Job 3 commentary

For seven days Job's friends sat by him in silence, without offering consolidation: at the same time Satan assaulted his mind to shake his confidence, and to fill him with hard thoughts of God. The permission seems to have extended to this, as well as to torturing the body. Job was an especial type of Christ, whose inward sufferings, both in the garden and on the cross, were the most dreadful; and arose in a great degree from the assaults of Satan in that hour of darkness. These inward trials show the reason of the change that took place in Job's conduct, from entire submission to the will of God, to the impatience which appears here, and in other parts of the book. The believer, who knows that a few drops of this bitter cup are more dreadful than the sharpest outward afflictions, while he is favoured with a sweet sense of the love and presence of God, will not be surprised to find that Job proved a man of like passions with others; but will rejoice that Satan was disappointed, and could not prove him a hypocrite; for though he cursed the day of his birth, he did not curse his God. Job doubtless was afterwards ashamed of these wishes, and we may suppose what must be his judgment of them now he is in everlasting happiness.

Job complained of those present at his birth, for their tender attention to him. No creature comes into the world so helpless as man. God's power and providence upheld our frail lives, and his pity and patience spared our forfeited lives. Natural affection is put into parents' hearts by God. To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die, only that we may be delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption. It is our wisdom and duty to make the best of that which is, be it living or dying; and so to live to the Lord, and die to the Lord, as in both to be his, Ro 14:8. Observe how Job describes the repose of the grave; There the wicked cease from troubling. When persecutors die, they can no longer persecute. There the weary are at rest: in the grave they rest from all their labours. And a rest from sin, temptation, conflict, sorrows, and labours, remains in the presence and enjoyment of God. There believers rest in Jesus, nay, as far as we trust in the Lord Jesus and obey him, we here find rest to our souls, though in the world we have tribulation.

Job was like a man who had lost his way, and had no prospect of escape, or hope of better times. But surely he was in an ill frame for death when so unwilling to live. Let it be our constant care to get ready for another world, and then leave it to God to order our removal thither as he thinks fit. Grace teaches us in the midst of life's greatest comforts, to be willing to die, and in the midst of its greatest crosses, to be willing to live. Job's way was hid; he knew not wherefore God contended with him. The afflicted and tempted Christian knows something of this heaviness; when he has been looking too much at the things that are seen, some chastisement of his heavenly Father will give him a taste of this disgust of life, and a glance at these dark regions of despair. Nor is there any help until God shall restore to him the joys of his salvation. Blessed be God, the earth is full of his goodness, though full of man's wickedness. This life may be made tolerable if we attend to our duty. We look for eternal mercy, if willing to receive Christ as our Saviour.

CHAPTER 3

THE POEM OR DEBATE ITSELF (Job 3:2-42:6). FIRST SERIES IN IT (Job 3:1-14:22). JOB FIRST (Job 3:1-26).

Job 3:1-19. Job Curses the Day of His Birth and Wishes for Death.

1. opened his mouth--The Orientals speak seldom, and then sententiously; hence this formula expressing deliberation and gravity (Psa 78:2). He formally began.

cursed his day--the strict Hebrew word for "cursing:" not the same as in Job 1:5. Job cursed his birthday, but not his God.

2. spake--Hebrew, "answered," that is, not to any actual question that preceded, but to the question virtually involved in the case. His outburst is singularly wild and bold (Jr 20:14). To desire to die so as to be free from sin is a mark of grace; to desire to die so as to escape troubles is a mark of corruption. He was ill-fitted to die who was so unwilling to live. But his trials were greater, and his light less, than ours.

3. the night in which--rather "the night which said." The words in italics are not in the Hebrew. Night is personified and poetically made to speak. So in Job 3:7, and in Psa 19:2. The birth of a male in the East is a matter of joy; often not so of a female.

4. let not God regard it--rather, more poetically, "seek it out." "Let not God stoop from His bright throne to raise it up from its dark hiding-place." The curse on the day in Job 3:3, is amplified in Job 3:4, 5; that on the night, in Job 3:6-10.

5. Let ... the shadow of death--("deepest darkness," Is 9:2).

stain it--This is a later sense of the verb [Gesenius]; better the old and more poetic idea, "Let darkness (the ancient night of chaotic gloom) resume its rights over light (Ge 1:2), and claim that day as its own."

a cloud--collectively, a gathered mass of dark clouds.

the blackness of the day terrify it--literally, "the obscurations"; whatever darkens the day [Gesenius]. The verb in Hebrew expresses sudden terrifying. May it be suddenly affrighted at its own darkness. Umbreit explains it as "magical incantations that darken the day," forming the climax to the previous clauses; Job 3:8 speaks of "cursers of the day" similarly. But the former view is simpler. Others refer it to the poisonous simoom wind.

6. seize upon it--as its prey, that is, utterly dissolve it.

joined unto the days of the year--rather, by poetic personification, "Let it not rejoice in the circle of days and nights and months, which form the circle of years."

7. solitary--rather, "unfruitful." "Would that it had not given birth to me."

8. them ... curse the day--If "mourning" be the right rendering in the latter clause of this verse, these words refer to the hired mourners of the dead (Jr 9:17). But the Hebrew for "mourning" elsewhere always denotes an animal, whether it be the crocodile or some huge serpent (Is 27:1), such as is meant by "leviathan." Therefore, the expression, "cursers of day," refers to magicians, who were believed to be able by charms to make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam, Nu 22:5). This accords with Umbreit's view (Job 3:7); or to the Ethiopians and Atlantes, who "used to curse the sun at his rising for burning up them and their country" [Herodotus]. Necromancers claimed power to control or rouse wild beasts at will, as do the Indian serpent-charmers of our day (Psa 58:5). Job does not say they had the power they claimed; but, supposing they had, may they curse the day. Schuttens renders it by supplying words as follows:--Let those that are ready for anything, call it (the day) the raiser up of leviathan, that is, of a host of evils.

9. dawning of the day--literally, "eyelashes of morning." The Arab poets call the sun the eye of day. His early rays, therefore, breaking forth before sunrise, are the opening eyelids or eyelashes of morning.

12. Why did the knees prevent me?--Old English for "anticipate my wants." The reference is to the solemn recognition of a new-born child by the father, who used to place it on his knees as his own, whom he was bound to rear (Ge 30:3; 50:23; Is 66:12).

13. lain ... quiet ... slept--a gradation. I should not only have lain, but been quiet, and not only been quiet, but slept. Death in Scripture is called "sleep" (Psa 13:3); especially in the New Testament, where the resurrection-awakening is more clearly set forth (1Co 15:51; 1Th 4:14; 5:10).

14. With kings ... which built desolate places for themselves--who built up for themselves what proved to be (not palaces, but) ruins! The wounded spirit of Job, once a great emir himself, sick of the vain struggles of mortal great men, after grandeur, contemplates the palaces of kings, now desolate heaps of ruins. His regarding the repose of death the most desirable end of the great ones of earth, wearied with heaping up perishable treasures, marks the irony that breaks out from the black clouds of melancholy [Umbreit]. The "for themselves" marks their selfishness. Michaelis explains it weakly of mausoleums, such as are found still, of stupendous proportions, in the ruins of Petra of Idumea.

15. filled their houses with silver--Some take this to refer to the treasures which the ancients used to bury with their dead. But see Job 3:26.

16. untimely birth--(Psa 58:8); preferable to the life of the restless miser (Ec 6:3-5).

17. the wicked--the original meaning, "those ever restless," "full of desires" (Is 57:20, 21).

the weary--literally, "those whose strength is wearied out" (Re 14:13).

18. There the prisoners rest--from their chains.

19. servant--The slave is there manumitted from slavery.

Job 3:20-26. He Complains of Life because of His Anguish.

20. Wherefore giveth he light--namely, God; often omitted reverentially (Job 24:23; Ec 9:9). Light, that is, life. The joyful light ill suits the mourners. The grave is most in unison with their feelings.

23. whose way is hid--The picture of Job is drawn from a wanderer who has lost his way, and who is hedged in, so as to have no exit of escape (Ho 2:6; La 3:7, 9).

24. my sighing cometh before I eat--that is, prevents my eating [Umbreit]; or, conscious that the effort to eat brought on the disease, Job must sigh before eating [Rosenmuller]; or, sighing takes the place of good (Psa 42:3) [Good]. But the first explanation accords best with the text.

my roarings are poured out like the waters--an image from the rushing sound of water streaming.

25. the thing which I ... feared is come upon me--In the beginning of his trials, when he heard of the loss of one blessing, he feared the loss of another; and when he heard of the loss of that, he feared the loss of a third.

that which I was afraid of is come unto me--namely, the ill opinion of his friends, as though he were a hypocrite on account of his trials.

26. I was not in safety ... yet trouble came--referring, not to his former state, but to the beginning of his troubles. From that time I had no rest, there was no intermission of sorrows. "And" (not, "yet") a fresh trouble is coming, namely, my friends' suspicion of my being a hypocrite. This gives the starting-point to the whole ensuing controversy.

After this opened Job his mouth - After the seven days' mourning was over, there being no prospect of relief, Job is represented as thus cursing the day of his birth. Here the poetic part of the book begins; for most certainly there is nothing in the preceding chapters either in the form or spirit of Hebrew poetry. It is easy indeed to break the sentences into hemistichs; but this does not constitute them poetry: for, although Hebrew poetry is in general in hemistichs, yet it does not follow that the division of narrative into hemistichs must necessarily constitute it poetry.

In many cases the Asiatic poets introduce their compositions with prose narrative; and having in this way prepared the reader for what he is to expect, begin their deevans, cassidehs, gazels, etc. This appears to be the plan followed by the author of this book. Those who still think, after examining the structure of those chapters, and comparing them with the undoubted poetic parts of the book, that they also, and the ten concluding verses, are poetry, have my consent, while I take the liberty to believe most decidedly the opposite.

Cursed his day - That is, the day of his birth; and thus he gave vent to the agonies of his soul, and the distractions of his mind. His execrations have something in them awfully solemn, tremendously deep, and strikingly sublime. But let us not excuse all the things which he said in his haste, and in the bitterness of his soul, because of his former well established character of patience. He bore all his privations with becoming resignation to the Divine will and providence: but now, feeling himself the subject of continual sufferings, being in heaviness through manifold temptation, and probably having the light of God withdrawn from his mind, as his consolations most undoubtedly were, he regrets that ever he was born; and in a very high strain of impassioned poetry curses his day. We find a similar execration to this in Jeremiah, Jer 20:14-18, and in other places; which, by the way, are no proofs that the one borrowed from the other; but that this was the common mode of Asiatic thinking, speaking, and feeling, on such occasions.

There is a man-child conceived - The word הרה harah signifies to conceive; yet here, it seems, it should be taken in the sense of being born, as it is perfectly unlikely that the night of conception should be either distinctly known or published.

Let that day be darkness - The meaning is exactly the same with our expression, "Let it be blotted out of the calendar." However distinguished it may have been, as the birthday of a man once celebrated for his possessions, liberality, and piety, let it no longer be thus noted; as he who was thus celebrated is now the sport of adversity, the most impoverished, most afflicted, and most wretched of human beings.

Let not God regard it from above - אל ידרשהו al yidreshehu, "Let Him not require it" - let Him not consider it essential to the completion of the days of the year; and therefore he adds, neither let the light shine upon it. If it must be a part of duration, let it not be distinguished by the light of the sun.

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it - יגאלהו yigaluhu, "pollute or avenge it," from גאל gaal, to vindicate, avenge, etc.; hence גאל goel, the nearest of kin, whose right it was to redeem an inheritance, and avenge the death of his relative by slaying the murderer. Let this day be pursued, overtaken, and destroyed. Let natural darkness, the total privation of the solar light, rendered still more intense by death's shadow projected over it, seize on and destroy this day, εκλαβοι αυτην, Septuagint; alluding, perhaps, says Mr. Parkhurst, to the avenger of blood seizing the offender.

Let a cloud dwell upon it - Let the dymme cloude fall upon it - Coverdale. Let the thickest clouds have there their dwelling-place - let that be the period of time on which they shall constantly rest, and never be dispersed. This seems to be the import of the original, תשכן עליו אננה tishcan alaiv ananah. Let it be the place in which clouds shall be continually gathered together, so as to be the storehouse of the densest vapors, still in the act of being increasingly condensed.

Let the blackness of the day terrify it - And let it be lapped in with sorrowe. - Coverdale. This is very expressive: lap signifies to fold up, or envelope any particular thing with fold upon fold, so as to cover it everywhere and secure it in all points. Leaving out the semicolon, we had better translate the whole clause thus: "Let the thickest cloud have its dwelling-place upon it, and let the bitterness of a day fill it with terror." A day similar to that, says the Targum, in which Jeremiah was distressed for the destruction of the house of the sanctuary; or like that in which Jonah was cast into the sea of Tarsis; such a day as that on which some great or national misfortune has happened: probably in allusion to that in which the darkness that might be felt enveloped the whole land of Egypt, and the night in which the destroying angel slew all the first-born in the land.

As for that night, let darkness seize upon it - I think the Targum has hit the sense of this whole verse: "Let darkness seize upon that night; let it not be reckoned among the annual festivals; in the number of the months of the calendar let it not be computed." Some understand the word אפל ophel as signifying a dark storm; hence the Vulgate, tenebrosus turbo, "a dark whirlwind." And hence Coverdale, Let the darck storme overcome that night, let it not be reckoned amonge the dayes off the yeare, nor counted in the monethes. Every thing is here personified; day, night, darkness, shadow of death, cloud, etc.; and the same idea of the total extinction of that portion of time, or its being rendered ominous and portentous, is pursued through all these verses, from the third to the ninth, inclusive. The imagery is diversified, the expressions varied, but the idea is the same.

Lo, let that night be solitary - The word הנה hinneh, behold, or lo, is wanting in one of De Rossi's MSS., nor is it expressed in the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, or Arabic. The word גלמוד galmud, which we translate solitary, is properly Arabic. From ghalama or jalama, signifying to cut off, make bare, amputate, comes jalmud, a rock, a great stone; and jalameedet, weight, a burden, trouble, from which we may gather Job's meaning: "Let that night be grievous, oppressive, as destitute of good as a bare rock is of verdure." The Targum gives the sense, In that night let there be tribulation.

Let no joyful voice come therein - Let there be no choirs of singers; no pleasant music heard; no dancing or merriment. The word רננה renanah signifies any brisk movement, such as the vibration of the rays of light, or the brisk modulation of the voice in a cheerful ditty. The Targum has, Let not the crowing of the rural or wild cock resound in it. Let all work be intermitted; let there be no sportive exercises, and let all animals be totally silent.

Let them curse it that curse the day - This translation is scarcely intelligible. I have waded through a multitude of interpretations, without being able to collect from them such a notion of the verse as could appear to me probable. Schultens, Rosenmller, and after them Mr. Good, have labored much to make it plain. They think the custom of sorcerers who had execrations for peoples, places, things, days, etc., is here referred to; such as Balaam, Elymas, and many others were: but I cannot think that a man who knew the Divine Being and his sole government of the world so well as Job did, would make such an allusion, who must have known that such persons and their pretensions were impostors and execrable vanities. I shall give as near a translation as I can of the words, and subjoin a short paraphrase: יקבהו אררי יום העתידימערר לויתן yikkebuhu orerey yom haathidim orer livyathan; "Let them curse it who detest the day; them who are ready to raise up the leviathan." That is, Let them curse my birthday who hate daylight, such as adulterers, murderers, thieves, and banditti, for whose practices the night is more convenient; and let them curse it who, being like me weary of life, are desperate enough to provoke the leviathan, the crocodile, to tear them to pieces. This version is nearly the same as that given by Coverdale. Let them that curse the daye give it their curse also, then those that be ready to rayse up leviathan. By leviathan some understand the greatest and most imminent dangers; and others, the devil, whom the enchanters are desperate enough to attempt to raise by their incantations. Calmet understands the whole to be spoken of the Atlantes, a people of Ethiopia, who curse the sun because it parches their fields and their bodies; and who fearlessly attack, kill, and eat the crocodile. This seems a good sense.

Let the stars of the twilight thereof - The stars of the twilight may here refer to the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury, as well as to the brighter fixed stars.

Let it look for light - Here the prosopopoeia or personification is still carried on. The darkness is represented as waiting for the lustre of the evening star, but is disappointed; and these for the aurora or dawn, but equally in vain. He had prayed that its light, the sun, should not shine upon it, Job 3:4; and here he prays that its evening star may be totally obscured, and that it might never see the dawning of the day. Thus his execration comprehends every thing that might irradiate or enliven it.

Because it shut not up the doors - Here is the reason why he curses the day and the night in which he was conceived and born; because, had he never been brought into existence, he would never have seen trouble. It seems, however, very harsh that he should have wished the destruction of his mother, in order that his birth might have been prevented; and I rather think Job's execration did not extend thus far. The Targum understands the passage as speaking of the umbilical cord, by which the fetus is nourished in its mother's womb: had this been shut up, there must have been a miscarriage, or he must have been dead born; and thus sorrow would have been hidden from his eyes. This seeming gloss is much nearer the letter and spirit of the Hebrew than is generally imagined. I shall quote the words: כי לא סגר דלתי בטני ki lo sagar dalthey bitni, because it did not shut up the doors of my belly. This is much more consistent with the feelings of humanity, than to wish his mother's womb to have been his grave.

Why died I not from the womb - As the other circumstance did not take place, why was I not still-born, without the possibility of reviviscence? or, as this did not occur, why did I not die as soon as born? These three things appear to me to be clearly intended here: -

1. Dying in the womb, or never coming to maturity, as in the case of an abortion.

2. Being still-born, without ever being able to breathe.

3. Or, if born alive, dying within a short time after. And to these states he seems to refer in the following verses.

Why did the knees prevent me? - Why was I dandled on the knees? Why was I nourished by the breasts? In either of the above cases I had neither been received into a mother's lap, nor hung upon a mother's breasts.

For now should I have lain still - In that case I had been insensible; quiet - without these overwhelming agitations; slept - unconscious of evil; been at rest - been out of the reach of calamity and sorrow.

With kings and counsellors of the earth - I believe this translation to be perfectly correct. The counsellors, יעצי yoatsey, I suppose to mean the privy council, or advisers of kings; those without whose advice kings seldom undertake wars, expeditions, etc. These mighty agitators of the world are at rest in their graves, after the lives of commotion which they have led among men: most of whom indeed have been the troublers of the peace of the globe.

