Job to God: 1. A remonstrance with Heaven.
I. THE DIVINE CONDUCT DEPICTED. As that of:
1. A Man-watcher. (Verse 20; cf. verse 12.) Concerning this Divine espionage may be noted:
2. A Man-shooter. "Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee?" i.e. as a target to shoot at (cf. Job 6:4). Another outrageous impeachment of the Deity, implying that God, in afflicting Job, had been guilty of:
3. A Man-oppressor. "Why hast thou made me an obstacle in thy way?" (according to another and perhaps a more exact translation); the idea being that Job was perpetually in God's path, and that God, hating him and feeling him a burden (according to another reading of the next clause), rushed against him as if to destroy him, and so get rid of him. But God never so feels toward any man. He may hate man's sin, but man himself he never hates. He may often find man, through sin, an obstacle in his path, but he never sets man up before him as an object of hostile assault.
II. THE DIVINE CONDUCT CHARACTERIZED. AS:
1. Unworthy. Job designs to hint that man's insignificance makes it wholly unbecoming, if not mean, on God's part to visit him with affliction; that such incessant vigilance as God exercises over man is altogether to attribute to him too much importance, that man, being so utterly frail and short-lived, it were nobler in God to permit him to enjoy his brief span of life in ease and comfort. A fallacious argument, since:
2. Unkind. Job's language sets forth the Divine conduct in a most offensive light, as never for a solitary instant looking away from man, or allowing him a moment's ease; but harassing him so incessantly that life becomes a burden, pursuing him so remorselessly that, do what he will, he can never get out of the Creator's way. Thank God, such a picture is only true of the impenitent. "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth" (Psalms 34:16).
3. Ungracious. Granting that he had committed faults, and that the great Man-watcher had detected sin in his past life. "Why dost thou not pardon my transgression?" asks Job, "and take away mine iniquity?" An exceedingly natural question, not, however, because man is so insignificant a creature, and human life so evanescent, and sin so comparatively trifling, but because
Yet in perfect harmony with all this, the awakened sinner may, like Job, be denied the sense or the outward sign of forgiveness (in Job's case the removal of trouble), because
(5) though he asks, God may have reasons for delay in granting the soul's request, as e.g. to test the soul's sincerity or earnestness, to complete the soul's penitential submission, to quicken and intensify the soul's faith, to heighten the soul's appreciation of Divine mercy when it comes.
4. Unwise. "For now shall I sleep in the dust," etc. Job meant to say that, if God had any thoughts of mercy toward him at all, it was unwise to delay putting them into execution. Burdened with misery and unpardoned sin as he was, he would soon be gone. The pressure of such calamities as he endured must soon crush him into his grave; and then, should God, relenting, seek him to extend to him kindness, lo! he should not be. A beautiful picture, that of the Deity relenting towards man (cf. Isaiah 54:6-10; Jeremiah 31:18-20); an impressive sermon, that sow is the day of grace for both God and man—for man to seek (2 Corinthians 6:2), and for God to grant salvation (John 9:4).
Learn:
1. That the most maligned Being in the universe is God, even his own people not always speaking him fair.
2. That, however mean and insignificant in himself, ms, has been more magnified by God than any other of his creatures.
3. That even afflictions are a token of God's desire to exalt man, since only through them can he attain to purity.
4. That if man's miseries are a heavy burden to himself, man's sins are a heavier to God.
5. That if man's iniquities are not removed, the reason lies with man, and not with God.
6. That God's love to his people is unchanging; since, however he may seem to be angry with them, he is certain in the end to relent.
7. That God is grieved when men pass away from earth without experiencing his favour.