contrast to the tyrant's pride and cruelty the lot of those who suffer
at his hands. Deprived of their land and their flocks, herding
together in common danger and misery like wild asses, they have to
seek for their food such roots and wild fruits as can be found here
and there in the wilderness. Half enslaved now by the man who took
away their land they are driven to the task of harvesting his fodder
and gathering the gleanings of his grapes. Naked they lie in the
field, huddling together for warmth, and out among the hills they are
wet with the impetuous rains, crouching in vain under the ledges of
the rock for shelter.
Worse things too are done, greater sufferings than these have to be
endured. Men there are who pluck the fatherless child from the
mother's breast, claiming the poor little life as a pledge. Miserable
debtors, faint with hunger, have to carry the oppressor's sheaves of
corn. They have to grind at the oil-presses, and with never a cluster
to slake their thirst tread the grapes in the hot sun. Nor is it only
in the country cruelties are practised. Perhaps in Egypt the writer
has seen what he makes Job describe, the misery of city life. In the
city the dying groan uncared for, and the soul of the wounded crieth
out. Universal are the scenes of social iniquity. The world is full of
injustice. And to Job the sting of it all is that "_God regardeth not
the wrong._"
Men talk nowadays as if the penury and distress prevalent in our large
towns proved the churches to be unworthy of their name and place. It may
be so. If this can be proved, let it be proved; and if the institution
called The Church cannot justify its existence and its Christianity
where it should do so by freeing the poor from oppression and securing
their rights to the weak, then let it go to the wall. But here is Job
carrying the accusation a stage farther, carrying it, with what may
appear blasphemous audacity, to the throne of God. He has no church to
blame, for there is no church. Or, he himself represents what church
there is. And as a witness for God, what does he find to be his portion?
Behold him, where many a servant of Divine righteousness has been in
past times and is now, down in the depths, poorest of the poor,
bereaved, diseased, scorned, misunderstood, hopeless. Why is there
suffering? Why are there many in our cities outcasts of society, such as
society is? Job's case is a partial explanation; and here the church is
not to blame. Pariahs of society, we say. If society consists to any
great extent of oppressors who are enjoying wealth unjustly gained, one
is not so sure that there is any need to pity those who are excluded
from society. Am I trying to make out that it may be well there are
oppressors, because oppression is not the worst thing for a brave soul?
No: I am only using the logic of the Book of Job in justifying Divine
providence. The church is criticised and by many in these days
condemned as worthless because it is not banishing poverty. Perhaps it
might be more in the way of duty and more likely to succeed if it sought
to banish excessive wealth. Are we of the twentieth Christian century to
hold still by the error of Eliphaz and the rest of Job's friends? Are we
to imagine that those whom the gospel blesses it must of necessity
enrich, so that in their turn they may be tempted to act the Pharisee?
Let us be sure God knows how to govern His world. Let us not doubt His
justice because many are very poor who have been guilty of no crimes and
many very rich who have been distinguished by no virtues. It is our
mistake to think that all would be well if no bitter cries were heard in
the midnight streets and every one were secured against penury. While
the church is partly to blame for the state of things, the salvation of
society will not be found in any earthly socialism. On that side lies a
slough as deep as the other from which it professes to save. The large
Divine justice and humanity which the world needs are those which Christ
alone has taught, Christ to whom property was only something to deal
with on the way to spiritual good,--humility, holiness, love and faith.
The emphatic "_These_" with which verse 13 begins must be taken as
referring to the murderer and adulterer immediately to be described.
Quite distinct from the strong oppressors who maintain themselves in
high position are these cowardly miscreants who "rebel against the
light" (ver. 13), who "in the dark dig through houses" and "know not the
light" (ver. 16), to whom "the morning is as the shadow of death," whose
"portion is cursed in the earth." The passage contains Job's admission
that there are vile transgressors of human and Divine law whose
unrighteousness is broken as a tree (ver. 20). Without giving up his
main contention as to high-handed wickedness prospering in the world he
can admit this; nay, asserting it he strengthens his position against
the arguments of his friends. The murderer who rising towards daybreak
waylays and kills the poor and needy for the sake of their scanty
belongings, the adulterer who waits for the twilight, disguising his
face, and the thief who in the dark digs through the clay wall of a
house--these do find the punishment of their treacherous and disgusting
crimes in this life. The coward who is guilty of such sin is loathed
even by the mother who bore him and has to skulk in by-ways, familiar
with the terrors of the shadow of death, daring not to turn in the way
of the vineyards to enjoy their fruit. The description of these
reprobates ends with the twenty-first verse, and then there is a return
to the "mighty" and the Divine support they appear to enjoy.
