (= nesme musimme), but originally, by alliance with the Hebr. שׁמם, denoted the “devastating wind.” The east wind is dry; it excites the blood, contracts the chest, causes restlessness and anxiety, and sleepless nights or evil dreams. Both man and beast feel weak and sickly while it prevails. Hence that which is unpleasant and revolting in life is compared to the east wind. Thus a maid in Hauran, at the sight of one of my Damascus travelling companions, whose excessive ugliness struck her, cried: billâh , nahâr el - jôm aqshar (Arab. 'qšr), wagahetni (Arab. w - jhṫnı̂ sharqı̂ja, “by God, it is an unhealthy day to-day: an east wind blew upon me.” And in a festive dance song of the Merg district, these words occur:wa rudd lı̂ hômet hodênik seb‛ lejâlı̂ bi - ‛olı̂ja wa berd wa sherd wa sharqı̂ja... ”And grant me again to slumber on thy bosom,

Seven nights in an upper chamber,

And (I will then endure) cold, drifting snow, and east wind.”

During the harvest, so long as the east wind lasts, the corn that is already threshed and lying on the threshing-floors cannot be winnowed; a gentle, moderate draught is required for this process, such as is only obtained by a west or south wind. The north wind is much too strong, and the east wind is characterized by constant gusts, which, as the Hauranites say, “jôchotû tibn wa - habb , carried away chaff and corn.” When the wind shifts from the west to the east, a whirlwind (zôba‛a, זובעה) not unfrequently arises, which often in summer does much harm to the threshing-floors and to the cut corn that is lying in swaths (unless it is weighted with stones). Storms are rare during an east wind; they come mostly with a west wind (never with a south or north wind). But if an east wind does bring a storm, it is generally very destructive, on account of its strong gusts; and it will even uproot the largest trees. - Wetzst.) וילך signifies peribit (ut pereat), as Job 14:20; Job 19:10. שׂער (comp. סערה, O storm-chased one) is connected with the accus. of the person pursued, as in Psa 58:10. The subj. of וישׁלך, Job 27:22, is God, and the verb stands without an obj.: to cast at any one (shoot), as Num 35:22 (for the figure, comp. Job 16:13); lxx correctly: ἐπιῤῥίψει (whereas Job 18:7, σφάλαι = ותכשׁילהו). The gerundive with יברח lays stress upon the idea of the exertion of flight: whithersoever he may flee before the hand of God, every attempt is in vain. The suff. êmo , Job 27:22, both according to the syntax and the matter, may be taken as the plural suff.; but the fact that כּפּימו can be equivalent to כּפּיו (comp. Psa 11:7), עלימו to עליו (comp. Job 20:23; Job 22:2), as למו is equivalent to לו ot tn (vid., Isa 44:15; Isa 53:8), is established, and there is no reason why the same may not be the case here. The accumulation of the terminations êmo and ômo gives a tone of thunder and a gloomy impress to this conclusion of the description of judgment, as these terminations frequently occur in the book of Psalms, where moral depravity is mourned and divine judgment threatened (e.g., in Psa 17:1-15; 49; 58:1-59:17; 73). The clapping of hands (שׂפק כּפּים = ספק, Lam 2:15, comp. תּקע, Nah 3:19) is a token of malignant joy, and hissing (שׁרק, Zep 2:15; Jer 49:17) a token of scorn. The expression in Job 27:23 is a pregnant one. Clapping of hands and hissing accompany the evil-doer when merited punishment overtakes him, and chases him forth from the place which he hitherto occupied (comp. Job 8:18).

Earlier expositors have thought it exceedingly remarkable that Job, in Job 27:13-23, should agree with the assertions of the three friends concerning the destiny of the ungodly and his descendants, while he has previously opposed them on this point, Job 12:6, Job 12:21, Job 12:24. Kennicott thinks the confusion is cleared away by regarding Job 26:2-27:12 as Job’s answer to the third speech of Bildad, Job 27:13. as the third speech of Zophar, and Job 28:1 (to which the superscription Job 27:1 belongs) as Job’s reply thereto; but this reply begins with כּי, and is specially appropriate as a striking repartee to the speech of Zophar. Stuhlmann (1804) makes this third speech of Zophar begin with Job 27:11, and imagines a gap between Job 27:10 and Job 27:11; but who then are the persons whom Zophar addresses by “you”? The three everywhere address themselves to Job, while here Zophar, contrary to custom, would address himself not to him, but, according to Stuhlmann’s exposition, to the others with reference to Job. Job 28 Stuhlmann removes and places after Job 25:1-6 as a continuation of Bildad’s speech; Zophar’s speech therefore remains unanswered, and Zophar may thank this critic not only for allowing him another opportunity of speaking, but also for allowing him the last word. Bernstein (Keil-Tzschirner’s Analekten, Bd. i. St. 3) removes the contradiction into which Job seems to fall respecting himself in a more thorough manner, by rejecting the division Job 27:7-28:28, which is certainly indissolubly connected as a whole, as a later interpolation; but there is no difference of language and poetic spirit here betraying an interpolator; and had there been one, even he ought indeed to have proceeded on the assumption that such an insertion should be appropriate to Job’s mouth, so that the task of proving its relative fitness, from his standpoint at least, remains. Hosse (1849) goes still further: he puts Job 27:10; Job 31:35-37; Job 38:1, etc., together, and leaves out all that comes between these passages. There is then no transition whatever from the entanglement to the unravelment. Job’s final reply, Job 27:1, with the monologue Job 29:1, in which even a feeble perception must recognise one of the most essential and most beautiful portions of the dramatic whole, forms this transition.

Eichhorn (in his translation of Job, 1824), who formerly (Allgem. Bibliothek der bibl. Lit. Bd. 2) inclined to Kennicott’s view, and Böckel (2nd edition, 1804) seek another explanation of the difficulty, by supposing that in Job 27:13-23 Job reproduces the view of the friends. But in Job 27:11 Job announces the setting forth of his own view; and the supposition that with זה חלק אדם רשׁע he does not begin the enunciation of his own view, but that of his opponents, is refuted by the consideration that there is nothing by which he indicates this, and that he would not enter so earnestly into the description if it were not the feeling of his heart. Feeling the worthlessness of these attempted solutions, De Wette (Einleitung, §288), with his customary spirit of criticism with which he depreciates the sacred writers, turns against the poet himself. Certainly, says he, the division Job 27:11-28:28 is inappropriate and self-contradictory in the mouth of Job; but this wan to clearness, not to say inconsistency, must be brought against the poet, who, despite his utmost endeavour, has not been able to liberate himself altogether from the influence of the common doctrine of retribution.

This judgment is erroneous and unjust. Umbreit (2nd edition, S. 261 [Clark’s edition, 1836, ii. 122]) correctly remarks, that “without this apparent contradiction in Job’s speeches, the interchange of words would have been endless;” in other words: had Job’s standpoint been absolutely immoveable, the controversy could not possibly have come to a well-adjusted decision, which the poet must have planned, and which he also really brings about, by causing his hero still to retain an imperturbable consciousness of his innocence, but also allowing his irritation to subside, and his extreme harshness to become moderated. The latter, in reference to the final destiny of the godless, is already indicated in Job 24, but is still more apparent here in Job 27, and indeed in the following line of thought: ”As truly as God lives, who afflicts me, the innocent one, I will not incur the guilt of lying, by allowing myself to be persuaded against my conscience to regard myself as an evil-doer. I am not an evil-doer, but my enemy who regards me and treats me as such must be accounted wicked; for how unlike the hopelessness and estrangement from God, in which the evil-doer dies, is my hope and entreaty in the midst of the heaviest affliction! Yea, indeed, the fate of the evil-doer is a different one from mine. I will teach it you; ye have all, indeed, observed it for yourselves, and nevertheless ye cherish such vain thoughts concerning me.” What is peculiar in the description that then follows - a description agreeing in its substance with that of the three, and similar in its form - is therefore this, that Job holds up the end of the evil-doer before the friends, that form it they may infer that he is not an evil-doer, whereas the friends held it up before Job that he might infer from it that he is an evil-doer, and only by a penitent acknowledgment of this can he escape the extreme of the punishment he has merited. Thus in Job 27:1 Job turns their own weapon against the friends.

But does he not, by doing so, fall into contradiction with himself? Yes; and yet not so. The Job who has become calmer here comes into contradiction with the impassioned Job who had, without modification, placed the exceptional cases in opposition to the exclusive assertion that the evil-doer comes to a fearful end, which the friends advance, as if it were the rule that the prosperity of the evil-doer continues uninterrupted to the very end of his days. But Job does not come into collision with his true view. For how could he deny that in the rule the retributive justice of God is manifest in the cast of the evil-doer! We can only perceive his true opinion when we compare the views he here expresses with his earlier extreme antitheses: hitherto, in the heat of the controversy, he has opposed that which the friends onesidedly maintained by the direct opposite; now he has got upon the right track of thought, in which the fate of the evil-doer presents itself to him from another and hitherto mistaken side, - a phase which is also but imperfectly appreciated in Job 24; ; so that now at last he involuntarily does justice to what truth there is in the assertion of his opponent. Nevertheless, it is not Job’s intention to correct himself here, and to make an admission to the friends which has hitherto been refused. Hirzel’s explanation of this part inclines too much to this erroneous standpoint. On the contrary, our rendering accords with that of Ewald, who observes (S. 252f. 2nd edition, 1854) that Job here maintains in his own favour, and against them, what the friends directed against him, since the hope of not experiencing such an evil-doer’s fate becomes strong in him: “Job is here on the right track for more confidently anticipating his own rescue, or, what is the same thing, the impossibility of his perishing just as if he were an evil-doer.” Moreover, how well designed is it that the description Job 27:23. is put into Job’s mouth! While the poet allows the friends designedly to interweave lines taken from Job’s misfortunes into their descriptions of the evil-doer’s fate, in Job’s description not one single line is found which coincides with his own lot, whether with that which he has already experience, or even with that which his faith presents to him as in prospect. And although the heavy lot which has befallen him looks like the punitive suffering of the evil-doer, he cannot acknowledge it as such, and even denies its bearing the marks of such a character, since even in the midst of affliction he clings to God, and confidently hopes for His vindication. With this rendering of Job 27:13. all doubts of its genuineness, which is indeed admitted by all modern expositors, vanish; and, far from charging the poet with inconsistency, one is led to admire the undiminished skill with which he brings the idea of the drama by concealed ways to its goal.

