Job 19:1-22 - Homiletics

Job to Bildad: 1. A reply, an appeal, a complaint.

I. JOB 'S WRATHFUL REPLY TO HIS FRIENDS . Job accuses his three friends of:

1 . Irritating words. (Verse 2.) Their solemn addresses and eloquent descriptions were an exquisite torture, harder to endure than the miseries of elephantiasis. The cruel insinuations and unkind reproaches contained in their speeches crushed him more deeply and lacerated him more keenly than all the sharp strokes of evil fortune he had lately suffered. Wounds inflicted by the tongue are worse to heal than those given by the hand. "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword' ( Proverbs 12:18 ); and to "talk to the grief of those whom God has wounded" ( Psalms 69:26 ) is the severest of all kinds of persecution to sustain, as it is the wickedest of all sorts of crimes to commit.

2 . Persistent hostility. (Verse 3.) Not once or twice simply had they charged him with being a notorious criminal, but they had harped upon this same string ad nauseam ; they had carried their insulting behaviour to the furthest limits; the force of their acrimonious opposition could not further go. Their reproaches had well-nigh broken his great heart; cf. the language of David, who in his sufferings was a type of Messiah ( Psalms 69:20 ).

3 . Astounding callousness. (Verse 3.) Job was simply amazed at the cool indifference with which they could behold his sufferings, the unfeeling ease, if not the manifest delight, with which they could hurl their atrocious impeachments against him, and the utter insensibility which they displayed to his piteous appeals—amazed that one who claimed to be a friend of his should so completely show himself to be

"A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch

Incapable of pity, void and empty

From any dram of mercy."

('The Merchant of Venice,' act 4. sc. 1.)

4. Unnecessary cruelty. (Verse 4.) There was no "firm reason to be rendered" why they should thus remorselessly pursue him with their hate. They would not be called upon to expiate any of his unpunished crimes. Their theology and their saintly virtues would combine to shield them from that. Believing, as they did, that "the son shall not hear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son," but that "the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" ( Ezekiel 18:20 ), there was no occasion to dread that any portion of the Divine retribution due to him would recoil on them. Hence they might have spared him any wanton aggravation of his woes. Job's language reminds us

5 . Arrogant assumption. In "pleading against him his reproach," i.e. in urging the intolerable miseries he suffered as a proof of his guilt, they were" magnifying themselves against him" (verse 5), i.e. tacitly boasting of their superior goodness. And as much perhaps as by anything in their language, the soul of Job was stung by the solemn Pharisaic aspect which sat upon their marble visages, and the atmosphere of awful sanctity in which they wrapt their holy persons. But true piety is ever meek and humble, never vaunteth herself, and is never puffed up, certainly never gloats over either the sins or the sufferings of others. A good man may magnify the grace of God that is in him ( 1 Corinthians 15:10 ), or the office that has been entrusted to him ( Romans 11:13 ), but of himself he ever thinks with lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than himself ( Philippians 2:3 ), whom he regards but as "less than the least of all saints" ( Ephesians 3:8 ), if not as "the chief of sinners" ( 1 Timothy 1:15 ).

6 . Conspicuous falsehood. Bildad had alleged that Job, by his incorrigible wickedness, had been the author of his own misfortunes, that he had been cast into a net by his own feet ( Job 18:8 ), that his calamity had come upon him as the recompense of his own crime; and to this Job replies with a direct contradiction, insisting that it was God who had flung his net about him, and that, if their theory of retribution was correct, God had wrested his cause and wronged him in so doing (verse 6). That Job's feet were entangled in a net, the testimony of Job's senses proclaimed. That this net had been cast around him by God, the eye of his faith could see. That God could not have done so on account of his wickedness, the inner witness of Job's spirit cried aloud. Hence this theory of the friends, which sometimes lay across his soul like a nightmare, was a blunder, and the allegation of the friends that he was being punished for his iniquity was a lie.

II. JOB 'S DOLEFUL COMPLAINT AGAINST GOD .

1 . Treating him like a criminal And that in respect of two particulars.

2 . Punishing him as a convict. (Verses 8-10.) And that by:

"I had no thought, no feeling—none;

Among the stones I stood a stone,

And was scarce conscious what I wist,

As shrubless crags within the mist," etc.

(Byron, ' Prisoner of Chillon,' 9)

Such a picture is true, not of the saint in the correction-house of affliction ( Psalms 34:17 ), not even of the sinner in the prison-house of condemnation, who is yet a prisoner of hope ( Zechariah 9:12 ), but only of the lost in the dungeon of everlasting death.

3 . Counting him for an enemy.

4 . Cutting him off from human sympathy. (Verses 13-19.) A pitiful picture of abject degradation, even worse than that which Bildad predicted for the wicked man who should be chased from the world ( Job 18:19 ). Surrounded by kinsmen and relatives, and still attended by wife and servants, he is to one and all an object of supreme contempt.

III. JOB 'S PITEOUS APPEAL FOR HIMSELF .

1 . A pathetic representation. (Verse 20.) Indicating the ground of Job's appeal. Bodily disease and mental anguish had reduced him to a skeleton, so that his bones appeared through his skin; the second clause, a cruz interpretum ( vide Exposition), probably depicting extreme emaciation. His condition may remind us of the value of physical health, of its instability, and of the ease with which it can be made to consume away like a moth ( Psalms 39:11 ).

2 . A melting supplication. (Verse 21.) Expressive of the fervent of Job's appeal. It was not much he craved—only pity, and that on two pleas:

"Pluck commiseration of his state

From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint"

Much more, then, from those who were united to him by ties of affection (cf. Job 6:14 , homiletics).

3 . A tender expostulation. (Verse 22.) Were the miseries he was suffering at God's hand not enough to satisfy their insatiable appetites or was God not able to exact retribution for his supposed iniquities, that they must assist him to crush the poor emaciated skeleton who had become his victim? Was it really come to this, that they were less merciful than God; that God's thirst for vengeance, if so be it was that he was being punished, was more easily slaked than theirs? So, alas! it has been found that man's tender mercies are cruel ( 2 Samuel 24:14 ), and in particular that when bigots turn persecutors they never cry, "Enough!"

Learn:

1 . There is a limit beyond which even good men are not expected to endure aspersions against their character.

2 . It is a shame for professors of religion to indulge in suspicions, or utter slanders, against their brethren.

3 . The greatest safeguard a suffering saint has, if also one of his acutest pains, is to connect his afflictions with God.

4 . It is better to direct the soul's plaint to God than to utter aloud the soul's complaint against God.

5 . The man has fallen low indeed who, besides being deserted by God (or appearing to be so), is also abandoned by man.

6 . The woman who forsakes her husband in his hour of sorrow, not only violates her marriage vow, but proves herself unworthy of the honour of wifehood, and brings disgrace upon the name of woman.

7 . It is an infinite mercy that God's heart is not so little pitiful as man'&

8 . A man's flesh is all that a persecutor can devour.