Be more just than God?] Or, w haenosh meeloah yitsdak; shall poor, weak, sinful man be justified before God?

in no created beings.

dust, which are crushed before
the moth?

20 'They are destroyed from
morning to evening: they perish
for ever without any regarding it.

h

A. M. cir. 2484.
B. C. cir. 1520.
Aute I. Ol.

cir. 744. Ante U.C.c.767.

21 Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.

e 2 Cor iv. 7. v. 1.- f Ps. xc. 5, 6.- -5 Heb. beaten in
pieces. Ps. xxxix. 11. xlix. 14.- iCh. xxxvi. 12.
and modern, are different from each other. Here are
the chief:

In angelis suis reperit pravitatem, "In his angels

Verse 17. Shall mortal man] v enosh; Greek, he found perverseness," VULGATE. The SEPTUAGINT Bрoroc poor, weak dying, man. is nearly the same. Il met la lumiere dans ses anges, "He puts light into his angels," FRENCH BIBLE. Even those pure intelligences have continual need of being irradiated by the Almighty. so sooolfono wa-bemalakui neshim temcho, " And he hath put amazement in his angels," SYRIAC. The ARABIC is the same. In angelis suis ponet gloriationem, "In his angels he will put exultation," MONTANUS. The Hebrew is non toholah, irradiation, from ¬¬ halah, to irradiate, glister, or shine. In this place we may consider angels (b malachim) as heavenly or earthly messengers or angels of the Lord; and the glory, influence, and honour of their office as being put in them by the Most High. They are as planets which shine with a borrowed light. They have nothing but what they have received. Coverdale translates the whole verse thus: Eeholde he hath founde unfaythfulnesse amonge his owne servaunts and proude disobedience amonge his angels. The sense is among all these interpreters; and if the fallen angels are meant, the passage is plain enough.

Shall a man] 7 gaber, shall even the strong and mighty man, be pure before his Maker? Is any man, considered merely in and of himself, either holy in his conduct, or pure in his heart? No. He must be justified by the mercy of God, through an atoning sacrifice; he must be sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God, and thus made a partaker of the divine nature. Then he is justified before God, and pure in the sight of his Maker: and this is a work which God himself alone can do; so the work is not man's work, but God's. It is false to infer, from the words of this spectre (whether it came from heaven or hell, we know not, for its communication shows and rankles a wound, without providing a cure), that no man can be justified, and that no man can be purified, when God both justifies the ungodly, and sanctifies the unholy. The meaning can be no more than this: no man can make an atonement for his own sins, nor purify his own heart. Hence all boasting is for ever excluded. Of this Eliphaz believed Job to be guilty, as he appeared to talk of his righteousness and purity, as if they had been his own acquisition. Verse 18. Behold, he put no trust in his servants] This verse is generally understood to refer to the fall of angels; for these were some of those heavenly beings who kept not their first estate: they did not persevere to the end of their probation, and therefore fell into condemnation, and are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day; Jude 6. It is said he put no trust in them-he knew that nothing could be absolutely immutable but himself; and that no intelligent beings could subsist in a state of purity, unless continually dependant on himself, and deriving constant supplies of grace, power, and light from him who gave them their being.

And his angels he charged with folly] Not chargeth, as many quote the passage. He charged those with folly who kept not their first estate. It does not appear that he is charging the others in the same way,

who continue stedfast.

Verse 19. How much less] Rather, with the VULGATE, How much more? If angels may be unstable, how can man arrogate stability to himself who dwells in an earthly tabernacle, and who must shortly return to dust?

Crushed before the moth?] The slightest accident oftentimes destroys. "A fly, a grape stone, or a hair can kill." Great men have fallen by all these. This is the general idea in the text; and it is useless to sift for meanings.

Verse 20. They are destroyed from morning to evening] In almost every moment of time some human being comes into the world, and some one departs from it. Thus are they "destroyed from morning to evening."

1

They perish for ever] 18 yobedu; peribunt, they pass by; they go out of sight; they moulder with the dust, and are soon forgotten. Who regards the past generation now among the dead?

