enjoy, another writer, Bushnell, well points out that permission of
their opulence and power by God aids the development of moral ideas. "It
is simply letting society and man be what they are, to show what they
are." The retributive stroke, swift and visible, is not needed to
declare this. "If one is hard upon the poor, harsh to children, he
makes, or may, a very great discovery of himself. What is in him is
mirrored forth by his acts, and distinctly mirrored in them.... If he is
unjust, passionate, severe, revengeful, jealous, dishonest, and
supremely selfish, he is in just that scale of society or social
relationship that brings him out to himself.... Evil is scarcely to be
known as evil till it takes the condition of authority. We do not
understand it till we see what kind of god it will make, and by what
sort of rule it will manage its empire.... Just here all the merit of
God's plan, as regards the permission of power in the hands of wicked
men, will be found to hinge; namely, on the fact that evil is not only
revealed in its baleful presence and agency, but the peoples and ages
are put heaving against it and struggling after deliverance from it."[4]
It was, we say, Job's difficulty that against the new conception of
Divine righteousness which he sought the early idea stood opposed that
life meant vigour mainly in the earthly range. During a long period of
the world's history this belief was dominant, and virtue signified the
strength of man's arm, his courage in conflict, rather than his truth in
judgment and his purity of heart. The outward gains corresponding to
that early virtue were the proof of the worth of life. And even when the
moral qualities began to be esteemed, and a man was partly measured by
the quality of his soul, still the tests of outward success and the
gains of the inferior virtue continued to be applied to his life. Hence
the perturbation of Job and, to some extent, the false judgment of
providence quoted from a modern writer.
But the chapter we are considering shows, if we rightly interpret the
obscure 16th verse, that the author tried to get beyond the merely
sensuous and earthly reckoning. Those prospered who denied the authority
of God and put aside religion with the rudest scepticism. There was no
good in prayer, they said; it brought no gain. The Almighty was nothing
to them. Without thought of His commands they sought their profit and
their pleasure, and found all they desired. Looking steadfastly at their
life, Job sees its hollowness, and abruptly exclaims:--
"_Ha! their good is not in their hand:
The counsel of the wicked be far from me!_"
Good! was that good which they grasped--their abundance, their
treasure? Were they to be called blessed because their children danced
to the lute and the pipe and they enjoyed the best earth could
provide? The real good of life was not theirs. They had not God; they
had not the exultation of trusting and serving Him; they had not the
good conscience towards God and man which is the crown of life. The
man lying in disease and shame would not exchange his lot for theirs.
But Job must argue still against his friends' belief that the wicked
are visited with the judgment of the Most High in the loss of their
earthly possessions. "The triumphing of the wicked is short," said
Zophar, "and the joy of the godless but for a moment." Is it so?
"_How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
That their calamity cometh upon them?
That God distributeth sorrows in His anger?
That they are as stubble before the wind,
And as chaff that the storm carrieth away?_"
One in a thousand, Job may admit, has the light extinguished in his
tent and is swept out of the world. But is it the rule or the
exception that such visible judgment falls even on the robber chief?
The first psalm has it that the wicked are "like the chaff which the
wind driveth away." The words of that chant may have been in the mind
of the author. If so, he disputes the doctrine. And further he rejects
with contempt the idea that though a transgressor himself lives long
and enjoys to the end, his children after him may bear his punishment.
"_Ye say, God layeth up his iniquity for his children.
Let Him recompense it unto himself, that he may know it.
Let his own eyes see his destruction,
And let him drink of the wrath of Shaddai.
For what pleasure hath he in his house after him,
When the number of his moons is cut off in the midst?_"
The righteousness Job is in quest of will not be satisfied with
visitation of the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. He will
not accept the proverb which Ezekiel afterwards repudiated, "The fathers
have eaten sour grapes, the children's teeth are set on edge." He
demands that the ways of God shall be equal, that the soul that sinneth
shall bear its punishment. Is it anything to a wicked man that his
children are scattered and have to beg their bread when he has passed
away? A man grossly selfish would not be vexed by the affliction of his
family even if, down in Sheol, he could know of it. What Zophar has to
prove is that every man who has lived a godless life is made to drink
the cup of Shaddai's indignation. Though he trembles in sight of the
truth, Job will press it on those who argue falsely for God.