Which built desolate places - Who erect mausoleums, funeral monuments, sepulchral pyramids, etc., to keep their names from perishing, while their bodies are turned to corruption. I cannot think, with some learned men, that Job is here referring to those patriotic princes who employed themselves in repairing the ruins and desolations which others had occasioned. His simple idea is, that, had he died from the womb, he would have been equally at rest, neither troubling nor troubled, as those defunct kings and planners of wars and great designs are, who have nothing to keep even their names from perishing, but the monuments which they have raised to contain their corrupting flesh, moldering bones, and dust.

Or with princes that had gold - Chief or mighty men, lords of the soil, or fortunate adventurers in merchandise, who got gold in abundance, filled their houses with silver, left all behind, and had nothing reserved for themselves but the empty places which they had made for their last dwelling, and where their dust now sleeps, devoid of care, painful journeys, and anxious expectations. He alludes here to the case of the covetous, whom nothing can satisfy, as an Asiatic writer has observed, but the dust that fills his mouth when laid in the grave - Saady.

Or as a hidden untimely birth - An early miscarriage, which was scarcely perceptible by the parent herself; and in this case he had not been - he had never had the distinguishable form of a human being, whether male or female.

As infants - Little ones; those farther advanced in maturity, but miscarried long before the time of birth.

There the wicked cease - In the grave the oppressors of men cease from irritating, harassing, and distressing their fellow creatures and dependents.

And there the weary be at rest - Those who were worn out with the cruelties and tyrannies of the above. The troubles and the troubled, the restless and the submissive, the toils of the great and the labors of the slave, are here put in opposition.

The prisoners rest together - Those who were slaves, feeling all the troubles, and scarcely tasting any of the pleasures of life, are quiet in the grave together; and the voice of the oppressor, the hard, unrelenting task-master, which was more terrible than death, is heard no more. They are free from his exactions, and his mouth is silent in the dust. This may be a reference to the Egyptian bondage. The children of Israel cried by reason of their oppressors or task-masters.

The small and great are there - All sorts and conditions of men are equally blended in the grave, and ultimately reduced to one common dust; and between the bond and free there is no difference. The grave is "The appointed place of rendezvous, where all These travelers meet."

Equality is absolute among the sons of men in their entrance into and exit from the world: all the intermediate state is disparity. All men begin and end life alike; and there is no difference between the king and the cottager.

A contemplation of this should equally humble the great and the small.

The saying is trite, but it is true: -

Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.

Hor. Odar. lib. i., Od. iv., ver. 13. "With equal pace impartial Fate

Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate."

Death is that state,"Where they an equal honor shareWho buried or unburied are.Where Agamemnon knows no moreThan Irus he contemn'd before.Where fair Achilles and Thersites lie,Equally naked, poor, and dry."

And why do not the living lay these things to heart?

There is a fine saying in Seneca ad Marciam, cap. 20, on this subject, which may serve as a comment on this place: Mors-servitutem invito domino remittit; haec captivorum catenas levat; haec e carcere eduxit, quos exire imperium impotens vetuerat. Haec est in quo nemo humilitatem suam sensit; haec quae nulli paruit; haec quae nihil quicquam alieno fecit arbitrio. Haec, ubi res communes fortuna male divisit, et aequo jure genitos alium alii donavit, exaequat omnia. - "Death, in spite of the master, manumits the slave. It loosens the chains of the prisoners. It brings out of the dungeon those whom impotent authority had forbidden to go at large. This is the state in which none is sensible of his humiliation. Death obeys no man. It does nothing according to the will of another. It reduces, by a just law, to a state of equality, all who in their families and circumstances had unequal lots in life."

Wherefore is light given - Why is life granted to him who is incapable of enjoying it, or of performing its functions?

Which long for death - They look to it as the end of all their miseries; and long more for a separation from life, than those who love gold do for a rich mine.

Which rejoice exceedingly - Literally, They rejoice with joy, and exult when they find the grave. There is a various reading here in one of Kennicott's MSS., which gives a different sense. Instead of who rejoice, אלי גיל eley gil, with Joy, it has אלי גל eley gal, who rejoice at the Tomb, and exult when they find the grave.

To a man whose way is hid - Who knows not what is before him in either world, but is full of fears and trembling concerning both.

God hath hedged in? - Leaving him no way to escape; and not permitting him to see one step before him. There is an exact parallel to this passage in Lam 3:7, Lam 3:9 : He hath hedged me about that I cannot get out. He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone. Mr. Good translates the verse thus: To the man whose path is broken up, and whose futurity God hath overwhelmed. But I cannot see any necessity for departing from the common text, which gives both an easy and a natural sense.

For my sighing cometh - Some think that this refers to the ulcerated state of Job's body, mouth, hands, etc. He longed for food, but was not able to lift it to his mouth with his hands, nor masticate it when brought thither. This is the sense in which Origen has taken the words. But perhaps it is most natural to suppose that he means his sighing took away all appetite, and served him in place of meat. There is the same thought in Psa 42:3 : My tears have been my meat day and night; which place is not an imitation of Job, but more likely Job an imitation of it, or, rather, both an imitation of nature.

My roarings are poured out - My lamentations are like the noise of the murmuring stream, or the dashings of the overswollen torrent.

For the thing which I greatly reared - Literally, the fear that I feared; or, I feared a fear, as in the margin. While I was in prosperity I thought adversity might come, and I had a dread of it. I feared the loss of my family and my property; and both have occurred. I was not lifted up: I knew that what I possessed I had from Divine Providence, and that he who gave might take away. I am not stripped of my all as a punishment for my self-confidence.

I was not in safety - If this verse be read interrogatively, it will give a good and easy sense: Was I not in safety? Had I not rest? Was I not in comfort? Yet trouble came. It is well known that, previously to this attack of Satan, Job was in great prosperity and peace. Mr. Good translates, I had no peace; yea, I had no rest. Yea, I had no respite, as the trouble came on; and refers the whole to the quick succession of the series of heavy evils by which he was tried. There is a similar thought in the Psalmist: Deep crieth unto deep at the noise of thy water-spouts; all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me; Psa 42:7. One evil treads on the heels of another.

In this chapter Job's conflict begins. Now, and not before, Satan appears to have access to his mind. When he deprived him of his property, and, what was still dearer, of his sons and his daughters, the hope of his family, he bore all with the most exemplary patience, and the deepest resignation to the Divine will. When his adversary was permitted to touch his body, and afflict it in the most grievous and distressing manner, rendered still more intolerable by his being previously deprived of all the comforts and necessaries of life; still he held fast his integrity; no complaint, no murmur was heard. From the Lord's hand he received his temporal good; and from that hand he received his temporal evil, the privation of that good. Satan was, therefore, baffled in all his attempts; Job continued to be a perfect and upright man, fearing God, and avoiding evil. This was Job's triumph, or rather the triumph of Divine grace; and Satan's defeat and confusion.

It is indeed very seldom that God permits Satan to waste the substance or afflict the body of any man; but at all times this malevolent spirit may have access to the mind of any man, and inject doubts, fears, diffidence, perplexities, and even unbelief. And here is the spiritual conflict. Now, their wrestling is not with flesh and blood - with men like themselves, nor about secular affairs; but they have to contend with angels, principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places. In such cases Satan is often permitted to diffuse darkness into the understanding, and envelope the heavens with clouds. Hence are engendered false views of God and his providence, of men, of the spiritual world, and particularly of the person's own state and circumstances. Every thing is distorted, and all seen through a false medium. Indescribable distractions and uneasiness are hereby induced; the mind is like a troubled sea, tossed by a tempest that seems to confound both heaven and earth. Strong temptations to things which the soul contemplates with abhorrence are injected; and which are followed by immediate accusations, as if the injections were the offspring of the heart itself; and the trouble and dismay produced are represented as the sense of guilt, from a consciousness of having, in heart, committed these evils. Thus Satan tempts, accuses, and upbraids, in order to perplex the soul, induce skepticism, and destroy the empire of faith. Behold here the permission of God, and behold also his sovereign control: all this time the grand tempter is not permitted to touch the heart, the seat of the affections, nor offer even the slightest violence to the will. The soul is cast down, but not destroyed; perplexed, but not in despair. It is on all sides harassed; without are fightings, within are fears: but the will is inflexible on the side of God and truth, and the heart, with all its train of affections and passions, follows it. The man does not wickedly depart from his God; the outworks are violently assailed, but not taken; the city is still safe, and the citadel impregnable. Heaviness may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Jesus is soon seen walking upon the waters. He speaks peace to the winds and the sea: immediately there is a calm. Satan is bruised down under the feet of the sufferer, the clouds are dispersed, the heavens re-appear, and the soul, to its surprise, finds that the storm, instead of hindering, has driven it nearer to the haven whither it would be.

The reader who closely examines the subject will find that this was the case of Job. The following chapters show the conflict of the soul; the end of the book, God's victory and his exaltation. Satan sifted Job as wheat, but his faith failed not.

His day - His birth - day, in vain do some endeavour to excuse this and the following speeches of Job, who afterwards is reproved by God, and severely accuseth himself for them, chap.38:2 40:4 13:3,6. And yet he does not proceed so far as to curse God, but makes the devil a liar: but although he does not break forth into direct reproaches of God, yet he makes indirect reflections upon his providence. His curse was sinful, both because it was vain, being applied to a thing, which was not capable of blessing and cursing, and because it cast a blame upon God for bringing that day, and for giving him life on that day.

Let the day - Let the remembrance of that day be utterly lost.

Darkness - I wish the sun had never risen upon that day, or, which is all one, that it had never been; and whensoever that day returns, I wish it may be black, and gloomy, and uncomfortable. Regard - From heaven, by causing the light of the sun which is in heaven to shine upon it.

Death - A black and dark shadow like that of the place of the dead, which is a land of darkness. Slain - Take away its beauty and glory. Terrify - That is, men in it. Let it be always observed as a frightful and dismal day.

Darkness - Constant and extraordinary darkness, without the least glimmering of light from the moon or stars. Be joined - Reckoned as one, or a part of one of them.

The day - Their birth - day: when their afflictions move them to curse their own birth - day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it. Mourning - Who are full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints.

The stars - Let the stars, which are the glory and beauty of the night, be covered with thick darkness, and that both in the evening twilight, when the stars begin to shine; and also in the farther progress of the night, even 'till the morning dawns. Look - Let its darkness be aggravated with the disappointment of its expectations of light. He ascribes sense or reasoning to the night, by a poetical fiction, usual in all writers. Dawning - Heb. the eye - lids of the day, the morning - star which ushers in the day, and the beginning, and progress of the morning light, let this whole natural day, consisting of night and day, be blotted out of the catalogue of days.

It - The night or the day: to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in poetical writings. Womb - That it might never have brought me forth. Nor hid - Because it did not keep me from entering into this miserable life, and seeing, or experiencing, these bitter sorrows.

The knees - Why did the midwife or nurse receive and lay me upon her knees, and not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, 'till death had taken me out of this miserable world, into which their cruel kindness hath betrayed me? Why did the breasts prevent me from perishing through hunger, or supply me that should have what to suck? Thus Job unthankfully despises these wonderful mercies of God towards poor helpless infants.

Kings - I had then been as happy as the proudest monarchs, who after all their great achievements and enjoyments, go down into their graves. Built - Who to shew their wealth and power, or to leave behind them a glorious name, rebuilt ruined cities, or built new cities and palaces, in places where before there was mere solitude and wasteness.

Hidden - Undiscerned and unregarded. Born before the due time. Been - In the land of the living.

There - In the grave. The wicked - The great oppressors and troublers of the world cease from their vexations, rapins and murders. Weary - Those who were here molested and tired out with their tyrannies, now quietly sleep with them.

The oppressor - Or, taskmaster, who urges and forces them to work by cruel threatenings and stripes. Job meddles not here with their eternal state after death, of which he speaks hereafter, but only their freedom from worldly troubles, which is the sole matter of his present discourse.

Small and great - Persons of all qualities and conditions. Are there - In the same place and state, all those distinctions being forever abolished. A good reason, why those who have power should use it moderately, and those that are in subjection should take it patiently.

Light - The light of life. Bitter - Unto those to whom life itself is bitter and burdensome. Life is called light, because it is pleasant and serviceable for walking and working; and this light is said to be given us, because it would be lost, if it were not daily renewed to us by a fresh gift.

Dig - Desire with as much earnestness as men dig for treasure: but it is observable, Job durst not do anything to hasten or procure his death: notwithstanding all his miseries, he was contented to wait all the days of his appointed time, 'till his change came, chap.14:14.

Glad, &c. - To be thus impatient of life, for the sake of the trouble we meet with, is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the giver of life, and shews a sinful indulgence of our own passion. Let it be our great and constant care, to get ready for another world: and then let us leave it to God, to order the circumstances of our removal thither.

Hid - From him; who knows not his way, which way to turn himself, what course to take to comfort himself in his miseries. Hedged in - Whom God hath put as it were in a prison, so that he can see no way or possibility of escape.

Before, &c. - Heb. before the face of my bread, all the time I am eating, I fall into sighing and weeping, because I am obliged to eat, and to support this wretched life, and because of my uninterrupted pains of body and of mind, which do not afford me one quiet moment. Roarings - My loud outcries, more befitting a lion than a man. Poured out - With great abundance, and irresistible violence, and incessant continuance, as waters flow in a river, or as they break the banks, and overflow the ground.

Feared - Even in the time of my prosperity, I was full of fears, considering the variety of God's providences, the changeableness of this vain world, God's justice, and the sinfulness of all mankind. And these fears of mine, were not in vain, but are justified by my present calamities.

Quiet - I did not misbehave myself in prosperity, abusing it by presumption, and security, but I lived circumspectly, walking humbly with God, and working out my salvation with fear and trembling. Therefore in this sense also, his way was hid, he knew not why God contended with him.

1. AFter this [opened Job his Mouth, ] and [cursed his day. ]

He spake freely and boldly, as this Phrase is used Prov. 31. 8, 9. Eph. 6. 19. and elsewhere.

To wit, his Birth-day, as is evident from v. 3. which is called simply a Mans day, Hos. 7. 5. which also some others, through the same Infirmity, and in the same Circumstances, have cursed, as we see Ier. 20. 14. In vain do some men endeavour to excuse this and the following Speeches of Iob, who afterwards is reproved by God, and severely accuseth himself for them, Ch. 38. 2. and 40. 4. and 42. 3, 6. And yet he doth not proceed so far as to curse or blaspheme God, but makes the Devil a Lyar in his Prognosticks: But although he doth not break forth into direct and down right Reproaches of God, yet he makes secret and indirect Reflections upon Gods Providence. His Curse was sinful, both because it was vain, being applied to an unreasonable thing, which was not capable of blessing and cursing, and to a day that was past, and so out of the reach of all Curses; and because it was applied to one of Gods Creatures, all which were and are in themselves very good, and pronounced blessed by God, and so they are, if we do not turn them into Curses; and because it casts a blame upon God for bringing that day, and for giving him that Life which that day brought into the World. He pronounceth that day an unhappy, woful, and cursed day, not in it self, but with respect to himself.

3. [ Let the day perish wherein I was born, ] and the night in which [it was said, ] There is a Man-Child [conceived ]

Let the remembrance of that day be utterly lost. Yea, I heartily wish that it had never been. Such Wishes are apparently foolish and impatient, and yet have been somtimes forced from wise and good men in grievous Distresses, not as if they expected any effect of them, but only to shew their abhorrency of Life, and to express the intolerableness of their grief, and to give some vent to their passions.

With Joy and Triumph, as happy tidings. Compare Ier. 20. 15.

Or rather, brought forth, as this word is used, 1 Chron. 4. 17. For the time of conception is unknown commonly to Women themselves, and doth not use to be reported among men, as this day is supposed to be.

Marginal references: Ch. 10. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ 19 I[illegible: 1+ letters]. 20. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪

4 [Let that day be Darkness, ] [let not God regard it from above, ] neither let the Light shine upon it.

I wish the Sun had never risen upon that day to make it day, or, which is all one, that it had never been, and whensoever that day returns, I wish it may be black, and gloomy, and uncomfortable, and therefore execrable and odious to all men.

i. e. From Heaven, either, 1. By causing the Light of the Sun which is in Heaven to shine upon it. So it agrees both with the foregoing and following Branches of this Verse. Or, 2. By blessing and favouring it, or by giving his Blessings to men upon it. Let it be esteemed by all an unlucky, and comfortless day. Oh Let not God require it, i. e. bring it again in its course, as other days return. in this sense God is said to require that which is past, Eccles. 3. 15. Compare v. 3. 6.

5. Let Darkness and [the shadow of death ] [ stain it, ] let a Cloud dwell upon it, [ let the blackness of the day terrifie it. ]

i. e. A black and dark shadow like that of the place of the dead, which is a Land of Darkness, and where the Light is Darkness, as Iob explains this very Phrase, Ch. 10. 21. 22. Or, so gross and palpable Darkness that by its horrours and damps may take away mens Spirits and Lives.

i. e. Take away its beauty and Glory, and make it abominable as a filthy thing. Or, challenge it, i. e. take and keep the entire possession of it, so as the Light may not have the least share in it.

To wit, the day, i. e. Men in it. Let it be always observed as a frightful and dismal day.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word]; Or, [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] it as [illegible: 1 word] who have [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1+ letters].

6. As for that Night, let [darkness ] seize upon it, [ let it not be joined unto the days of the year, ] [let it not come into the number of the Months▪ ]

i. e. Constant and extraordinary Darkness, without the least glimmering of Light from the Moon or Stars.

i. e. Reckoned as one or a part of one of them. The night is distinguished from the artificial day, but it is a part of the natural day, which consists of 24 hours. Or rather, let it not rejoice among the days, &c. Joy here, and terrour v. 5. are poetically and figuratively ascribed to the day or night, with respect to men, who either rejoice or are affrighted in it. Let it be a sad, and as it were a funeral day▪

i. e. To be one of those Nights which go to the making up of the Months.

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

7. Lo, [let that night be solitary, ] let [no joyful voice ] come therein:

i. e. Destitute of all society of Men meeting and feasting together, which commonly was done at night, Suppers being the most solemn Meals among divers antient Nations. See Mark 6. 21. Luk. 14. 16. Iohn 12. 2. Rev. 19. 9, 17.

Neither of the Bride and Bridegroom, nor any that celebrate their Nuptials, or any other merry Solemnity.