1

Isaiah has a similar thought, chap. lvii. 1: "The righteous perisheth, and NO MAN LAYETH IT TO HEART: and merciful men are taken away, none considering The several translations of this verse, both ancient that the righteous is taken away from the evil to

The wicked can have

CHAP. V.

answer? We can traverse every part of the huge and trackless ocean by means of the compass; but who understands the nature of magnetism on which all this depends? We eat and drink in order to maintain life; but what is nutrition, and how is it effected? This has never been explained. Life de

no permanent security. come." Some think that Isaiah borrowed from Job: | attraction ; but in what does this consist? Who can this will appear possible when it has been proved, which has never yet been done, that the writer of this book flourished before Isaiah. If, however, he borrowed the above thought, it must be allowed that it has been wondrously improved by coming through his hands. Verse 21. Doth not their excellency—go away?] Per-pends on respiration for its continuance; but by what sonal beauty, corporeal strength, powerful eloquence, kind of action is it, that in a moment the lungs sepaand various mental endowments, pass away, or are rate the oxygen, which is friendly to life, from the plucked up by the roots; they are no more seen or nitrogen, which would destroy it; suddenly absorbing heard among men, and their memory soon perisheth. the one, and expelling the other? Who, among the They die, even without wisdom.] If wisdom means generation of hypothesis-framers, has guessed this out? the pursuit of the best end, by the most legitimate and Life is continued by the circulation of the blood; but appropriate means, the great mass of mankind appear by what power and law does it circulate? Have the

to perish without it. But, if we consider the subject | more closely, we shall find that all men die in a state of comparative ignorance. With all our boasted science and arts, how little do we know! Do we know any thing to perfection that belongs either to the material or spiritual world? Do we understand even what matter is? What is its essence? Do we understand what spirit is? Then, what is its essence? Almost all the phenomena of nature, its grandest operations, and the laws of the heavenly bodies, have been explained on the principle of gravitation or

|

systole and diastole of the heart, on which this circulation depends, ever been satisfactorily explained? Most certainly not. Alas! we die without wisdom; and must die, to know these, and ten thousand other matters equaily unknown, and equally important. To be safe, in reference to eternity, we must know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent; whom to know is life eternal. This knowledge, obtained and retained, will entitle us to all the rest in the eternal world.

CHAPTER V.

Eliphaz proceeds to show that the wicked are always punished by the justice of God, though they may appear to flourish for a time, 1-8; extols the providence of God, by which the counsels of the wicked are brought to nought, and the poor fed and supported, 9—16; shows the blessedness of being corrected by God, in the excellent fruits that result from it; and exhorts Job to patience and submission, with the promise of all secular prosperity, and a happy death in a mature and comfortable old age, 17-27.

NOTES ON CHAP. V. Verse 1. Call now, if there be any] This appears to be a strong irony. From whom among those whose foundations are in the dust, and who are crushed before the moth, canst thou expect succour?

To which of the saints wilt thou turn?] To whom among the holy ones (wp kedoshim), or among those who are equally dependant on divine support with thyself, and can do no good but as influenced and directed by God, canst thou turn for help? Neither angel nor saint can help any man unless sent especially from God; and all prayers to them must be foolish and absurd, not to say impious. Can the del afford me water, if the fountain cease to emit it?

Verse 2. For wrath killeth the foolish man] Foolish, sify, and simple, are epithets given by Solomon to

sinners and transgressors of all kinds. Such parallelisms have afforded a presumptive argument that Solomon was the author of this book. See the preface. The words of Eliphaz may be considered as a sort of maxim, which the wisdom and experience of ages had served to establish; viz., The wrath of God is manifested only against the wicked and impious; and if thou wert not such, God would not thus contend with thee.

Verse 3. I have seen the foolish taking root] I have seen wicked men for a time in prosperity, and becoming established in the earth; but I well knew, from God's manner of dealing with men, that they must soon be blasted. I even ventured to pronounce their doom; for I knew that, in the order of God's providence, that was inevitable. I cursed his habitation.

b

cursed his habitation.

a

4 His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them. 5 Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.

9.

a Ps. cxix. 155. cxxvii. 5.- b Ps. cix. 12. - Ch. xviii. d Or, iniquity.—— Gen. iii. 17, 18, 19. 1 Cor. x. 13. Verse 4. His children are far from safety] His posterity shall not continue in prosperity. Ill gotten, ill spent; whatever is got by wrong must have God's curse on it.

They are crushed in the gate] The Targum says, They shall be bruised in the gate of hell, in the day of the great judgment. There is reference here to a custom which I have often had occasion to notice; viz., that in the eastern countries the court-house, or tribunal of justice, was at the GATE of the city; here the magistrates attended, and hither the plaintiff and defendant came for justice.

Verse 5. Whose harvest] Their possessions, because acquired by unjust means, shall not be under the protection of God's providence; he shall abandon them to be pillaged and destroyed by the wandering halfstarved hordes of the desert banditti. They shall carry it suddenly off; even the thorns-grain, weeds, thistles, and all, shall they carry off in their rapacious hurry.

