(Continued from page 180.)

Subdivision 3.-Job's closing monologue (chaps. 27-31.)

The direct controversy closed with Job's reply to Bildad, chap. 26, but the sufferer has yet much to say before he has told out all his heart. The friends are apparently silenced, and he is left victor in the strife which has gone on so long. That there has been progress we have seen as we went along:on the part of the friends it has been a progress in failure to confirm their charges; with Job we have seen a progress upward, of faith laying hold on God in spite of all that seems so dark and inexplicable.

In this closing monologue we have the manifestation of Job's heart. He vindicates himself, refusing to acknowledge the charges of his friends, and by implication declares himself the possessor of the true wisdom-the fear of the Lord. He then reviews his past life of happiness, and contrasts it with his present degradation, and closes with renewed and complete protestations of righteousness.

This portion may be divided into three sections:

(1) Assertion of integrity, in contrast with the wicked and his doom (chap. 27).

(2) The wisdom which is above all price (chap. 28).

(3) Self-manifested (chaps. 29-31).

There are certain elements of confusion in this monologue. The first part is much of the same character with what had preceded. The closing part is a sad conclusion-self-occupation, self-vindication, self-righteousness. But imbedded between these two parts we have, in grand poetic beauty, a statement of what is wisdom, the true riches, unknown to the natural man. We cannot but feel that, with all he has yet to unlearn, Job has the elements of this wisdom. The root of the matter is in him, the pure gold is there, and the dross will soon be removed.

Section I.-Assertion of integrity, in contrast with the wicked and his doom (chap. 27).

This chapter while forming part of the monologue, is .closely linked with the reply to Bildad. We may consider it as addressed to the friends as a whole, a summing up of the controversy.

There are four main parts:

(1) He maintains his righteousness (vers. 1-7).

(2) The wicked's character contrasted (vers.8-12).

(3) The sure doom of the ungodly (vers. 13-18).

(4) Driven away in his wickedness (vers. 19-23).

There is an apparent lack of evenness in this section, and some have thought a lack of consistency with what Job has previously declared. The self-vindication is familiar enough, but when he begins to describe the character and doom of the wicked, we might almost imagine that one of the friends was speaking. Indeed, the latter half of the chapter has been considered as the third speech of Zophar, inadvertently dropped from its place and inserted here, with chapter 28 as Job's answer! But there is not the slightest indication of any such disturbance of the text. It is a theory used to explain an imagined difficulty, a difficulty whose solution is found in the study of the chapter itself.

(1) Job declares that he will never surrender to the unrighteous charges of the friends. Boldly he declares that God has taken away his right (not as in our version, his judgment), that is, has acted unjustly toward him; He has brought bitterness into the soul of one who did not deserve it!

The next verse, 3, has been variously rendered. In the A. V. Job is made to say that so long as his breath is in him, he will persist in maintaining his righteousness. But many regard the verse as a parenthetic explanation; "for still all my breath is in me," etc. He is in full possession of his consciousness, and speaks the truth deliberately, as he believes. Such a rendering and explanation seems to accord with the original.

He will not allow himself to bear false witness; till he dies he will hold fast his integrity. His heart does not condemn him, and in the survey of his past life there is not a day whose record furnishes ground for reproach! " My heart reproacheth not any of my days." We must take this as the sober statement of one who had "lived in all good conscience." But there is a sound of self-righteousness which does not accord with the knowledge of one's self in the presence of God. Job is no! there yet. It is the cry of an honest soul that does not fully see the light. Is there any unrighteousness ?- it is in his enemy, not in himself. We see therefore that Job was speaking as between man and man.

(2) Job now turns to the end of the wicked. What hope has he when God cuts him off, and takes away his soul ? What shall be the end of the man to whom God says, "Thou fool, this night thy soul
shall be required of thee ? " Will God hear his cry when it is too late ? Or has He not given the solemn warning, " I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh " (Prov. i:26)? Is it too late to call upon God when the present opportunities have been put off for a "more convenient season "-which never comes.

Is not all this self-evident? Job asks them. Do they not know the Lord's ways ? Why then do they indulge in such foolish and wrong thoughts as they had expressed, and charge him (a man whose uprightness they knew, and who was conscious of his own integrity) with having a character like this which he describes?

Here we reach the explanation of the apparent change in Job's attitude. Hitherto he had withstood the friends in their contention as to the wicked, because they ever linked him with their descriptions. He will now take up the same language to show how impossible it was to confound such an one as himself with the wicked with whom they identified him. It becomes thus a most potent reply to their charges. He had dwelt upon the many exceptions to God's dealings with the wicked, because the friends were making such a wrong use of these dealings. The force of what he says comes out even more strongly in the next portion.

(3) He now goes into the terrible and irrevocable doom that awaits the ungodly, and, in language equal to that of the friends, tells how they will at last be overtaken.

'' This is the portion of the wicked man with God." He has received wealth and pleasure and honor at the hands of man; but how different a heritage will they get from the Almighty whom they have despised. Have his children multiplied ? They are left to the devouring sword. Did they once live in luxury ? They will come to lack bread, and those who survive them will be swallowed up by death, and without friendly lamentations-" Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation " (Ps. 78:64).

Job thus dwells upon a sorrow in some respects similar to his own, and yet how different. He too had been bereft of his children, but was it as under the retributive wrath of God ? And did Job act as these wicked men whom he here describes? They may gather silver and wealth as the dust, only to have the righteous enjoy it-" The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just." Was Job's case thus ? Had the righteous obtained the wealth which once was his ? The grand dwellings of the ungodly, like the frail tenement of the moth, shall crumble into nothingness, or be as the watchman's transient booth, " as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." The fact that Job can speak thus of the perishing things of this world's greatness shows that he was conscious of a far different heritage for himself. Let moth and rust corrupt, he seems to say that he knows he has a better and more enduring substance.

(4) He follows in his solemn description the course of the wicked to the end. The rich man lieth down not realizing it is for the last time. He lies down in usual comfort, he opens his eyes upon a new day, but not to resume the old employments and pleasures. He opens his eyes only to pass away. Those eyes, so long closed to all that God has witnessed, at last open to another world-" In hell (hades) he lifted up his eyes, being in torment."

Terror, so long kept at a distance as the warning voice of conscience spoke, now sweeps down upon him; as by a tempest in the night he is carried away. God brings him down, and men rejoice at the removal of their oppressor.

Thus Job calmly describes an end which he knows is not his. What has made the difference ? Is it not the faith which amidst all his distress has held fast to God ?-a God whom he so little knew, and at whose afflictions he had repined. S. R.

(To be continued)