But the question still comes up, whether Job 28:1, opening with כּי, does not militate against this genuineness. Hirzel and others observe, that this כי introduces the confirmation of Job 27:12: ”But wherefore then do ye cherish such vain imaginations concerning me? For human sagacity and perseverance can accomplish much, but the depths of divine wisdom are impenetrable to man.” But how is it possible that the כי, Job 28:1, should introduce the confirmation of Job 27:12, passing over Job 27:13? If it cannot be explained in any other way, it appears that Job 27:13 must be rejected. There is the same difficulty in comprehending it by supplying some suppressed thought, as e.g., Ewald explains it: For, as there may also be much in the divine dealings that is dark, etc.; and Hahn: Because evil-doers perish according to their desert, it does not necessarily follow that every one who perishes is an evil-doer, and that every prosperous person is godly, for - the wisdom of God is unsearchable. This mode of explanation, which supposes, between the close of Job 27:1 and the beginning of Job 28:1, what is not found there, is manifestly forced; and in comparison with it, it would be preferable, with Stickel, to translate כי “because,” and take Job 28:1-2 as the antecedent to Job 28:3. Then after Job 27:1 a dash might be made; but this dash would indicate an ugly blank, which would be no honour to the poet. Schlottmann explains it more satisfactorily. He takes Job 27:13. as a warning addressed to the friends, lest they bring down upon themselves, by their unjust judgment, the evil-doer’s punishment which they have so often proclaimed. If this rendering of Job 27:13. were correct, the description of the fate of the evil-doer would be influenced by an underlying thought, to which the following statement of the exalted nature of the divine wisdom would be suitably connected as a confirmation. We cannot, however, consider this rendering as correct. The picture ought to have been differently drawn, if it had been designed to serve as a warning to the friends.

It has a different design. Job depicts the revelation of the divine justice which is exhibited in the issue of the life of the evil doer, to teach the friends that they judge him and his lot falsely. To this description of punishment, which is intended thus and not otherwise, Job 28:1 with its confirmatory כי must be rightly connected. If this were not feasible, one would be disposed, with Pareau, to alter the position of Job 28:1, as if it were removed from its right place, and put it after Job 26:1. But we are cautioned against such a violent measure, by the consideration that it is not evident from Job 26:1 why the course of thought in Job 28:1, which begins with כי, should assume the exact form in which we find it; whereas, on the other hand, it was said in Job 27:1 that the ungodly heaps up silver, כסף, like dust, but that the innocent who live to see his fall divide this silver, כסף, among themselves; so that when in Job 28:1 it continues: כי ישׁ לכסף מוצא, there is a connection of thought for which the way has been previously prepared.

If we further take into consideration the fact of Job 28:1 being only an amplification of the one closing thought to which everything tends, viz., that the fear of God is man’s true wisdom, then Job 28:1, also in reference to this its special point, is suitably attached to the description of the evil-doer’s fate, Job 27:13 The miserable end of the ungodly is confirmed by this, that the wisdom of man, which he has despised, consists in the fear of God; and Job thereby at the same time attains the special aim of his teaching, which is announced at Job 27:11 by אורה אתכם ביד־אל: viz., he has at the same time proved that he who retains the fear of God in the midst of his sufferings, though those sufferings are an insoluble mystery, cannot be a רשׁע. This design of the conformation, and that connection of thought, which should be well noted, prove that Job 28:1 stands in its original position. And if we ponder the fact, that Job has depicted the ungodly as a covetous rich man who is snatched away by sudden death from his immense possession of silver and other costly treasures, we see that Job 28:1 confirms the preceding picture of punitive judgment in the following manner: silver and other precious metals come out of the earth, but wisdom, whose value exceeds all these earthly treasures, is to be found nowhere within the province of the creature; God alone possesses it, and from God alone it comes; and so as man can and is to attain to it, it consists in the fear of the Lord, and the forsaking of evil. This is the close connection of Job 28:1 with what immediately precedes, which most expositors since Schultens have missed, by transferring the central point to the unsearchableness of the divine wisdom which rules in the world; whereas Bouiller correctly observes that the whole of Job 28:1 treats not so much of the wisdom of God as of the wisdom of man, which God, the sole possessor of wisdom, imparts to him: omnibus divitiis, fluxis et evanidis illis possessio praeponderat sapientiae, quae in pio Dei cultu et fuga mali est posita. The view of von Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, i. 96, 2nd edit.) accords with this: ”If Job 28:1, where a confirmatory or explanatory כי forms the transition, is taken together with Job 28:12, where another part of the speech is introduced with a Waw, and finally with Job 28:28, where this is rounded off, as forming the unity of one thought: it thus proves that the final destruction of the godless, who is happy and prosperous in worldly things, is explained by the fact that man can obtain every kind of hidden riches by his own exertion and courage, but not the wisdom which is not indigenous to this outward world, but is known to God alone, and is to be learned from Him only; and the teaching concerning it is: behold, the fear of God, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”

Before we now pass on to the detailed exposition of Job 28:1, we may perhaps here, without anticipating, put the question. Whence has the poet obtained the knowledge of the different modes of mining operations which is displayed in Job 28:1, and which has every appearance of being the result of personal observation? Since, as we have often remarked already, he is well acquainted with Egypt, it is most natural that he derived this his knowledge from Egypt and the Sinaitic peninsula. The ruins of mines found there show that the Sinaitic peninsula has been worked as a mining district from the earliest times. The first of these mining districts is the Wadi Nasb, where Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) found traces of old smelting-places, and where also Graul and his companions, having their attention drawn to it by Wilkinson’s work, searched for the remains of a mine, and found at least traces of copper slag, but could see nothing more (Reise, ii. 202). E. Rüppell explored the spot at the desire of the Viceroy Mehemed Ali, and Russegger with less successful result (vid., the particular sin Ritter’s Erdkunde, xiv. 784-788).The valley is not called Wadi nahas (Copper valley), which is only a supposition of Rüppell, but Wadi nasb, Arab. naṣb, which, according to Reinaud, signifies valley of statues of columns. Thirty hours’ journey from Suez, says a connoisseur in the Historisch-politische Blätter, 1863, S. 802f., lies the Wadi nesb [a pronunciation which assumes the form of writing Arab. nsb]; it is rare that the ore is so easy to get, and found in such abundance, for the blocks containing the copper are in many places 200 feet in diameter, and the ore is almost in a pure state. The mineral (the black earth containing the copper) abounds in the metal ... . Besides this, iron-ore, manganese, carbonate of lead, and also the exceeding precious cinnabar, have been discovered on Sinai.

A second mining district is denoted by the ruins of a temple of Hathor, on the steep terrace of the rising ground Sarbut (Serâbît) el-châdim, which stretches out into a spacious valley. This field of ruins, with its many lofty columns within the still recognisable area of a temple, and round about it, gives the impression of a large burying-ground, and it is described and represented as such by Carsten Niebuhr (Reise, 235, Tafel xliv.). In February 1854, Graul (Reise, ii. 203) and Tischendorf spent a short time upon this eminence of the desert, which is hard to climb, and abounds in monuments. It produced a strong impression upon us - says the latter (Aus dem heiligen Lande, S. 35) - as we tarried in the midst of the grotesque forms of these monuments, while the setting sun cast its deep red gleam over the wild terrific-looking copper rocks that lay around in their varied shades, now light, now dark. That these copper rocks were worked in ancient days, is proved by the large black heaps of slag which Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) discovered to the east and west of the temple. Moreover, in the inscriptions Hathor bears the by-name “Queen of Mafkat,” i.e., the copper country (mafka, copper, with the feminine post-positive article t). It even bears this name on the monuments in the Wadi maghâra, one of the side-gorges of the Wadi mucatteb (i.e., the Written Valley, valley full of inscriptions). These signs of another ancient mining colony belong almost entirely to the earliest Egyptian antiquity, while those on Sarbut el-châdim extend back only to Amenemha III, consequently to the last dynasty of the old kingdom. Even the second king of the fifth dynasty, Snefru, and indeed his predecessor (according to Lepsius, his successor) Chufu - that Che'ops who built the largest pyramid - appear here as conquerors of foreign peoples, and the mountainous district dedicated to Hathor is also called Mafka.t. The remains of a mine, discovered by J. Wilson, at the eastern end of the north side of the Wady mucatteb, also belongs to this copper country: they lie near the road, but in back gorges; there is a very high wall of rock of granite or porphyry, which is penetrated by dark seams of metal, which have been worked out from above downwards, thus forming artificial caverns, pits, and shafts; and it may be inferred that the yield of ore was very abundant, and, from the simplicity of the manner of working, that it is of very great antiquity. This art of mining thus laid open, as Ritter says,In the essay on the Sinaitic peninsula in Piper’s Ev. Jahrbuch, 1852. The mining district that J. Wilson saw (1843-44) is not one that was unknown up to that time, but one of the places of the Wadi maghâra recognised as favouring the ancient Egyptian system of excavation. furnishes the most important explanation of Job’s remarkable description of mining operations.

As to Egypt itself, it has but few places where iron-ore was obtained, and it was not very plentiful, as iron occurs much more rarely than bronze on the tombs, although Wilkinson has observed important copper mines almost as extensive as the copper country of Sinai: we only, however, possess more exact information concerning the gold mines on the borders of Upper Egypt. Agatharchides mentions them in his Periplus; and Diodorus (iii. 11ff.) gives a minute description of them, from which it is evident that mining in those days was much the same as it was with us about a hundred years ago: we recognise in it the day and night relays, the structure of shafts, the crushing and washing apparatus, and the smelting-place.Thus Klemm, Allgem. Cultur-Geschichte, v. 304.

There are the gold mines of Nubia, the name of which signifies the gold country, for NOYB is the old Egyptian name for gold. From the time of Sethoshi I, the father of Sesostris, we still possess the plan of a gold mine, which Birch (Upon a historical tablet of Rameses II of the XIX dynasty, relating to the gold mines of Aethiopia) has first of all correctly determined. Moreover, on monuments of all ages frequent mention is made of other metals (silver, iron, lead), as of precious stones, with which e.g., harps were ornamented; the diamond can also be traced. In the Papyrus Prisse, which Chabas has worked up under the title Le plus ancien livre du monde, Phtha-hotep, the author of this moral tractate, iv. 14, says: ”Esteem my good word more highly than the (green) emerald, which is found by slaves under the pebbles.”According to a contribution from Prof. Lauth of Munich.

The emerald-hills near Berenice produced the emerald.