The robber swalloweth up] Or, more properly, the thirsty, tsammim, as is plain from their swallowing up or gulping down; opposed to the hungry or half-starved, mentioned in the preceding clause. The hungry shall eat up their grain, and the thirsty shall drink down their wine and oil, here termed cheylam, their strength or power, for the most obvious

reasons.

d

state of the wicked.

6 Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;

A. M. cir. 2484.
B. C. cir. 1520.
Ante I. Ol.

cir. 744. Ante U.C. c.767.

g

7 Yet man is born unto 'trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

8 I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:

f Or, labour.- -8 Heb. the sons of the burning coal lift up to fly.

meagre, living on the meanest and most scanty provision. Nature has given it a small head without ears, at the end of a long neck without flesh. She has taken from its legs and thighs every muscle not immediately requisite for motion; and in short has bestowed on its withered body only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together. She has furnished it with a strong jaw, that it may grind the hardest aliments; and, lest it should consume too much, she has straitened its stomach, and obliged it to chew the cud." Such is the description given of the Bedouin and his camel, by M. Volney, who, while he denies the true God, finds out a deity which he calls Nature, whose works evince the highest providence, wisdom, and design! And where does this most wonderful and intelligent goddess dwell? No where but in the creed of the infidel; while the genuine believer knows that nature is only the agent created and employed by the great and wise God to accomplish, under his direction, the greatest and most stupendous beneficial effects.

The second allusion in the verse I suppose to be to the loss Job had sustained of his cattle by the predatory Sabeans; and all this Eliphaz introduces for the support of his grand argument, to convict Job of hidden crimes, on which account his enemies were permitted to destroy his property; that property, because of this wickedness, being placed out of the protection of God's providence.

Verse 6. Affliction cometh not forth of the dust] If there were not an adequate cause, thou couldst not be so grievously afflicted.

justice inflicts them upon offending man.

Verse 7. Yet man is born unto trouble] by leamal, to labour. He must toil and be careful; and if in the course of his labour he meet with trials and difficulties, he should rise superior to them, and not sink as thou dost.

There seem to be two allusions in this verse: 1. To the hordes of wandering predatory banditti, or half-starved Arabs of the desert, who have their scanty maintenance by the plunder of others. These descendants of Ishmael have ever had their hands Spring out of the ground] It is not from mere against all men, and live to this day in the same pre-natural causes that affliction and trouble come; God's datory manner in which they have lived for several thousands of years. M. Volney's account of them is striking: "These men are smaller, leaner, and blacker, than any of the Bedouins yet discovered. Their wasted legs had only tendons without calves. Their belly was shrunk to their back. They are in general small, lean, and swarthy, and more so in the bosom of the desert than on the borders of the more culti- | vated country. They are ordinarily about five feet or five feet two inches high; they seldom have more than about six ounces of food for the whole day. Six or seven dates, soaked in melted butter, a little milk, or curd, serve a man for twenty-four hours; and he seems happy when he can add a small portion of coarse flour, or a little ball of rice. Their camels also, which are their only support, are remarkably

As the sparks fly upward.] ar qwn ɔa ubeney resheph yagbihu uph; And the sons of the coal lift up their flight, or dart upwards. And who are the sons of the coal? Are they not bold, intrepid, ardent, fearless men, who rise superior to all their trials combat what are termed chance and occurrence succumb under no difficulties; and rise superior to time, tide, fate, and fortune? I prefer this to all the various meanings of the place with which I have met Coverdale translates, Et is man that is borne unt

9 a Which doeth great things b and unsearchable; marvellous Ante U.C. c.767. things without number: 10 Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields: 11 To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.

12 He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that the hands cannot perform their enterprise.

ness: and the counsel of the
froward is carried headlong.

1

A. M. cir. 2484.
B. C. cir. 1520.
Ante I. Ol.

cir. 744.

14 They meet with dark- Ante U.C.c.767. ness in the day-time, and grope in the noonday as in the night.

15 But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty.

16 "So the poor hath hope, and iniquity stoppeth her mouth.

о

17 Behold, happy is the man whom God 13 He taketh the wise in their own crafti- correcteth: therefore despise not thou the

1

* Ch. ix. 10. xxxvii. 5. Ps. xl. 5. lxxii. 18. cxlv. 3. Rom. xi 33.- b Heb. and there is no search. -c Heb. till there be no number. -d Ch. xxviii. 26. Ps. lxv. 9, 10. cxlvii. 8. Jer. v. 24. x. 13. li. 16. Acts xiv. 47. --e Heb. out-places. fl Sam. ii. 7. Ps. cxiii. 7.-8 Neh. iv. 15. Ps. xxxiii. 10.

mysery, like as the byrde for to fle. Most of the ancient Versions give a similar sense.