8. Let them curse it [that curse the day, ] [who are ready to raise up their mourning. ]

i. e. Their day, to wit, their Birth-day: for the Pronoun is here omitted for the meeters sake: For this and the following Chapters are written in verse, as all grant. So the Sense is, when their Afflictions move them to curse their own Birth-day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some Curses upon it. Or, the day of their distress and trouble, which sometimes is called simply the day, as Obad. 12. Or, the day of the Birth or death of that person whose Funerals are celebrated by the hired Mourners, who in their solemn Lamentations used to curse the day that gave them such a Person, whom they should so suddenly lose, and therefore it had been better never to have enjoyed him, and to curse the day in which he died as an unlucky, and execrable day. Or the day, i. e. the Day-light: which to some persons is an hateful thing and the Object of their Curses, namely to leud Persons and Thieves, to whom the morning Light is even as the Shadow of death, Ch. 24. 17. as also to persons oppressed with deep Melancholy, as it is here implied, v. 20. So the sense is this, They who use to curse the day only, but generally love and bless the night, yet let this night be as abominable and execrable to them as the day-time generally is.

Who are brim full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their Cries, and Tears, and Complaints, and with them Curses, as men in great passions frequently do. Or, such Mourning-Men, or Mourning-Women, whose common Employment it was, and who were hired to mourn, and therefore were always ready to do so upon funeral occasions; of which see 2 Chron. 35. 25. Ier. 9. 17, 18, 20. Ezek. 30. 2. Ioel 1. 15. Amos [illegible: 1+ letters], 16. Matth. 9. 23. And this Sense suits with the use of the last word in Hebrew Writers, of which a plain and pertinent Instance is given by the learned Mercer. But because that word is commonly used in another sense for the Leviathan, both in this Book and elsewhere in Scripture, as Psal. 74. 14. and 104. 26. Isa. 27. 1. And because this very Phrase of raising the Leviathan is used afterward▪ Ch. 41. 25. others render the words thus▪ Who are prepared, or ready to raise the Leviathan. It is evident that the Leviathan was a great and dreadful Fish or Sea-Monster, though there be some disagreement about its kind or quality, and that the raising of or endeavouring to catch the Leviathan was a dangerous and terrible work, as is plain from Iob 41. And therefore those Sea-Men, who have been generally noted for great Swearers and cursers, especially when their Passions of Rage or Fear are raised, being now labouring to catch this Sea-monster, and finding themselves and their Vessel in great danger from him, they fall to their old trade of Swearing and Cursing, and curse the day wherein they were born, and the day in which they ventured upon this most hazardous and terrible work. Others understand this Leviathan mystically, as it is used Isa. 27. 1. for the great Enemy of Gods Church and People, called there also the Dragon, to wit, the Devil, whom the Magicians both now do, and formerly did use to raise with fearful Curses and Imprecations. Not as if Iob did justifie this practice, but only it is a rash and passionate wish, that they who pour sorth so many Curses undeservedly, would bestow their deserved Curses upon this day,

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

9. [Let the Stars of the Twilight thereof be dark, ] [let it look for Light but have none, ] neither let it see [ the dawning of the day: ]

Let the Stars, which are the Glory and Beauty of the Night, to render it amiable and delightful to men, be covered with thick darkness, Chap. 41. 18. and that both in the Evening Twilight, as is here expressed, when the Stars begin to arise and shine forth, and also in the further progress of the Night, even till the Morning begins to dawn, as the following words imply.

Let its darkness be aggravated with the disappointment of its Hopes and Expectations of Light. He ascribes sense or reasoning to the Night by a Poetical fiction usual in all Writers.

Heb. The Eye-lids of the day, i. e. the Morning-Star which ushers in the day, and the beginning and consequently the progress of the Morning Light, and the Day following. Let this whole natural day consisting of Night and day be blotted out of the Catalogue of Days, as he wished before.

Marginal references: Chap. 41. 18.; Heb. the Eyelids of the morning.

10. Because [it ] [shut not up the doors ] of my [Mothers ] Womb, [nor hid sorrow from mine Eyes. ]

To wit, the night or the day: to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in Poetical Writings, such as this is. Or, he, i. e. God: whom in modesty and Reverence he forbears to name. Yet he doth not curse God for his Birth, as the Devil presaged, but only wisheth that the day of his Birth might have manifest Characters of a Curse impressed upon it.

That it might either never have conceived me, or at least never have brought me forth.

Which word is here fitly supplied both out of Ch. 1. 21. and 31. 18. where it is expressed; and by comparing other places where it is necessarily to be understood, though the Womb only be mentioned, as Iob 10. 19. Psal. 58. 3. Isa. 48. 8. Ier. 1. 5.

Because it did not keep me from entring into this miserable Life, and seeing, i. e. feeling, or experiencing, (as that word is oft used) those bitter sorrows under which I now groan.

11. [Why died I not from the Womb? ] [Why did I not give up the Ghost when I came out of the Belly? ]

i. e. As soon as ever I was born, or come out of the Womb.

The same thing expressed in other words, which is an Elegancy usual both in the Hebrew and in other Languages.

12. [Why did the Knees prevent me? ] or [why the Breasts that I should suck? ]

Why did the Midwife or Nurse receive me and lay me upon her Knees, and did not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, and there to lie in a neglected and forlorn condition, till merciful Death had taken me out of this miserable World into which the cruel kindness of my Mother and Midwife hath betrayed me?

Why did the Breasts prevent me (which may be fitly understood out of the former Member) to wit, from perishing through hunger, or supply me that I should have what to suck? Seeing my Mother had not a miscarrying Womb, but did unhappily bring me forth, why had she not dry Breasts? Or why were there any Breasts for me which I might suck? Thus Iob most unthankfully and unworthily despiseth and traduceth these wonderful and singular Mercies of God towards poor helpless Infants because of the present Inconveniences, which he had by means of them.

13. For now should I have [lien still, and been quiet, ] I should have slept; then had I been at rest,

Free from all those torments of my Body and Mind which now oppress me.

14. [With Kings ] and Counsellors of the Earth, [which built desolate places for themselves: ]

I had then been as happy as the proudest Monarchs, who after all their great Archievments and Enjoyments go down into their Graves, where I also should have been sweetly reposed.

Which to shew their great Wealth and Power, or to leave behind him a glorious name rebuilt ruined Cities, or built new Cities and Palaces, and other Monuments in places where before there was meer solitude and Wasteness.

Marginal references: Ch. 15. 28.

16. Or as an [hidden ] [untimely Birth ] [I had not been; ] as Infants [which never saw light. ]

Undiscerned and unregarded.

Born before the due time and therefore extinct.

To wit, in the Land of the Living, of which he here speaketh.

Being stifled and dead before they were born.

Marginal references: Psal. 58. 8.

17. [There ] [the wicked cease from troubling: ] and [there the weary be at rest ]

i. e. In the Grave, which though not expressed, yet is clearly implied in the foregoing Verses.

The great oppressours and troublers of the World cease from all those Vexations, Rapines, and Murders, which here they procured.

Those who were here molested and tired out with their Tyrannies, now quietly sleep with them, or by them.

Marginal references: Heb. wearied in strength.

18. There the Prisoners rest [together, ] [they hear not the voice of the Oppressor. ]

i. e. One as well as another, they who were kept in the strongest Chains, and closest Prisons, and condemned to the most hard and miserable slavery, rest as well as those who were captives in much better circumstances. Or, in like manner, (as this word oft signifies) as those Oppressours and oppressed do.

Or, Exactour, or Ta[illegible: 1+ letters]kmaster, who urgeth and forceth them by cruel threatnings and stripes to greater diligence in the works to which they are condemned. See Exod. 3. 7. and 5. 6, 10, 13. Iob meddles not here with their eternal State after death or the Sentence and Judgment of God against wicked men, of which he speaks hereafter, but only speaks of their freedom from worldly troubles, which is the only matter of his Complaint, and present Discourse.

19. [The small and great ] [ are there, ] and the Servant is free from his Master.

i. e. Persons of all qualities and conditions, whether higher or lower.

In the same place and State, all those kinds of distinctions and differences being for ever abolished.

Marginal references: Or, is there the sam[illegible: 1+ letters]

20. [Wherefore is Light given ] to him that is in Misery, and Life [unto the bitter in Soul? ]

Heb. Wherefore (for what cause, or use, or good) doth he (i. e. God, though he forbear to name him, out of that holy Fear and Reverence which still he retained towards him) give Light, either the Light of the Sun, which the Living only behold, Eccles. 6. 5. and 7. 11. Or the Light of Life, as may seem both by the next words, and by comparing Psal. [illegible: 1+ letters]6. 13. and because death is oft set forth by the name of Darkness, as Life by the name of Light. These are strong Expostulations with God and quarrelling with his Providence, and with his Blessings; but we must consider, that Iob was but a man, and a man of like Passions and Infirmities with other men, and now in grievous Agonies, being not only under most violent and yet continual torments of Body, but also under great disquietments of Mind, and the deep sense of Gods Displeasure, and was also left to himself, that he might see what was in his Heart, and that all succeeding Ages might have in him an illustrious Example of Mans Infirmity, and the necessity of Gods Grace to help them in time of need. And therefore it is no Wonder if his passions boil up and break forth in some indecent and sinful Expressions.

Unto such to whom Life itself is very bitter and burdensom. Why doth he obtrude his favours upon those who abhor them?

21. Which long for death, but it cometh not, and [dig for it ] more than for hid Treasures.

i. e. Desire and pray for it with as much earnestness as men dig for Treasure: But it is observable, that Iob durst not lay violent Hands upon himself, nor do any thing to hasten or procure his Death, but notwithstanding all his Miseries and Complaints, he was contented to wait all the days of his appointed time, till his change came, Ch. 14. 14.

Marginal references: Heb. wait. Rev. 9. 6.

23. [Why is Light given ] to a man [whose way is hid, ] and [whom God hath hedged in? ]

These words are conveniently supplied out of v. 20. where they are, all the following words hitherto being joined in Construction and sense with them.

To wit, from him; who knows not his way, i. e. which way to turn himself, what course to take to comfort himself in his Miseries, or to get out of them, what method to use to please and reconcile that God who is so angry with him, seeing his sincere and exact Piety, to which God is witness, doth not satisfie him, or what the end of these Calamities will be.

Not with a Hedge of defence, like that Ch. 1. 10. but of Offence and Restraint; i. e. whom God hath put as it were in a Prison or Pound, or like Cattle in grounds inclosed with an high and strong Hedge, over or through which they cannot get, so that he can see no way nor possibility to escape, but all refuge fails him.

Marginal references: Chap. 19. 8. Lam. 3. 7.

24. For [my Sighing cometh before I eat, ] and [my Roarings ] [are poured out like the Waters. ]

Heb. Before the face of my Bread, i. e. either when I am going to eat: or rather, all the time whilst I am eating (for so this Phrase is used, Psal. 72. 5. before the face of the Sun, &c. that is, as we translate it, as long as the Sun endureth,) I fall into bitter Passions of sighing and weeping, partly because my necessity and duty obligeth me to eat, and so to support this wretched Life, which I long to lose: and principall▪ because of my uninterrupted pains of Body and horrours of my Mind which mix themselves with my very Meat, and do not afford me one quiet moment. Compare Psal. 10[illegible: 1+ letters]. 9.

i. e. My loud outcries, more befitting a Lyon than a Man, which yet extremity of grief forceth from me. Compare Psal. 22. 1. and 32. 3.

i. e. With great abundance, and irresistible violence, and incessant continuance, as Waters flow in a River, or when they break the Banks, and overflow the ground.

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

25. [For ] [ the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, ] and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

This is another Reason why he is weary of his Life, and why he repents that ever he was born, because he never enjoyed any solid and secure Comfort.

Heb. I feared a fear, (i. e. a danger or mischief in one kind, or other, the Act being here put for the Object, as Ioy and Love are oft put for the things rejoiced in, or loved, and here Fear for the thing feared. Or, I feared with fear, i. e. I feared greatly) and it came. Even in the time of my Peace and Prosperity, I was full of Fears, considering the variety of Gods Providences, the course and changeableness of this vain World, the Infirmities and Contingencies of Humane Nature and Life, Gods Justice, and the sinfulness of all Mankind. And these Fears of mine were not in vain, but are justified by my present Calamities. So that I have never enjoied any sound Tranquillity since I was born; and therefore it hath not been worth my while to live, since all my days have been evil, and full of Vexation and Torment, either by the fear of Miseries, or by the sufferance of them.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] a fear [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]

26. [I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet: ] [yet trouble came. ]

Three Expressions noting the same thing, which also was signified in the next foregoing Verse, to wit, that even in his prosperous days he never was secure or at rest from the torment of Fear and Anxiety. Others, I did not misbehave my self in Prosperity, abusing it by Presumption, and Security, and Voluptuousness, whereby I might have provoked God thus to afflict me; but I lived soberly and circumspectly, walking humbly with God, and working out my Salvation with Fear and Trembling, little expecting that God would be so fierce an Enemy against me.

Heb. And trouble came, as I feared it would. So between Fear and Calamity my whole Life hath been miserable, and I had reason to repent of it.

Job 3:1

Job’s first longer utterance now commences, by which he involved himself in the conflict, which is his seventh temptation or trial. 1, 2  After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said.

Job 3:2

Job 3:2 consists only of three words, which are separated by Rebia; and ויאמר, although Milel, is vocalized ויּאמר, because the usual form ויּאמר, which always immediately precedes direct narration, is not well suited to close the verse. ענה, signifies to begin to speak from some previous incitement, as the New Testament ἀποκρίνεσθαι (not always = השׁיב) is also sometimes used.Vid., on this use of ἀποκρίνεσθαι, Quaestio xxi. of the Amphilochia of Photius in Ang. Maji Collectio, i. 229f.

The following utterance of Job, with which the poetic accentuation begins, is analysed by modern critics as follows: Job 3:3-10, Job 3:11-19, Job 3:20-26. Schlottmann calls it three strophes, Hahn three parts, in the first of which delirious cursing of life is expressed; in the second, eager longing for death; in the third, reproachful inquiry after the end of such a life of suffering. In reality they are not strophes. Nevertheless Ebrard is wrong when he maintains that, in general, strophe-structure is as little to be found in the book of Job as in Wallenstein’s Monologue. The poetical part of the book of Job is throughout strophic, so far as the nature of the drama admits it. So also even this first speech. Stickel has correctly traced out its divisions; but accidentally, for he has reckoned according to the Masoretic verses. That this is false, he is now fully aware; also Ewald, in his Essay on Strophes in the Book of Job, is almost misled into this groundless reckoning of the strophes according to the Masoretic verses (Jahrb. iii. X. 118, Anm. 3). The strophe-schema of the following speech is as follows: 8. 10. 6. 8. 6. 8. 6. The translation will show how unmistakeably it may be known. In the translation we have followed the complete lines of the original, and their rhythm: the iambic pentameter into which Ebrard, and still earlier Hosse (1849), have translated, disguises the oriental Hebrew poetry of the book with its variegated richness of form in a western uniform, the monotonous impression of which is not, as elsewhere, counter-balanced in the book of Job by the change of external action. After the translation we give the grammatical explanation of each strophe; and at the conclusion of the speech thus translated and explained, its higher exposition, i.e., its artistic importance in the connection of the drama, and its theological importance in relation to the Old and New Testament religion and religious life.

Job 3:3-5   3  Perish the day wherein I was born.

And the night which said, A man-child is conceived!   4  Let that day become darkness;

Let not Eloah ask after it from above,

And let not the light shine on it.   5  May darkness and the shadow of death purchase it back;

Let a cloud lie upon it;

May that which obscures the day terrify it.

The curse is against the day of his birth and the night of his conception as recurring yearly, not against the actual first day (Schlottm.), to which the imprecations which follow are not pertinent. Job wishes his birth-day may become dies ater, swallowed up by darkness as into nothing. The elliptical relative clauses, Job 3:3 (Ges. §123, 3; cf. 127, 4, c), become clear from the translation. Transl. the night (לילה with parag. He is masc.) which said, not: in which they said; the night alone was witness of this beginning of the development of a man-child, and made report of it to the High One, to whom it is subordinate. Day emerges from the darkness as Eloah from above (as Job 31:2, Job 31:28), i.e., He who reigns over the changes here below, asks after it; interests Himself in His own (דּרשׁ). Job wishes his birth-day may not rejoice in this. The relations of this his birth-day are darkness and the shadow of death. These are to redeem it, as, according to the right of kinsmen, family property is redeemed when it has got into a stranger’s hands. This is the meaning of גּאל (lxx ἐκλάβοι), not = גּעל, inquinent (Targ.). עננה is collective, as נהרה, mass of cloud. Instead of כּמרירי (the Caph of which seems pointed as praepos), we must read with Ewald (§157, a), Olshausen, (§187, b), and others, כּמרירי, after the form חכליל, darkness, dark flashing (vid., on Psa 10:8), שׁפריר, tapestry, unless we are willing to accept a form of noun without example elsewhere. The word signifies an obscuring, from כּמר, to glow with heat, because the greater the glow the deeper the blackness it leaves behind. All that ever obscures a day is to overtake and render terrible that day.We may compare here, and further, on, Constance’s outburst of despair in King John (3:1 and 3:4). Shakespeare, like Goethe, enriches himself from the book of Job.

Job 3:6-9   6  That night! let darkness seize upon it;

Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

Let it not come into the number of the month.   7  Lo! let that night become barren;

Let no sound of gladness come to it.   8  Let those who curse the day curse it,

Who are skilled in stirring up leviathan.   9  Let the stars of its early twilight be darkened;

Let it long for light and there be none;

And let it not refresh itself with eyelids of the dawn.

Darkness is so to seize it, and so completely swallow it up, that it shall not be possible for it to pass into the light of day. It is not to become a day, to be reckoned as belonging to the days of the year and rejoice in the light thereof. יחדּ, for יחדּ, fut. Kal from חדה (Exo 18:9), with Dagesh lene retained, and a helping Pathach (vid., Ges. §75, rem. 3, d); the reverse of the passage Gen 49:6, where יחד, from יחד, uniat se, is found. It is to become barren, גּלמוּד, so that no human being shall ever be conceived and born, and greeted joyfully in it.Fries understands רננה, song of the spheres (concentum coeli, Job 38:37, Vulg.); but this Hellenic conception is without support in holy Scripture. “Those who curse days” are magicians who know how to change days into dies infausti by their incantations. According to vulgar superstition, from which the imagery of Job 3:8 is borrowed, there was a special art of exciting the dragon, which is the enemy of sun and moon, against them both, so that, by its devouring them, total darkness prevails. The dragon is called in Hindu râhu; the Chinese, and also the natives of Algeria, even at the present day make a wild tumult with drums and copper vessels when an eclipse of the sun or moon occurs, until the dragon will release his prey.On the dragon râhu, that swallows up sun and moon, vid., Pott, in the Hallische Lit. Zeitschr. 1849, No. 199; on the custom of the Chinese, Käuffer, Das chinesische Volk, S. 123. A similar custom among the natives of Algeria I have read of in a newspaper (1856). Moreover, the clouds which conceal the sky the Indians represent as a serpent. It is ahi, the cloud-serpent, which Indra chases away when he divides the clouds with his lightning. Vid., Westergaard in Weber’s Indischer Zeitschr. 1855, S. 417.

