translating so as to imply a direct comparison between the
righteousness of man and the righteousness of God, this is not
required by the purpose of the writer, as Dr. A. B. Davidson has
shown. In the form of a question it is impressively announced that
with or beside the High God no weak man is righteous, no strong man
pure; and this is sufficient, for the aim of Eliphaz is to show that
troubles may justly come on Job, as on others, because all are by
nature imperfect. No doubt the oracle might transcend the scope of the
argument. Still the question has not been raised by Job's criticism of
providence, whether he reckons himself more just than God; and apart
from that any comparison seems unnecessary, meeting no mood of human
revolt of which Eliphaz has ever heard. The oracle, then, is
practically of the nature of a truism, and, as such, agrees with the
dream vision and the impalpable ghost, a dim presentation by the mind
to itself of what a visitor from the higher world might be.
Shall any created being, inheritor of human defects, stand beside
Eloah, clean in His sight? Impossible. For, however sincere and
earnest any one may be toward God and in the service of men, he cannot
pass the fallibility and imperfection of the creature. The thought
thus solemnly announced, Eliphaz proceeds to amplify in a prophetic
strain, which, however, does not rise above the level of good poetry.
"Behold, He putteth no trust in His servants." Nothing that the best
of them have to do is committed entirely to them; the supervision of
Eloah is always maintained that their defects may not mar His purpose.
"His angels He chargeth with error." Even the heavenly spirits, if we
are to trust Eliphaz, go astray; they are under a law of discipline
and holy correction. In the Supreme Light they are judged and often
found wanting. To credit this to a Divine oracle would be somewhat
disconcerting to ordinary theological ideas. But the argument is clear
enough,--If even the angelic servants of God require the constant
supervision of His wisdom and their faults need His correction, much
more do men whose bodies are "houses of clay, whose foundation is in
the dust, who are crushed before the moth"--that is, the moth which
breeds corrupting worms. "From morning to evening they are
destroyed"--in a single day their vigour and beauty pass into decay.
"Without observance they perish for ever," says Eliphaz. Clearly this
is not a word of Divine prophecy. It would place man beneath the level
of moral judgment, as a mere earth-creature whose life and death are
of no account even to God. Men go their way when a comrade falls, and
soon forget. True enough. But "One higher than the highest regardeth."
The stupidity or insensibility of most men to spiritual things is in
contrast to the attention and judgment of God.
The description of man's life on earth, its brevity and dissolution,
on account of which he can never exalt himself as just and clean
beside God, ends with words that may be translated thus:--
"_Is not their cord torn asunder in them?
They shall die, and not in wisdom._"
Here the tearing up of the tent cord or the breaking of the bow-string
is an image of the snapping of that chain of vital functions, the
"silver cord," on which the bodily life depends.
The argument of Eliphaz, so far, has been, first, that Job, as a
pious man, should have kept his confidence in God, because he was not
like those who plough iniquity and sow disaster and have no hope in
Divine mercy; next, that before the Most High all are more or less
unrighteous and impure, so that if Job suffers for defect, he is no
exception, his afflictions are not to be wondered at. And this carries
the further thought that he ought to be conscious of fault and humble
himself under the Divine hand. Just at this point Eliphaz comes at
last within sight of the right way to find Job's heart and conscience.
The corrective discipline which all need was safe ground to take with
one who could not have denied in the last resort that he, too, had
"Sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood."
This strain of argument, however, closes, Eliphaz having much in his
mind which has not found expression and is of serious import.