But if the scene of the book of Job is to be sought in Idumaea proper (Gebal) or in Hauran, there were certainly mines that were nearer than the Egyptian. In Phunon (Phinon), between Petra and Zoar, there were pits from which copper (χαλκοῦ μέταλλα, aeris metalla) was obtained even to the time of Moses, as may be inferred from the fact of Moses having erected the brazen serpent there (Num 21:9., comp. 33:42f.), and whither, during the persecutions of the Christians in the time of the emperors, many witnesses for the faith were banished, that they might fall victims to the destructive labour of pit life (Athanasius extravagantly says: ἔνθα καὶ φονεῦς καταδικαζόμενος ὀλίγας ἡμέρας μόγις δύναται ζῆσαι).Vid., Genesis, S. 512; Ritter, Erdkunde, xiv. 125-127; as also my Kirchliches Chronikon des peträischen Arabiens in the Luth. Zeitschr. 1840, S. 133.

But Edrîsi also knew of gold and silver mines in the mountains of Edom, the 'Gebel esh-Sherâ (Arab. 'l - šrât), i.e., חר שׂעיר. According to the Onomasticon, דּי זהב, Deu 1:1 (lxx καταχρύσεα), indicates such gold mines in Arabia Petraea; and Jerome (under Cata ta chrysea)Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iii. 183. The text of Eusebius is to be amended according to that of Jerome; vid., Ugolini, Thes. vol. v. col. cxix.f. What Ritter says, Erdkunde, xiv. 127, is disfigured by mischievous mistakes. observes on that passage: sed et metallo aeris Phaeno, quod nostro tempore corruit, montes venarum auri plenos olim fuisse vicinos existimant. Eupolemus’ account (in Euseb. praep. ix. 30) of an island Aurfee', rich in gold, in the Red Sea, does not belong here; for by the red sea, ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα,On the meaning of this appellation, vid., Genesis, S. 630. it is not the Arabian Gulf that is meant; and the reference of the name of the range of hills Telûl ed-dhahab in ancient Gilead to gold mines rests only on hearsay up to the present time. But it is all the more worthy of mention that traces of former copper mines are still found on the Lebanon (vid., Knobel on Deu 8:9); that Edrîsi (Syria, ed. Rosenm. p. 12) was acquainted with the existence of a rich iron mine near Beirut; and that, even in the present day, the Jews who dwell in Deir el-kamar, on the Lebanon, work the iron on leases, and especially forge horse-shoes from it, which are sent all over Palestine.Schwarz, Das h. Land (1852), S. 323. The Egyptian monuments mention a district by the name of Asj, which paid native iron as tribute; vid., Brugsch, Geogr. der Nachbarländer Aegyptens, S. 52.

The poet of the book of Job might therefore have learned mining in its diversified modes of operation from his own observation, both in the kingdom of Egypt, which he had doubtless visited, and also in Arabia Petraea and in the Lebanon districts, so as to be able to put a description of them into the mouth of his hero. It is unnecessary, with Stickel, to give the preference to the mining of Arabia proper, where iron and lead are still obtained, and where, according to ancient testimony, even gold is said to have been worked at one time. “Since he places his hero in the country east of Jordan, the poet may in Job 28:2 have thought chiefly of the mines of the Iron mountain (τὸ σιδηροῦν καλοῦμενον ὄρος, Jos. Bell. iv. 8, 2), which is also called the 'cross mountain,' el - mi‛râd, because it runs from west to east, while the Gebel 'Aglûn stretches from north to south. It lies between the gorges of the Wâdî Zerkâ and Wâdî 'Arabûn, begins at the mouths of the two Wâdîs in the Ghôr, and ends in the east with a precipitous descent towards the town of Gerash, which from its height, and being seen from afar, is called the Negde (נגדּח). The ancient worked-out iron mines lie on the south declivity of the mountain south-west of the village of Burmâ, and about six miles from the level bed of the Wâdî Zerkâ. The material is a brittle, red, brown, and violet sandstone, which has a strong addition of iron. It also contains here and there a large number of small shells, where it is then considerably harder. Of these ancient mines, some which were known in Syria under the name of the 'rose mines,' ma‛âdin el - ward, were worked by Ibrahim Pasha from 1835 till 1839; but when, in 1840, Syria reverted to Turkey, this mining, which had been carried on with great success, because there was an abundance of wood for the smelting furnaces, ceased. A large forest, without a proprietor, covers the back and the whole north side of this mountain down to the bed of the Wâdî 'Arabûn; and as no tree has been cut down in it for centuries, the thicket, with the fallen and decaying stems, gives one an idea of a primeval forest. We passed through the forest from Kefrengi to Burmâ in June 1860. Except North Gilead, in which the Iron mountain is situated, no other province of Basan admits of a mine; they are exclusively volcanic, their mountains are slag, lava, and basalt; and probably the last-mentioned kind of stone owes its name to the word Basa'ltis, the secondary form of Basa'ltis (= Basan).” - Wetzst.

Job's Protestation of His Sincerity. (b. c. 1520.)

1 Moreover Job continued his parable, and said, 2 As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul; 3 All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; 4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. 5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.

Job's discourse here is called a parable (mashal), the title of Solomon's proverbs, because it was grave and weighty, and very instructive, and he spoke as one having authority. It comes from a word that signifies to rule, or have dominion; and some think it intimates that Job now triumphed over his opponents, and spoke as one that had baffled them. We say of an excellent preacher that he knows how dominari in concionibus—to command his hearers. Job did so here. A long strife there had been between Job and his friends; they seemed disposed to have the matter compromised; and therefore, since an oath for confirmation is an end of strife (Heb. vi. 16), Job here backs all he had said in maintenance of his own integrity with a solemn oath, to silence contradiction, and take the blame entirely upon himself if he prevaricated. Observe,

I. The form of his oath (v. 2): As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment. Here, 1. He speaks highly of God, in calling him the living God (which means everliving, the eternal God, that has life in himself) and in appealing to him as the sole and sovereign Judge. We can swear by no greater, and it is an affront to him to swear by any other. 2. Yet he speaks hardly of him, and unbecomingly, in saying that he had taken away his judgment (that is, refused to do him justice in this controversy and to appear in defence of him), and that by continuing his troubles, on which his friends grounded their censures of him, he had taken from him the opportunity he hoped ere now to have of clearing himself. Elihu reproved him for this word (ch. xxxiv. 5); for God is righteous in all his ways, and takes away no man's judgment. But see how apt we are to despair of favour if it be not shown us immediately, so poor-spirited are we and so soon weary of waiting God's time. He also charges it upon God that he had vexed his soul, had not only not appeared for him, but had appeared against him, and, by laying such grievous afflictions upon him had quite embittered his life to him and all the comforts of it. We, by our impatience, vex our own souls and then complain of God that he has vexed them. Yet see Job's confidence in the goodness both of his cause and of his God, that though God seemed to be angry with him, and to act against him for the present, yet he could cheerfully commit his cause to him.

II. The matter of his oath, v. 3, 4. 1. That he would not speak wickedness, nor utter deceit—that, in general, he would never allow himself in the way of lying, that, as in this debate he had all along spoken as he thought, so he would never wrong his conscience by speaking otherwise; he would never maintain any doctrine, nor assert any matter of fact, but what he believed to be true; nor would he deny the truth, how much soever it might make against him: and, whereas his friends charged him with being a hypocrite, he was ready to answer, upon oath, to all their interrogatories, if called to do so. On the one hand he would not, for all the world, deny the charge if he knew himself guilty, but would declare the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and take to himself the shame of his hypocrisy. On the other hand, since he was conscious to himself of his integrity, and that he was not such a man as his friends represented him, he would never betray his integrity, nor charge himself with that which he was innocent of. He would not be brought, no, not by the rack of their unjust censures, falsely to accuse himself. If we must not bear false witness against our neighbour, then not against ourselves. 2. That he would adhere to this resolution as long as he lived (v. 3): All the while my breath is in me. Our resolutions against sin should be thus constant, resolutions for life. In things doubtful and indifferent, it is not safe to be thus peremptory. We know not what reason we may see to change our mind: God may reveal to us that which we now are not aware of. But in so plain a thing as this we cannot be too positive that we will never speak wickedness. Something of a reason for his resolution is here implied—that our breath will not be always in us. We must shortly breathe our last, and therefore, while our breath is in us, we must never breathe wickedness and deceit, nor allow ourselves to say or do any thing which will make against us when our breath shall depart. The breath in us is called the spirit of God, because he breathed it into us; and this is another reason why we must not speak wickedness. It is God that gives us life and breath, and therefore, while we have breath, we must praise him.

III. The explication of his oath (v. 5, 6): "God forbid that I should justify you in your uncharitable censures of me, by owning myself a hypocrite: no, until I die I will not remove my integrity from me; my righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go." 1. He would always be an honest man, would hold fast his integrity, and not curse God, as Satan, by his wife, urged him to do, ch. ii. 9. Job here thinks of dying, and of getting ready for death, and therefore resolves never to part with his religion, though he had lost all he had in the world. Note, The best preparative for death is perseverance to death in our integrity. "Until I die," that is, "though I die by this affliction, I will not thereby be put out of conceit with my God and my religion. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 2. He would always stand to it that he was an honest man; he would not remove, he would not part with, the conscience, and comfort, and credit of his integrity; he was resolved to defend it to the last. "God knows, and my own heart knows, that I always meant well, and did not allow myself in the omission of any known duty or the commission of any known sin. This is my rejoicing, and no man shall rob me of it; I will never lie against my right." It has often been the lot of upright men to be censured and condemned as hypocrites; but it well becomes them to bear up boldly against such censures, and not to be discouraged by them nor think the worse of themselves for them; as the apostle (Heb. xiii. 18): We have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly. Hic murus aheneus esto, nil conscire sibi. Be this thy brazen bulwark of defence, Still to preserve thy conscious innocence. Job complained much of the reproaches of his friends; but (says he) my heart shall not reproach me, that is, "I will never give my heart cause to reproach me, but will keep a conscience void of offence; and, while I do so, I will not give my heart leave to reproach me." Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. To resolve that our hearts shall not reproach us when we give them cause to do so is to affront God, whose deputy conscience is, and to wrong ourselves; for it is a good thing, when a man has sinned, to have a heart within him to smite him for it, 2 Sam. xxiv. 10. But to resolve that our hearts shall not reproach us while we still hold fast our integrity is to baffle the designs of the evil spirit (who tempts good Christians to question their adoption, If thou be the Son of God) and to concur with the operations of the good Spirit, who witnesses to their adoption.

Condition of Hypocrites. (b. c. 1520.)

7 Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous. 8 For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? 9 Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? 10 Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?

