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you in the same way as you address me. The idea is, There is no difficulty in finding arguments to overwhelm the afflicted. "I could heap up words against you," or, as some render it, "I could string up words against you. Probably, Job means to imply here that what they had said was merely the stringing together, without much skill or order, a number of old proverbs which were not fitted to his case. "And shake mine head at you." To shake the head at another was in the most ancient times, as well as now, an expression of contempt. Jeremiah xviii. Lamentations ii. 15. Zephaniah ii. 15. Matthew xxvii. 29. He means to say, I can express contempt as well as you. Ver. 5.-"But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief." He means to say, that although he could have spoken as they did, he would not. On the contrary he would have spoken to them in such a way as would have strengthened, calmed, and succoured them.

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Ver. 6." Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased? He means to say, it matters little whether I speak or not; so far as my sufferings are concerned, whether I enter into discussion or remain mute, my distress remains the same. Ver. 7.-"But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company." With the general consent of expositors the reference is in this and the next verse to God. He says that the Almighty had made him weary, had exhausted his strength and deprived him of all his society. "Thou hast made desolate all my company." The allusion perhaps is to a happy social circle of which at one time he was the head and father, but now he was bereft of all.

Ver. 8.-"And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me." "Thou hast compressed me, and this is a witness against me."Barnes. "And my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face." The meaning of this seems to be "My leanness riseth up against me, and accuseth me to my face." To understand this, it must be remembered that the leading position in the speeches of all his friends was, that because he was a great sufferer he must be a great sinner. By this expression Job probably means to say, "Well, my miserable personal appearance seems to rise up as a witness against me, and confirms, what these men say."

Ver. 9." He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me." Expositors have differed widely as to the person referred to in this verse. Some have supposed the reference to have been to Satan, others to God, and others to Eliphaz. The last seems to me the most admissible; and if Eliphaz is the tormentor referred to, Job represents him as showing in his argument the savageness of wild beasts.

Ver. 10.

They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me." Here he changes the form from the singular to the plural, and includes all his pretented friends, Zophar, Bildad, and

Eliphaz. They had all acted to him as wild beasts, united together tormenting him.

Ver. 11.-" God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over

the hands of the wicked." He means to say, "God has shut me up, and handed me over into the hands of wicked men to torment me." Ver. 12.-"I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark." Job was once a happy and a prosperous man, but he was now an utter wreck. He here ascribes his ruin to God, and represents Him as a beast of prey, taking him by the neck, and as a warrior directing His arrows against him.

Ver. 13.—“ His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.” Allusion is here made to those who claim to be friends, but who now show, to his apprehension, that they were merely sharp-shooters under the control of God to deepen his distress. "He cleaveth my reins," etc. The meaning here is, "I am transfixed with a deadly wound, and must die, God has come upon me as an armed man, and has pierced my vitals."

Ver. 14.-" He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant." A repetition, this, of the same idea under a new figure.

Ver. 15.-" I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin." This was the usual emblem of mourning amongst the ancients in the East. As we sew crape around the hat, they sewed sackcloth around the body to symbolize their grief. "And defiled my horn in the dust." A horn made of silver was worn both by males and females in the East as an emblem of strength and honour. The language of Job means, "I am humbled as in the dust."

Ver. 16.-" My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death." The meaning is, that darkness covered his eyes, he felt he I was about to die. The language implies that he felt the shadows of death gathering around him.

Ver. 17." Not for any injustice in mine hands; also my prayer is pure." Here he still holds on to the conviction that he was an innocent man, and that his great sufferings did not prove that he was a sinner. Ver. 18.-" O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place." Impassioned appeals to nature are found elsewhere in the Scripture: Isaiah li. 2. "Cover not thou my blood." He seems to regard himself as a murdered man whose blood had been shed on the ground, and calls upon the earth not to cover it, so that retribution may come upon the heads of his murderers. Ver. 19." And now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high." Here the patriarch seems to return again to his confidence in God. His great physical sufferings and the highly irritating addresses of his pretended friends would at times betray him into hasty utterances and impatience, and almost tempt him to doubt the

Almighty. But here he returns to his settled rest, his trust in God.

Ver. 20.-"My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God." Unjustly reproached by his pretended friends, he turns to his Almighty Friend, and unburdens his heart to Him.