And with the sense of the inscrutable purposes of the Most High
burdening his soul he proceeds--
"_Shall any teach God knowledge?
Seeing He judgeth those that are high?_"
Easy was it to insist that thus or thus Divine providence ordained. But
the order of things established by God is not to be forced into harmony
with a human scheme of judgment. He who rules in the heights of heaven
knows how to deal with men on earth; and for them to teach Him knowledge
is at once arrogant and absurd. The facts are evident, must be accepted
and reckoned with in all submission; especially must his friends
consider the fact of death, how death comes, and they will then find
themselves unable to declare the law of the Divine government.
As yet, even to Job, though he has gazed beyond death, its mystery is
oppressive; and he is right in urging that mystery upon his friends to
convict them of ignorance and presumption. Distinctions they affirm
to lie between the good and the wicked are not made by God in
appointing the hour of death. One is called away in his strong and
lusty manhood; another lingers till his becomes bitter and all the
bodily functions are impaired. "Alike they lie down in the dust and
the worms cover them." The thought is full of suggestion; but Job
presses on, returning for a moment to the false charges against
himself that he may bring a final argument to bear on his accusers.
"_Behold, I know your thoughts,
And the devices ye wrongfully imagine against me.
For ye say, Where is the house of the prince?
And, Where the tents in which the wicked dwelt?
Have ye not asked them that go by the way?
And do ye not regard their tokens--
That the wicked is spared in the day of destruction,
That they are led forth in the day of wrath?_"
So far from being overwhelmed in calamity the evil doer is considered,
saved as by an unseen hand. Whose hand? My house is wasted, my
habitations are desolate, I am in extremity, ready to die. True: but
those who go up and down the land would teach you to look for a
different end to my career if I had been the proud transgressor you
wrongly assume me to have been. I would have found a way of safety
when the storm-clouds gathered and the fire of heaven burned. My
prosperity would scarcely have been interrupted. If I had been what
you say, not one of you would have dared to charge me with crimes
against men or impiety towards God. You would have been trembling now
before me. The power of an unscrupulous man is not easily broken. He
faces fate, braves and overcomes the judgment of society.
And society accepts his estimate of himself, counts him happy,--pays
him honour at his death. The scene at his funeral confutes the
specious interpretation of providence that has been so often used as a
weapon against Job. Perhaps Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar know something
of obsequies paid to a prosperous tyrant, so powerful that they dared
not deny him homage even when he lay on his bier. Who shall repay the
evil-doer what he hath done?
"_Yea, he is borne to the grave,
And they keep watch over his tomb;
The clods of the valley are sweet to him,
And all men draw after him,
As without number they go before him._"
It is the gathering of a country-side, the tumultuous procession, a
vast disorderly crowd before the bier, a multitude after it surging
along to the place of tombs. And there, in nature's greenest heart,
where the clods of the valley are sweet, they make his grave--and
there as over the dust of one of the honourable of the earth they keep
watch. Too true is the picture. Power begets fear and fear enforces
respect. With tears and lamentations the Arabs went, with all the
trappings of formal grief moderns may be seen in crowds following the
corpse of one who had neither a fine soul nor a good heart, nothing
but money and success to commend him to his fellow-men.
* * * * *
So the writer ends the second act of the drama, and the controversy
remains much where it was. The meaning of calamity, the nature of the
Divine government of the world are not extracted. This only is made
clear, that the opinion maintained by the three friends cannot stand. It
is not true that joy and wealth are the rewards of virtuous life. It is
not always the case that the evil-doer is overcome by temporal disaster.
It is true that to good and bad alike death is appointed, and together
they lie down in the dust. It is true that even then the good man's
grave may be forsaken in the desert, while the impious may have a
stately sepulchre. A new way is made for human thought in the exposure
of the old illusions and the opening up of the facts of existence.
Hebrew religion has a fresh point of departure, a clearer view of the
nature and end of all things. The thought of the world receives a
spiritual germ; there is a making ready for Him who said, "A man's life
consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," and
"What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his
life?" When we know what the earthly cannot do for us we are prepared
for the gospel of the spiritual and for the living word.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Emerson, Essay III. "Compensation."
[4] Bushnell, "Moral Uses of Dark Things."