Job having solemnly protested the satisfaction he had in his integrity, for the further clearing of himself, here expresses the dread he had of being found a hypocrite.

I. He tells us how he startled at the thought of it, for he looked upon the condition of a hypocrite and a wicked man to be certainly the most miserable condition that any man could be in (v. 7): Let my enemy be as the wicked, a proverbial expression, like that (Dan. iv. 19), The dream be to those that hate thee. Job was so far from indulging himself in any wicked way, and flattering himself in it, that, if he might have leave to wish the greatest evil he could think of to the worst enemy he had in the world, he would wish him the portion of a wicked man, knowing that worse he could not wish him. Not that we may lawfully wish any man to be wicked, or that any man who is not wicked should be treated as wicked; but we should all choose to be in the condition of a beggar, an out-law, a galley-slave, any thing, rather that in the condition of the wicked, though in ever so much pomp and outward prosperity.

II. He gives us the reasons of it.

1. Because the hypocrite's hopes will not be crowned (v. 8): For what is the hope of the hypocrite? Bildad had condemned it (ch. viii. 13, 14), and Zophar (ch. xi. 20), and Job here concurs with them, and reads the death of the hypocrite's hope with as much assurance as they had done; and this fitly comes in as a reason why he would not remove his integrity, but still hold it fast. Note, The consideration of the miserable condition of wicked people, and especially hypocrites, should engage us to be upright (for we are undone, for ever undone, if we be not) and also to get the comfortable evidence of our uprightness; for how can we be easy if the great concern lie at uncertainties? Job's friends would persuade him that all his hope was but the hope of the hypocrite, ch. iv. 6. "Nay," says he, "I would not, for all the world, be so foolish as to build upon such a rotten foundation; for what is the hope of the hypocrite?" See here, (1.) The hypocrite deceived. He has gained, and he has hope; this is his bright side. It is allowed that he has gained by his hypocrisy, has gained the praise and applause of men and the wealth of this world. Jehu gained a kingdom by his hypocrisy and the Pharisees many a widow's house. Upon this gain he builds his hope, such as it is. He hopes he is in good circumstances for another world, because he finds he is so for this, and he blesses himself in his own way. (2.) The hypocrite undeceived. He will at last see himself wretchedly cheated; for, [1.] God shall take away his soul, sorely against his will. Luke xii. 20, Thy soul shall be required of thee. God, as the Judge, takes it away to be tried and determined to its everlasting state. He shall then fall into the hands of the living God, to be dealt with immediately. [2.] What will his hope be then? It will be vanity and a lie; it will stand him in no stead. The wealth of this world, which he hoped in, he must leave behind him, Ps. xlix. 17. The happiness of the other world, which he hoped for, he will certainly miss of. He hoped to go to heaven, but he will be shamefully disappointed; he will plead his external profession, privileges, and performances, but all his pleas will be overruled as frivolous: Depart from me, I know you not. So that, upon the whole, it is certain that a formal hypocrite, with all his gains and all his hopes, will be miserable in a dying hour.

2. Because the hypocrite's prayer will not be heard (v. 9): Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him? No, he will not; it cannot be expected he should. If true repentance come upon him, God will hear his cry and accept him (Isa. i. 18); but, if he continue impenitent and unchanged, let him not think to find favour with God. Observe, (1.) Trouble will come upon him, certainly it will. Troubles in the world often surprise those that are most secure of an uninterrupted prosperity. However, death will come, and trouble with it, when he must leave the world and all his delights in it. The judgment of the great day will come; fearfulness will surprise the hypocrites, Isa. xxxiii. 14. (2.) Then he will cry to God, will pray, and pray earnestly. Those who in prosperity slighted God, either prayed not at all or were cold and careless in prayer, when trouble comes will make their application to him and cry as men in earnest. But, (3.) Will God hear him then? In the troubles of this life, God has told us that he will not hear the prayers of those who regard iniquity in their hearts (Ps. lxvi. 19) and set up their idols there (Ezek. xiv. 4), nor of those who turn away their ear from hearing the law, Prov. xxviii. 9. Get you to the gods whom you have served, Judg. x. 14. In the judgment to come, it is certain, God will not hear the cry of those who lived and died in their hypocrisy. Their doleful lamentations will all be unpitied. I will laugh at your calamity. Their importunate petitions will all be thrown out and their pleas rejected. Inflexible justice cannot be biassed, nor the irreversible sentence revoked. See Matt. vii. 22, 23; Luke xiii. 26, and the case of the foolish virgins, Matt. xxv. 11.

3. Because the hypocrite's religion is neither comfortable nor constant (v. 10): Will he delight himself in the Almighty? No, not at any time (for his delight is in the profits of the world and the pleasures of the flesh, more than in God), especially not in the time of trouble. Will he always call upon God? No, in prosperity he will not call upon God, but slight him; in adversity he will not call upon God but curse him; he is weary of his religion when he gets nothing by it, or is in danger of losing. Note, (1.) Those are hypocrites who, though they profess religion, neither take pleasure in it nor persevere in it, who reckon their religion a task and a drudgery, a weariness, and snuff at it, who make use of it only to serve a turn, and lay it aside when the turn is served, who will call upon God while it is in fashion, or while the pang of devotion lasts, but leave it off when they fall into other company, or when the hot fit is over. (2.) The reason why hypocrites do not persevere in religion is because they have no pleasure in it. Those that do not delight in the Almighty will not always call upon him. The more comfort we find in our religion the more closely we shall cleave to it. Those who have no delight in God are easily inveigled by the pleasures of sense, and so drawn away from their religion; and they are easily run down by the crosses of this life, and so driven away from their religion, and will not always call upon God.

Heritage of the Wicked. (b. c. 1520.)

11 I will teach you by the hand of God: that which is with the Almighty will I not conceal. 12 Behold, all ye yourselves have seen it; why then are ye thus altogether vain? 13 This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage of oppressors, which they shall receive of the Almighty. 14 If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword: and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. 15 Those that remain of him shall be buried in death: and his widows shall not weep. 16 Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay; 17 He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver. 18 He buildeth his house as a moth, and as a booth that the keeper maketh. 19 The rich man shall lie down, but he shall not be gathered: he openeth his eyes, and he is not. 20 Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night. 21 The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth: and as a storm hurleth him out of his place. 22 For God shall cast upon him, and not spare: he would fain flee out of his hand. 23 Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.

Job's friends had seen a great deal of the misery and destruction that attend wicked people, especially oppressors; and Job, while the heat of disputation lasted, had said as much, and with as much assurance, of their prosperity; but now that the heat of the battle was nearly over he was willing to own how far he agreed with them, and where the difference between his opinion and theirs lay. 1. He agreed with them that wicked people are miserable people, that God will surely reckon with cruel oppressors, and one time or other, one way or other, his justice will make reprisals upon them for all the affronts they have put upon God and all the wrongs they have done to their neighbours. This truth is abundantly confirmed by the entire concurrence even of these angry disputants in it. But, 2. In this they differed—they held that these deserved judgments are presently and visibly brought upon wicked oppressors, that they travail with pain all their days, that in prosperity the destroyer comes upon them, that they shall not be rich, nor their branch green, and that their destruction shall be accomplished before their time (so Eliphaz, ch. xv. 20, 21, 29, 32), that the steps of their strength shall be straitened, that terrors shall make them afraid on every side (so Bildad, ch. xviii. 7, 11), that he himself shall vomit up his riches, and that in the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits, so Zophar, ch. xx. 15, 22. Now Job held that, in many cases, judgments do not fall upon them quickly, but are deferred for some time. That vengeance strikes slowly he had already shown (ch. xxi. and xxiv.); now he comes to show that it strikes surely and severely, and that reprieves are no pardons.

I. Job here undertakes to set this matter in a true light (v. 11, 12): I will teach you. We must not disdain to learn even from those who are sick and poor, yea, and peevish too, if they deliver what is true and good. Observe, 1. What he would teach them: "That which is with the Almighty," that is, "the counsels and purposes of God concerning wicked people, which are hidden with him, and which you cannot hastily judge of; and the usual methods of his providence concerning them." This, says Job, will I not conceal. What God has not concealed from us we must not conceal from those we are concerned to teach. Things revealed belong to us and our children. 2. How he would teach them: By the hand of God, that is, by his strength and assistance. Those who undertake to teach others must look to the hand of God to direct them, to open their ear (Isa. l. 4), and to open their lips. Those whom God teaches with a strong hand are best able to teach others, Isa. viii. 11. 3. What reason they had to learn those things which he was about to teach them (v. 12), that it was confirmed by their own observation—You yourselves have seen it (but what we have heard, and seen and known, we have need to be taught, that we may be perfect in our lesson), and that it would set them to rights in their judgment concerning him—"Why then are you thus altogether vain, to condemn me for a wicked man because I am afflicted?" Truth, rightly understood and applied, would cure us of that vanity of mind which arises from our mistakes. That particularly which he offers now to lay before them is the portion of a wicked man with God, particularly of oppressors, v. 13. Compare ch. xx. 29. Their portion in the world may be wealth and preferment, but their portion with God is ruin and misery. They are above the control of any earthly power, it may be, but the Almighty can deal with them.

II. He does it, by showing that wicked people may, in some instances, prosper, but that ruin follows them in those very instances; and that is their portion, that is their heritage, that is it which they must abide by.

1. They may prosper in their children, but ruin attends them. His children perhaps are multiplied (v. 14) or magnified (so some); they are very numerous and are raised to honour and great estates. Worldly people are said to be full of children (Ps. xvii. 14), and, as it is in the margin there, their children are full. In them the parents hope to live and in their preferment to be honoured. But the more children they leave, and the greater prosperity they leave them in, the more and the fairer marks do they leave for the arrows of God's judgments to be levelled at, his three sore judgments, sword, famine, and pestilence, 2 Sam. xxiv. 13. (1.) Some of them shall die by the sword, the sword of war perhaps (they brought them up to live by their sword, as Esau, Gen. xxvii. 40, and those that do so commonly die by the sword, first or last), or by the sword of justice for their crimes, or the sword of the murderer for their estates. (2.) Others of them shall die by famine (v. 14): His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. He thought he had secured to them large estates, but it may happen that they may be reduced to poverty, so as not to have the necessary supports of life, at least not to live comfortably. They shall be so needy that they shall not have a competency of necessary food, and so greedy, or so discontented, that what they have they shall not be satisfied with, because not so much, or not so dainty, as what they have been used to. You eat, but you have not enough, Hag. i. 6. (3.) Those that remain shall be buried in death, that is, shall die of the plague, which is called death (Rev. vi. 8), and be buried privately and in haste, as soon as they are dead, without any solemnity, buried with the burial of an ass; and even their widows shall not weep; they shall not have wherewithal to put them in mourning. Or it denotes that these wicked men, as they live undesired, so they die unlamented, and even their widows will think themselves happy that they have got rid of them.