Ver. 21.-"Oh that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!" "A more correct rendering of this would be, 'Oh that it might be for a man to contend with God,' that is in a judicial controversy. It is the expression of an earnest desire to carry his cause at once before God, and to be permitted to argue it there. This desire Job had often expressed."-Barnes. Ver. 22.—" When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return." The same idea is expressed in chapter vii. 21. He felt that he should soon die, but desired earnestly before that event occurred, he should obtain the approbation of His Maker. He seemed to shrink from the idea of dying under the cloud of accusations which his pretended friends had brought against him.

HOMILETICS: This portion of Job's reply to Eliphaz and his companions, consists of two subjects, censure and complaint.

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I. CENSURE. He represents their addresses,

First: As commonplace and uncomforting. (1) As commonplace. I have heard many such things. I am not as inexperienced, as ill-informed as you suppose me to be. I know the traditions you have been referring to; I am acquainted with the proverbs you have quoted; I have not passed through life with an unobservant eye or an unthinking mind; and I have heard many such things as those contained your addresses. You speak as if you knew all and I knew nothing; but the utterances you consider original, are to me only platitudes. There is a sad tendency in many of those who assume the office of public instructors, to imagine that what they propound is very original, and unknown to their auditors. Christian congregations are grievously afflicted with these assumptions, and groan out their complaints in their social circles every week. The modern pulpit has, to a great extent, become the organ of dead platitudes. (2) As uncomforting. "Miserable comforters are ye all." You come here avowedly to console me under my grievous afflictions; but all you say, only tends to intensify my distress. It is

often the case, men in their attempt to comfort the sorrowful often aggravate their pains. Their words, however wisely chosen and appropriate, are but poor comforters. Genuine sympathy, too deep and strong for words-that shakes the frame, and unseals fountains of tears-this is the balm to heal the broken heart. He represents their addresses,—

Secondly: As empty and ill-tempered. (1) As empty. "Vain words," or, as in the margin, "words of wind." Vain words, are words which are vehicles of trifles, fallacies, or, if truths, are truths out of their true relations, and inappro priate. Some of the words of these men convey truths, but in their wrong application. They did not meet the case of Job, they were vain words, words of no practical purpose, and having no point. The daily conversation of men, the productions of the press, the discourses of the pulpit, too often abound with vain words-words of wind.

(2) As illtempered. "For what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest ?" The word "emboldeneth" here, means "provoketh." And Job implies, that these men spoke from irascibility and malign irritation. It is very sad when those whose office it is to instruct others, deliver themselves under the influence of illtemper. We have such discourses in parliamentary debates, in ecclesiastical controversies, and sometimes in pulpit disquisitions. But all acrimony and spleen in the addresses of public instructors are to be deprecated as evils, and should be studiously avoided. Words of passion may annoy the hearer, but they degrade the speaker; and the memory of them stings him with remorse and covers him with shame.

He represents their addresses,

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Thirdly: As poor and ungenerous. (1) As poor. "I also could speak as ye do: if soul were in your soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you." There is nothing very great in your performance. You have spoken very oracularly and, you imagine, with great eloquence, but there is no greatness in it. You in health, I in agony, to talk to me in that way is an easy thing. "I also could speak as ye do," if our position were reversed.

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I could string proverbs together as you have done, and shake my head at you as you have done, if I were you. It is poor, miserably poor, all of this. It is a poor thing to lecture men in distress, and God knows we have plenty of that lecturing in this land of ours, in this age. (2) As ungenerous. "But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief." To do this would be generous on your part. This I should do, were you in my place-instead of stringing irritating words together, I should speak to you tenderly and with a loving sympathy, in order to assuage your grief. The patriarch believed what all men have experienced, that the words of true sympathy and love can assuage the grief of souls.

"The

moving of my lips :" ah, the moving of the lips, what good they have accomplished ere now! Christ "opened His mouth." The grandest event, this, in the history of humanity. Such is Job's "censure." "" Whether just or not, it is very suggestive, and serves to indicate both the right and the wrong way of dealing with suffering men.

(To be continued.)

JUDE 3. "CONTEND EARNESTLY," ETC.

I. The faith revealed. 1. It was delivered. 2. By God. 3. To saints. 4. Once for all.

II. The faith assailed. 1. Some deny its existence. 2. Some explain away its distinctive features. 3. Some corrupt it with human additions. III. The faith defended. 1. We must defend it. 2. We must defend it by spiritual weapons.-THOMAS Barow.

ISA. II. 2. CHRISTIANITY.

I. Its establishment. II. Its exaltation.

BAROW.

ISA. IX. 6, 7.

III. Its attraction.-THOMAS

I. The birth. II. The name. III. The government of Christ.THOMAS BAROW.

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