Job wishes that this monster may swallow up the sun of his birth-day. If the night in which he was conceived or born is to become day, then let the stars of its twilight (i.e., the stars which, as messengers of the morning, twinkle through the twilight of dawn) become dark. It is to remain for ever dark, never behold with delight the eyelids of the dawn. בּ ראה, to regale one’s self with the sight of anything, refresh one’s self. When the first rays of morning shoot up in the eastern sky, then the dawn raises its eyelids; they are in Sophocles’s Antigone, 103, χρυσέης ἡμέρας βλέφαρον, the eyelid of the golden day, and therefore of the sun, the great eye.

Job 3:10-12 10  Because it did not close the doors of my mother’s womb,

Nor hid sorrow from my eyes. 11  Why did I not die from the womb,

Come forth from the womb and expire? 12  Why have the knees welcomed me?

And why the breasts, that I should suck?

The whole strophe contains strong reason for his cursing the night of his conception or birth. It should rather have closed (i.e., make the womb barren, to be explained according to 1Sa 1:5; Gen 16:2) the doors of his womb (i.e., the womb that conceived concepit him), and so have withdrawn the sorrow he now experiences from his unborn eyes (on the extended force of the negative, vid., Ges. §152, 3). Then why, i.e., to what purpose worth the labour, is he then conceived and born? The four questions, Job 3:11., form a climax: he follows the course of his life from its commencement in embryo (מרהם, to be explained according to Jer 20:17, and Job 10:18, where, however, it is מן local, not as here, temporal) to the birth, and from the joy of his father who took the new-born child upon his knees (comp. Gen 50:23) to the first development of the infant, and he curses this growing life in its four phases (Arnh., Schlottm.). Observe the consecutio temp. The fut. אמוּת has the signification moriebar, because taken from the thought of the first period of his conception and birth; so also ואגוע, governed by the preceding perf., the signification et exspirabam (Ges. §127, 4, c). Just so אינק, but modal, ut sugerem ea.

Job 3:13-16 13  So should I now have lain and had quiet,

I should have slept, then it would have been well with me, 14  With kings and councillors of the earth,

Who built ruins for themselves, 15  Or with princes possessing gold,

Who filled their houses with silver: 16  Or like a hidden untimely birth I had not been,

And as children that have never seen the light.The perf. and interchanging fut. have the signification of oriental imperfecta conjunctivi, according to Ges. §126, 5; עתּה כּי is the usual expression after hypothetical clauses, and takes the perf. if the preceding clause specifies a condition which has not occurred in the past (Gen 31:42; Gen 43:10; Num 22:29, Num 22:33; 1Sa 14:30), the fut. if a condition is not existing in the present (Job 6:3; Job 8:6; Job 13:19). It is not to be translated: for then; כי rather commences the clause following: so I should now, indeed then I should. Ruins, הרבות, are uninhabited desolate buildings, elsewhere such as have become, here such as are from the first intended to remain, uninhabited and desolate, consequently sepulchres, mausoleums; probably, since the book has Egyptian allusions, in other passages also, a play upon the pyramids, in whose name (III-XPAM, according to Coptic glossaries) III is the Egyptian article (vid., Bunsen, Aeg. ii. 361); Arab. without the art. hirâm or ahrâm (vid., Abdollatîf, ed. de Sacy, p. 293, s.).We think that חרבות sounds rather like חרמות, the name of the pyramids, as the Arabic haram (instead of hharam), derived from XPAM, recalls harmân (e.g., beith harmân, a house in ruins), the synonym of hhardân (חרבאן).

Also Renan: Qui se bâtissent des mausolées. Böttch. de inferis, §298 (who, however, prefers to read רחבות, wide streets), rightly directs attention to the difference between החרבות בנה (to rebuild the ruins) and לו בנה ח (to build ruins for one’s self). With או like things are then ranged after one another. Builders of the pyramids, millionaires, abortions (vid., Ecc 6:3), and the still-born: all these are removed from the sufferings of this life in their quiet of the grave, be their grave a “ruin” gazed upon by their descendants, or a hole dug out in the earth, and again filled in as it was before.

Job 3:17-19 17  There the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest. 18  The captives dwell together in tranquillity;

They hear not the voice of the taskmaster. 19  The small and great, - they are alike there;

And the servant is free from his lord.

There, i.e., in the grave, all enjoy the rest they could not find here: the troublers and the troubled ones alike. רגן corresponds to the radical idea of looseness, broken in pieces, want of restraint, therefore of Turba (comp. Isa 57:20; Jer 6:7), contained etymologically in רשׁע. The Pilel שׁאנן vid., Ges. §55, 2) signifies perfect freedom from care. In הוּא שׁם, הוּא is more than the sign of the copula (Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm.); the rendering of the lxx, Vulg., and Luther., ibi sunt, is too feeble. As it is said of God, Isa 41:4; Isa 43:13; Psa 102:28, that He is הוּא, i.e., He who is always the same, ὁ αὐτός; so here, הוּא, used purposely instead of המּה, signifies that great and small are like one another in the grave: all distinction has ceased, it has sunk to the equality of their present lot. Correctly Ewald: Great and small are there the same. יחד, Job 3:18, refers to this destiny which brings them together.

Job 3:20-23 20  Why is light given to the wretched,

And life to the sorrowful in soul? 21  Who wait for death, and he comes not,

Who dig after him more than for treasure, 22  Who rejoice with exceeding joy,

Who are enraptured, when they can find the grave? 23  To the man whose way is hidden,

And whom Eloah hath hedged round?

The descriptive partt. Job 3:21, Job 3:22, are continued in predicative clauses, which are virtually relative clauses; Job 3:21 has the fut. consec., since the sufferers are regarded as now at least dead; Job 3:22 the simple fut., since their longing for the grave is placed before the eye (on this transition from the part. to the verb. fin., vid., Ges. §134, rem. (2). Schlottm. and Hahn wrongly translate: who would dig (instead of do dig) for him more than for treasure. אלי־גיל (with poetical אלי instead of אל) might signify, accompanied by rejoicing, i.e., the cry and gesture of joy. The translation usque ad exultationem, is however, more appropriate here as well as in Hos 9:1. With Job 3:23 Job refers to himself: he is the man whose way of suffering is mysterious and prospectless, and whom God has penned in on all sides (a fig. like Job 19:8; comp. Lam 3:5). סכך, sepire, above, Job 1:10, to hedge round for protection, here: forcibly straiten.

Job 3:24-26 24  For instead of my food my sighing cometh,

And my roarings pour themselves forth as water. 25  For I fear something terrible, and it cometh upon me,

And that before which I shudder cometh to me. 26  I dwelt not in security, nor rested, nor refreshed myself:

Then trouble cometh.

That לפני may pass over from the local signification to the substitutionary, like the Lat. pro (e.g., pro praemio est), is seen from Job 4:19 (comp. 1Sa 1:16): the parallelism, which is less favourable to the interpretation, before my bread (Hahn, Schlottm., and others), favours the signification pro here. The fut. consec. ויּתּכוּ (Kal of נתך) is to be translated, according to Ges. §129, 3, a, se effundunt (not effuderunt): it denotes, by close connection with the preceding, that which has hitherto happened. Just so v. 25 a: I fear something terrible; forthwith it comes over me (this terrible, most dreadful thing). אתה is conjugated by the ה passing into the original א of the root (vid., Ges. §74, rem. 4). And just so the conclusion: then also forthwith רגן (i.e., suffering which disorders, rages and ransacks furiously) comes again. Schlottm. translates tamely and wrongly: then comes - oppression. Hahn, better: Nevertheless fresh trouble always comes; but the “nevertheless” is incorrect, for the fut. consec. indicates a close connection, not contrast. The praett., Job 3:26, give the details of the principal fact, which follows in the fut. consec.: only a short cessation, which is no real cessation; then the suffering rages afresh.

Why - one is inclined to ask respecting this first speech of Job, which gives rise to the following controversy - why does the writer allow Job, who but a short time before, in opposition to his wife, has manifested such wise submission to God’s dealings, all at once to break forth in such despair? Does it not seem as though the assertion of Satan were about to be confirmed? Much depends upon one’s forming a correct and just judgment respecting the state of mind from which this first speech proceeds. To this purpose, consider (1) That the speech contains no trace of what the writer means by את־האלהים ברך: Job nowhere says that he will have nothing more to do with God; he does not renounce his former faithfulness: (2) That, however, in the mind of the writer, as may be gathered from Job 2:10, this speech is to be regarded as the beginning of Job’s sinning. If a man, on account of his sufferings, wishes to die early, or not to have been born at all, he has lost his confidence that God, even in the severest suffering, designs his highest good; and this want of confidence is sin.

There is, however, a great difference between a man who has in general no trust in God, and in whom suffering only makes this manifest in a terrible manner, and the man with whom trust in God is a habit of his soul, and is only momentarily repressed, and, as it were, paralysed. Such interruption of the habitual state may result from the first pressure of unaccustomed suffering; it may then seem as though trust in God were overwhelmed, whereas it has only given way to rally itself again. It is, however, not the greatness of the affliction in itself which shakes his sincere trust in God, but a change of disposition on the part of God which seems to be at work in the affliction. The sufferer considers himself as forgotten, forsaken, and rejected of God, as many passages in the Psalms and Lamentations show: therefore he sinks into despair: and in this despair expression is given to the profound truth (although with regard to the individual it is a sinful weakness), that it is better never to have been born, or to be annihilated, than to be rejected of God (comp. Mat 26:24, καλὸν ἦ αὐτῷ ει ̓ οὐκ ἐγεννήθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖνος). In such a condition of spiritual, and, as we know from the prologue, of Satanic temptation (Luk 22:31; Eph 6:16), is Job. He does not despair when he contemplates his affliction, but when he looks at God through it, who, as though He were become his enemy, has surrounded him with this affliction as with a rampart. He calls himself a man whose way is hidden, as Zion laments, Isa 40:27, “My way is hidden from Jehovah;” a man whom Eloah has hedged round, as Jeremiah laments over the ruins of Jerusalem, Lam 3:1-13 (in some measure a comment on Job 3:23), “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath ... . He has hedged me round that I cannot get out, and made my chain heavy.”

In this condition of entire deprivation of every taste of divine goodness, Job breaks forth in curses. He has lost wealth and children, and has praised God; he has even begun to bear an incurable disease with submission to the providence of God. Now, however, when not only the affliction, but God himself, seems to him to be hostile (nunc autem occultato patre, as Brentius expresses it),Fries, in his discussion of this portion of the book of Job, Jahrbb. für Deutsche Theologie, 1859, S. 790ff., is quite right that the real affliction of Job consists in this, that the inward feeling of being forsaken of God, which was hitherto strange to him, is come upon him. But the remark directed against me, that the feeling of being forsaken of God does not always stand in connection with other affliction, but may come on the favoured of God even in the midst of uninterrupted outward prosperity, does not concern me, since it is manifestly by the dispensations which deprive him of all his possessions, and at last affect him corporeally and individually, that Job is led to regard himself as one forsaken of God, and still more than that, one hated by God; and since, on the other hand also, this view of the tempted does not appear to be absolutely subjective, God has really withdrawn from Job the external proof, and at the same time the feeling, of His abiding love, in order to try the fidelity of His servant’s love, and prove its absoluteness. we hear from his mouth neither words of praise (the highest excellence in affliction) nor words of resignation (duty in affliction), but words of despair: his trust in God is not destroyed, but overcast by thick clouds of melancholy and doubt.

It is indeed inconceivable that a New Testament believer, even under the strongest temptation, should utter such imprecations, or especially such a question of doubt as in Job 3:20 : Wherefore is light given to the miserable? But that an Old Testament believer might very easily become involved in such conflicts of belief, may be accounted for by the absence of any express divine revelation to carry his mind beyond the bounds of the present. Concerning the future at the period when the book of Job was composed, and the hero of the book lived, there were longings, inferences, and forebodings of the soul; but there was no clear, consoling word of God on which to rely, - no θεῖος λόγος which, to speak as Plato (Phaedo, p. 85, D), could serve as a rescuing plank in the shipwreck of this life. Therefore the πανταχοῦ θρυλλούμενον extends through all the glory and joy of the Greek life from the very beginning throughout. The best thing is never to have been born; the second best, as soon as possible thereafter, to die. The truth, that the suffering of this present time is not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us, was still silent. The proper disposition of mind, under such veiling of the future, was then indeed more absolute, as faith committed itself blindfold to the guidance of God. But how near at hand was the temptation to regard a troublous life as an indication of the divine anger, and doubtingly to ask, Why God should send the light of life to such! They knew not that the present lot of man forms but the one half of his history: they saw only in the one scale misery and wrath, and not in the other the heaven of love and blessedness to be revealed hereafter, by which these are outweighed; they longed for a present solution of the mystery of life, because they knew nothing of the possibility of a future solution. Thus it is to be explained, that not only Job in this poem, but also Jeremiah in the book of his prophecy, Job 20:14-18, curses the day of his birth. He curses the man who brought his father the joyous tidings of the birth of a son, and wishes him the fate of Sodom and Gomorrha. He wishes for himself that his mother might have been his grave, and asks, like Job, “Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, and that my days should be consumed in shame?” Hitzig remarks on this, that it may be inferred from the contents and form of this passage, there was a certain brief disturbance of spirit, a result of the general indescribable distress of the troublous last days of Zedekiah, to which the spirit of the prophet also succumbed. And it is certainly a kind of delirium in which Jeremiah so speaks, but there is no physical disorder of mind with it: the understanding of the prophet is so slightly and only momentarily disturbed, that he has the rather gained power over his faith, and is himself become one of its disturbing forces.

Without applying to this lyric piece either the standard of pedantic moralizing, or of minute criticism as poetry, the intense melancholy of this extremely plaintive prophet may have proceeded from the following reasoning: After I have lived ten long years of fidelity and sacrifice to my prophetic calling, I see that it has totally failed in its aim: all my hopes are blighted; all my exhortations to repentance, and my prayers, have not availed to draw Judah back from the abyss into which he is now cast, nor to avert the wrath of Jehovah which is now poured forth: therefore it had been better for me never to have been born. This thought affects the prophet so much the more, since in every fibre of his being he is an Israelite, and identifies the weal and woe of his people with his own; just as Moses would rather himself be blotted out form the book of life than that Israel should perish, and Paul was willing to be separated from Christ as anathema if he could thereby save Israel. What wonder that this thought should disburden itself in such imprecations! Had Jeremiah not been born, he would not have had occasion to sit on the ruins of Jerusalem. But his outburst of feeling is notwithstanding a paroxysm of excitement, for, though reason might drive him to despair, faith would teach him to hope even in the midst of downfall; and in reality, this small lyric piece in the collective prophecy of Jeremiah is only as a detached rock, over which, as a stream of clear living water, the prophecy flows on more joyous in faith, more certain of the future. In the book of Job it is otherwise; for what in Jeremiah and several of the psalms is compressed into a small compass, - the darkness of temptation and its clearing up, - is here the substance of a long entanglement dramatically presented, which first of all becomes progressively more and more involved, and to which this outburst of feeling gives the impulse. As Jeremiah, had he not been born, would not have sat on the ruins of Jerusalem; so Job, had he not been born, would not have found himself in this abyss of wrath. Neither of them knows anything of the future solution of every present mystery of life; they know nothing of the future life and the heavenly crown. This it is which, while it justifies their despair, casts greater glory round their struggling faith.

The first speaker among the friends, who now comes forward, is Eliphaz, probably the eldest of them. In the main, they all represent one view, but each with his individual peculiarity: Eliphaz with the self-confident pathos of age, and the mien of a prophet;A. B. Davidson thinks Eliphaz is characterized as “the oldest, the most dignified, the calmest, and most considerate of Job’s friends.”

Bildad with the moderation and caution befitting one poorer in thought; Zophar with an excitable vehemence, neither skilled nor disposed for a lasting contest. The skill of the writer, as we may here at the outset remark, is manifested in this, that what the friends say, considered in itself, is true: the error lies only in the inadequacy and inapplicability of what is said to the case before them.

Job Curses His Day. (b. c. 1520.)

1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job spake, and said, 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. 4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: 10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

Long was Job's heart hot within him; and, while he was musing, the fire burned, and the more for being stifled and suppressed. At length he spoke with his tongue, but not such a good word as David spoke after a long pause: Lord, make me to know my end, Ps. xxxix. 3, 4. Seven days the prophet Ezekiel sat down astonished with the captives, and then (probably on the sabbath day) the word of the Lord came to him, Ezek. iii. 15, 16. So long Job and his friends sat thinking, but said nothing; they were afraid of speaking what they thought, lest they should grieve him, and he durst not give vent to his thoughts, lest he should offend them. They came to comfort him, but, finding his afflictions very extraordinary, they began to think comfort did not belong to him, suspecting him to be a hypocrite, and therefore they said nothing. But losers think they may have leave to speak, and therefore Job first gives vent to his thoughts. Unless they had been better, it would however have been well if he had kept them to himself. In short, he cursed his day, the day of his birth, wished he had never been born, could not think or speak of his own birth without regret and vexation. Whereas men usually observe the annual return of their birth-day with rejoicing, he looked upon it as the unhappiest day of the year, because the unhappiest of his life, being the inlet into all his woe. Now,

I. This was bad enough. The extremity of his trouble and the discomposure of his spirits may excuse it in part, but he can by no means be justified in it. Now he has forgotten the good he was born to, the lean kine have eaten up the fat ones, and he is filled with thoughts of the evil only, and wishes he had never been born. The prophet Jeremiah himself expressed his painful sense of his calamities in language not much unlike this: Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me! Jer. xv. 10. Cursed be the day wherein I was born, Jer. xx. 14, &c. We may suppose that Job in his prosperity had many a time blessed God for the day of his birth, and reckoned it a happy day; yet now he brands it with all possible marks of infamy. When we consider the iniquity in which we were conceived and born we have reason enough to reflect with sorrow and shame upon the day of our birth, and to say that the day of our death, by which we are freed from sin (Rom. vi. 7), is far better. Eccl. vii. 1. But to curse the day of our birth because then we entered upon the calamitous scene of life is to quarrel with the God of nature, to despise the dignity of our being, and to indulge a passion which our own calm and sober thoughts will make us ashamed of. Certainly there is no condition of life a man can be in in this world but he may in it (if it be not his own fault) so honour God, and work out his own salvation, and make sure a happiness for himself in a better world, that he will have no reason at all to wish he had never been born, but a great deal of reason to say that he had his being to good purpose. Yet it must be owned, if there were not another life after this, and divine consolations to support us in the prospect of it, so many are the sorrows and troubles of this that we might sometimes be tempted to say that we were made in vain (Ps. lxxxix. 47), and to wish we had never been. There are those in hell who with good reason wish they had never been born, as Judas, Matt. xxvi. 24. But, on this side hell, there can be no reason for so vain and ungrateful a wish. It was Job's folly and weakness to curse his day. We must say of it, This was his infirmity; but good men have sometimes failed in the exercise of those graces which they have been most eminent for, that we may understand that when they are said to be perfect it is meant that they were upright, not that they were sinless. Lastly, Let us observe it, to the honour of the spiritual life above the natural, that though many have cursed the day of their first birth, never any cursed the day of their new-birth, nor wished they never had had grace, and the Spirit of grace, given them. Those are the most excellent gifts, above life and being itself, and which will never be a burden.