2. They may prosper in their estates, but ruin attends them too, v. 16-18. (1.) We will suppose them to be rich in money and plate, in clothing and furniture. They heap up silver in abundance as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay; they have heaps of clothes about them, as plentiful as heaps of clay. Or it intimates that they have such abundance of clothes that they are even a burden to them. They lade themselves with thick clay, Hab. ii. 6. See what is the care and business of worldly people—to heap up worldly wealth. Much would have more, until the silver is cankered and the garments are moth-eaten, Jam. v. 2, 3. But what comes of it? He shall never be the better for it himself; death will strip him, death will rob him, if he be not robbed and stripped sooner, Luke xii. 20. Nay, God will so order it that the just shall wear his raiment and the innocent shall divide his silver. [1.] They shall have it, and divide it among themselves. In some way or other Providence shall so order it that good men shall come honestly by that wealth which the wicked man came dishonestly by. The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just, Prov. xiii. 22. God disposes of men's estates as he pleases, and often makes their wills against their wills. The just, whom he hated and persecuted, shall have rule over all his labour, and, in due time, recover with interest what was violently taken from him. The Egyptians' jewels were the Israelites' pay. Solomon observes (Eccl. ii. 26) that God makes the sinners drudges to the righteous; for the sinner he gives travail to gather and heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. [2.] They shall do good with it. The innocent shall not hoard the silver, as he did that gathered it, but shall divide it to the poor, shall give a portion to seven and also to eight, which is laying up the best securities. Money is like manure, good for nothing if it be not spread. When God enriches good men they must remember they are but stewards and must give an account. What bad men bring a curse upon their families with the ill-getting of good men bring a blessing upon their families with the well-using of. He that by unjust gain increaseth his substance shall gather it for him that will pity the poor, Prov. xxviii. 8. (2.) We will suppose them to have built themselves strong and stately houses; but they are like the house which the moth makes for herself in an old garment, out of which she will soon be shaken, v. 18. He is very secure in it, as a moth, and has no apprehension of danger; but it will prove of as short continuance as a booth which the keeper makes, which will quickly be taken down and gone, and his place shall know him no more.

3. Destruction attends their persons, though they lived long in health and at ease (v. 19): The rich man shall lie down to sleep, to repose himself in the abundance of his wealth (Soul, take thy ease), shall lie down in it as his strong city, and seem to others to be very happy and very easy; but he shall not be gathered, that is, he shall not have his mind composed, and settled, and gathered in, to enjoy his wealth. He does not sleep so contentedly as people think he does. He lies down, but his abundance will not suffer him to sleep, at least not so sweetly as the labouring man, Eccl. v. 12. He lies down, but he is full of tossings to and fro till the dawning of the day, and then he opens his eyes and he is not; he sees himself, and all he has, hastening away, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye. His cares increase his fears, and both together make him uneasy, so that, when we attend him to his bed, we do not find him happy there. But, in the close, we are called to attend his exit, and see how miserable he is in death and after death.

(1.) He is miserable in death. It is to him the king of terrors, v. 20, 21. When some mortal disease seizes him what a fright is he in! Terrors take hold of him as waters, as if he were surrounded by the flowing tides. He trembles to think of leaving this world, and much more of removing to another. This mingles sorrow and wrath with his sickness, as Solomon observes, Eccl. v. 17. These terrors put him either [1.] Into a silent and sullen despair; and then the tempest of God's wrath, the tempest of death, may be said to steal him away in the night, when no one is aware or takes any notice of it. Or, [2.] Into an open and clamorous despair; and then he is said to be carried away, and hurled out of his place as with a storm, and with an east wind, violent, and noisy, and very dreadful. Death, to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country, but, to a wicked man, it is like an east wind, a storm, a tempest, that hurries him away in confusion and amazement, to destruction.

(2.) He is miserable after death. [1.] His soul falls under the just indignation of God, and it is the terror of that indignation which puts him into such amazement at the approach of death (v. 22): For God shall cast upon him and not spare. While he lived he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will not spare, but pour out upon him the full vials of his wrath. What God casts down upon a man there is no flying from nor bearing up under. We read of his casting down great stones from heaven upon the Canaanites (Josh. x. 11), which made terrible execution among them; but what was that to his casting down his anger in its full weight upon the sinner's conscience, like the talent of lead? Zech. v. 7, 8. The damned sinner, seeing the wrath of God break in upon him, would fain flee out of his hand; but he cannot: the gates of hell are locked and barred, and the great gulf fixed, and it will be in vain to call for the shelter of rocks and mountains. Those who will not be persuaded now to fly to the arms of divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. [2.] His memory falls under the just indignation of all mankind (v. 23): Men shall clap their hands at him, that is, they shall rejoice in the judgments of God, by which he is cut off, and be well pleased in his fall. When the wicked perish there is shouting, Prov. xi. 10. When God buries him men shall hiss him out of his place, and leave on his name perpetual marks of infamy. In the same place where he has been caressed and cried up he shall be laughed at (Ps. lii. 7) and his ashes shall be trampled on.

CHAP. XXVII. Verſe 1. Moreover Job continued his Parable, and ſaid]

IT was Zophars turn, and Job waited a while, as it was fit to ſee whether he, or any other of them would take up the bucklers again againſt him; which when they did not, (as hearing his high expreſſions concerning Gods Power and Providence, and haply having now a better opinion of him then before) he aſſwageth his grief by defending his innocency, and maintaining his opinion, in the five following Chapters. Here be is ſaid, after ſome r[illegible: 1 letter]ſpit, to e[illegible: 1 letter]aſſume his Parable; which hath its name in Hebrew from L[illegible: 1 letter]rding it, [non-Latin text not transcribed] Sermo figuratus princ[illegible: 1 letter]patum tenet, ac v[illegible: 1 letter]lut dominatur. and bearing ſway, becauſe allegories and figurative ſpeeches bear away the bell, as they ſay, from plainer Diſcourſes; are more gladly heard, or read, ſooner underſtood, and better remembred. The word rendred continued. is in the Original, added [illegible: 1 word] lift up; importing either, that he ſpake now with a courage, as we ſay, and with a greater Emphaſis, as having ſilenced his adverſaries; or that he uttered himſelf in an higher ſtile, and his matter were Maſter-ſentences, Maxims Axio[illegible: 3 letters], Speeches of ſpecial precellency and predominancy; ſuch as might well challenge a throne in the minds of all men.

Verſe 2. As God Liveth, who hath taken away my iudgement] Job well knew the Nature and end of an Oath, which is to put an end to all ſtrife and controverſie among [illegible: 1 word], Hab. 6.16. For more Authority ſake therefore to his enſuing Diſcourſe, as taking God to witneſſe in a matter of ſo great moment and that his friends might the better believe him, he doubteth not to begin his ſpeech with a private oath, (for a publick is that which is taken before a Magiſtrate, who upon juſt cauſe may exact it) which, ſo it be ſparingly and warily uſed, is not unlawful as appeareth by the example of Jacob and Laban, Boaz and Ruth, Jonathan and David, ſcil to help the truuth, in p[illegible: 2 letters]eſſi[illegible: 1 letter]y, and when the other party will not otherwiſe be ſatisfied. But what [illegible: 1 span] to ſay, that the God, whom he ſo ſolemnly taketh to witneſſe, had taken [illegible: 1 word] his judgment? Can the righteous Judge do otherwiſe then right? Or doth not the [illegible: 1 word] know that he i[illegible: 1 letter] puniſhed leſſe then his iniquities deſerved, [illegible: 1 span] A Job was at preſent under a ſo[illegible: 1 letter]e temptation, and being preſſed out of meaſure above ſtrength, he ſpake unadviſedly with his lips, and is afterwards barely told of it by Elihu, chap. 34.5 The beſt faith, if long tryed, may flag and hang the wing. Moſes at Meribah. David at Gath, Elias under the Juniper, ſufficiently ſhew, that every new man is two men: that the fleſh eftſoones luſteth againſt the ſpirit, and that the beſt may have their outburſts, yet ſo, as that the ſeed of grace ſtill abideth in them, and ſome way ſhewes it ſelf; Job here for inſtance. He complaineth of Gods ſeverity, but ſtormeth not againſt him. He bluſtreth, but he blaſphemeth not. He holdeth himſelf hardly dealt with by God; and yet whilſt he ſo ſolemnly ſweareth by him, he thereby acknowledgeth him a witneſſe of his conſcience, a Patron of Truth, a Lover of Right, an Avenger of Perjury, and laſtly, the Authour and Arbiter of his life, which he reſolveth rather to let go then his Innocency: He can do nothing againſt the truth, but for the truth, 2 Cor 13.8.

And the Almighty, who hath vexed my ſoul] Heb. Hath imbittered. Job ſhould have remembred, that bitter potions bring ſweet health, and that [non-Latin text not transcribed], the bitterneſſe would ſoon be paſt: but he remembred only (at preſent) the affliction and the miſery, the wormwood and the gall, Lam. 3.19. Now no affliction (but eſpecially ſoul-affliction) for the preſent ſeemeth joyous, but grievous: nevertheleſs afterward it yeeldeth the peaceable fruit of righteouſneſſe unto them which are exerciſed thereby, Heb. 12.11. But patient Job wanted patience to wait for that Adeo nihil eſt in nobis magni, quod non queat minui; ſuch failings are found in the very beſt.

Verſe 3 All the while my breath is in me] Periphraſis vitae, —Dum ſpiritus hos regat a[illegible: 1 letter]tus; Whiles I have an hour to breath, I will hold to this Oath of mine: neither may you ever hope to diſpute me out of mine integrity. Life is deſcribed by breath, which when it faileth, the man dyeth, 1 Kings 17.17. Pſal. 146.4. Iſai. 2.22. Ceaſe ye from man whoſe breath is in his noſtrils, every moment ready to puff out. What is man (ſaith Naz[illegible: 1 letter]anzen) but ſoul and ſoil,Eutrop. Oreſ. breath and body, a puff of wind the one, a pile of duſt the other, no ſolidity in either? Jovinian the Emperour, was choaked with the ſmoak of charcoal. Pope Adrian with a flye, getting into his throat as he gaped. The Cardinal of Lorrain was lighted to his Lodging, and to his long home both at once by a poiſoned Torch. Defer not (ſaith One) ſith at the next puffe of breath thou moiſt blow away thy life.