The interpretation of verses 18-21 which makes them "either actually
in part the work of a popular hand, or a parody after the popular
manner by Job himself," has no sufficient ground. To affirm that the
passage is introduced ironically and that verse 22 resumes the real
history of the murderer, the adulterer, and the thief is to neglect
the distinction between those "who rebel against the light" and the
mighty who live in the eye of God. The natural interpretation is that
which makes the whole a serious argument against the creed of the
friends. In their eagerness to convict Job they have failed to
distinguish between men whose base crimes bring them under social
reprobation and the proud oppressors who prosper through very
arrogance. Regarding these the fact still holds that apparently they
are under the protection of Heaven.
"_Yet He sustaineth the mighty by His power,
They rise up though they despaired of life.
He giveth them to be safe, and they are upheld,
And His eyes are upon their ways.
They rise high: in a moment they are not;
They are brought low, like all others gathered in,
And cut off as the tops of corn.
If not--who then will make me a liar,
And to nothing bring my speech?_"
Is the daring right-defying evil-doer wasted by disease, preyed upon
by terror? Not so. When he appears to have been crushed, suddenly he
starts up again in new vigour, and when he dies, it is not prematurely
but in the ripeness of full age. With this reaffirmation of the
mystery of God's dealings Job challenges his friends. They have his
final judgment. The victory he gains is that of one who will be true
at all hazards. Perhaps in the background of his thought is the vision
of a redemption not only of his own life but of all those broken by
the injustice and cruelty of this earth.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] "Consolation of Philosophy," chap. xlii.
[7] Mrs. Ward's translation, p. 116.
[8] "Festus," edition 1864, p. 503.
XXI.
_THE DOMINION AND THE BRIGHTNESS._
BILDAD SPEAKS. CHAP. XXV.
The argument of the last chapter proceeded entirely on the general
aspect of the question whether the evil are punished in proportion to
their crimes. Job has met his friends so far as to place them in a great
difficulty. They cannot assail him now as a sort of infidel. And yet
what he has granted does not yield the main ground. They cannot deny his
contrast between the two classes of evil-doers nor refuse to admit that
the strong oppressor has a different fate from the mean adulterer or
thief. Bildad therefore confines himself to two general principles, that
God is the supreme administrator of justice and that no man is clean. He
will not now affirm that Job has been a tyrant to the poor. He dares not
call him a murderer or a housebreaker. A snare has been laid for him who
spoke much of snares, and seeing it he is on his guard.
"_Dominion and fear are with Him;
He maketh peace in His high places
Is there any number of His armies?
And on whom doth not His light shine?
How then can man be just with God?
Or how can he of woman born be clean?
Behold, even the moon hath no brightness,
And the stars are not pure in His sight.
How much less man that is a worm,
And the son of man, the worm!_"
The brief ode has a certain dignity raising it above the level of
Bildad's previous utterances. He desires to show that Job has been too
bold in his criticism of providence. God has sole dominion and claims
universal adoration. Where He dwells in the lofty place of
unapproachable glory His presence and rule create peace. He is the
Lord of innumerable armies (the stars and their inhabitants perhaps),
and His light fills the breadth of interminable space, revealing and
illuminating every life. Upon this assertion of the majesty of God is
based the idea of His holiness. Before so great and glorious a Being
how can man be righteous? The universality of His power and the
brightness of his presence stand in contrast to the narrow range of
human energy and the darkness of the human mind. Behold, says Bildad,
the moon is eclipsed by a glance of the great Creator and the stars
are cast into shadow by His effulgence; and how shall man whose body
is of the earth earthy claim any cleanness of soul? He is like the
worm; his kinship is with corruption; his place is in the dust like
the creeping things of which he becomes the prey.
