(Continued from page 127.)

Job's Reply to Eliphaz (chaps. 23, 24).

Job does not trouble himself to reply to the grievous charges of Eliphaz; the time for that has passed, and he has so repeatedly declared his righteousness that there is little need to reiterate it here. He will, before he is fully done, go completely into his self-vindication (chap. 31). Here his concern is with God. The cloud has again fallen and obscured Him from the view of faith which had shone out brightly a little while before. This sad eclipse leads Job to utter hard things against the Lord; but we can see it is from having lost sight of God, not the malice of one who turns against Him. But until God has probed into the recesses of Job's self-righteousness we may expect a recurrence of these clouds of unbelief.

When he comes to take up the argument of Eliphaz regarding the wicked, Job has the better of the contention, as will appear when we reach that part of his reply (chap. 24). The position of the friends is untenable, and while Job offers no true solution to the problem, he closes their mouths.

The reply maybe divided, as many of the others, into seven parts:

(1) His longing to lay his case before God (chap. 23:1-9).

(2) Protestations of righteousness (vers. 10-12).

(3) Afraid of God as his enemy (vers. 13-17).

(4) God's apparent failure in government (chap. 24:1-12).

(5) The wicked described (vers. 13-17).

(6) Their escape into Sheol (vers. 18-21).

(7) God seemingly their protector (vers. 22-25).

(i) " Even to-day" (after so much discussion and accusation by the friends) " my complaint still biddeth defiance."-so it has been rendered, rather than, "is bitter." It is the bitterness of resistance against their charges, rather than the bitterness of grief. He brings forth his groaning in protest against the unfairness of his treatment. This rendering seems in accord with the thought of protest on Job's part. It is not,'' My stroke is heavier than my groaning," as in our version,-he is not complaining of the bitterness of his suffering, but of its injustice. Ah, did he but know it, Job's acknowledgment would have been, "He hath not dealt with me after my sins." If we got our deserts, where would we be!

With this sense of outrage, Job desires to go before God and lay charges against Him! He would come boldly into His presence, in His very abode, and lay his case before Him, with his mouth full of arguments. He even challenges any reply from God, "I would know the words which He would answer me." So can a righteous man speak when at a distance from God. How different it was when he had his desire and God appeared to him!

And just here, when his almost insane defiance of God is at its height, there bursts forth a glance of that confidence in God which we have already had occasion to note. "Will He plead against me with His great power ! No! but He would put strength in me," or "regard me with compassion." These are surely not the words of an unbeliever. He doubts God's ways, accuses Him, but is confident that if he could only see Him all would be cleared. God would consider his "weak and wandering cries," and vindicate him from divine injustice! But what an anomaly-the righteous man disputing with Him, and delivered by the Judge Himself from His unjust severity! Strange contradiction it all is; yet better far thus to long to go before God, than the pride which would say to Him, " Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." It is always better, to bring even our doubts of God to Himself, if we have nothing else to bring.

But where can God be found ? Job rushes forward, but He is not there; backward, but he cannot perceive Him. Turn to the right or the left, God still escapes him. He is left alone

" Upon the great world's altar stairs
That slope through darkness up to God "-

But God is not there! He can only

"Grope, and gather dust and chaff,
And cry to what I feel is Lord of all."

It is all most tragic; and if it were only Job seeking God, he might well sink in despair. But, all unknown to himself, God is seeking Job, and will find him too, ere long.

(2) Not finding God, Job turns in self-occupation to himself, and renews his protestation of righteousness. God knows his way, "the way of the righteous" (Ps. i:6), and after due trial, he will come forth as gold. It is all true, and yet the evident self-righteousness in it vitiates the nobility of the words. It is not, " That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold which perisheth." We feel the real trial has not yet come. It is his personal uprightness that is maintained-not the sense of grace; he thinks it comes from his own heart. He. has kept God's commands, has held fast to the words' of His mouth more than to his "necessary food." Job has valued God's will more than his own.

(3) But how true it is that if we commend ourselves we condemn God. Thus Job adds that God is determined to punish him, and nothing can swerve Him from this purpose! Good it is for Job and ourselves that we have One with whom is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning." He has said, '' I am the Lord; I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Job thought that the thing appointed for him was but the misery and suffering through which he was passing, while it was rather the "needs be" which was "to work patience. Job did not see the appointed " end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy "-the end of a love too great to be swerved from His purposes of blessing by our complaint and unbelief. Yes, "many such like things are with Him:" the path for each of His children is different, but the end is the same.

The " patience of Job" is not apparent here. On the contrary, fears fill his heart. He dreads God as an enemy, and would shrink from the very presence which so lately he craved. He blames God with thus overwhelming him, and throwing his thoughts into utter confusion.

The closing verse of this section is somewhat obscure. In our Authorized Version, Job wishes he had been cut off before this darkness came upon him, that he might not have seen it. Another view, following more closely the context, makes him emphasize the dread of God; he does not shrink from his calamities, terrible as they are, but from this dread Being who fills his soul with dread. " I have not been destroyed before the darkness [of present affliction], and before my countenance [all disfigured with disease], which thick darkness covereth." Blessed be God, His perfect love in Christ has been revealed; all is bright there, and the darkness is but a passing cloud which cannot hide the glory of the love that shines down upon us.