II. Yet it was not so bad as Satan promised himself. Job cursed his day, but he did not curse his God—was weary of his life, and would gladly have parted with that, but not weary of his religion; he resolutely cleaves to that, and will never let it go. The dispute between God and Satan concerning Job was not whether Job had his infirmities, and whether he was subject to like passions as we are (that was granted), but whether he was a hypocrite, who secretly hated God, and if he were provoked, would show his hatred; and, upon trial, it proved that he was no such man. Nay, all this may consist with his being a pattern of patience; for, though he did thus speak unadvisedly with his lips, yet both before and after he expressed great submission and resignation to the holy will of God and repented of his impatience; he condemned himself for it, and therefore God did not condemn him, nor must we, but watch the more carefully over ourselves, lest we sin after the similitude of this transgression.

1. The particular expressions which Job used in cursing his day are full of poetical fancy, flame, and rapture, and create as much difficulty to the critics as the thing itself does to the divines: we need not be particular in our observations upon them. When he would express his passionate wish that he had never been, he falls foul upon the day, and wishes,

(1.) That earth might forget it: Let it perish (v. 3); let it not be joined to the days of the year, v. 6. "Let it be not only not inserted in the calendar in red letters, as the day of the king's nativity useth to be" (and Job was a king, ch. xxix. 25), "but let it be erased and blotted out, and buried in oblivion. Let not the world know that ever such a man as I was born into it, and lived in it, who am made such a spectacle of misery."

(2.) That Heaven might frown upon it: Let not God regard it from above, v. 4. "Every thing is indeed as it is with God; that day is honourable on which he puts honour, and which he distinguishes and crowns with his favour and blessing, as he did the seventh day of the week; but let my birthday never be so honoured; let it be nigro carbone notandus—marked as with a black coal for an evil day by him that determines the times before appointed. The father and fountain of light appointed the greater light to rule the day and the less lights to rule the night; but let that want the benefit of both." [1.] Let that day be darkness (v. 4); and, if the light of the day be darkness, how great is that darkness! how terrible! because then we look for light. Let the gloominess of the day represent Job's condition, whose sun went down at noon. [2.] As for that night too, let it want the benefit of moon and stars, and let darkness seize upon it, thick darkness, darkness that may be felt, which will not befriend the repose of the night by its silence, but rather disturb it with its terrors.

(3.) That all joy might forsake it: "Let it be a melancholy night, solitary, and not a merry night of music and dancing. Let no joyful voice come therein (v. 7); let it be a long night, and not see the eye-lids of the morning (v. 9), which bring joy with them."

(4.) That all curses might follow it (v. 8): "Let none ever desire to see it, or bid it welcome when it comes, but, on the contrary, let those curse it that curse the day. Whatever day any are tempted to curse, let them at the same time bestow one curse upon my birth-day, particularly those that make it their trade to raise up mourning at funerals with their ditties of lamentation. Let those that curse the day of the death of others in the same breath curse the day of my birth." Or those who are so fierce and daring as to be ready to raise up the Leviathan (for that is the word here), who, being about to strike the whale or crocodile, curse it with the bitterest curse they can invent, hoping by their incantations to weaken it, and so to make themselves master of it. Probably some such custom might there be used, to which our divine poet alludes. "Let it be as odious as the day wherein men bewail the greatest misfortune, or the time wherein they see the most dreadful apparition;" so bishop Patrick, I suppose taking the Leviathan here to signify the devil, as others do, who understand it of the curses used by conjurors and magicians in raising the devil, or when they have raised a devil that they cannot lay.

2. But what is the ground of Job's quarrel with the day and night of his birth? It is because it shut not up the doors of his mother's womb, v. 10. See the folly and madness of a passionate discontent, and how absurdly and extravagantly it talks when the reins are laid on the neck of it. Is this Job, who was so much admired for his wisdom that unto him men gave ear, and kept silence at his counsel, and after his words they spoke not again? ch. xxix. 21, 11. Surely his wisdom failed him, (1.) When he took so much pains to express his desire that he had never been born, which, at the best was a vain wish, for it is impossible to make that which has been not to have been. (2.) When he was so liberal of his curses upon a day and a night that could not be hurt, or made any the worse for his curses. (3.) When he wished a thing so very barbarous to his own mother as that she had not brought him forth when her full time had come, which must inevitably have been her death, and a miserable death. (4.) When he despised the goodness of God to him in giving him a being (such a being, so noble and excellent a life, such a life, so far above that of any other creature in this lower world), and undervalued the gift, as not worth the acceptance, only because transit cum onere—it was clogged with a proviso of trouble, which now at length came upon him, after many years' enjoyment of its pleasures. What a foolish thing it was to wish that his eyes had never seen the light, that so they might not have seen sorrow, which yet he might hope to see through, and beyond which he might see joy! Did Job believe and hope that he should in his flesh see God at the latter day (ch. xix. 26), and yet would he wish he had never had a being capable of such a bliss, only because, for the present, he had sorrow in the flesh? God by his grace arm us against this foolish and hurtful lust of impatience.

Job's Complaint of Life. (b. c. 1520.)

11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? 12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, 14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; 15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: 16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. 18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. 19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

Job, perhaps reflecting upon himself for his folly in wishing he had never been born, follows it, and thinks to mend it, with another, little better, that he had died as soon as he was born, which he enlarges upon in these verses. When our Saviour would set forth a very calamitous state of things he seems to allow such a saying as this, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the paps which never gave suck (Luke xxiii. 29); but blessing the barren womb is one thing and cursing the fruitful womb is another! It is good to make the best of afflictions, but it is not good to make the worst of mercies. Our rule is, Bless, and curse not. Life is often put for all good, and death for all evil; yet Job here very absurdly complains of life and its supports as a curse and plague to him, and covets death and the grave as the greatest and most desirable bliss. Surely Satan was deceived in Job when he applied that maxim to him, All that a man hath will he give for his life; for never any man valued life at a lower rate than he did.

I. He ungratefully quarrels with life, and is angry that it was not taken from him as soon as it was given him (v. 11, 12): Why died not I from the womb? See here, 1. What a weak and helpless creature man is when he comes into the world, and how slender the thread of life is when it is first drawn. We are ready to die from the womb, and to breathe our last as soon as we begin to breathe at all. We can do nothing for ourselves, as other creatures can, but should drop into the grave if the knees did not prevent us; and the lamp of life, when first lighted, would go out of itself if the breasts given us, that we should suck, did not supply it with fresh oil. 2. What a merciful and tender care divine Providence took of us at our entrance into the world. It was owing to this that we died not from the womb and did not give up the ghost when we came out of the belly. Why were we not cut off as soon as we were born? Not because we did not deserve it. Justly might such weeds have been plucked up as soon as they appeared; justly might such cockatrices have been crushed in the egg. Nor was it because we did, or could, take any care of ourselves and our own safety: no creature comes into the world so shiftless as man. It was not our might, or the power of our hand, that preserved us these beings, but God's power and providence upheld our frail lives, and his pity and patience spared our forfeited lives. It was owing to this that the knees prevented us. Natural affection is put into parents' hearts by the hand of the God of nature: and hence it was that the blessings of the breast attended those of the womb. 3. What a great deal of vanity and vexation of spirit attends human life. If we had not a God to serve in this world, and better things to hope for in another world, considering the faculties we are endued with and the troubles we are surrounded with, we should be strongly tempted to wish that we had died from the womb, which would have prevented a great deal both of sin and misery. He that is born to-day, and dies to-morrow, Loses some hours of joy, but months of sorrow. 4. The evil of impatience, fretfulness, and discontent. When they thus prevail they are unreasonable and absurd, impious and ungrateful. To indulge them is a slighting and undervaluing of God's favour. How much soever life is embittered, we must say, "It was of the Lord's mercies that we died not from the womb, that we were not consumed." Hatred of life is a contradiction to the common sense and sentiments of mankind, and to our own at any other time. Let discontented people declaim ever so much against life, they will be loth to part with it when it comes to the point. When the old man in the fable, being tired with his burden, threw it down with discontent and called for Death, and Death came to him and asked him what he would have with him, he then answered, "Nothing, but to help me up with my burden."

II. He passionately applauds death and the grave, and seems quite in love with them. To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, and that we may be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die only that we may be quiet in the grave, and delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption. Job's considerations here may be of good use to reconcile us to death when it comes, and to make us easy under the arrest of it; but they ought not to be made use of as a pretence to quarrel with life while it is continued, or to make us uneasy under the burdens of it. It is our wisdom and duty to make the best of that which is, be it living or dying, and so to live to the Lord and die to the Lord, and to be his in both, Rom. xiv. 8. Job here frets himself with thinking that if he had but died as soon as he was born, and been carried from the womb to the grave, 1. His condition would have been as good as that of the best: I would have been (says he, v. 14) with kings and counsellors of the earth, whose pomp, power, and policy, cannot set them out of the reach of death, nor secure them from the grave, nor distinguish theirs from common dust in the grave. Even princes, who had gold in abundance, could not with it bribe Death to overlook them when he came with commission; and, though they filled their houses with silver, yet they were forced to leave it all behind them, no more to return to it. Some, by the desolate places which the kings and counsellors are here said to build for themselves, understand the sepulchres or monuments they prepared for themselves in their life-time; as Shebna (Isa. xxii. 16) hewed himself out a sepulchre; and by the gold which the princes had, and the silver with which they filled their houses, they understand the treasures which, they say, it was usual to deposit in the graves of great men. Such arts have been used to preserve their dignity, if possible, on the other side death, and to keep themselves from lying even with those of inferior rank; but it will not do: death is, and will be, an irresistible leveller. Mors sceptra ligonibus æquat—Death mingles sceptres with spades. Rich and poor meet together in the grave; and there a hidden untimely birth (v. 16), a child that either never saw light or but just opened its eyes and peeped into the world, and, not liking it, closed them again and hastened out of it, lies as soft and easy, lies as high and safe, as kings and counsellors, and princes, that had gold. "And therefore," says Job, "would I had lain there in the dust, rather than to lie here in the ashes!" 2. His condition would have been much better than now it was (v. 13): "Then should I have lain still, and been quiet, which now I cannot do, I cannot be, but am still tossing and unquiet; then I should have slept, whereas now sleep departeth from my eyes; then had I been at rest, whereas now I am restless." Now that life and immortality are brought to a much clearer light by the gospel than before they were placed in good Christians can give a better account than this of the gain of death: "Then should I have been present with the Lord; then should I have seen his glory face to face, and no longer through a glass darkly." But all that poor Job dreamed of was rest and quietness in the grave out of the fear of evil tidings and out of the feeling of sore boils. Then should I have been quiet; and had he kept his temper, his even easy temper still, which he was in as recorded in the two foregoing chapters, entirely resigned to the holy will of God and acquiescing in it, he might have been quiet now; his soul, at least, might have dwelt at ease, even when his body lay in pain, Ps. xxv. 13. Observe how finely he describes the repose of the grave, which (provided the soul also be at rest in God) may much assist our triumphs over it. (1.) Those that now are troubled will there be out of the reach of trouble (v. 17): There the wicked cease from troubling. When persecutors die they can no longer persecute; their hatred and envy will then perish. Herod had vexed the church, but, when he became a prey for worms, he ceased from troubling. When the persecuted die they are out of the danger of being any further troubled. Had Job been at rest in his grave, he would have had no disturbance from the Sabeans and Chaldeans, none of all his enemies would have created him any trouble. (2.) Those that are now toiled will there see the period of their toils. There the weary are at rest. Heaven is more than a rest to the souls of the saints, but the grave is a rest to their bodies. Their pilgrimage is a weary pilgrimage; sin and the world they are weary of; their services, sufferings, and expectations, they are wearied with; but in the grave they rest from all their labours, Rev. xiv. 13; Isa. lvii. 23. They are easy there, and make no complaints; there believers sleep in Jesus. (3.) Those that were here enslaved are there at liberty. Death is the prisoner's discharge, the relief of the oppressed, and the servant's manumission (v. 18): There the prisoners, though they walk not at large, yet they rest together, and are not put to work, to grind in that prison-house. They are no more insulted and trampled upon, menaced and terrified, by their cruel task-masters: They hear not the voice of the oppressor. Those that were here doomed to perpetual servitude, that could call nothing their own, no, not their own bodies, are there no longer under command or control: There the servant is free from his master, which is a good reason why those that have power should use it moderately, and those that are in subjection should bear it patiently, yet a little while. (4.) Those that were at a vast distance from others are there upon a level (v. 19): The small and great are there, there the same, there all one, all alike free among the dead. The tedious pomp and state which attend the great are at an end there. All the inconveniences of a poor and low condition are likewise over; death and the grave know no difference. Levelled by death, the conqueror and the slave, The wise and foolish, cowards and the brave, Lie mixed and undistinguished in the grave. Sir R. Blackmore .

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; 21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? 24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. 25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. 26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Job, finding it to no purpose to wish either that he had not been born or had died as soon as he was born, here complains that his life was now continued and not cut off. When men are set on quarrelling there is no end of it; the corrupt heart will carry on the humour. Having cursed the day of his birth, here he courts the day of his death. The beginning of this strife and impatience is as the letting forth of water.

I. He thinks it hard, in general, that miserable lives should be prolonged (v. 20-22): Wherefore is light in life given to those that are bitter in soul? Bitterness of soul, through spiritual grievances, makes life itself bitter. Why doth he give light? (so it is in the original): he means God, yet does not name him, though the devil had said, "He will curse thee to thy face;" but he tacitly reflects on the divine Providence as unjust and unkind in continuing life when the comforts of life are removed. Life is called light, because pleasant and serviceable for walking and working. It is candle-light; the longer it burns the shorter it is, and the nearer to the socket. This light is said to be given us; for, if it were not daily renewed to us by a fresh gift, it would be lost. But Job reckons that to those who are in misery it is doron adoron—gift and no gift, a gift that they had better be without, while the light only serves them to see their own misery by. Such is the vanity of human life that it sometimes becomes a vexation of spirit; and so alterable is the property of death that, though dreadful to nature, it may become desirable even to nature itself. He here speaks of those, 1. Who long for death, when they have out-lived their comforts and usefulness, are burdened with age and infirmities, with pain or sickness, poverty or disgrace, and yet it comes not; while, at the same time, it comes to many who dread it and would put it far from them. The continuance and period of life must be according to God's will, not according to ours. It is not fit that we should be consulted how long we would live and when we would die; our times are in a better hand than our own. 2. Who dig for it as for hidden treasures, that is, would give any thing for a fair dismission out of this world, which supposes that then the thought of men's being their own executioners was not so much as entertained or suggested, else those who longed for it needed not take much pains for it, they might soon come at it (as Seneca tells them) if they are pleased. 3. Who bid it welcome, and are glad when they can find the grave and see themselves stepping into it. If the miseries of this life can prevail, contrary to nature, to make death itself desirable, shall not much more the hopes and prospects of a better life, to which death is our passage, make it so, and set us quite above the fear of it? It may be a sin to long for death, but I am sure it is no sin to long for heaven.

II. He thinks himself, in particular, hardly dealt with, that he might not be eased of his pain and misery by death when he could not get ease in any other way. To be thus impatient of life for the sake of the troubles we meet with is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the giver of life, and argues a sinful indulgence of our own passion and a sinful inconsideration of our future state. Let it be our great and constant care to get ready for another world, and then let us leave it to God to order the circumstances of our removal thither as he thinks fit: "Lord, when and how thou pleasest;" and this with such an indifference that, if he should refer it to us, we would refer it to him again. Grace teaches us, in the midst of life's greatest comforts, to be willing to die, and, in the midst of its greatest crosses, to be willing to live. Job, to excuse himself in this earnest desire which he had to die, pleads the little comfort and satisfaction he had in life.

1. In his present afflicted state troubles were continually felt, and were likely to be so. He thought he had cause enough to be weary of living, for, (1.) He had no comfort of his life: My sighing comes before I eat, v. 24. The sorrows of life prevented and anticipated the supports of life; nay, they took away his appetite for his necessary food. His griefs returned as duly as his meals, and affliction was his daily bread. Nay, so great was the extremity of his pain and anguish that he did not only sigh, but roar, and his roarings were poured out like the waters in a full and constant stream. Our Master was acquainted with grief, and we must expect to be so too. (2.) He had no prospect of bettering his condition: His way was hidden, and God had hedged him in, v. 23. He saw no way open of deliverance, nor knew he what course to take; his way was hedged up with thorns, that he could not find his path. See ch. xxiii. 8; Lam. iii. 7.