And the ſpirit of God is in my noſtrils] He ſeems to allude to Gen. 2.7. or ſome tradition of the Fathers to like purpoſe. Acts 17.25. God giveth to all life and breath, and all things. And again, verſe 28. In him we live, and move and have our being, Wherefore let every thing that hath breath praiſe the Lord, Pſal. 150. ult. Yea, let every breath (as ſome read it) praiſe the Lord. Let it be as the ſmoak of the Tabernacle, as Pillars of Incenſe aſcending up to heaven.Chryſoſt. Tam Dei meminiſſe opus eſt, quam reſpirare.

Verſe 4 My lips ſhall not ſpeak wickedneſs] Which I ſhould do, ſhould I, contrary to that which the Spirit of God witneſſeth to my conſcience, through a fained humility confeſſe, that I have been wicked. Let Gods dejected ſervant take heed, left by the temptation of Satan, and the miſgivings of their own evil hearts of unbelief, they be drawn to bely the work of Gods ſpirit in them, and to hold themſelves utterly void of grace, becauſe not indued with ſuch and ſuch meaſures of grace. Learn to diſtinguiſh between imbecility and nullity: ſhew your ſelves faithful in weakneſſe, though but weak in faith. There is an allowance to gold, with which it may paſſe: neither is it to be caſt aſide, becauſe it wanteth ſome graines, and hath a crack. Nec vinum rejicimus e[illegible: 1 letter]ſi facem habeat, ſaith Spin[illegible: 1 letter]us. Spin. de inſtit: Chriſt. God ſeeth nothing amiſſe in that man whoſe heart is upright. 2 Chron. 15.17. He layes the finger of mercy on the ſears of his peoples ſins, as that Limner in the Story. He will not cruſh, but cheriſh that worm Jacob.

Nor my tongue utter deceit] No, for that were to ſpeak wickedneſſe, yea; to ſpeak your ſelf wicked. For the remnant of Iſratl, ſhall not (by betraying the truth) do iniquity, nor ſpeak lies: neither ſhall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; Zeph. 3.13. For he ſaid, Surely they are my people, children that will not lye ſo he was their Saviour, Iſai. 63.8.

Verſe 5 God forbid, that I ſhould juſtifie you,] ſcil. By ſaying as you ſay; viz. that I am an hypocrite, and ſecretly guilty of ſome ſoule practiſes, for which I that grievouſly ſuffer. I know nothing of this Nature by my ſelf. God forbid, Abſit, res profana ſit mihi. The Hebrew word ſignifies, a profanation, or profane thing. It was the ſame they uſed, when they rent their cloathes at blaſphemy.

Till I die, I wil not remove my integrity] My perfection ſome render it, and ſo God accounteth it, when the bent, frame and tendencies of the heart are for him; though the mans wants be many and great. This Job knew, and would hold to. Let not the Divel baffle us out of our integrity.

Verſe 6.Mordicùs ten[illegible: 1 letter]b[illegible: 1 letter] My righteouſneſſe I hold faſt] As with tooth and nail, yea, though it be to the loſſe of my teeth, as it befel that valiant Sir Thou as Challoner, who ſerved,Cambd. Eliz. 66 when he was young, under Charles 5, in the Expedition of Algier, where being ſhipwrack't, after he had ſwum till his ſtrength and his armes failed him at the length catching hold of a Cable with his teeth, he eſcaped, not without the loſs of ſome of his teeth.

And will not let it go] ſcil. Upon your perſwaſions or ſuſpitions, ſo long as the bird in my boſom continueth ſinging.

My heart ſhall not reproach me ſo long as I live] His heart muſt needs reproach him who habitually doth evil, what good ſhew ſoever he doth make before men; and though he hide his wickedneſſe with no leſſe ſubtle ſleights, then once Rachel did the Idols, Rahab the Spies. Conſcience is Gods Spye, and mans Overſeer. It is In[illegible: 3 letters], Judex, Vindex: neither is a body ſo torn with ſtripes, as a mind with remembrance of evil actions. This Job knew, and would therefore keep his conſcience cleare. This was alſo Saint Pauls greateſt, both care, Acts 24.16. and comfort, 2 Cor. 1.12.

Verſe 7 Let mine enemy be as the wicked] q d. I need wiſh my greateſt enemy no greater hurt, then to be as the wicked, for then he is ſure to be wretched. So far am I from ſaying, that God favoureth the wicked, or that he alwayes ſuffereth them to eſcape unpuniſhed.

And he that riſeth up againſt me, as the unrighteous] Or, froward and perverſe. This is the ſame again in other words: and it is well noted to be a popular manner of ſpeaking, wherein when men expreſſe an abomination of a thing, they wiſh it so their enemies; taking it for granted, that the power of malice is ſo great, that no man can expreſſe it in the wiſh of any particular evil. See the like phraſe, 2 Sam. 8 32 1 Sam 25.26. Dan. 4.29.

Verſe 8. For what is the hope of the hypocrite, &c.] Here Job proveth himſelf to be no hypocrite, by his and their different character and carriage, eſpecially under affliction. Though God kill Job, yet he will truſt in him; but what is the hope of the hypocrite, &c? He that maketh a bridge of his own ſhadow, muſt needs fall into the brook. The common hope thinks it takes hold of God; but it is but as a child that catcheth at the ſhadow on the wall, which he thinks he holdeth faſt in his hand; but ſoon finds it otherwiſe: ſo ſhall the hypocrite at death, his hope ſhall be then as the giving up of the Chriſt, and that is but cold comfort. Whiles he was in health, and had all well about him, he nouriſhed ſtrong hopes of Gods favour, and the rather becauſe he gained and gathered wealth apace. So bladder like is the ſoul that is filled with earthly vanities, though but wind, it growes great, and ſwells in high conceitedneſſe: but if pickt with the leaſt pin of piercing grief (how much more when ſtruck with deaths dart) it ſhriveleth to nothing, and is ready to ſay as one rich w[illegible: 2 letters]ch did on this death-bed, Spes & fortuna valeta; Life and hope adien to you both at once.

Though he hath gained] Or, When he hath been covetous; raking together [illegible: 1 word], [illegible: 1 letter]em, qu[illegible: 1 letter]cunque modo rem; See this notably exemplified in that rich fool, Luke 12. whoſe life and hopes ended together.

When God taketh away his ſoul] Extrabet, Shall pull it out by violence, as a ſword out of its [illegible: 1 letter]eath, when God ſhall make a breach upon their Cittadel: come upon them by forcible entry, turn them out of their cottages of day by [illegible: 1 span], cut them in twain, as he did that evil ſervant, Matth 4. tear their bodies and ſouls aſunder, as a man teareth the bark from the tree, or the ſhell from the f[illegible: 1 letter]ſh, leaving it naked. Where then ſhall be the high hopes of the Hypocrite? And O what a dreadful skreek giveth his guilty ſoul then, to ſee it ſelfe lanching into an infinite Ocean of ſcalding lead, and to conſider that it muſt ſwim naked in it for ever?

Verſe 9. Will God hear his cry] Here's another diſtinctive Note between a hypocrite and an honeſt man. As many are ſaid in Daniel to cleave to the better ſide by flattery, ſo many falſe ſignes will come in, and flatter a man (when he is in health and proſperity) and give their teſtimony, ſpeak the ſame thing that true evidences do; but this will not alwayes hold.

When trouble cometh upon him?] Then the hypocrite will cry, and make pitiful moans; as a priſoner at the Bar begs for his life. Then Joab and Adoniah will run to the hornes of the Altar, who till then little cared to come there. But with as ill ſucceſſe they cry to God as Saul did, 1 Sam. 28.15. and as other of Davids enemies did, Pſal. 18.41. For either God anſwereth them not at all, Ezek. 21.2, 3. Or elſe he anſwereth them according to the Idols of their hearts, Ezek. 14. gives them bitter anſwers, as Judge 10.13, 14. Or if better, it is for the good of others, and for a further miſchief to themſelves, that he may ſnatch away his owne and he gone, H[illegible: 1 letter]l. 2.9. and that he may conſume them after he hath done them good, Joſh. 24.20 their preſervation proveth but a reſervation.

Verſe 10. Will he delight himſelf in the Almighty?] viz. When trouble cometh upon him, as in the former verſe. No, this is Chriſtianorum propria virtus, a practiſe that none can skill of but Gods people, ſaith Hier[illegible: 1 letter]me, to rejoyce in tribulation, and then to continue inſtant in prayer (Rom. 12.12.) for deliverance, with ſome confidence grounded upon former experience. Cr[illegible: 2 letters] cui[illegible: 2 letters] is inuncta eſt, ſaith Bernard. Together with the Croſſe, they have an unction from the Father: annointed they are with that Oyle of gladneſſe,1 Pet. 2.14. the Spirit of glory and of God, which reſteth upon [illegible: 1 letter]he[illegible: 1 letter]; and refreſheth them amidſt all their ſorrowes and ſufferings: and hence their delight in the Almighty, yea though he frown and lay upon them, as he did upon J[illegible: 2 letters], with his own bare hand. Not ſo the hypocrite; for why? he hateth God an his heart, as doth every evil-doer,Bernard John 3.20. Eſt [illegible: 1 word] talium p[illegible: 1 letter]na Deus, utpot[illegible: 1 letter] [illegible: 1 word] eſt: [illegible: 1 letter]t quid talibus am inviſu[illegible: 1 letter]? God is light, and therefore hated as a puniſhment to ſuch inanſpicate night-birds. He is holineſſe, but the hypocrite filthineſſe, as his name alſo importeth: How th[illegible: 1 letter]n can be delight himſelf in the Almighty? What complacency can there be, where is ſuch an [illegible: 1 letter]tter contrariety? They that love the Lord, ha[illegible: 1 letter]e evil, Pſal 81.2[illegible: 1 letter] [illegible: 1 word] ſo doth not any hypocrite: leave it he may, but not loath it: Pa[illegible: 1 letter]t with it he may (as Jacob did with Benjamin. leſt otherwiſe he ſhould ſtarve; or as [illegible: 1 word] with Michael, leſt he ſhould loſe his head) but his heart is glued to it ſtill, he hath a months mind to be doing if he durſt. Finally, He is without faith, and therefore without joy and peace of conſcience. And as for his Spider-web of hope, a little wind bloweth it down. The world hath his heart, and ſo the love of the Father cannot be in him, 1 John 2.15. He leaneth upon the Lord, and ſaith, Is not the Lord amongſt us, Mic. 3.11? yet is he rootedin the delights of life: Like as the Apricock tree leaneth againſt the wall, but is faſt rooted in the earth.