Verse 8. I would seek unto God] Were I in your place, instead of wasting my time, and irritating my soul with useless complaints, I would apply to my Maker, and, if conscious of my innocence, would confidently commit my cause to him.

Isai. viii. 10.- h Or, cannot perform any thing. i Ps. ix. 15. 1 Cor. iii. 19.- -k Deut. xxviii. 29. Isai. lix. 10. Amos viii. 9. Or, run into.- m Ps. xxxv. 10.- _n 1 Sam. ii. 9. Ps. cvii. 42. • Ps. xciv. 12. Prov. iii. 11, 12. Heb. xii. 5. James i. 12. Rev. iii. 19.

Verse 13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness] So counterworks them as to cause their feet to be taken in their own snares, and their evil dealings to fall on their own pate. Such frequent proofs has God given of his especial interference in behalf of the innocent, who have been the objects of the plots and evil designs of the wicked, by turning those evil deVerse 9. Which doeth great things] No work, how-vices against their framers, that he who digs a pit for ever complicated, is too deep for his counsel to plan; none, however stupendous, is too great for his power to execute. He who is upright is always safe in referring his cause to God, and trusting in him.

Verse 10. Who giveth rain upon the earth] The Chaldee gives this verse a fine turn: "Who gives rain on the face of the land of Israel, and sends waters on the face of the provinces of the people." Similar to our Lord's saying, which is expressed in the half of the compass: Your father which is in heavenSENDETH RAIN ON THE JUST AND ON THE UNJUST; Matt.

v. 45.

Sendeth waters upon the fields] The term nırın chutsoth, which we translate fields, and generally signifies streets, may here mean those plantations which are laid out in ridges or plats, in an orderly, regular manner. God does not only send rain upon the earth in a general manner, but, by an especial providence, waters the cultivated ground, so that not one ridge is destitute of its due proportion of fructifying moisture. Verse 11. To set up on high those that be low] He so distributes his providential blessings without partiality, that the land of the poor man is as well sunned and watered as that of the rich; so that he is thus set upon a level with the lords of the soil.

Verse 12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty] All these sayings refer to God's particular providence, by which he is ever working for the good, and counterworking the plots of the wicked. And as various as are the contingent, capricious, and malevolent acts of men, so varied are his providential interferences; deappointing the devices, snares, and plots of the erafty, so that their plans being confounded, and their machinery broken in pieces, their hands cannot perform their enterprises.

his neighbour shall fall into it himself has become a
universal adage, and has passed, either in so many
words or in sense, into all the languages of all the
people of the earth. Lucretius expresses it strongly:
Circumretit enim vis atque injuria quemque,
Atque, unde exorta est, ad eum plerumque revortit.
LUCRET. lib. v., ver. 1151.

"For force and wrong entangle the man that uses
them;

And, for the most part, recoil on the head of the contriver."

God confounds them and their measures; and, with Verse 14. They meet with darkness in the day-time] and often act on their own projects, planned with all their cunning and dexterity, they are outwitted, care and skill, as if they had been the crudest conceptions of the most disordered minds. They act in noonday as if the sun were extinct, and their eyes put out Thus does God "abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices."

Verse 15. He saveth the poor from the sword, from
their mouth] This is rather a harsh construction. To
avoid this, some have proposed to render a me-
chereb, which we translate from the sword, the perse-
cuted, but, I am afraid, on very slender authority.
Instead of mechereb mippihem, "from the
sword, from their mouth," eleven of Kennicott and De
Rossi's MSS. read
mechereb pihem, from the
sword of their mouth; and with these MSS. the
Chaldee, Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic agree.
verse, therefore, may be translated thus:

He saveth from the sword of their mouth;
The poor from the hand of the mighty.

The

B. C. cir. 1520. chastening of the Almighty: the tongue : neither shalt thou
18 For he maketh sore, and
bindeth up: he woundeth, and
his hands make whole.

19 He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.

20 In famine he shall redeem thee from death and in war

from the power of the

21 Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of 24 And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle

a Deut. xxxii. 39. 1 Sam. ii. 6.. Isai. xxx. 26. Hos. vi.

1 Cor. x. 13.
e Heb. from

He saveth from the sword of their mouth; And with a strong hand the impoverished. Verse 16. So the poor] dal, he who is made thin, who is wasted, extenuated; hath hope-he sees what God is accustomed to do, and he expects a repetition of gracious dealings in his own behalf; and because God deals thus with those who trust in him, therefore the mouth of impiety is stopped.

Religion is kept alive in the earth, because of God's signal interventions in behalf of the bodies and souls of his followers.

Verse 17. Behold, happy is the man] hinneh, behold, is wanting in five of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., and also in the Syriac, Vulgate, and