III. The speaker sees that Job is impatient of the sufferings which
make life appear useless to him. But suppose he appealed to the
saints--holy ones, or angels--to take his part, would that be of any
use? In his cry from the depth he had shown resentment and hasty
passion. These do not insure, they do not deserve help. The "holy
ones" would not respond to a man so unreasonable and indignant. On the
contrary, "resentment slayeth the foolish man, passion killeth the
silly." What Job had said in his outcry only tended to bring on him
the fatal stroke of God. Having caught at this idea, Eliphaz proceeds
in a manner rather surprising. He has been shocked by Job's bitter
words. The horror he felt returns upon him, and he falls into a very
singular and inconsiderate strain of remark. He does not, indeed,
identify his old friend with the foolish man whose destruction he
proceeds to paint. But an instance has occurred to him--a bit of his
large experience--of one who behaved in a godless, irrational way and
suffered for it; and for Job's warning, because he needs to take home
the lesson of the catastrophe, Eliphaz details the story. Forgetting
the circumstances of his friend, utterly forgetting that the man lying
before him has lost all his children and that robbers have swallowed
his substance, absorbed in his own reminiscence to the exclusion of
every other thought, Eliphaz goes deliberately through a whole roll of
disasters so like Job's that every word is a poisoned arrow:--
"_Plead then: will any one answer thee;
And to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn?
Nay, resentment killeth the fool,
And hasty indignation slayeth the silly.
I myself have seen a godless fool take root;
Yet straightway I cursed his habitation:--
His children are far from succour,
They are crushed in the gate without deliverer:
While the hungry eats up his harvest
And snatches it even out of the thorns,
And the snare gapes for their substance._"
The desolation he saw come suddenly, even when the impious man had
just taken root as founder of a family, Eliphaz declares to be a curse
from the Most High; and he describes it with much force. Upon the
children of the household disaster falls at the gate or place of
judgment; there is no one to plead for them, because the father is
marked for the vengeance of God. Predatory tribes from the desert
devour first the crops in the remoter fields, and then those protected
by the thorn hedge near the homestead. The man had been an oppressor;
now those he had oppressed are under no restraint, and all he has is
swallowed up without redress.
So much for the third attempt to convict Job and bring him to
confession. It is a bolt shot apparently at a venture, yet it strikes
where it must wound to the quick. Here, however, made aware, perhaps by
a look of anguish or a sudden gesture, that he has gone too far, Eliphaz
draws back. To the general dogma that affliction is the lot of every
human being he returns, that the sting may be taken out of his words:--
"_For disaster cometh not forth from the dust,
And out of the ground trouble springeth not;
But man is born unto trouble
As the sparks fly upward._"
By this vague piece of moralising, which sheds no light on anything,
Eliphaz betrays himself. He shows that he is not anxious to get at the
root of the matter. The whole subject of pain and calamity is external
to him, not a part of his own experience. He would speak very
differently if he were himself deprived of all his possessions and
laid low in trouble. As it is he can turn glibly from one thought to
another, as if it mattered not which fits the case. In fact, as he
advances and retreats we discover that he is feeling his way, aiming
first at one thing, then at another, in the hope that this or that
random arrow may hit the mark. No man is just beside God. Job is like
the rest, crushed before the moth. Job has spoken passionately, in
wild resentment. Is he then among the foolish whose habitation is
cursed? But again, lest that should not be true, the speaker falls
back on the common lot of men, born to trouble--why, God alone can
tell. Afterwards he makes another suggestion. Is not God He who
frustrates the devices of the crafty and confounds the cunning, so
that they grope in the blaze of noon as if it were night? If the other
explanations did not apply to Job's condition, perhaps this would. At
all events something might be said by way of answer that would give an
inkling of the truth. At last the comparatively kind and vague
explanation is offered, that Job suffers from the chastening of the
Lord, who, though He afflicts, is also ready to heal. Glancing at all
possibilities which occur to him, Eliphaz leaves the afflicted man to
accept that which happens to come home.
IV. Eloquence, literary skill, sincerity, mark the close of this
address. It is the argument of a man who is anxious to bring his
friend to a right frame of mind so that his latter days may be peace.
"As for me," he says, hinting what Job should do, "I would turn to
God, and set my expectation upon the Highest." Then he proceeds to
give his thoughts on Divine providence. Unsearchable, wonderful are
the doings of God. He is the Rain-giver for the thirsty fields and
desert pastures. Among men, too, He makes manifest His power, exalting
those who are lowly, and restoring the joy of the mourners. Crafty
men, who plot to make their own way, oppose His sovereign power in
vain. They are stricken as if with blindness. Out of their hand the
helpless are delivered, and hope is restored to the feeble. Has Job
been crafty? Has he been in secret a plotter against the peace of men?