THE THIRD COLLOQUY.
XIX.
_DOGMATIC AND MORAL ERROR._
ELIPHAZ SPEAKS. CHAP. xxii.
The second colloquy has practically exhausted the subject of debate
between Job and his friends. The three have really nothing more to say
in the way of argument or awful example. It is only Eliphaz who tries
to clinch the matter by directly accusing Job of base and cowardly
offences. Bildad recites what may be called a short ode, and Zophar,
if he speaks at all, simply repeats himself as one determined if
possible to have the last word.
And why this third round? While it has definite marks of its own and
the closing speeches of Job are important as exhibiting his state of
mind, another motive seems to be required. And the following may be
suggested. A last indignity offered, last words of hard judgment
spoken, Job enters upon a long review of his life, with the sense of
being victorious in argument, yet with sorrow rather than exultation
because his prayers are still unanswered; and during all this time the
appearance of the Almighty is deferred. The impression of protracted
delay deepens through the two hundred and twenty sentences of the
third colloquy in which, one may say, all the resources of poetry are
exhausted. A tragic sense of the silence God keeps is felt to hang
over the drama, as it hangs over human life. A man vainly strives to
repel the calumnies that almost break his heart. His accusers advance
from innuendo to insolence. He seeks in the way of earnest thought
escape from their false reasoning; he appeals from men to God, from
God in nature and providence to God in supreme and glorious
righteousness behind the veil of sense and time. Unheard apparently by
the Almighty, he goes back upon his life and rehearses the proofs of
his purity, generosity, and faith; but the shadow remains. It is the
trial of human patience and the evidence that neither a man's judgment
of his own life nor the judgment expressed by other men can be final.
God must decide, and for His decision men must wait. The author has
felt in his own history this delay of heavenly judgment, and he brings
it out in his drama. He has also seen that on this side death there
can be no final reading of the judgment of God on a human life. We
wait for God; He comes in a prophetic utterance which all must
reverently accept; yet the declaration is in general terms. When at
last the Almighty speaks from the storm the righteous man and his
accusers alike have to acknowledge ignorance and error; there is an
end of self-defence and of condemnation by men, but no absolute
determination of the controversy. "The vision is for the appointed
time, and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie: though it
tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not delay.
Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him: but the just
shall live by his faith" (Hab. ii. 3, 4).
* * * * *
Eliphaz begins with a singular question, which he is moved to state by
the whole tenor of Job's reasoning and particularly by his hope that God
would become his Redeemer. "_Can a man be profitable unto God?_" Not
quite knowing what he asks, meaning simply to check the boldness of
Job's hope, he advances to the brink of an abyss of doubt. You Job, he
seems to say, a mere mortal creature, afflicted enough surely to know
your own insignificance, how can you build yourself up in the notion
that God is interested in your righteousness? You think God believes in
you and will justify you. How ignorant you must be if you really suppose
your goodness of any consequence to the Almighty, if you imagine that by
making your ways perfect, that is, claiming an integrity which man
cannot possess, you will render any service to the Most High. Man is too
small a creature to be of any advantage to God. Man's respect,
faithfulness, and devotion are essentially of no profit to Him.
One must say that Eliphaz opens a question of the greatest interest
both in theology or the knowledge of God, and in religion or the right
feelings of man toward God. If man as the highest energy, the finest
blossoming and most articulate voice of the creation, is of no
consequence to his Creator, if it makes no difference to the
perfection or complacency of God in Himself whether man serves the end
of his being or not, whether man does or fails to do the right he was
made to love; if it is for man's sake only that the way of life is
provided for him and the privilege of prayer given him,--then our
glorifying of God is not a reality but a mere form of speech. The only
conclusion possible would be that even when we serve God earnestly in
love and sacrifice we are in point of fact serving ourselves. If one
wrestles with evil, clings to the truth, renounces all for
righteousness' sake, it is well for him. If he is hard-hearted and
base, his life will decay and perish. But, in either case, the eternal
calm, the ineffable completeness of the Divine nature are unaffected.
Yea, though all men and all intelligent beings were overwhelmed in
eternal ruin the Creator's glory would remain the same, like a
full-orbed sun shining over a desolate universe.
..."We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep."