2. Even in his former prosperous state troubles were continually feared; so that then he was never easy, v. 25, 26. He knew so much of the vanity of the world, and the troubles to which, of course, he was born, that he was not in safety, neither had he rest then. That which made his grief now the more grievous was that he was not conscious to himself of any great degree either of negligence or security in the day of his prosperity, which might provoke God thus to chastise him. (1.) He had not been negligent and unmindful of his affairs, but kept up such a fear of trouble as was necessary to the maintaining of his guard. He was afraid for his children when they were feasting, lest they should offend God (ch. i. 5), afraid for his servants lest they should offend his neighbours; he took all the care he could of his own health, and managed himself and his affairs with all possible precaution; yet all would not do. (2.) He had not been secure, nor indulged himself in ease and softness, had not trusted in his wealth, nor flattered himself with the hopes of the perpetuity of his mirth; yet trouble came, to convince and remind him of the vanity of the world, which yet he had not forgotten when he lived at ease. Thus his way was hidden, for he knew not wherefore God contended with him. Now this consideration, instead of aggravating his grief, might rather serve to alleviate it. Nothing will make trouble easy so much as the testimony of our consciences for us, that, in some measure, we did our duty in a day of prosperity; and an expectation of trouble will make it sit the lighter when it comes. The less it is a surprise the less it is a terror.

CHAP. III. Verſe 1. After this]

AFter ſo long ſilence of his friends, and to provoke them to ſpeak, who haply waited for ſome words from him firſt, as knowing him wiſe and well-ſpoken. Or After this] After that Jobs pains were ſomewhat allayed, ſo that he could breath, recollect himſelf, and utter his mind: for ſome troubles are above ſpeech, Pſal 77.4 they will hardly ſuffer a man to take breath; Job. 9.18. (ſee Eſth. 4.14. with the Note) or to hear any thing, though never ſo wholeſome or comfortable, Exod. 6.9.

Job opened his mouth] But better he had kept it cloſed ſtill; either be ſilent, ſaith the Greek Proverb, or elſe ſay ſomething that is better then ſilence. But it may befall the beſt (leſt to themſelves) to ſpeak unadviſedly with their lips, as meek Moſes did at the waters of Meribah, for which ſin of his (ſome Jewes ſay) that he was damned, becauſe we read not of his repentance. And a like wretched cenſure they paſſe upon holy Job for his curſing his day here; ſaying, that although in words he curſed the creature only,Confuted by Lyra and Hugocard. in Joſh. 1 2. yet interpretatively and indeed, he curſed the Creator; like as he that ſpitteth upon a Kings picture, or robe royal, doth the ſame to the King himſelf. But why do they not then ſay the ſame of Jeremy, and pronounce him a Reprobate for curſing his birth day too? chap. 20.14. R. Levi anſwereth, becauſe it appeareth to be otherwiſe by Jeremies whole propheſie beſides. And may we not ſay the like for Job, if we wiſely weigh his words in their right ſenſe, and the end which the Lord made, Jam. 5.11. propounding him for a pattern of patience, not of impatience, whereof, nothing is ſaid againſt him, though he had his out-burſts, as here; and muſt have his allowance (as good gold hath when it comes to the ſcale) that ſo he may paſſe. If he had blaſphemed God, or denied his providence, aſcribing all events to the conjunction of the ſtars at a mans birth (as the Talmudiſts falſely gather from this Chapter) Satan had had his deſign upon him; and God would never have juſtified him, and preferred him before his friends, as he did, chap. 42. True it is, that chap. 38.2. when he had ſpoken his mind over-freely, and indeed ſinfully (as there is not a man upon earth, that liveth, and ſinneth not) as if the Lord had dealt unkindly, if not unequally with him; God in the end ſteppeth forth, (as it were, from behind the hangings) over-hearing him, and taking him up: Who is this (ſaith he there) that talketh thus? how now? After which, Job was not only huſht, chap. 40.4, 5. but humbled, chap. 42.6. And truly it ſhould be conſidered (ſay both Ambroſe and Chryſostome, in Jobs defence) that though patient in the two former Chapters, yet now he begins to be wet to the skin; yea, the drops of Gods wrath began to ſoake into his ſoul: the divel alſo ſet upon him with all violence, as ſome conceive from the next verſe, Job anſwered and ſaid, ſo. to ſome diſpute with the divel. Now therefore that he thus falleth a roaring and a curſing his day, it is, ſaith Chryſostome, as a ſick man, who being under the Phyſicians hands, of whom he is well perſwaded, uſeth all patience towards him; but being in extremity of paine, layes about him, and ſtrikes at the ſtanders by &c. Exemplo Jobi liquet, ſaith another good Writer; By this example of Job it appeareth, that in extreme trials of the beſt, it oft falleth out, that paine and grief ſpeaketh, rather then the man himſelf, and that in the ſieve of temptations, upon a more violent ſifting,Bucholc. the holes being worn or widened, not the offall onely, but ſome grains of good wheat (that is, of faith) do ſlip through: which yet the right hand of a gracious God, is wont to gather, and to lay up in the granary of his grace. Job cannot altogether be excuſed, (ſaith Ferus upon this chapter) neither is he ſaid, as before, not to have ſinned in theſe following expreſſions. Rather it is to be held, that the Lord, who before ſtood by him, now for a time left him, to try what is in man, even the beſt man living, if he be not ſtrengthened by God continually. David was moſt couragious when he went againſt Goliah; but fearfull when Saul purſued him. Eliah was moſt zealous for the Lord of Hoſts, when he ſlew 450 of Baals Prieſts: Tantus tamen fulminator ad Jezabelis minas trepidat, ſuctus ſeipſo imbecillior, ſaith one; and yet this valiant Prophet flieth at the threats of Jezabel, and heareth from heaven,Bucholc. What doſt thou here Elias? So Jeremy, Peter, Father Latiemr, Pray for me (ſaith he) I ſay, pray for me, for I am ſometimes ſo fearfull, that I would creep into a Mouſe-hole; ſometimes God doth viſit me again with his comforts: ſo he cometh and goeth, to teach me to feel and know mine infirmity. Thus he writeth to B. Ridley; Acts and Mon. 1565. with whom he afterwards ſuffered at the ſame ſtake. His laſt words were, Fidelis eſt Deus &c. God is faithful, who will not ſuffer us to be tempted above that we are able &c. This was alſo Jobs comfort, when himſelf, doubtleſſe; for at this time it was Ego non ſum Ego with him and God conſidered it: for he knoweth our mould, he remembreth we are but duſt.

And curſed [illegible: 1 word] day] Diom, non Deum: his day, and not his God, as the divell would have had it. It was too much howſoever of that: and Job ſhould have opened his mouth to better purpoſe. In the Revelation, whenſoever heaven opened, ſome memorable matter followed▪ when wiſedome openeth his mouth, ſhe ſpeaketh excellent things, Prov. 8.6. When Aſaph, opened his mouth, he ſpake parables, Pſal. 78.2. When our Saviour did ſo, he delivered that famous Sermon in the Mount, Matth. 5.2. But Job. alas, in the extreme paine of his body, and anguiſh of his ſoul, openeth his mouth; and curſeth bitterly: curſeth his day in a moſt emphaticall manner, and in moſt exquiſite terms, wiſhing all the evill to it that it was any way capable of. Now the day that he here curſeth, is either the day wherein he ſuffered ſuch a world of evils, as Obad. 12. Iſa. 2.12. Or rather the day which gave occaſion to his ſufferings, his birth-day, as verſe 3 Jeremy did the like by a like infirmity, chap. 20 14 and ſome others: but never hath any yet been heard to curſe the day of his new-birth, nor ever ſhall; as whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promiſes, that by theſe we might be partakers of the Divine Nature; having eſcaped the corruption that is in the world through luſt: and beſides an entrance miniſtred unto us further and further into the everlaſting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jeſus Chriſt, 2 Pet. 1.4, 11. There is a [non-Latin text not transcribed], a multiplied happineſſe in holineſſe.

Verſe 2. And Job ſpake and ſaid] Heb. anſwered and ſaid. Anſwered? whom anſwered he? The Jew-Doctors ſay, he anſwered his friends, who having hitherto ſaid nothing to him, and heard as little from him, at length — rupere ſilentia [illegible: 1 word], and asked him what he ailed? others more probably conceive that Job anſwered here to ſome diſpute in his own mind, or rather with the divel. Some take this verſe for a tranſition only. Others make it a preparation for Jobs future diſcourſe, to move expectation, and win attention. The diſcourſe indeed is all along to chap. 42.7. Poeticall, and very accurate, made up in Hexameters (as Hierome holdeth) not by Job and his friends at the firſt uttering, but afterwards by Job at better leiſure: or, as ſome think,Sic & Jonas orationem ſuā; in ventre balanahabitum, & David pl[illegible: 1 letter]roſ que Pſalmos &c. by Moſes whileſt a ſhepherd in Midian, for the comfort of his poore Country-men in Egypt. Mercer ſaith that his predeceſſor Vatablus (as he and heard) had found out a way of ſcanning theſe Hexameters to others unknown, and to all, the more obſcure, becauſe the verſe cauſeth a cloud. The firſt Hexameter that ever was made in Greek, is ſaid to be this, [non-Latin text not transcribed].Anno Mundi 2580, Prima vates Phemo[illegible: 1 letter]oi A[illegible: 2 letters]ed. Chronol. 468. Birds bring your plumes, and Bees your wax at once.

Verſe 3. Let the day periſh wherein I was born] He curſeth his birth-day, which the Greeks call [non-Latin text not transcribed]: the beginning of a mans Nativity they call the begetting of his miſery; becauſe he is non p[illegible: 1 letter]iùs natus quam dumnatus, no ſooner born but damned to the Mines of miſery, Job 14.1. Crying he comes into the world,Aug. and before he ſpeaketh, he propheſieth, and ſaith in effect, [non-Latin text not transcribed] &c, Naſci pena, labor vita, neceſſe mori. O that I had ne'r been born. Wo worth th day That brought me forth, and made me not away!

This whole life is oreſpread with ſins and miſeries as with a filthy morphew; or as Job was with his leproſie: the anguiſh whereof, together with his inward troubles ſo grieved and galled him, that he not onely cryeth but, (which is naturall for a man to do) but giving the rains wholly to his grief, he roareth and rageth beyond all reaſon; and had not the ſpirit held him back, he would ſurely have run headlong into blaſphemy and deſperation, which was Satans deſigne. But in the Saints, as the Fleſh luſteth againſt the Spirit, and ſometimes getting the upper ground (as it were) bears it down, as here in Job at this preſent: ſo the Spirit again luſteth againſt the fleſh, and a great buſtle there is in the good ſoul (as when two oppoſite things meet together, cold ſalt-peter, and hot brimſtome, there is a great noiſe; and as when Paul came to Ephejus, there was no ſmall ſtirre about that way, Acts 19.23. &c.)Gal. 5.17. ſo that ye cannot do the things that ye would, ſaith the Apoſtle. As Job cannot do and ſay the good that he would, becauſe of the fleſh; ſo neither could he do or ſay the evil that he would becauſe of the ſpirit: he curſeth indeed his day, but not his wiſe nor friends, much leſſe his God, as thoſe male contents did, Iſa. 8.21. Nay, ſo ſoon as God came into his mind verſe 20. the fleſh was thereby, though not altogether quailed and quelled, yet ſo farre daunted and damped, that it kept it ſelf within the compaſſe of weeping and wailing; and God himſelf, though he find fault with Jobs ſpeeches for unadviſed, and ſometimes ranging beyond the precincts of godlineſſe: yet acquitting him from all groſſe ſin, he crowneth him with the garland of a famous vict0ory, as Mr. Beza here well obſerveth. Moſt wiſely therefore and fitly doth Saint James warn us, that in thinking upon Job, we regard not ſo much what was done while the combate laſted, as what end the Lord make. Jam. 5.11. The Saints doe never more prevaile and triumph, then when it ſeemeth otherwiſe. See Rev. 13.7. with chap. 12.11. they gather ſtrength by oppoſition, and conquer in being conquered,Sen[illegible: 2 letters]. Rom. 8.37. They repent of their our hurſts, as Job did chap. 42. And Qu[illegible: 2 letters] [illegible: 1 span] he is little leſſe then innocent who is afterwards penitent.Ambr. in Pſal. Yea, it is almoſt mere to repent of a fault, ſaith a Father, then to have been free from the fault.

And the night] He would be ſure so [illegible: 1 letter]it the time, whether it were day or night. He that is [illegible: 1 word] out of Gods way, knowe[illegible: 1 letter] not where he ſhall ſtop, or when he [illegible: 1 word] ſtep back. Take heed therefore to they wayes, that thou ſin not with thy tongue,Pſal. 39.1. Jam. 3. that unruly member.

—Hanc fr[illegible: 1 letter]nis, hanc [illegible: 2 letters] compeſce catenis.

When Gods hand is on thy back, let thy hand be on thy mouth, keep it as with a bridle or muzzle, Pſal. 39.1. Paſſionate ſpeeches te[illegible: 1 letter]iter volant, non [illegible: 2 letters]viter violant. The beſt that come of them, is repentance: Job when he was once out, could keepe no mean; but what he had ſaid againſt day and night, he amplifieth by the parts: and firſt for the Day ver. 4.5. and then for the Night 6, 7, 8. &c.

Verſe 4. Let that day be darkneſſe] thick darkneſſe, as that once was in Egypt, Exod. 10.23. A day of trouble and diſtreſſe, a day of darkneſſe and gloomineſſe, a day of clouds and thick darkneſſe, Zeph. 1.15. Let it be a dreadfull and a diſmall day; let ſorrow and ſadneſſe overſhadow it, let mourning and tears overwhelme it: let it be as when the Sun hideth his head in a mantle of black, and is eclipſed; at which time all creatures here below, flag and hang the head. In the gloomieſt day there is light enough to make it day, and diſtinguiſh it from night, though the Sun ſhine not. But Job would have no light to appear on his birth-day. Thus be throweth out words without wiſedome, and as Hinds by calving, ſo he by talking casteth out his ſorrows. Job 39.3.

Let not God regard it[illegible: 1 letter] ] or require it; let it paſſe as not worth looking after, let him not take care of it, or powre downe any ſpeciall bleſſing upon it, as he doth upon his people every day, but eſpecially upon the Sabbath-day, Gods market day, called by the Jewes deſiderium dierum, the deſire of dayes, and by the Primitive Chriſtians Dies Lucis, the Day of Light.

Neither let the light ſhine upon it] And what is the air without light that firſt ornament of the viſible world? ſo what are all creature-comforts, unleſſe God ſhine through them? What a wo-caſe is that poor ſoul in, that walketh in darkneſſe and hath none of his light, Iſa. 50.10. how lamentable is ſuch an one deſerted, [illegible: 1 letter]e[illegible: 1 letter]ghted! how doth he find himſelf in the very ſuburbs of hell it ſelf, where the paine of loſſe is greater then the paine of ſenſe, 2 Theſ 1.9. and to note thus much, Iob here, after he had ſaid, Let that day be darkneſſe, addeth as a greater evil, Let not the light ſhine upon it.

Verſe 5. Let darkneſſe and the ſhadow of death ſtain it Let it be [illegible: 2 letters]es luctuoſus & [illegible: 1 letter]ethalis, ſuch a deadly dark day, that each man may think it his laſt day, fatall and feral, Let there not be dimneſſe only (ſuch as appeareth through a painted glaſſe, died with ſome obſcure colour) but horrid and hideous darkneſſe, ſuch as was that at our Saviours paſſion, when the Sun was totally [illegible: 4 letters]ed, and a great Philoſopher thereupon cried out, either the God of Nature ſuffers, or the world is at an end. To darkneſſe Iob here emphatically addeth the ſhadow of death. The ſhadow is the dark part of the thing, ſo that the ſhadow of death is the darkeſt ſide of death, death in its blackeſt repreſentation. Now let theſe ſtain it, ſaith he, or challenge it, or eſpouſe it. In nocte funestatur mund[illegible: 1 letter] [illegible: 1 span], ſaith Tertullian elegantly.

Let a cloud dwell upon it] Creſc[illegible: 1 letter]t [illegible: 1 span] Auxeſin oratio. Iob heapes up words, like in ſound, and not unlike in ſenſe. Grief had made him eloquent: as hoping thereby to eaſe himſelf. Let a cloud dwell upon it, a fixed cloud, not ſuch an one as continually hangeth over the Iſland of St. Thomas on the back ſide of Africa, Abbo[illegible: 1 letter]s G[illegible: 2 letters]g. 251. wherewith the whole Iſland is watered: nor ſuch a[illegible: 1 letter]dloud of grace as God promiſeth to create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her aſſemblies, that upon all his glory may be a defence Iſa. 4.5. But ſuch as St. Paul and his company were under before the ſhipwrack, Act. 27. when neither Sunne nor ſtarre appeared for many dayes together, the heavens being wholly muffled &c.

Let the blackneſſe of the any terrifie it] or Let the [illegible: 1 letter]eat of the day terrifie it: as it befalleth thoſe that live under the torrid Zone, where nothing proſpereth. The Atlantes (a certain people) are ſaid to curſe the riſing Sun, it doth ſo torture them with extreme heat. When the dog ſtar ariſeth, thoſe are in ill caſe who dwell in hot Countries towards the Eaſt, they are troubled and terrified. Some take the word Chimrine here rendred blackneſſe, for thoſe [illegible: 1 word] mentioned by the Prophets, thoſe Chimney-Chaplains of the Heathen idols, and ſo render it thus, Let the Priests of the day terrifie it; that is, Let thoſe who uſed to obſerve and diſtinguiſh dayes, note it for a terrible day; other[illegible: 1 letter] underſtand it of the noon-day divels, that ſhould vex people on that day with helliſh he[illegible: 4 letters] and fures: the [illegible: 2 letters]lgar Latine hath it thus, Let, Hinc forſan tenebra Cimmeria. as it were, the b[illegible: 1 letter]terneſſe[illegible: 1 letter] of the day terrifie it; and to the [illegible: 1 span] the Chaldee Paraphraſt. Iob ſtill riſeth in his diſcourſe, making uſe of many poeticall figures, and tragicall phraſes, pickt out for the purpoſe.

Verſe 6. As for that night, let darkneſſe ſeize upon it] Having ſpent his ſpleene upon the day, he now vents himſelf upon the night, according to that diviſion verſe 3. As for that night of mine unhappy conception or birth, let tenebroſus turbo (as the Vulgar here hath it)Caligo perpetua & inufitata. Mercer. a dark tempeſt, or a tempeſtuous darkneſſe graſp it, or invade it: let it be as dark as pitch, by a darkneſſe ſuperadded to its naturall darkneſſe.

Let it not be joyned unto the dayes of the yeare] Let nature quite diſclaime it, and disjoint it from the day following; let it not be reckoned as any part of time, that meaſure of all our motions. Some render it, Ne gaudeat inter dies, Let it not rejoyce it ſelf among the dayes of the year, as one of them. The night hath glory by union with the day: this he wiſheth taken from it. Diſunion and diviſion is a curſe: and the number of two hath been accounted accurſed, becauſe it was the firſt that departed from unity.