The representation of God in His exaltation and gory has a tone of
impressive piety which redeems Bildad from any suspicion of insolence
at this point. He is including himself and his friends among those
whose lives appear impure in the sight of Heaven. He is showing that
successfully as Job may repel the charges brought against him, there
is at all events one general condemnation in which with all men he
must allow himself to be involved. Is he not a feeble ignorant man
whose will being finite must be imperfect? On the one hand is the
pious exaltation of God, on the other the pious abasement of man.
It is, however, easy to see that Bildad is still bound to a creed of
the superficial kind without moral depth or spiritual force. The ideas
are those of a nature religion in which the one God is a supreme Baal
or Master, monopolising all splendour, His purity that of the fire or
the light. We are shown the Lord of the visible universe whose
dwelling is in the high heavens, whose representative is the bright
sun from the light of which nothing is hidden. It is easy to point to
this splendid apparition and, contrasting man with the great
fire-force, the perennial fountain of light, to say--How dark, how
puny, how imperfect is man. The brilliance of an Arabian sky through
which the sun marches in unobstructed glory seems in complete contrast
to the darkness of human life. Yet, is it fair, is it competent to
argue thus? Is anything established as to the moral quality of man
because he cannot shine like the sun or even with the lesser light of
moon or stars? One may allow a hint of strong thought in the
suggestion that boundless majesty and power are necessary to perfect
virtue, that the Almighty alone can be entirely pure. But Bildad
cannot be said to grasp this idea. If it gleams before his mind, the
faint flash passes unrecognised. He has not wisdom enough to work out
such a thought. And it is nature that according to his argument really
condemns man. Job is bidden look up to the sun and moon and stars and
know himself immeasurably less pure than they.
But the truth stands untouched that man whose body is doomed to
corruption, man who labours after the right, with the heat of moral
energy in his heart, moves on a far higher plane as a servant of God
than any fiery orb which pours its light through boundless space. We
find ignorance of man and therefore of his Maker in Bildad's speech. He
does not understand the dignity of the human mind in its straining after
righteousness. "With limitless duration, with boundless space and number
without end, Nature does at least what she can to translate into visible
form the wealth of the creative formula. By the vastness of the abysses
into which she penetrates in the effort, the unsuccessful effort, to
house and contain the eternal thought we may measure the greatness of
the Divine mind. For as soon as this mind goes out of itself and seeks
to explain itself, the effort at utterance heaps universe upon universe
during myriads of centuries, and still it is not expressed and the great
oration must go on for ever and ever." The inanimate universe majestic,
ruled by eternal law, cannot represent the moral qualities of the Divine
mind, and the attempt to convict a thinking man, whose soul is bent on
truth and purity, by the splendour of that light which dazzles his eye,
comes to nothing.
The commonplaces of pious thought fall stale and flat in a controversy
like the present. Bildad does not realise wherein the right of man in
the universe consists. He is trying in vain to instruct one who sees
that moral desire and struggle are the conditions of human greatness,
who will not be overborne by material splendours nor convicted by the
accident of death.
XXII.
_THE OUTSKIRTS OF HIS WAYS._
JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. xxvi., xxvii.
Beginning his reply Job is full of scorn and sarcasm.
"_How hast thou helped one without power!
How hast thou saved the strengthless arm!
How hast thou counselled one void of knowledge,
And plentifully declared the thing that is known!_"
Well indeed hast thou spoken, O man of singular intelligence. I am
very weak, my arm is powerless. What reassurance, what generous help
thou hast provided! I, doubtless, know nothing, and thou hast showered
illumination on my darkness.--His irony is bitter. Bildad appears
almost contemptible. "_To whom hast thou uttered words?_" Is it thy
mission to instruct me? "_And whose spirit came forth from thee?_"
Dost thou claim Divine inspiration? Job is rancorous; and we are
scarcely intended by the writer to justify him. Yet it is galling
indeed to hear that calm repetition of the most ordinary ideas when
the controversy has been carried into the deep waters of thought. Job
desired bread and is offered a stone.