Is it for this reason God has cast him down? Let him repent, and he
shall yet be saved. For
"_Happy is the man whom Eloah correcteth,
Therefore spurn not thou the chastening of Shaddai.
For He maketh sore and bindeth up;
He smiteth, but His hands make whole.
In six straits He will deliver thee;
In seven also shall not evil touch thee.
In famine He will rescue thee from death,
And in war from the power of the sword.
When the tongue smiteth thou shalt be hid;
Nor shalt thou fear when desolation cometh.
At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh;
And of the beasts of the earth shalt not be afraid.
For with the stones of the field shall be thy covenant;
With thee shall the beasts of the field be at peace.
So shalt thou find that thy tent is secure,
And surveying thy homestead thou shalt miss nothing.
Thou shalt find that thy seed are many,
And thy offspring like the grass of the earth;
Thou shalt come to thy grave with white hair,
As a ripe shock of corn is carried home in its season.
Behold! This we have searched out: thus it is.
Hear it, and, thou, consider it for thyself!_"
Fine, indeed, as dramatic poetry; but is it not, as reasoning,
incoherent? The author does not mean it to be convincing. He who is
chastened and receives the chastening may not be saved in those six
troubles, yea seven. There is more of dream than fact. Eliphaz is
apparently right in everything, as Dillmann says; but right only on
the surface. _He has seen_--that they who plough iniquity and sow
disaster reap the same. _He has seen_--a vision of the night, and
received a message; a sign of God's favour that almost made him a
prophet. _He has seen_--a fool or impious man taking root, but was not
deceived; he knew what would be the end, and took upon him to curse
judicially the doomed homestead. _He has seen_--the crafty confounded.
_He has seen_--the man whom God corrected, who received his
chastisement with submission, rescued and restored to honour. "Lo,
this we have searched out," he says; "it is even thus." But the piety
and orthodoxy of the good Eliphaz do not save him from blunders at
every turn. And to the clearing of Job's position he offers no
suggestion of value. What does he say to throw light on the condition
of a believing, earnest servant of the Almighty who is _always_ poor,
_always_ afflicted, who meets disappointment after disappointment, and
is pursued by sorrow and disaster even to the grave? The religion of
Eliphaz is made for well-to-do people like himself, and such only. If
it were true that, because all are sinful before God, affliction and
pain are punishments of sin, and a man is happy in receiving this
Divine correction, why is Eliphaz himself not lying like Job upon a
heap of ashes, racked with the torment of disease? Good orthodox
prosperous man, he thinks himself a prophet, but he is none. Were he
tried like Job he would be as unreasonable and passionate, as wild in
his declamation against life, as eager for death.
Useless in religion is all mere talk that only skims the surface,
however often the terms of it may be repeated, however widely they
find acceptance. The creed that breaks down at any point is no creed
for a rational being. Infidelity in our day is very much the
consequence of crude notions about God that contradict each other,
notions of the atonement, of the meaning of suffering, of the future
life, that are incoherent, childish, of no practical weight. People
think they have a firm grasp of the truth; but when circumstances
occur which are at variance with their preconceived ideas, they turn
away from religion, or their religion makes the facts of life appear
worse for them. It is the result of insufficient thought. Research
must go deeper, must return with new zeal to the study of Scripture
and the life of Christ. God's revelation in providence and
Christianity is one. It has a profound coherency, the stamp and
evidence of its truth. The rigidity of natural law has its meaning for
us in our study of the spiritual life.
VIII.
_MEN FALSE: GOD OVERBEARING._
JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. vi., vii.
Worst to endure of all things is the grief that preys on a man's own
heart because no channel outside self is provided for the hot stream
of thought. Now that Eliphaz has spoken, Job has something to arouse
him, at least to resentment. The strength of his mind revives as he
finds himself called to a battle of words. And how energetic he is!
