Job 27

Notes

None offering to speak, Job continued his substantial but dark and mysterious discourse, saying, 2. I protest by the Almighty God, who refuses me an opportunity of clearing myself before him, and who has tormented me with all these fearful strokes of his judgment. 3, 4. That while I live I will never utter an untruth, either to vindicate myself where I am guilty, or to condemn myself where I am innocent. 5, 6. God forbid that ever I should justify your opinions and censures, deny my own sincerity, and confess myself to be a hypocrite! 7. It is mine enemies and opposers whom God will condemn and punish as wicked. And indeed I could wish nothing worse to my greatest enemy and injurer than to be wicked. So much I detest it. 8. For what avails the firmest hopes of a hypocrite in all his covetously-gained prosperity, or even inward tranquillity of soul, when he comes to die? 9. Will God always hear his prayers in the time of trouble and death? 10. Or will he find comfort in God when the world affords none? or will he in prosperity, as well as in adversity, continue in the earnest worship and service of God? 11. Attend, therefore, while, by God's assistance, I candidly inform you of some of the mysteries of his almighty providence. 12. Certain it is that every one of you knows from experience the truth of what I am to say. Why then should you thus absurdly attempt to prove the contrary? 13. Far be it from me to imagine that God loves hypocrites and oppressors. No; though for a time they prosper, the Almighty has reserved treasures of judgment for them and their posterity as the just reward of their wickedness. 14. Their numerous and once flourishing families are condemned to destruction by the sword of justice or war, or to be starved by famine. 15. Such as escape the sword and famine shall be cut off by the noisome pestilence. And none adventuring to bury them, they shall lie unburied, or be interred in an ignominious manner; and their widows shall either want affection, or not be in life, to bewail their unhappy end. 16, 17. Though these wicked men should treasure up ever so much wealth or costly apparel, they shall have only the labour of procuring it; for God shall destroy them, and bestow their wealth upon such as will do more good with it. 18. They may build their houses as strong as they please, and settle their estates in the surest forms; but God will quickly shake them out of all, or render them useless to them. 19. In the twinkling of an eye death shall overtake these rich sinners, and carry them off, as wretchedly poor, into the eternal state; and even perhaps without an honourable burial or monument on earth. 20. Manifold terrors seize upon them; and some surprising calamity often hurries them unexpectedly into the other world, where the terrors of God shall overwhelm them, as the waters did the old world; and in that eternal night shall the sweeping tempest of infinite wrath unexpectedly seize on and ruin them. 21. Some violent and pestilential affliction, some raging and burning storm of God's just judgment, hurls them out of their wonted felicity, residence, and life, and deprives them of all the good which they expected. 22, 23. While God pursues them with manifold forms of unmixed and unavoidable judgment, men, who are thereby delivered from their oppressions, shall return thanks to God for their deliverance.

Ver. 7. [Let mine enemy be as the wicked. This is not an imprecation of evil, but a description of character, and assertion of Job's total want of sympathy with the wicked or unrighteous, as the only persons he counted his enemies. C.]

Ver. 18. [As a moth. The moth builds the most beautiful but the most frail mansion, of which the silk-worm is a remarkable example. Neither does any moth remain long in its house, for it soon undergoes a change, and casts aside its useless covering. C.]

Reflections.—Appeals to God ought to be necessary, deliberate, serious, and in matters of importance. Prevarication or concealment is as much perjury before God as direct falsehood asserted. But how often our high praises of God are mingled with something unkindly and disparaging! Not our most solemn vows, but Jesus' blood and Spirit, must chiefly maintain our purity of conscience and integrity of life. And while he enables to exercise a conscience void of offence towards God and men, we ought never to believe either devils or men suggesting that we are hypocrites. But it is best to refute the calumnies cast upon us by living well. Miserable indeed are hypocrites, whose hopes will never be crowned with enjoyment, their prayers never accepted nor graciously answered, and whose religion is neither comfortable nor constant! And yet, alas! how many such, amidst a glare of profession, continue with hearts unrenewed! Miserable is the condition of the wicked, even at its best, in this life: and what then must it be in hell? When once dead, their riches strangely vanish, and even fall into the hands of the godly, whom they hated: nor is any habitation secure and lasting but that which is not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. And in the most alarming forms of death God often ushers wicked men into eternal fire.