Will he alwayes [illegible: 1 letter]all upon God?] Heb. I[illegible: 1 letter] every time? No, nor ſcarce at any time. Indeed as begg[illegible: 1 letter]rs have learned to [illegible: 1 word], ſo have ſome hypocrites to pray. Iſai. 26.16. They have powred forth charm, when thy chaſtening was upon them. When he ſlew them, then they ſought him, and they returned and enquired after God, Pſal. 78.34. But this was only a prayer of the fleſh for [illegible: 1 letter]aſe, and not of the Spirit for grace. They ſpoke God fair (as the Divel did Chriſt) only to be rid of him. Thus [illegible: 1 word] when on the rack, ro[illegible: 2 letters]ed out a conſeſſion, and called for a Prayer. Joa[illegible: 1 letter] in danger of death hangs on the hornes of the Altar. The Captivated Jews faſted and prayed for ſeventy years, to get off their thaines, rather then their, ſins, Zech. 7.5. which Daniel therefore reckoned loſt labour, chap [illegible: 1 letter] 13. But many wi[illegible: 3 letters]d men, though in proſperity they have ſome ſhort-wiſhes (ſuch as was that of [illegible: 2 letters]la[illegible: 2 letters]s, Numb 23.10. wherewith compare that of David, Pſal, 26.9. and ſee a difference) or perhaps are able by ſtrength of wit and one money to pray handſomely: yet in adverſity they ſet their mouthes againſt heaven, [illegible: 1 span] Wolves, and howle upward, they curſe their King and their God, and look upward, ſaith Iſaiah, chap. 8.21. they murmure and mutiny, as the Iſraelites in the wilderneſs, they banne and blaſpheme, as did that Iſraelitiſh womans ſon, Lev. 14.11. and Micahs mother, Judg. 17.2. A Parrot may be taught to talk like a man (Hiſtories tell us of one at Rome that could repeat the whole Creed) but let him be but beaten, and he returnes to his own natural harſh voice. So an hypocrite, while all goes well with him, may ſeem very devout at his Oriſons, but lay thy hand upon him (ſaith Satan to God concerning Job, preſuming thereby to prove him an hypocrite) and he will curſe thee to thy face, chap. 2.5. But ſay he be ſomewhat better conditioned (as they call it) and for a while pray to God for eaſe and help; yet he will not pray alwayes, he will not perſevere in prayer, follow on to pray, wait upon God for an anſwer, and be content to want it, if God ſee good to deny it. He cannot draw nigh to God with a true heart (ſuch a heart as is well ſatisfied, if God may be glorified, though himſelf be not gratified) in full aſſurance of faith, Heb. 10.22. Which is, ſaith Brentius, Orationis medulla, the marrow of prayer. Hence Saint James calleth it, the prayer of faith, chap. 5.15. Afflictions cauſe a Saint to ſeek out Gods Promiſe, the Promiſe to ſeek Faith, Faith to ſeek Prayer, and prayer to find God; to find him at length; For he is a God that hideth himſelf, Isai. 45.15 But what ſaith faith? I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the houſe of Jacob, and I will look for him, Iſai. 8.17. See this exemplified in the woman of Canaan, who fetcht Chriſt out of his retiring room by the force of her faith, Mark 7.24. and prayed on, though denied. She would not be ſaid nay, or ſet down either with ſilence or ſad anſwers, but ſhewed her ſelf a woman of a well knit reſolution, ſuch as could credere inviſibilia, ſperare dilaia, & amare Deum ſe oſtendentem contrarium, as Luther ſpeaketh: Believe things inviſible, hope for things deferred, and love God when he ſhewes himſelf moſt angry and oppoſite. Now this the hypocrite (who is an Infidel) cannot skil of. He is ſhort ſpirited and cannot hold out in prayer, cannot (as our Saviour taught by that Parable, Luke 18.1.) alwayes pray, and not faint, [non-Latin text not transcribed] ſhrink back, as ſluggards do in work, or Cowards in War. Oratio eſt res ardua, & magni laboris, ſaith Luther. Prayer is a hard work, and a man muſt tug at it and ſtick to it, as Jacob did, who wreſtled and raiſed duſt as the Hebrew word ſignifieth: he held faſt, and hung on, yea he held with his hands when his thigh was lamed. Let me go (ſaith God beſpeaking his own liberty) No, thou ſhalt not, ſaith Jacob, until thou bleſſe me. Lo, ſuch is the generation of them that ſeek God in ſincerity, of them that ſeek thy face; this is Jacob, Pſal. 24.6. One thing have [illegible: 1 word] deſired of the Lord, and that I will ſe[illegible: 1 letter]k after, ſaith David, Pſal. 27.4. If his ſuit had not been honeſt, he would never have begun it: But being ſo, he will never give it over till he hath prevailed: he will pray till he faint, and then to it again, Pſal. 119.81, 82. Rejoycing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing inſtant in prayer, Rom. 12.12. So doth not the hypocrite, for want of an inward principle. If God come not at a call, he is out patience, and ready to ſay with that profane Prince, 2 Kings 6.33. Behold this evil is of the Lord, and what ſhould I wait for the Lord any longer? Away to the Witch of End[illegible: 1 letter]r, to the god of E[illegible: 1 letter]ron. Flecter[illegible: 1 letter] ſi neque[illegible: 1 letter] ſaperos, Acheronta moveh[illegible: 1 letter]. This Job would not do, and therefore no hypocrite.

Verſe 11. I will teach you by the hand of God] That is, by the help of God, [non-Latin text not transcribed], or concerning the hand of God, what is in the hand of the Lord (ſo the Septuagint) what things he is wont to do by his power,Deo juvante & ſubminiſtrante facultates. Vat. and what are his uſual proceedings, his actual and efficacious providence, Act. 4.28.

That which is with the Almighty I will not conceal.] Neque cela[illegible: 1 letter]o, ut res divina comparatae ſint, ſo the Tigurines tranſlate. Envious Maſters uſe to hide from their Scholers the beſt and chiefeſt part of their skil. It is reported of that ſpotted beaſt the Eyux, that knowing that his urine will congeal into a procious Stone, and ſo ſtand man in ſtead, of pure envy, when he piſſeth, he maketh a hole in the ground to cover it. Cardan ſpeaking of one that had a Receipt that would ſuddenly and certainly diſſolve a ſtone in the bladder, and dyed, not imparting his Skill to any one, I doubt not, ſaith he, but that man went to hel, quòd m[illegible: 1 letter]riens, artem ſ[illegible: 1 letter]am mortalibus i[illegible: 1 letter]viſerit, becauſe he envied his skil to thoſe that ſurvived him. Job was none ſuch: but what he knew of Gods mind and manner of dealing (which bath no certain Law, nor invariable rule, but dependeth upon his [illegible: 2 letters]er pleaſure) he was ready to impart to his friends, who meaſured Gods actions by a wrong rule.

Verſe 12. Behold, all y[illegible: 1 letter] your ſelves have ſeen it] And can ſay as ſay as much to it, as I can in theſe, ſc. that God afflicteth good men as well as bad, &c, Ecce [illegible: 1 span] ves [illegible: 3 letters]nes ſp[illegible: 1 letter]culationib[illegible: 2 letters] (theologi[illegible: 1 letter]is) [illegible: 1 span], quare tam vanas opiniones habetis? So the Tigurine tranſlation hath it: that is, But behold, whereas all ye have ſpent your time in (theological) ſpeculations, how is it that ye have taken up ſuch vain opinions? The Hebrew runs thus, Behold, you all have ſeen, [illegible: 1 word] are ſeers, (and he that is now called a Prophet, was before-time called a Seer, 1 Sam, 9.9) ye are knowing men, and of great experience, why then do ye go againſt your own knowledge, by ſpeaking vainly and vilely notwithſtanding?

Why then are ye thus altogether vain? Heb. And why is this, that ye are vain in vanity? ſc. Whileſt ye aſſ[illegible: 1 letter]rt that Gods love may be known by proſperity, and his hatred by adverſity; and whileſt ye conclude me an hypocrite becauſe afflicted? for ſo they had all done with one conſent. Bildad, chap. 8.13. Eliphaz, chap. 15.34. and Zophar, chap. 20.5. When as yet, Job had given ſufficient proof to the contrary: The matter was clear enough; but they did dat[illegible: 1 letter] oper[illegible: 1 letter], for the [illegible: 1 letter]once, obſcure it this was a vanity of vanities; and Job tells them as much.

Verſe 13. This is the portion of a wicked man with God] q.d. So ye ſay, and ſo I ſay too: for herein I will not deny to comply, and to chime in with you. Z[illegible: 1 letter]phar had ſaid the ſame in effect, and uſed the ſelf ſame expreſſions that Job here doth, chap. 20.29. See the Notes there. But muſt Job therefore be an hypocrite, though he continue to hope, and pray, and delight in God amidſt all his miſeries, verſ. 8, 9, 10? Neg[illegible: 1 letter]tur. He had ſpoken much before of the wicked mans proſperity: now to [illegible: 1 letter]event miſtakes, he diſcourſeth largely of his puniſhment, and how ill he beareth it.

And the heritage of oppreſſours. &c.] Of feirce and formidable tyrants, that are a terrour to others. Theſe are the rewards they ſhall receive from the God of Recompences, the Almighty, who can well enough deal with them, and delights to get him a name in their juſt deſtruction.

Verſe 14 If his children [illegible: 1 word] he multiplyed it is for the ſword] As were Ahabs ſeventy ſons for inſtance, 2 King 10.1. whom he had begotten after that God had threatned to root out his poſterity. He therefore as it were to croſs the Almighty, gives himſelf ſo much the more [illegible: 1 word] to the work of Generation: but this was (Ephraim like) to bring fouth [illegible: 1 span] Hoſ 9.13. See the like of A[illegible: 1 letter]atia[illegible: 1 letter] and his forty brethren, ſlain at the ſhearing houſe in the ſame Chapter.

And his off[illegible: 1 letter]ſpring] Heb. His iſſ[illegible: 2 letters]s, or egreſſions, his ſ[illegible: 2 letters]ts or branches, his pledges, ſo Merc[illegible: 2 letters] [illegible: 2 letters]death it.