The long address of Eliphaz we saw to be incoherent, without the
backbone of any clear conviction, turning hither and thither in the
hope of making some way or other a happy hit. But as soon as Job
begins to speak there is coherency, strong thought running through the
variety of expression, the anxiety for instruction, the sense of
bewilderment and trouble. We feel at once that we are in contact with
a mind no half-truths can satisfy, that will go with whatever
difficulty to the very bottom of the matter.
Supreme mark of a healthy nature, this. People are apt to praise a mind
at peace, moving composedly from thought to thought, content "to enjoy
the things which others understand," not distressed by moral questions.
But minds enjoying such peace are only to be praised if the philosophy
of life has been searched out and tried, and the great trust in God
which resolves all doubt has been found. While life and providence,
one's own history and the history of the world present what appear to be
contradictions, problems that baffle and disturb the soul, how can a
healthy mind be at rest? Our intellectual powers are not given simply
that we may enjoy; they are given that we may understand. A mind hungers
for knowledge, as a body for food, and cannot be satisfied unless the
reason and the truth of things are seen. You may object that some are
not capable of understanding, that indeed Divine providence, the great
purposes of God, lie so far and so high beyond the ordinary human range
as to be incomprehensible to most of us. Of what use, then, is
revelation? Is it given merely to bewilder us, to lead us on in a quest
which at the last must leave many of the searchers unsatisfied, without
light or hope? If so, the Bible mocks us, the prophets were deceivers,
even Christ Himself is found no Light of the world, but a dreamer who
spoke of that which can never be realised. Not thus do I begin in doubt,
and end in doubt. There are things beyond me; but exact or final
knowledge of these is not necessary. Within my range and reach through
nature and religion, through the Bible and the Son of God, are the
principles I need to satisfy my soul's hunger. And in every healthy mind
there will be desire for truth which, often baffled, will continue till
understanding comes.
And here we join issue with the agnostic, who denies this vital demand
of the soul. Our thought dwelling on life and all its varied
experience--sorrow and fear, misery and hope, love threatened by death
yet unquenchable, the exultation of duty, the baffling of ambition,
unforeseen peril and unexpected deliverance--our thought, I say,
dealing with these elements of life, will not rest in the notion that
all is due to chance or to blind forces, that evolution can never be
intelligently followed. The modern atheist or agnostic falls into the
very error for which he used to reprove faith when he contemptuously
bids us get rid of the hope of understanding the world and the Power
directing it, when he invites us to remember our limitations and
occupy ourselves with things within our range. Religion used to be
taunted with crippling man's faculties and denying full play to his
mental activity. Scientific unbelief does so now. It restricts us to
the seen and temporal, and, if consistent, ought to refuse all ideals
and all desires for a "perfect" state. The modern sage, intent on the
study of material things and their changes, confining himself to what
can be seen, heard, touched, or by instruments analysed, may have
nothing but scorn or, say, pity for one who cries out of trouble--
"Have I sinned? Yet, what have I done unto Thee,
O Thou Watcher of men?
Why hast Thou set me as Thy stumbling-block,
So that I am a burden to myself?
And why wilt Thou not pardon my transgression,
And cause my sin to pass away?"
But the man whose soul is eager in the search for reality must
endeavour to wrest from Heaven itself the secret of his
dissatisfaction with the real, his conflict with the real, and why he
must so often suffer from the very forces that sustain his life. Yes,
the passion of the soul continues. It protests against darkness, and
therefore against materialism. Conscious mind presses toward an origin
of thought. Soul must find a Divine Eternal Soul. Where nature opens
ascending ways to the reason in its quest; where prophets and sages
have cut paths here and there through the forest of mystery; where the
brave and true testify of a light they have seen and invite us to
follow; where One stands high and radiant above the cross on which He
suffered and declares Himself the Resurrection and the Life,--there
men will advance, feeling themselves inspired to maintain the search
for that Eternal Truth without the hope of which all our life here is
a wearisome pageant, a troubled dream, a bitter slavery.
In his reply to Eliphaz, Job first takes hold of the charge of
impatience and hasty indignation made in the opening of the fifth
chapter. He is quite aware that his words were rash when he cursed his
day and cried impatiently for death. In accusing him of rebellious
passion, Eliphaz had shot the only arrow that went home; and now Job,
conscientious here, pulls out the arrow to show it and the wound.