Eliphaz thinks it is for man's sake alone God has created him,
surrounded him with means of enjoyment and progress, given him truth
and religion, and laid on him the responsibilities that dignify his
existence. But what comes then of the contention that, because Job has
sinned, desolation and disease have come to him from the Almighty? If
man's righteousness is of no account to God, why should his
transgressions be punished? Creating men for their own sake, a
beneficent Maker would not lay upon them duties the neglect of which
through ignorance must needs work their ruin. We know from the opening
scenes of the book that the Almighty took pleasure in His servant. We
see Him trying Job's fidelity for the vindication of His own creative
power and heavenly grace against the scepticism of such as the
Adversary. Is a faithful servant not profitable to one whom he
earnestly serves? Is it all the same to God whether we receive His
truth or reject His covenant? Then the urgency of Christ's redemptive
work is a fiction. Satan is not only correct in regard to Job but has
stated the sole philosophy of human life. We are to fear and serve God
for what we get; and our notions of doing bravely in the great warfare
on behalf of God's kingdom are the fancies of men who dream.
"_Can a man be profitable unto God?
Surely he that is wise is profitable to himself.
Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous?
Or is it gain to Him that thou makest thy ways perfect?
Is it for thy fear of Him that He reproveth thee,
That He entereth with thee into judgment?_"
Regarding this what are we to say? That it is false, an ignorant attempt
to exalt God at the expense of man, to depreciate righteousness in the
human range for the sake of maintaining the perfection and
self-sufficiency of God. But the virtues of man, love, fidelity, truth,
purity, justice, are not his own. The power of them in human life is a
portion of the Divine energy, for they are communicated and sustained by
the Divine Spirit. Were the righteousness, love, and faith instilled
into the human mind to fail of their result, were they, instead of
growing and yielding fruit, to decay and die, it would be waste of
Divine power; the moral cosmos would be relapsing into a chaotic state.
If we affirm that the obedience and redemption of man do not profit the
Most High, then this world and the inhabitants of it have been called
into existence by the Creator in grim jest, and He is simply amusing
Himself with our hazardous game.
With the same view of the absolute sovereignty of God in creation and
providence on which Eliphaz founds in this passage, Jonathan Edwards
sees the necessity of escaping the conclusion to which these verses
point. He argues that God's delight in the emanations of His fulness
in the work of creation shows "His delight in the infinite fulness of
good there is in Himself and the supreme respect and regard He has for
Himself." An objector may say, he proceeds, "If it could be supposed
that God needed anything; or that the goodness of His creatures could
extend to Him; or that they could be profitable to Him, it might be
fit that God should make Himself and His own interest His highest and
last end in creating the world. But seeing that God is above all need
and all capacity of being added to and advanced, made better and
happier in any respect; to what purpose should God make Himself His
end, or seek to advance Himself in any respect by any of His works?"
The answer is--"God may delight with true and great pleasure in
beholding that beauty which is an image and communication of His own
beauty, an expression and manifestation of His own loveliness. And
this is so far from being an instance of His happiness not being in
and from Himself, that it is an evidence that He is happy in Himself,
or delights and has pleasure in His own beauty." Nor does this argue
any dependence of God on the creature for happiness. "Though He has
real pleasure in the creature's holiness and happiness; yet this is
not properly any pleasure which He receives from the creature. For
these things are what He gives the creature."[5] Here to a certain
extent the reasoning is cogent and meets the difficulty of Eliphaz;
and at present it is not necessary to enter into the other difficulty
which has to be faced when the Divine reprobation of sinful life needs
explanation. It is sufficient to say that this is a question even more
perplexing to those who hold with Eliphaz than to those who take the
other view. If man for God's glory has been allowed a real part in the
service of eternal righteousness, his failure to do the part of which
he is capable, to which he is called, must involve his condemnation.
So far as his will enters into the matter he is rightly held
accountable, and must suffer for neglect.
Passing to the next part of Eliphaz's address we find it equally
astray for another reason. He asks "_Is not thy wickedness great?_"
and proceeds to recount a list of crimes which appear to have been
charged against Job in the base gossip of ill-doing people.
"_Is not thy wickedness great,
And no limit to thy iniquities?
For thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought,
And stripped the naked of their clothing.
Thou hast not given water to the weary,
And thou hast withholden bread from the famished.