(4) "Wherefore are not bounds reserved by the Almighty, and they who honor Him see not His days?" (ch. 24:i). Such is the rendering of a very competent scholar, which gives a clearer meaning than the somewhat obscure translation of our Version, although the meaning in both cases is similar. Job is about to dwell upon the apparent failure of God to judge the wicked, and begins by asking why God does not allow His saints to see a righteous judgment visited upon them. Why does He not set a limit to their impiety and wicked oppression ? Job enumerates some details of their evil course, which violate every principle of right:landmarks are removed; they steal their neighbor's flocks, and shepherd them as their own; the fatherless and widow are victims of their rapacity; they drive away the poor and the needy.

Then, in thought, Job follows these poor sufferers driven from their houses by the wicked, and describes their wretched struggle for existence in the nomad state into which they have been thrust
(vers. 5-8). In a few bold strokes, of one familiar with the scene, Job, depicts these poor starving sufferers, driven out like beasts, to gather a bare subsistence for their children as best they may. They seek employment even from their oppressors, and reap their fields and glean in their vineyards. Scarcely covered with rags, they shiver in the cold and rain as they seek for shelter in the rocks. "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," and the oppression of the poor and needy has cried to God throughout all man's history; yet God heareth not!

Job takes other cases to illustrate the same heartlessness. The wicked tear the fatherless from the breast; they defraud the poor. Why do his friends insinuate that he was guilty of such conduct, when glaring cases were manifest to them ? The poor are robbed of their very garments; they toil hungering among the sheaves; at the oil press, and in the vintage they are repressed from partaking; there is groaning of the oppressed in the city-and God takes no heed to it! It is an awful picture of facts only too well-known to them-and to us. How can Eliphaz make such facts fit in with his theory that evil is always punished in this life ? But, oh, how can God close His eyes to these things, and afflict a faithful man instead of these wrong doers? This is Job's great trouble, and for this he has found no solution.

(5) There is a morbid fascination about such themes as now occupied Job's mind, and he continues his description of the unrestrained course of the wicked. Here are men who hate the light, "because their deeds are evil." They choose the night for their "unfruitful works of darkness." The murderer lies in wait for the workman going at dawn to his labor, and turns to steal in the night. The adulterer lurks about for his abominations "in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and, dark night" (Prov. 7:9)-like other beasts of prey. " By day they shut themselves up" (ver. 16), and, how solemn, " they know not the light"-it manifests their shame and sin. "The morning is to them even as the shadow of death; if one know them they are in the terrors of the shadow of death" (ver. 17). This has been rendered, "The depth of night is to them even as the dawn of the morning "-they are at home in the night-it is their day.

(6) And how does this course of wickedness end ? Does God come in and make an example of them I Not always; on the contrary they pass away like a swiftly flowing stream, leaving their heritage to receive the curse of men instead of getting the just vengeance themselves. "The gallows is cheated," and the evil doers have departed from their vineyards where they might have been dealt with as they deserved. As drought and heat dry up snow waters, so Sheol causes the wicked to pass suddenly from view. They pass away, forgotten even by their mother, to be the food of worms ! Such is the end of the wicked oppressor. The general thought of this part of Job's reply is that in this life, and often up to the very end, men escape the penalties they deserve. He does not lift the curtain behind which the awful future is disclosed; his purpose is to reply to the contentions of his friends, and he answers them effectually.

(7) Job concludes with another feature of this awful anomaly. God seems to be on the side of the ungodly, preserving_ them by His almighty power when they might have been smitten down:"He preserveth the mighty by His strength; such an one rises again, though he despaired of life"(ver.22). How often have we seen the ungodly brought low in sickness and then raised up almost from the grave. We know it is the goodness of God that would lead them to repentance, but in Job's disordered view it seemed to be an indication of favor from God. They live on in security and God's eye seems to rest favorably upon them. This seems more in accord with Job.'s argument than the implication that, though God apparently sustains them, His eye is on their ways, and that He will judge them. Job dwells rather upon the absence of any special judgment. They are exalted in their life, and when the inevitable hour of death comes -appointed for all-they are no more; they are sunken away (in the grave), snatched away like all others. They are cut down like the ears of the ripe corn (ver. 24).

Job closes with a demand for an answer. Who can charge him with misrepresenting the truth, or rob his speech of its force as a reply to the arguments of the friends ?

It is a solemn conclusion. Not that Job has misstated facts :indeed, these are incontrovertible; but his deductions are dreadful. He follows his logic to the very brink of the precipice-that God deals unfairly. If so, He is not God. What a triumph would such a conclusion be to the malicious enemy who had instigated all this, and declared that if his prosperity were withdrawn, Job would "curse Thee to Thy face." Job has not done so, and Satan is defeated; but so far as the natural reasoning of Job goes, he might have done as Satan predicted and his wife advised. All unknown to himself grace had wrought, for he was a child of God:he was not permitted to go where his unbelieving thoughts led him. What a triumph too for the friends would such a conclusion be. They could have said, "We have stood for God, while Job has assailed His character." But neither side has convinced the other. While the advantage remains with Job, the disappointing character of his closing words makes necessary what we find in the last part of the book. But we have still to hear him pour forth all his heart, before God can be heard. S. R.

(To be continued.)