And let it not come into the number of months]Drus. Deleatur è calendario, let it be razed out of the Calendar, and not have any place in the computation of time. The Hebrewes call the Moon and a Month by the ſame Name; becauſe the Moone is renewed every month.Sic [non-Latin text not transcribed] menſis & [non-Latin text not transcribed] luna.

Verſe 7. Lo let that night be ſolitary] And ſo conſequently ſorrowfull; for aloneneſſe is comfortleſſe, & optimum ſolatium ſodalitium. There is a deſirable ſolitarineſſe: ſuch as was that of Iſaac, Gen. 24.63. of Iacob, Gen. 32.24. of Chriſt, Mark 1. of Peter, Acts 10.9. to talk with God and with themſelves. But uſually to ſit ſolitary is a miſery, Lam. 1.1. (for Satan is readieſt to aſſault, when none is by to aſſiſt) neither is there a greater tye to conſtancy, then the ſociety of Saints. This the Heathen Perſecutors perceived, and therefore baniſhed and confined the Chriſtian Confeſſors to Iles and Mines, where they could not come together for mutuall edification and comfort. There is a Woe to him that is alone, and good reaſon ſhewed for it by Solomon, Eccleſ. 4.9, 10, 11, 12. Let no man ſtye up himſelf, or affect ſolitarineſſe: but make conſcience of fellowſhip in the Goſpel, as the Philippians did from the firſt day of their converſion to Chriſt, Phil 1.5. accounting, that Communion of Saints is a point of practice, as well as an Article of belief.

And no joyfull voyce come therein] That is, ſaith One, No pleaſing ſtilneſſe, (as in other nights there is) to invite the melody of Muſick. Or, let there be no merry-meetings, feaſtings and jollities, as was uſuall in the night-ſeaſon. Let not ſo much as the voyce of the Cock be heard that night (ſo the Chaldee here paraphraſeth) but the dolefull ditties of Screech-owles, and other inauſpicate creatures. Let no traveller, that is then benighted, ſolace himſelf with ſweet ſongs, or Muſicians play from houſe to houſe, as City-waits do.

Verſe 8.Non tam cute, quàm corde, Ae hiopici. Let them curſe it, that curſe the day] As thoſe atri & tetri Atlantes (before ſpoken of) curſe the riſing-Sun for ſcorching them; as deſpairing perſons, and malefactors led to execution, uſe to curſe the time that ever they were born. The help of all ſuch Job here calleth in againſt the harmleſſe night he banneth, with ſo much bitterneſſe. Rob. Bolton his Aſſize Serm. 227. Like as that deſperate wretch mentioned by Mr. Bolton, who being upon his death-bed, albeit he ſwore as faſt and as furiouſly as he could; yet deſired he the ſtanders by to help him with oathes, and to ſwear for him. Tremellius here thinks, that Job calls to the ſtarres and winds to help him curſe. See his tranſlation of the Text, and his Notes thereon.

Who are ready to raiſe up their mourning] Whether they be thoſe mercenary mourners mentioned elſewhere,Jer. 9.17, 18, 20. which, for hire, are wont at Funerals with dolefull execrations to lament the day of their Benefactors death; crying out, Oh the day! alas for the day! 2 Chro. 35.25. Amos 5.16. oh that ever ſuch a day came! See Ezek. 30.2. Or elſe thoſe that really mourn for their deceaſed friends; and yearly, as oft as the day returneth, they renew their mourning. Theſe are called upon by Job totos ſacco[illegible: 1 letter]deplere, to pour out their utmoſt lamentations and execrations upon this his night. Concerning the word Leviathan, here rendred mourning, whether it be taken for the Sea-Dragon, or the Divel, and what it is to raiſe him up, and why they curſed him that are ready to do ſo, with a prepared and meditated active readineſſe, if I ſhould go about to ſhew the Reader,Lcc. Com. 478. with the ſeverall opinions of Interpreters, I ſhould not onely tire him out, but alſo danger doing as that Vicar of Ausborough did, mentioned by Iohannes Manlius: This Doctor of Divinity (for ſo he was) having read at Tubinga certain Lectures upon Job, at the end of his laſt Lecture ſaid, that both Iob and himſelf were very glad to be rid of one another: For as he underſtood little or nothing of Iobs meaning, ſo Iob ſeemed to him to be more tormented with his enarrations, then ever he had been with all his own ulcers. Let them that have a mind, conſult the Commentators here.

Verſe 9. Let the ſtarres of the twilight thereof be dark] If the ſtarres of its twilight be dark, how great is that darkneſſe? Iob would not have this night to have light of ſtarres, or hope of day-dawn, hope of better, or place of worſe. And this part of the curſe he reſerveth to the laſt place, as worſe then any of the former Semblably, that judgment of Pining away in their iniquity, is the laſt that God denounceth, Lev. 26.39. after thoſe other diſmal ones there to befall the diſobedient. And that Rev. 22.11, Let him that is filthy be filthy ſtill, is the laſt, but not the leaſt (of thoſe that befall in this life) threatned in all the New Teſtament.

Let it look for light, but have none] Heb. but none. Loſſe of expectation is a great loſſe: Eſau found it ſo: and the mother of Siſera, Iudg. 5.28. and thoſe ſhall once, that come knocking and bouncing at heaven gates, with Lord, Lord, open unto us, and ſhall hear, Depart ye. The hopes of the wicked fail them when at higheſt: whereas the Saints find that comfort in extremity which they durſt not expect: their light ſhall riſe in obſcurity, Eſay 58.10. it ſhall ſhine more and more unto the perfect day, Prov 4.18.

Let it no[illegible: 1 letter] ſee the dawning of the day.] Heb. The eye-lids of the morning; that is, the firſt breakings of light, the morning rayes or beams peeping abroad. Theſe this night muſt never ſee. Heaven is a nightleſſe day, Hell a dayleſſe night. [non-Latin text not transcribed] Fire there is, but without light: it burneth, but ſhineth not to thoſe Reprobates who are in tenebras ex ten[illegible: 1 letter]bris infeliciter excluſi, infeliciùs excludendi; thruſt into outer darkneſſe, a darkneſſe beyond a darkneſſe, as the dungeon is beyond the priſon, Matth. 8.12.

Verſe 10. Becauſe it ſhut not up the doors of my mothers womb] Leſt his curſe ſhould ſeem cauſeleſſe, and he mad without reaſon, he telleth you here, why he thus powred out his paſſion; and complaineth ſo heavily againſt the day of his birth, and night of his conception, which yet were harmleſſe, and had not deſerved to be thus charged, curſed. Becauſe it ſhut not up, &c. But how could the night do that? Is it not of God alone to ſhut or open the womb, Gen 20.18. and 29.31.? And was it not he that took David thence? Pſal. 18.23. This Job could tell well enough at another time, but now he is quite out of all reaſon; beating himſelf with his paſſions, as the Lion doth with his own tail: yea, like ſome ſullen bird in a cage, he could almoſt find in his heart to beat himſelf to death. We uſe to ſay, — Res eſt ingenioſa dolor, Grief is an ingenious thing; yet it maketh a man fooliſh (the exceſſe of it) as it did Job here: yea it maketh a wiſe man mad as Solomon ſaith of Oppreſſion, Eccleſ. 7.7. and we ſee it exemplified in Job, eſpecially if the words be thus read, as they may, Becauſe he (that is, God) ſhut not up the doors &c.

Nor [illegible: 1 letter]id ſorrow from mine eyes.] In Scripture, to ſee good or evill, is to feel it, Pſal. 34.12. Jer. 17.6. Iſa. 65.16. Job. 33.17. He meaneth, that he had miſt thoſe evils which now he met with ſince his coming into the world, if thoſe doors, being ſhut, had ſhut him out of the world. Man is no ſooner born, then born to trouble, Job 5.7. yea, man that is born (or conceived) of a woman is of few dayes, and full of trouble: Job 14.1. Miſerable he is even ſo ſoon as he is warm in the womb, as David phraſeth it, Pſal. 51.5. If he live to ſee the light, he comes crying into the world, and an untimely birth may be better then he, Eccleſ. 5.3. The Hebrews call him Enoſh, that is, ſorryman; Pſal. 3.21. or dolefull, miſerable, and deſperately diſeaſed man, whoſe living is but to lye a dying. The Greeks, when they would ſet forth one extremely wretched, they call him [non-Latin text not transcribed] thrice-a-men, that is, thrice miſerable. And, What is man, faith Seneca? He anſwereth, Marbidum, pu[illegible: 1 letter]re, caſſum, à fletu vitam auſpicatum: Ad Mar. cap. 11. a diſeaſed, rotten, empty thing, beginning his life with tears; as if he wept to think upon what a ſhore of trouble he is landed, or rather, into what a ſea of ſorrowes he is lanching, not unlike the St[illegible: 1 letter]eights of Magellan, a ſea of that nature, ſay Geographers, that which way ſoever a man bend his courſe, he ſhall be ſure to have the wind againſt him.

Verſe 11. Why dyed I not from the womb? why did not I give up the Ghoſt &c.] Why was I not forthwith carried ab utero ad urnam? from the womb to the tomb, from the birth to the buriall? True it is, that infants have the ſeed of death in them, and the principle of corruption, Rom. 5.14. Every one (ſay ſome Chymicks) hath his owne balſame within him; his own bane it is ſure that he hath. But why ſhould Job be ſo weary of life, and ſo wiſh to be rid of it? Is not life a great mercy? Doth not the Philoſopher affirme, that a piſmire excelleth the heavens in dignity,Eccl. 9.4. becauſe it is a living creature? Saith not the Scripture, that a living dog is better then a dead Lion? and why is living man ſorrowful, a man for the puniſhment of his ſinne? Lam. 3.39. q. d. Let him be never ſo much puniſhed, it is for his ſinne; and if a midſt all, he be yet a living man, and have his life ſpared, hee need not be ſo over-ſorrowful, and to make ſuch an out-cry, and a wiſhing himſelf out of the world, as Job here doth. Life, alaſs, in its utmoſt extent, is but a little ſpot of time between two eternities before and after; but it is a great conſequence, and given us for this end,2 Pet. 2.11. that glory may be begun in grace, and we have a further and further entrance here into the Kingdome of heaven, as Peter ſaith. This, if Job had ſeriouſly and ſedately conſidered (but now alaſs, as in a hot ſever, all the humors were on an hurry) he would rather have done, as they ſay, Themistocles did; who though he lived till he was about 107 years of age; yet when he came to dye, he was grieved upon this ground, Now I am to dye, ſaid hee, when I begin to bee wiſe.

Verſe 12. Why did the knees prevent me?] Why did the over-officious Midwife lay me on her lap, and not let me alone to periſh by my fatall helpleſsneſs? Man is a poor ſhiftleſſe creature; and Pliny railes at nature for producing him ſo forlorn, naked, and unable to help himſelf; but he knew not that this was a fruit of ſinne. Tully indeed could ſay, (whether he believed himſelf therein, I know not) Cum primùm naſcimur, in omni continuò pravitate verſamur, as ſoon as we are borne, we are head and eares all over in wickedneſſe: but Pliny was not ſo perſwaded, as I have elſwehere ſhewed.

Or why the brests that I ſhould ſuck?] Why did not my mother turn tygreſſe, and caſt me out when new born? Why was ſhe not cruell like the Oſtriches in the wilderneſſe,Lam. 4.3. that refuſe to give ſuck to their young ones? Rather we may ask, why doth Job out of his deepeſt diſcontent, think much of ſuch a mercy; and not rather bleſſe God, firſt, for filling two ſuch bottles with milk for him, ready againſt he came into the world? and then, for giving his mother an heart to ſuckle him, which ſome nice or unnaturall women will not, being therein worſe then thoſe Sea-monſters, Lam. 4.3. that ſuccour their young? The Heathens called their Ceres (Queene of plenty) Mammoſam, as the Nurſe of all living creatures: And there are that derive Gods Name Shaddai from Shad a dug: becauſe as he openeth the hand, ſo he drawes out the breſt to every living thing. And for his Saints, they may ſuck and be ſatisfied with the full-ſtrutting breſts of his conſolations, the two Teſtaments, Iſai. 66.11. And whatever Job now (under an heavy temptation, which, like lead, ſunk downward, and carried his ſoul with it) may miſ-judge, they may ſit and ſing thankfully with David, Lord thou (and not the midwife) art He that took me out of the womb; thou (and not my mother) keptſt me in ſafety when I hung upon the breſts: neither then only, but afterwards, for puerilitas eſt periculorum pelagus, and the Preſerver of men keepeth us ſtill from a thouſand deaths and dangers. And is this matter of complaint, and not rather of thankfulneſſe?

Verſe 13. For now ſhould I have lien ſtill, and been quiet] Why, but is it not better to be preſerved in ſalt, then to putrifie in ſugar? to be emptied from veſſel to veſſel, then to be at eaſe, and ſo to ſettle on the lees? Jer. 48.11. to be tumbled up and down, as fiſhes are in the ſtreames of Jordan, then to periſh in the dead ſea? It is not alwaies (if at all) an happineſſe to lie ſtill and to be quiet: Life conſiſts in action;Iſa. 38.16. and in all theſe things is the life of my ſpirit, ſaith good Hezekiah, who had beene in deaths hands (where Job ſo much deſired to be) and could therefore make a better judgment. What haſte then was there of his lying ſtill, and being quiet? ſay that he were aſſured of his ſalvation (for elſe death had been but a trap-door to eternal torments) was there nothing more to be done, but taking preſent poſſeſſion? nothing to be ſuffered with Chriſt,Rom. 8.17 or ere we come to be glorified with him? Ought not he himſelf firſt to have ſuffered, and then to have entred into his glory? Luke 24.26. And ought not we to be conformed to his image (in ſufferings alſo) that he might be the firſt-born among many brethren? Rom. 8.29. Let us run with patience (running is active, and patience paſſive) the [illegible: 1 letter]ace that is ſet before us, looking unto Jeſus, &c. and looking off our preſent troubles (as the word there importeth) which while Job beheld over-wiſhtly, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Heb. 12.2. and was more ſenſible of then was meet, he brake out in this fort, and ſhewed himſelf too much a man Let us do up our work, and then God will ſend us to hed all in good time, Iſa. 57.2. Rev. 14.13.

Verſe 14. With Kings and Counſellors of the earth] g. d. Thoſe that here have been moſt negotious, and (as the Grandees of the earth) have had greateſt matters in hand, with thoſe ſhould I have been coupled in the grave, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. that Congregation-houſe of all living, as it is called, Job 30.23. That long, or old home. Eccleſ. 12.5. Heaven is called the Congregation-houſe of Gods first, born, Heb. 12.23. and their houſe not made with hand, 2 Cor. 5.1. But not many Kings or Nobles mee[illegible: 1 letter]e here. 1 Cor. 1.26. becauſe ſtrait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth to it: there muſt be ſtripping and ſtooping, which great men cannot frame to. It was a poor comfort to Hen. 8. to be told upon his death-bed, that he ſhould now go to the place of Kings: And a ſmall commendation to Hen. 2.The Spaniſh Brier was wone to ſay, there were but few Princes in hell: for why? becauſe there were but few in all. Daniels hiſt. 111. that ſome ſew hours before he died, ſeeing a liſt of their names who had conſpired againſt him, and finding therein two of his own ſons, 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 himſelf had ſo often diſtempered. He went indeed to his grave, and ſlept with his fathers; yea, he was royally interred under a ſtately Monument, meant here (haply) by building deſolate places for themſelves: Abſolom had erected a pillar for this purpoſe; and the Egyptian Kings their Pyramides, [illegible: 1 letter]o perpetuate their memories. Confer Ezek. 26.20. With theſe, Iob, had he died betime, or never ſeene the light, might have been fellowed: for death is the only King, againſt whom there is no riſing up, Prov. 30.31. and the mortall fithe is maſter of the royall Scepter, mowing down the lilies of the crown,Sceptra ligonibus aquat. as well as the graſſe of the field.

Verſe 15. Or with Princes that had gold] great ſtore of it. Petrarch reporteth of Pope John 22 that his heirs found in his coffers no leſſe then 250 tuns of gold. Boniface the eighth taken priſoner and plundered by the command of Philip the Faire, King of France, had as much gold carried away out of his Palace, as all the Kings of Europe received for one years revenue from their ſubjects, together with their crown-land. What a Maſſe of Treaſure had Cardinal Wolſey gotten here? and before him Cardinall Beauford, who when he ſaw that he muſt needs die, and that his riches could not reprieve him till a further time, asked,Fox Mart. 925. why ſhould I die being ſo rich? fie, will not death be hired? will mony do nothing? The Cardinall Sylberperger took ſo great a pleaſure in mony, that when he was grievouſly tormented with the gout, his onely remedy to eaſe the paine, was to have a baſon full of gold ſet before him, into which he would put his lame hands, turning the gold upſide-down. Of Nugas the Scythian Monarch it is ſtoried, that when Michael Paleologus the Greek Emperour ſent him many rich ornaments for a preſent,Pachymer hiſt. l. 5. he asked whether they could drive away calamities, diſeaſes and death? this becauſe they could not do, he ſlighted them. Theſe Princes that had gold, and filled their houſes with ſiluer, what would not they have given to have bought off death? but riches availe not in the day of wrath: it is righteouſneſſe only that delivereth from death, Prov. 11.4. Thrice happy then are they who are rich to God, as our Saviour phraſeth it, who have the Almighty to be their gold, and who have ſilver of ſtrength, as Eliphaz. ſpeaketh, chap. 22.25.

Who filled their houſes with ſilver] That is, their graves, ſay ſome: called the dead mens houſes, chap. 17.13. The Jewes call the burying-place, Beth-chajin, the houſe of the living: and they uſed not only to adorn their ſepulchers richly, but alſo to put their wealth into the grave with them. Ioſephus ſaith that Hircanus found in Davids ſepulchre three thouſand talents. And Ier. 8.1.Lib. 13. Antiq. cap. 15. & [illegible: 1 word] cap. 11. God threatneth that the Chaldeans ſhal bring out the boxes of the Kings of Iudah, and of his Princes, — out of their graves, as ſearching there for hid treaſure; ſo ſome conceive. Sure it is,Joſephm. that in the ſiege of Jeruſalem, under Ve[illegible: 1 letter]p[illegible: 1 letter]ſian, there was gold found in the entrailes of a Jew that was ſlain, which cauſed above twenty thouſand of them to be ripped up.