But since Bildad has chosen to descant upon the greatness and imperial
power of God, the subject shall be continued. He shall be taken into
the abyss beneath, where faith recognises the Divine presence, and to
the heights above that he may learn how little of the dominion of God
lies within the range of a mind like his, or indeed of mortal sense.
First there is a vivid glance at that mysterious under-world where the
shades or spirits of the departed survive in a dim vague existence.
"_The shades are shaken
Beneath the waters and their inhabitants.
Sheol is naked before Him,
And Abaddon hath no covering._"
Bildad has spoken of the lofty place where God makes peace. But that
same God has the sovereignty also of the nether world. Under the bed
of the ocean and those subterranean waters that flow beneath the solid
ground where, in the impenetrable darkness, poor shadows of their
former selves, those who lived once on earth congregate age after
age--there the power of the Almighty is revealed. He does not always
exert His will in order to create tranquility. Down in Sheol the
_refaim_ are agitated. And nothing is hid from His eye. Abaddon, the
devouring abyss, is naked before Him.
Let us distinguish here between the imagery and the underlying
thought, the inspired vision of the writer and the form in which Job
is made to present it. These notions about Sheol as a dark cavern
below earth and ocean to which the spirits of the dead are supposed to
descend are the common beliefs of the age. They represent opinion, not
reality. But there is a new flash of inspiration in the thought that
God reigns over the abode of the dead, that even if men escape
punishment here, the judgments of the Almighty may reach them there.
This is the writer's prophetic insight into fact; and he properly
assigns the thought to his hero who, already almost at the point of
death, has been straining as it were to see what lies beyond the
gloomy gate. The poetry is infused with the spirit of inquiry into
God's government of the present and the future. Set beside other
passages both in the Old and New Testaments this is found continuous
with higher revelations, even with the testimony of Christ when He
says that God is Lord not of the dead but of the living.
From Sheol, the under-world, Job points to the northern heavens ablaze
with stars. God, he says, stretches that wonderful dome over empty
space--the immovable polar star probably appearing to mark the point of
suspension. The earth, again, hangs in space on nothing, even this solid
earth on which men live and build their cities. The writer is of course
ignorant of what modern science teaches, but he has caught the fact
which no modern knowledge can deprive of its marvellous character. Then
the gathering in immense volumes of watery vapour, how strange is that,
the filmy clouds holding rains that deluge a continent, yet not rent
asunder. One who is wonderful in counsel must indeed have ordered this
universe; but His throne, the radiant seat of His everlasting dominion,
He shutteth in with clouds; it is never seen.
"_A bound He hath set on the face of the waters,
On the confines of light and darkness.
The pillars of heaven tremble
And are astonished at His rebuke.
He stilleth the sea with His power;
And by His understanding He smites through Rahab:
By His breath the heavens are made bright;
His hand pierceth the fleeing serpent.
Lo, these are the outskirts of His ways,
And what a whisper is that which we hear of Him!
But the thunder of His powers who can apprehend?_"
At the confines of light and darkness God sets a boundary, the visible
horizon, the ocean being supposed to girdle the earth on every side.
The pillars of heaven are the mountains, which might be seen in
various directions apparently supporting the sky. With awe men looked
upon them, with greater awe felt them sometimes shaken by mysterious
throbs as if at God's rebuke. From these the poet passes to the sea,
the great storm waves that roll upon the shore. God smites through
Rahab, subdues the fierce sea--represented as a raging monster. Here,
as in the succeeding verse where the fleeing serpent is spoken of,
reference is made to nature-myths current in the East. The old ideas
of heathen imagination are used simply in a poetical way. Job does not
believe in a dragon of the sea, but it suits him to speak of the
stormy ocean-current under this figure so as to give vividness to his
picture of Divine power. God quells the wild waves; His breath as a
soft wind clears away the storm clouds and the blue sky is seen again.
The hand of God pierces the fleeing serpent, the long track of angry
clouds borne swiftly across the face of the heavens.