Shall not be ſatisfied with bread] i e. Shall be pined and a fa[illegible: 1 letter]iſhed, which their wicked Parents, by heaping and hearding, ſought to prevent, but it could not be, And this ſhall be a more cruel kinde of death than the former,Tacit. Lam. 4.9. Druſus the ſon of Tibe[illegible: 2 letters]us N[illegible: 1 letter]r[illegible: 1 letter] was put to this death: ſo was our Richard the ſecond at Pomfret Caſtle, Sanders that Traytour in Ireland [illegible: 1 word] and many others.

Verſe 15. Theſe that [illegible: 1 word] of him, ſall [illegible: 1 letter]e [illegible: 1 span] death] That is Shall be preſently and privately [illegible: 1 word] (as [illegible: 1 word] it,) whitout any [illegible: 1 span]. Or they ſhall be ſo hated, that he man ſhall ſpeak well of [illegible: 1 word] when they are dead; but their came ſhall be [illegible: 1 word], and ſhall not with them, ſo others underſtand it. Or they ſhall be buried alive [illegible: 1 span] in a fit of an Apoplexy. Sepeli[illegible: 2 letters]ur adhuc vivi moribundi. Vatab. And when as he recovered of th[illegible: 2 letters] [illegible: 1 letter]it in his [illegible: 1 word], and [illegible: 1 word] for help, his wife, Ariadue was ſo kind as to deny it [illegible: 1 word]. They like is recorded of Scotus the great, Schoolman Di[illegible: 1 letter] date ſaith, that [illegible: 1 span] that the wicked dying are plunged into everlaſting death, which only it the true death. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Sept. Agreeable whereunto is that phraſe, Rev. 2.23. I will kill her children with [illegible: 1 word]. It is are thing to die, [illegible: 1 word] anoter thing to [illegible: 1 word] with death, this laſt is when death [illegible: 1 span] Hell, when it [illegible: 1 word] Hell [illegible: 1 span] of it. This is a woful, death indeed.

And his Wid[illegible: 2 letters]s [illegible: 1 span] One [illegible: 1 word] are one of the [illegible: 1 span] (their [illegible: 1 span] ſo they die unlamented by their own widows (for in thoſe dayes men took many wives, as now the Turks do ſo many as they are able to maintain, and very courſely they uſe them) who are glad that they are thus rid of them; who were wont to lay upon them with their unmanly fiſts, or otherwiſe to abuſe them. Of King Edwin it is ſaid, that he lived wickedly, died wiſhedly. And of Henry the ſecond, that hearing that his ſon and ſucceſſor John had conſpired againſt him, he fell into a grievous Paſſion, both curſing his ſons, and the day wherein himſelf was born, and in that diſtemperature departed the world which ſo often himſelf had diſtempered, and had now every mans good word to be gone hence. See Jer. 22.18.

Cum mors crudelem repuiſſet ſaevn Nero[illegible: 1 letter]m, Credibile eſt multos Roman agit aſſe jocos.

Verſe 16. Though he heap up ſilver as the duſt] Silver and Gold, what are they elſe but white and red Earth, the guts and garbage of the Earth, as one ſaith? Yet how greedy of them and gripple after them are many much-worms, heaping apriches, and not knowing who ſhall gather them, Pſal 39.6? laying up, as if their lives were riveted upon eternity: or were ſure to leave it to their Children, who yet ſhall never enjoy it. This is a great vanity, ſaith Solomon; and yet ſuch duſt-heapes as theſe, are to be found in every corner.

And prepare raiment as the clay] Tantum veſtium quantum eſt luti, ſaith Va [illegible: 1 letter]ablus, that he have as great ſtore of ſuits in his wardrobe, as he hath dirt in his ditches.

Verſe 17. He may prepare it, but the juſt ſhall put it on] Well may he prepare it, ſo Broughton. Let the wicked men toyle and take pains for it; God hath prepared for him an executour never mentioned in his Will. God gave the Egyptians and Canaanites Goods to Iſrael; Nabals to David; Human[illegible: 1 letter] to Mordecai, See Prop. 28.8. Eccleſ, 2.26. This plague among the reſt God threatneth the diſobedient with; Deut. 28.30 Sed haec non ſemper, ſaith Mercer, although we ſee not this alwayes ſo to fall out, but the contrary; yet it is eaſie to obſerve that many ſpend their ſtrength, and waſte their wits in congerendo & conver[illegible: 1 letter]end[illegible: 1 letter], in getting and gathering theſe outward things: and then, when to poſſeſs them might leem a happineſs, thev die and leave them to uncertain heirs, as did Abſolom and Alexander the Great, who left his Ring to Perdicc[illegible: 1 letter], Plut. but his Dominions [non-Latin text not transcribed] to him that ſhould beſt deſerve them.

And the innocent ſhall divide the ſilver] Shall ſhare it among them as their Childs-Portions. Solet enim Deus dividere aliis dona, aliis [illegible: 1 span] & lucium, ſaith Brentius here. God gives gifts unto men, even to the reb[illegible: 1 letter]ll[illegible: 3 letters], but the uſe and enjoyment of thoſe gifts he beſtoweth upon the righteous. The former have [illegible: 1 span] ſure and trouble therewith, Juvenal. Prov. [illegible: 2 letters].16 Miſer[illegible: 1 letter]eſt [illegible: 1 span] The later have, howſoever, contented godlineſs: and though they gather leſs of this Manna here below, yet they have no wa[illegible: 2 letters].

Verſe 18. He buildeth his houſe as a moth] Which lodgeth it ſelf in ſome ſtately garment, and thinks there to [illegible: 1 span], which he hath feathered (as the ſilkworm endeth his life in his long wrought clew) but is fool [illegible: 1 word] or [illegible: 1 span] ſo ſhall the oppreſſor be caſt out of his [illegible: 1 word] buildings which he hath with much coſt and care erected, rather for [illegible: 1 span] It is [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 4 letters]ful to build houſes: only men muſt not build [illegible: 1 span], with [illegible: 1 word] and hurt to others, [illegible: 1 span] (ſo this word it [illegible: 1 span] long cuſtome received) never build any thing ſumptuouſly for their own private [illegible: 1 word] but con[illegible: 4 letters] [illegible: 1 word] with [illegible: 1 span] Turk hiſt. f. 342 or Vineyard, who ſetteth him up a Booth, Cabin, or Cottage, to defend him from the parching heat of the Sun; which laſteth only for one ſummer at utmoſt: ſo here, The experience whereof we have had abundantly in theſe late deſolation wars: for how many gallant houſes have been utterly ruined.

Ʋt praeter nomen ſolum, nihil amplius extet?

Verſe 19. The rich man ſhall lye down] That is, the wicked rich man, as Jam. 5.1. Magna cognatio ut rei ſic nominis, divitiis, & vitiis. He ſhall lye down, viz. in the ſtreets, as being left houſe-leſs.

But he ſhall not be gathered] i. e. Taken into houſe or harbour by any man; but abhorred by all for his former cruelty.

He openeth his eyes, and he is not] He looketh about him on every ſide, but findeth no ſuccour. There are that underſtand it of death; The rich man ſhall lye down, Tigur. ſc in the duſt of death; but ſhall not be gathered, that is, nec honorifice funerabitur; he ſhall not have the honour of a comely burial. Beſides, he openeth his eyes, and he is not; upon his death-bed he looks about for comfort (the Mole, they ſay, never openeth her eyes till the pangs of death are upon her:) but in ſtead thereof ſhall ſee that three-fold terrible ſpectacle, Death, Judgement, Hell, and all to be paſſed through by his poor Soul: Hence (and no wonder)

Verſe 20. Terrours take hold on him as waters] Abundantly, ſuddenly, irreſiſtibly; he is even ſwallowed up by them and over-whelmed: as he that is plunged into a deep pit full of water, or that hath the proud ſurges going over his ſoul, Pſal. 124. The miſery of it is, That theſe waters are fiery, and Hell is a lake, but a burning lake, and ſuch alſo as hath eternity to the bottom.

A tempeſt ſtealeth him away in the night] i. e. Furtim, & repontè & horribiliter; Night is it ſelf full of terrour: but much more when a tempeſt is up, and theeves are abroad, &c. Oh! it muſt needs be a terrible time indeed, when death ſhall come with a Writ of Habeas Corpus, and the Devil with another of Habeas animam upon a man at once. Petrus Sutorius ſpeaketh of one that preaching a funeral Sermon on a certain Canon at Paris, and giving him large commendations,Pet Sutor, de vit. Carth. heard at the ſame time a voice in the Church, Mortuus ſum judicatus ſum, damnatus ſum; I am dead, judged, and damned. Oh! let us but think with our ſelves, though it paſs all thought, what a ſcreech the poor foul giveth when hurled into Hell; there to ſuffer ſuch tortures and torments as it ſhall never be able to avoid or abide!

Verſe 21. The Eaſt-wind carrieth him away] Deus ſubito & ſevero ſuo judicio. God, by his ſudden and ſevere Judgement,Lava[illegible: 1 letter]. hurrieth him hence to the place of torment, without the leaſt hope of ever either mending, or ending.

And he departeth] But with as ill a will as ever did Lot out of Sodom; Adam out of Paradiſe; the Jebuſites out of Jeruſalem; the unjuſt Steward out of his Office, the Devil out of the Demoniack.

And as a ſtorm hurleth him] Turbinat eum; Toſſeth him as a Ball into a far Countrey, as if he were wherried away by a fierce whirlewind, or ſerved as paſtime for tempeſts.

Verſe 22. For God ſhall caſt upon him, and not ſpare] But ſet himſelf to inflict upon this curſed caytiff all the plagues written (and unwritten) in his book, full vials of vengeance; an evil, an only evil, even puniſhment without pity, miſery without mercy, ſorrow without ſuccour, crying without comfort, miſchief without meaſure, torments without end, and paſt imagination.

He would fain flee out of his hand] But that will not be; like a wretched caytiff he runs without reſting: but Gods hand purſueth him till he periſheth. He may ſhuffle from ſide to ſide as Balaams Aſs did, he may skip up and down as the wounded Deer: Sed haeret lateri lethalis arundo; the deadly Dart ſticks in his ſide, &c.

Verſe 23. Men ſhall clap their hand at him, &c.] Heb. He ſhall clap, &c. Every He ſhall, or God ſhall, as ſome read it. God ſhall kick him off this Stage of the world, and then men ſhall clap, and hiſs at him in ſigne of deteſtation; as they did once at S[illegible: 1 letter]ianus, Phocas, Rich. 3 whoſe miſeries were a part of other mens happineſs, who looked upon them as Wolves and publick Peſts.