Verſe 16. Or as an hidden and untimely birth I had nor been] As an abortive or miſcarrying Embry[illegible: 1 letter] that falleth from the mother, as untimely fruit falleth off from the tree. See R[illegible: 1 letter]v 6.3. Hidden. it is called, becauſe caſt a de[illegible: 1 letter] as an unſightly ſpectacle, that cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkneſſes, and his name is covered with darkneſſe, Eccleſ. 6.4. J[illegible: 2 letters] could have wiſ[illegible: 1 letter] e[illegible: 2 letters]ome way or other never to have been, rather then to have been in ſo calamitous a[illegible: 1 letter] condition: and herein he linned,Job. 3.6. no doubt, for that [illegible: 1 word] as of the fleſh is fleſh.

As infants w[illegible: 1 letter] ch[illegible: 1 letter]rever [illegible: 1 letter]aw the [illegible: 1 letter]ight] but were ſtill-born, as we call them. The word rendred infants, is taken from a word that ſignifieth to [illegible: 1 word], [illegible: 1 letter]ee Job 16.15. for children in the womb are compaſſed about with pollution; and the firſt ſhee[illegible: 1 letter] or blanket wherewith they are covered, is woven of ſinne, ſhame, blood, and filth, Ezek. 16.4.6.

Verſe 17. There the wicked ceaſe from troubling] Here they are restleſſe, as being acted and agitated by the divel, who being a diſcontented, turbulent creature, maketh adoe in the world, and ſetteth his [illegible: 1 letter]mps awork to do miſchief, and to vex others. [non-Latin text not transcribed] The word here rendred wicked ſignifieth vexatious perſons, that worry and weary out others, moleſtuous and miſchievous: In the grave they ſhall ceaſe from ſo doing. That was a ſtrange mind of our Edward the firſt, who adjured his Son and Nobles, that if he died in his journey into Scotland, they ſhould carry his corps with them about Scotland, and not ſuffer it to be interred, till they had abſolutely ſubdued the Country. This was a deure more Martial then Chriſtian, ſaith the [illegible: 1 letter]hronicler,Daniels hiſt. 201. ſhewing a mind ſo bent to the world, as he would not make an end when he had [illegible: 1 letter]one with[illegible: 2 letters]t, but de[illegible: 1 letter]greth his travel beyond his life.

An [illegible: 1 span] ] Hence ſome Heathens alſo have counted mortality a mercy and ſome of them appointed contrary ceremonies to thoſe now in uſe; for they brought their friends into the world with mournfull obſequies, but they carried them out or the world with joyfull exequies,Plotin. ap Aug. de C.D.l 9 c. 10 Quntil. Inſt. lib. 5 H[illegible: 2 letters]ol. l. 5. Va[illegible: 1 letter]. Max. all ſorts of ſports and paſtimes, becauſe then they conceived they were at reſt, and out o[illegible: 1 letter] gun-ſhot.

Verſe 18. There the [illegible: 1 span] ] or [illegible: 1 word] as do their cruell creditors, and hard task-maſters. There, that is in the ſtate of the dead, whether by land or ſea, the [illegible: 1 word], or [illegible: 1 span] the miſerable captives [illegible: 1 letter]est, ſuch as were thoſe poor Chriſtians, ſhut up ſo cloſe (by Barb[illegible: 1 letter]ruſ[illegible: 1 letter]a the Turkiſh Generall returning toward Constantinople) under hatches among the excrements of nature, that all the way as he went,Turk. hiſt. 750. almoſt every houre, ſome of them were caſt dead over-board. Such were many of the Martyrs kept faſt ſhut up [illegible: 1 letter]n [illegible: 1 letter]ollards Tower, in the Biſhop of London: cole-houſe, a dark and ugly priſon, ſaid Mr. Philpot, as any is about London: but I thank the Lord, I am not alone, but have ſix other faithfull companions, who in our darkneſſe, do lightſomely ſing Pſalms and praiſes to God for his great goodneſſe,Acts & Mon. 1669, 1670. but eſpecially for this that I am ſo near the apprehenſion of eternall bliſſe: God forgive me mine unthankfulneſſe and unworthineſſe of ſo great glory. What pitifull hard uſage Gods poor priſoners met with in the late troubles, at Oxford eſpecially (from which death God graciouſly delivered me when I was in their hands) and in the Weſtern parts;pag. 38. ſee Mr. R[illegible: 1 letter]nas Sermon called J[illegible: 1 letter]b in the Weſt, where he compareth the enemies cruelty to that of the American Cann[illegible: 1 letter]bals, who, when they take a priſoner, ſeed upon him alive, and by degrees, to the unutterable aggravation of his horrour and torment.

They hear not the [illegible: 1 letter]ice of the oppreſſors] Their harſh and hard ſpeeches, Jude 15. that were as a murthering weapon in the poor priſoners bones, Pſal. 42.10. Send me back to my frogs and toads again, where I may pray for you converſion, ſaid one of the Martyrs to his rai[illegible: 2 letters]g adverſaries. Art thou come thou villain? how dareſt thou look me in the face for ſhame, ſaid S[illegible: 1 letter]even G[illegible: 1 letter]r[illegible: 1 letter]iner to Dr. Taylo[illegible: 1 letter] the Martyr[illegible: 1 letter] who told him his own freely,Acts & Mon. but fairely; for the ſpirit of grace is [illegible: 1 span] Eſt autem Saran[illegible: 1 letter] poctus [illegible: 1 span], ſaith Luthex, the divell and his agents are bitter railers, fetching their words as farre as hell, to brea[illegible: 1 letter] the hearts of Gods priſoners. Pſalm 69.20. But beſides that they have their cordiall of a good conſcience by them, 2 Cor. 1.12. in the gr[illegible: 1 letter]ve they heare not the voice of the oppreſſor, nor the barking of theſe dead dogs any more.

Verſe 19. The ſmall and the great are there] In Calvary are ſculls of all ſizes, ſay the Hebrewes, Stat ſun cuique dies. It is appointed for all once to die,Virg. Aeneid, lib. 10. be they great or ſmall, low or high, Mors ſceptra liganibus aequat, death makes no difference: Kings and captives, Lords and loſels come then under an equall parity: death takes away all diſtinctions. William the Conquerours corps lay unburied three dayes; his interment was hindred by one that claimed the ground to be his,Daniel. King Stephen was interred at Fever ſham Monaſtery; but ſince,Speed. 498. his body for the gain of the lead, wherein it was coffined, was caſt into the river, where at length it reſted, as did likewiſe the dead corps of Edward the fifth, and his brother ſmothered in,Speed 935. the Tower by Richard the third, and caſt into a place called the black deeps at the Thames mouth.

The ſervant is free from his Maſter] Servant is a name of office, he is not his own to diſpoſe of, but the masters instrument, ſaith Aristotle, and wholly his, till he pleaſe to manumit him; if he do not, yet death will, and by taking away his life, give him his liberty: his body reſteth from all ſervile offices for a ſeaſon howſoever: and if with good will hee hath done ſervice as to the Lord, and not to men; he ſhall receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance, even a childs part; Coloſ. 4.24.

Verſe 20. Wherefore is light given to him that is in miſery?] Job hath not done yet, though he had ſaid more then enough of this matter; but for want of the oyle of joy and gladneſſe, his doors move not without creaking, his lips (like ruſty hinges) open not without murmuring and complaining: Good therefore is that counſel given by David, Ceaſe from anger, and forſake wrath; take up in time, before it hath wholly leavened and ſowred you: fret not thy ſelf in any wiſe to do evill. Pſal. 37.8. Hee ſhall not chuſe but do evil who is ſick of the fret. David had the ſad experience of this, when he had carted the Ark, and thereupon God had made a breach upon Ʋzzah: David was diſpleaſed, ſaith the Text: and how untowardly ſpake hee, as if the fault were more in God then in himſelf; though afterwards he came to a ſight of his own error, 1 Chron. 13.11. with 15.2. And ſo did Job, no doubt, when come to himſelf: but here he proceeds to expreſſe his peeviſhneſſe and impatience, yea, againſt God himſelf (though not by name, forſan ſeſe cohibens — ob bonae mentis reliquias, ſaith Mercer, out of his good reſpect to God, which he ſtill retained:) and calls for a reaſon, why the miſerable ſhould be condemned to live, ſince death would be much more welcome to them. How apt are men to think there is no reaſon for that for which they can ſee no reaſon?

Verſe 21. Which long for death, and it cometh not] The bitter in ſoul long for death, thoſe that are in paine or penury, are apt to deſire to be diſpatch'd upon any terms, and would freely pardon them, they ſay, that would give them their paſport. But theſe for moſt part, conſider not the unſupportableneſſe of the wrath to come, that eternity of extremity in hell, that death uſually haleth at the heeles of it; ſo that by death, whereof they are ſo deſirous, they would but leap out of the frying-pan into the fire, as Judas did: they do as the aſſe in the fable, who deſired to die, that he might be no more beaten: at poſt mortem factus eſt tympanum, but when he was dead, he was made a drum-head of, and ſo was ten times more laid on, then ever in his life-time before.

And dig for it more then for hid treaſures] Covetouſneſſe is [non-Latin text not transcribed], alldaring, ſaith an Ancient: and men for love of wealth, will dig to hell, light a candle at the divel, as they ſay: With ſuch an eagerneſſe of deſire do ſome (that have little reaſon for it, all things reckoned) long and labour after death, not to bee rid of ſin, or to bee with Chriſt, as Phil. 1.23. but to bee freed from miſery incumbent or impendent. Thus Cato (having firſt read Plato's book of the ſouls immortality) laid violent hands on himſelfe, that hee might not fall into the hands of the conqueror. Thus Adrian the Emperour having lain long ſick (and could get no help by Phyſicians, but was the worſe for them, [non-Latin text not transcribed] as he complained at his death) would gladly have ſlaine himſelfe, if thoſe about him would have ſuffered it. It is ſaid that Severianus. whom this Emperour injuriouſly put to death, wiſhed of God, at Adrianus, quamvis mortem obire percupiat, tamen non poſſit, that Adrian might deſire to die, and not be able, or find opportunity. There is an Epiſtle of his extant, ſaith the Hiſtorian, wherein is ſet forth, what a miſery it is to deſire to die,Dio Caſſ. in Adrian. and yet to be denied it. This was the caſe of thoſe Popelings, Rev. 9.6. And in particular of Roger Biſhop of Salisbury in King Stevens time; who, through long and ſtrait impriſonment, was brought to that evil paſſe, [illegible: 1 letter]t vivere notuerit, mori neſcierit, live he would not, and yet die he could not. This is a very typicall-hell, and a fore-taſte of eternall torment.

Verſe 22. Which rejoyce exceedingly] Joy till they skip again, ſo Broughton rendreth it. Strange, that any ſhould be ſo glad of death that laſt enemy, that ſlaughter-man of nature, and harbinger of hell to the ungodly! but this the divel hideth from them, till he hath them where he would have, and whence there is no redemption. What was it elſe that moved Augustus at his death to call for a Pl[illegible: 1 letter]udite; or that made Julian the Apoſtate to die ſo confidently; and many now-adayes that have little reaſon for it to be ſo prodigall of their lives, and ſeemingly fond of death? Is it not becauſe they are fearfully blinded by the god of this preſent world, who holdeth his black hand before their eyes,2. Cor. 4.4. left they ſhould ſee the evill conſequents of death, and be ſaved? which becauſe they do not, what do they elſe but rejoyce exceedingly (or with exultation, as the word here ſignifieth) in their wofull bondage, and goe dancing to hell in their bolts, not ſo much as deſiring deliverance. A man that is to be hanged next day, may dream overnight he ſhall be ſet free; nay, that he ſhall bee a King, and rejoyce therein accordingly: but the end of ſuch joy is heavineſſe.

Verſe 23. Why is light given to a man whoſe way is hid?] i.e. Why is the light of life continued to him who is in a maze or labyrinth of miſeries, whereof he can ſee no cauſe, and whereout he can deſcry no iſſue? no hope at all appeareth of ever either mending or ending. Therefore Vale lumen amicum, as he in Saint Hierome ſaid, ſweet light adieu; Quin morere ut merita es, as ſhee in the Poet, Be thine owne deathſ-man. Seneca counts it a mercy to a man in miſery, that he may by laying hands on himſelf, ſet out his life when he will; and this he calls valour and man-hood. But we have no ſo learned Chriſt, neither may we leave our ſtation till called for by our Captaine, but muſt ſtand to our arms, and as good Souldiers of Jeſus Chriſt, ſuffer hardſhip, 2 Tim. 2.4. His word to us is the ſame as the Kings was to his Sonne the Black-Prince, Speed. either vanquiſh or dye: and as ſhe in the ſtory ſaid to her ſon when ſhee gave him his Target, See that thou either bring this back with thee, or elſe be thou brought back dead upon it out of the battel. [non-Latin text not transcribed] It troubled Job that he could not ſee his way, and that God had hedged him in, viz. with a thorn-hedge of afflictions, Lam. 3.7, 9. Hoſ. 2.6. ſo that he could find no way out. But what if he could not, nor any man alive? yet the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, 2 Pet. 2.9. He hath his way in the whirlewind, and his judgements are a great deepe, Pſal. 36.6. Sometimes ſecret they are, but ever juſt. Surely it had beene more meete for Job to have ſaid unto God, That which I ſee not, teach thou mee, &c. yea,Job. 34.31. in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have I waited for thee; the deſire of my ſoul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee, Iſa. 26.8.

Verſe 24. For my ſighing cometh before I eat] It cometh unſent for, as evill weather uſeth to do, and moſt unſeaſonably ſurprizeth me at my repaſt; I mingle my meat with my tears, with every bit of bread I have a morſell of ſorrowes [illegible: 1 letter] and I mingle my drink with weeping, Pſal. 102.9. though indeed Jobs was not ſo much a ſhowre of teares, as a ſtorm of ſighs, and a volly of roarings, betokening extremity of griefe, ſuch as was beyond tears, and vented it ſelfe as the noiſe of many waters; for my roarings ſaith he, are poured out like water. I am as hungry as a Lion roaring on his prey, and as violent as the Torrents ranging the fields; and yet I neither have leiſure nor lift to eat my bread: as loth to prolong ſuch a troubleſome life, but that I muſt, or be guilty of ſelf-murther. Mr Fox reports of Mr. John Glover, that not long after his converſion, upon a miſtake of the ſenſe of that text, Heb. 6.5, 6. he was ſtrongly conceited, that he had fallen into the unpardonable ſinne, and muſt neceſſarily therefore be damned: and in that intolerable grief of mind, although he neither had not could have any joy of his meat, yet was he compelled to eate againſt his appetite, to the end, to deferre the time of his damnation ſo long as he might.Acts & Mon. 1552. Now who can tell how neere Jobs caſe might come to this, fith the divell was both Author and Actor in a great part of both theſe Tragicomedies?

Verſe 25. For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me] Heb. I feared a fear, and it came upon me. Had Job been wicked, this had been no wander, Prov. 10.24. Job 15.21. Or had his fear been ſinfull, it had been l[illegible: 1 letter]ſſe pity. Prov. 29.25. John. 11.48, for why ſhould he, by a painfull [illegible: 1 span], ſuffer before he needed? and ſend for his croſſes before they came? A good man ſhould [illegible: 1 word] all (and ſo conſequently fearfull) in nothing, [illegible: 2 letters]il. 4.6. he ſhould hope the beſt, and beate bravely [non-Latin text not transcribed], ſaith Demoſthenes, whatever God ſendeth. The Epicunts held, that a good man might be cheerfull under whatſoever miſeries: 1.Ex prateritarum voluptatum recordatione. Cic. de finib. lib. 2. In conſideration of honeſty and integrity. 2. In conſideration of thoſe pleaſu[illegible: 1 letter]es and to [illegible: 1 word] that formerly he had enjoyed, and now cheared up himſelf with. Of neither of theſe was Job to ſeek: But whereas it might be ſaid unto him, Is it fit for thee, who haſt hitherto been ſo happy, now to take on ſo heavily, becauſe thus and thus afflicted? Truly, ſaith he, I was never ſo happy as you took me for; becauſe (conſidering how moveable and mutable all outward things are) I alwayes feared leſt I ſhould out live my proſperity: that which now alſo is unhappily befallen me. Sylla had been happy, ſi eundem & vinc[illegible: 1 letter]ndi & [illegible: 1 span] f[illegible: 1 letter]ciſſet, ſaith One: that i[illegible: 1 letter], if he had made an end of conquering and of living together: but that he did not. In him and many others it hath appeared, that mortality is but the ſtage of mutability. This, holy Job had oft forecaſted with himſelf; and though in his paſſion he here alled[illegible: 2 letters] it as a reaſon why he took no comfort in his meat &c. yet, in true account, it could be no grief unto him, nor offence of heart (as ſhe once ſaid to David, 1 Sam. 25.31.) ſith it was a fear of wiſdome and caution; a fear of the head, and no[illegible: 1 letter] of the heart; a fear of diligence, and not of diffidence.

Verſe 26. I was not in ſafety] i.e. I counted not my ſelf ſimply the ſafer and happier man, becauſe of creature-comforts: but knowing their uncertainty, I held at a diſtance, and hung looſe to them all.

Neither had I rest] I ſet not up my reſt here, as did Nebuchadnezzar, Dam. 4.4. and that rich fool, Luke 12.10 and the purple whore, who ſitteth and ſaith, I ſhàll ſee no ſorrow. Once indeed, Job ſaid, (but not ſo well) I ſhall di[illegible: 1 letter] in my [illegible: 1 letter]eſt, and multiply my dayes at the ſand: Chap. 29.18. And ſo (by a like [illegible: 1 word], which was quickly confuted) David ſaid in his proſperity, I ſhall never be moved, Pſal. 10.6, 7. But for the main and the moſt part, Job was otherwiſe minded. A godly man may be maſter of, and buſied about theſe palterments of this preſent world, but not ſatisfied in them as adequate objects: he looks upon them all, in their greateſt luſtre, as Hir[illegible: 2 letters] did on the Cities Solomon had given him, which he called Ch[illegible: 2 letters]ul, that is, a land of dirt. He minds the things above, moſt of all.

Yet trouble came.] Although I ever kept my ſelf within the bounds of humility and modeſty, and ſo took the ſafeſt and wiſeſt courſe to ſecure that I had, and to gaine a ſetled eſtate; yet all's gone, and I am left a mirrour of miſery: What can any one make of his? This is a riddle to me: here I am gravelled and benighted.