The closing words of the chapter are a testimony to the Divine
greatness, negative in form yet in effect more eloquent than all the
rest. It is but the outskirts of the ways of God we see, a whisper of
Him we hear. The full thunder falls not on our ears. He who sits on
the throne which is for ever shrouded in clouds and darkness is the
Creator of the visible universe but always separate from it. He
reveals Himself in what we see and hear, yet the glory, the majesty
remain concealed. The sun is not God, nor the storm, nor the clear
shining after rain. The writer is still true to the principle of never
making nature equal to God. Even where the religion is in form a
nature religion, separateness is fully maintained. The phenomena of
the universe are but faint adumbrations of the Divine life. Bildad may
come short of the full clearness of belief, but Job has it. The great
circle of existence the eye is able to include is but the skirt of
that garment by which the Almighty is seen.
The question may be asked, What place has this poetical tribute to the
majesty of God in the argument of the book? Viewed simply as an effort
to outdo and correct the utterance of Bildad the speech is not fully
explained. We ask further what is meant to be in Job's mind at this
particular point in the discussion; whether he is secretly complaining
that power and dominion so wide are not manifested in executing justice
on earth, or, on the other hand, comforting himself with the thought
that judgment will yet return to righteousness and the Most High be
proved the All-just? The inquiry has special importance because, looking
forward in the book, we find that when the voice of God is heard from
the storm it proclaims His matchless power and incomparable wisdom.
At present it must suffice to say that Job is now made to come very
near his final discovery that complete reliance upon Eloah is not
simply the fate but the privilege of man. Fully to understand Divine
providence is impossible, but it can be seen that One who is supreme
in power and infinite in wisdom, responsible always to Himself for the
exercise of His power, should have the complete confidence of His
creatures. Of this truth Job lays hold; by strenuous thought he has
forced his way almost through the tangled forest, and he is a type of
man at his best on the natural plane. The world waited for the clear
light which solves the difficulties of faith. While once and again a
flash came before Christ, He brought the abiding revelation, the
dayspring from on high which giveth light to them that sit in darkness
and the shadow of death.
* * * * *
According to his manner Job turns now from a subject which may be
described as speculative to his own position and experience. The
earlier part of chap. xxvii. is an earnest declaration in the strain
he has always maintained. As vehemently as ever he renews his claim to
integrity, emphasizing it with a solemn adjuration.
"_As God liveth who hath taken away my right,
And the Almighty who hath embittered my soul;
(For still my life is whole in me,
And the breath of the High God in my nostrils),
My lips do not speak iniquity,
Nor does my tongue utter deceit.
Far be it from me to justify you;
Till I die I will not remove my integrity from me.
My righteousness I hold fast, and let it not go;
My heart reproacheth not any of my days._"
This is in the old tone of confident self-defence. God has taken away
his right, denied him the outward signs of innocence, the opportunity
of pleading his cause. Yet, as a believer, he swears by the life of
God that he is a true man, a righteous man. Whatever betides he will
not fall from that conviction and claim. And let no one say that pain
has impaired his reason, that now if never before he is speaking
deliriously. No: his life is whole in him; God-given life is his, and
with the consciousness of it he speaks, not ignorant of what is a
man's duty, not with a lie in his right hand, but with absolute
sincerity. He will not justify his accusers, for that would be to deny
righteousness, the very rock which alone is firm beneath his feet.
Knowing what is a man's obligation to his fellow-men and to God he
will repeat his self-defence. He goes back upon his past, he reviews
his days. Upon none of them can his conscience fix the accusation of
deliberate baseness or rebellion against God.
Having affirmed his sincerity Job proceeds to show what would be the
result of deceit and hypocrisy at so solemn a crisis of his life. The
underlying idea seems to be that of communion with the Most High, the
spiritual fellowship necessary to man's inner life. He could not speak
falsely without separating himself from God and therefore from hope.
As yet he is not rejected; the consciousness of truth remains with
him, and through that he is in touch at least with Eloah. No voice
from on high answers him; yet this Divine principle of life remains in
his soul. Shall he renounce it?