"Oh," he cries, "that my hasty passion were duly weighed, and my
misery were laid in the balance against it! For then would it, my
misery, be found heavier than the sand of the seas: therefore have my
words been rash." He is almost deprecatory. Yes: he will admit the
impatience and vehemence with which he spoke. But then, had Eliphaz
duly considered his state, the weight of his trouble causing a
physical sense of indescribable oppression? Let his friends look at
him again, a man prostrated with sore disease and grief, dying slowly
in the leper's exile.
"_The arrows of the Almighty are within me,
The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up.
The terrors of God beleaguer me._"
We need not fall into the mistake of supposing that it is only the
pain of his disease which makes Job's misery so heavy. Rather is it
that his troubles have come from God; they are "the arrows of the
Almighty." Mere suffering and loss, even to the extremity of death, he
could have borne without a murmur. But he had thought God to be his
friend. Why on a sudden have those darts been launched against him by
the hand he trusted? What does the Almighty mean? The evil-doer who
suffers knows why he is afflicted. The martyr enduring for conscience'
sake has his support in the truth to which he bears witness, the holy
cause for which he dies. Job has no explanation, no support. He cannot
understand providence. The God with whom he supposed himself to be at
peace suddenly becomes an angry incomprehensible Power, blighting and
destroying His servant's life. Existence poisoned, the couch of ashes
encompassed with terrors, is it any wonder that passionate words break
from his lips? A cry is the last power left to him.
So it is with many. The seeming needlessness of their sufferings, the
impossibility of tracing these to any cause in their past history, in a
word, the mystery of the pain confounds the mind, and adds to anguish
and desolation an unspeakable horror of darkness. Sometimes the very
thing guarded against is that which happens; a man's best intelligence
appears confuted by destiny or chance. Why has he amongst the many been
chosen for this? Do all things come alike to all, righteous and wicked?
The problem becomes terribly acute in the case of earnest God-fearing
men and women who have not yet found the real theory of suffering.
Endurance for others does not always explain. All cannot be rested on
that. Nor unless we speak falsely for God will it avail to say, These
afflictions have fallen on us for our sins. For even if the conscience
does not give the lie to that assertion, as Job's conscience did, the
question demands a clear answer why the penitent should suffer, those
who believe, to whom God imputes no iniquity. If it is for our
transgressions we suffer, either our own faith and religion are vain, or
God does not forgive excepting in form, and the law of punishment
retains its force. We have here the serious difficulty that legal
fictions seem to hold their ground even in the dealings of the Most High
with those who trust Him. Many are in the direst trouble still for the
same reason as Job, and might use his very words. Taught to believe
that suffering is invariably connected with wrong-doing and is always in
proportion to it, they cannot find in their past life any great
transgressions for which they should be racked with constant pain or
kept in grinding penury and disappointment. Moreover, they had imagined
that through the mediation of Christ their sins were expiated and their
guilt blotted out. What strange error is there in the creed or in the
world? Have they never believed? Has God turned against them? So they
inquire in the darkness.
The truth, however, as shown in a previous chapter, is that suffering
has no proportion to the guilt of sin, but is related in the scheme of
Divine providence to life in this world, its movement, discipline, and
perfecting in the individual and the race. Afflictions, pains, and
griefs are appointed to the best as well as the worst, because all
need to be tried and urged on from imperfect faith and spirituality to
vigour, constancy, and courage of soul. The principle is not clearly
stated in the Book of Job, but underlies it, as truth must underlie
all genuine criticism and every faithful picture of human life. The
inspiration of the poem is so to present the facts of human experience
that the real answer alone can satisfy. And in the speech we are now
considering some imperfect and mistaken views are swept so completely
aside that their survival is almost unaccountable.
Beginning with the fifth verse we have a series of questions somewhat
difficult to interpret:--
"_Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?
Or loweth the ox over his fodder?
Can that be eaten which is unsavoury, without salt?
Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
My soul refuseth to touch them;
They are to me as mouldy bread._"