13 June

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Job 40-42

Job 40

There is a pause in the unveiling as Jehovah speaks directly to His servant and asks for an answer to the things that He has said. The answer is full of suggestiveness. The man who in mighty speech and strong defiance had been of unbroken spirit in the presence of all the arguments of his friends now cried out,

"Behold, I am of small account. What shall I answer Thee?"

He has learned the wisdom of, and he listens as Jehovah speaks.

Again Jehovah proceeds, and He charges Job to "gird up" his "loins like a man." In each case there is in this introductory word the suggestion of God's consciousness of man's dignity. The things He has been describing cannot hear or answer this divine wisdom. Job can, and he is called on to exercise these distinctive powers of his humanity. Job had exhibited his folly in that in the midst of all his suffering he had by inference blamed on God's method. This God now challenges, yet not to explain it, but first to suggest to Job that he attempt to occupy God's place in the universe. There is a fine and tender satire in Jehovah's call to Job to assume the reins of government. Let him do this in the moral realm, in which his criticism has been at work. Let him abase and humble the proud and lofty and evil and wicked ones. When Job can do this, then Jehovah will acknowledge that Job's own right hand can save him.

Having challenged Job thus, Jehovah now suggests two experiments. He brings before him two animals, nonmoral, and suggests that Job exercise his authority and power over them. This is much easier than governing men. The material always yields itself to man's government with greater ease than the moral. If this man can be made to feel his absolute weakness in the lower sphere he will naturally deduce therefrom his impotence in the higher things. If he cannot govern these, how can he assume the functions of the One who made them, and perfectly governs them? The description of behemoth leaves very little room for doubt that the animal we know as the hippopotamus is intended.

Job 41

Leviathan is almost certainly the crocodile, and there is the playfulness of a great tenderness in the suggestions Jehovah makes to Job about these fierce creations. Can Job catch him with a rope or a hook? Will he pray to Job? Will Job make a servant or a plaything of him for himself or his maidens? There is a fine, and yet most tender and humorous, satire in the words of Jehovah!

"Lay thine hand upon him; Remember the battle, and do so no more."

If none dare stir up leviathan, who can stand before God? If Job dare not attempt to catch or subdue or play with this animal, how can he hope to compete with God in governing the universe? Following the question, the description returns to the beast in all the magnificence of his strength, and ends with a picture of men attempting to overcome him with sword, or spear, or dart, or pointed shaft; while all the while, in fierce anger, he holds the citadel of his being, and becomes king over all the sons of pride.

Thus the unveiling of God's own glory ends, not in the higher reaches of the spiritual, but in, its exhibition in a beast of the river and the field. It is not the method we would have adopted, but it is the perfect method. For the man who knows God it is necessary only to make his commonest knowledge flame with its true glory for him to learn the sublimest lesson of all.

Job 42

Job's answer is full of the stateliness of a great submission. As he speaks the words of surrender he appears mightier in his submission than all the things into the presence of which he has been brought. In his confession of the sufficiency of God, of the folly of his own past speech, of his present repentance in the light of God's glory, there is revealed a glory of God not manifest in any other part of the universe described. This surrender is God's victory of vindication. There has been no explanation of pain, but pain is forgotten, and all the circumstances of trial against which the spirit of the man has rebelled are out of sight. He has found himself in relationship to God. What Eliphaz asked him to do, but could not teach him how, he now has done. Acquainted with God, his treasure is laid in the dust, and he has found Jehovah to be his all-sufficient wealth.

The victory being won in the soul of Job, Jehovah deals with his friends. His wrath is kindled against them, and yet it is mingled with mercy. Their intention was right, but their words were wrong. In their attempt to explain God, they had not said of Him "the thing that was right." Notwithstanding all his murmuring, nay, in the very affirmation of his inability to comprehend, Job had spoken profounder truth concerning God than they. God's vindication of him to them is marked by the fact that He speaks of him as "My servant," the same term He used at the beginning. It is also marked in His appointment of His servant as intercessor on their behalf. They had attempted to restore Job to God by philosophy. He is now to be the means of restoring them by prayer. As at the beginning there were things to be said in their favor, so at the close. Their sincerity is shown in the fact that they submit, bring their offerings, and make confession.

Up to this point it would seem as if there had been no change in Job's circumstances. The bands of his captivity were broken in the activity of prayer on behalf of others. All the rest is told in brief sentences. Job had been in the fire, and now he emerged from it, and his latter days on earth were characterized by even greater prosperity than his earlier ones.

In ending our consideration of this great Book, let us not attempt to formulate a philosophy which includes a solution of the problem of pain. This much at least we know, that through it this man gained, and there we leave it.