The man of might--his is the earth;
And he that is in honour dwelt therein.
Thou hast sent widows away empty,
And the arms of the orphans have been broken._"
The worst here affirmed against Job is that he has overborne the
righteous claims of widows and orphans. Bildad and Zophar made a
mistake in alleging that he had been a robber and a freebooter. Yet is
it less unfriendly to give ear to the cruel slanders of those who in
Job's day of prosperity had not obtained from him all they desired and
are now ready with their complaints? No doubt the offences specified
are such as might have been committed by a man in Job's position and
excused as within his right. To take a pledge for debt was no uncommon
thing. When water was scarce, to withhold it even from the weary was
no extraordinary baseness. Vambéry tells us that on the steppes he has
seen father and son fighting almost to the death for the dregs of a
skin of water. Eliphaz, however, a good man, counts it no more than
duty to share this necessary of life with any fainting traveller, even
if the wells are dry and the skins are nearly empty. He also makes it
a crime to keep back corn in the year of famine. He says truly that
the man of might, doing such things, acts disgracefully. But there was
no proof that Job had been guilty of this kind of inhumanity, and the
gross perversion of justice to which Eliphaz condescends recoils on
himself. It does not always happen so within our knowledge. Pious
slander gathered up and retailed frequently succeeds. An Eliphaz
endeavours to make good his opinion by showing providence to be for
it; he keeps the ear open to any report that will confirm what is
already believed; and the circulating of such a report may destroy the
usefulness of a life, the usefulness which is denied.
Take a broader view of the same controversy. Is there no exaggeration
in the charges thundered sometimes against poor human nature? Is it
not often thought a pious duty to extort confession of sins men never
dreamed of committing, so that they may be driven to a repentance that
shakes life to its centre and almost unhinges the reason? With
conviction of error, unbelief, and disobedience the new life must
begin. Yet religion is made unreal by the attempt to force on the
conscience and to extort from the lips an acknowledgment of crimes
which were never intended and are perhaps far apart from the whole
drift of the character. The truthfulness of John the Baptist's
preaching was very marked. He did not deal with imaginary sins. And
when our Lord spoke of the duties and errors of men either in
discourse or parable, He never exaggerated. The sins He condemned were
all intelligible to the reason of those addressed, such as the
conscience was bound to own, must recognise as evil things,
dishonouring to the Almighty.
Having declared Job's imaginary crimes, Eliphaz exclaims, "_Therefore
snares are round about thee and sudden fear troubleth thee_." With the
whole weight of assumed moral superiority he bears down upon the
sufferer. He takes upon him to interpret providence, and every word is
false. Job has clung to God as his Friend. Eliphaz denies him the
right, cuts him off as a rebel from the grace of the King. Truly, it
may be said, religion is never in greater danger than when it is
upheld by hard and ignorant zeal like this.
Then, in the passage beginning at the twelfth verse, the attempt is
made to show Job how he had fallen into the sins he is alleged to have
committed.
"_Is not God in the height of heaven?
And behold the cope of the stars how high they are!
And thou saidst--What doth God know?
Can He judge through thick darkness?
Thick clouds are a covering to Him that He seeth not;
And He walketh on the round of heaven._"
Job imagined that God whose dwelling-place is beyond the clouds and the
stars could not see what he did. To accuse him thus is to pile offence
upon injustice, for the knowledge of God has been his continual desire.
Finally, before Eliphaz ends the accusation, he identifies Job's frame
of mind with the proud indifference of those whom the deluge swept away.
Job had talked of the prosperity and happiness of men who had not God in
all their thoughts. Was he forgetting that dreadful calamity?
"_Wilt thou keep the old way
Which wicked men have trodden?
Who were snatched away before their time,
Whose foundation was poured out as a stream:
Who said to God, Depart from us;
And what can the Almighty do unto us?
Yet He filled their houses with good things:
But the counsel of the wicked is far from me!_"
One who chose to go on in the way of transgressors would share their
fate; and in the day of his disaster as of theirs the righteous should
be glad and the innocent break into scornful laughter.
So Eliphaz closes, finding it difficult to make out his case, yet
bound as he supposes to do his utmost for religion by showing the law
of the vengeance of God. And, this done, he pleads and promises once
more in the finest passage that falls from his lips:--