Job 29:1

Job’s Monologue

FIRST PART, chap. 29.

1. Some interval may have elapsed since the close of the tribute to wisdom, during which fond memory had dwelt upon years of prosperity and bliss, recalling the care and friendship of God, domestic joys, and the highest love and veneration of his people. But the remembrance of these, instead of lighting up the present, according to a strange law of the mind, served rather to deepen the gloom. He feels that his present wretched condition is but an instance of the mysteriousness of God’s ways which he adduces in elucidation of the preceding chapter, and thus “continues his parable.” Job seemingly intimates that he thought his righteousness a claim upon God; and that he thence postulated a kind of right to temporal prosperity: which sentiment would have been in keeping with the temporal idea of religion prevailing in ancient times an idea that led to the trial of Job. But now he rises to the mature conception that God’s favour is in itself a sufficient reward, and that this is the greatest of blessings to be desired an important stage in the transition to the unravelment of the entanglement. While apparently unconscious of the presence of the friends, in the kindest and most courteous spirit he refutes some of their cruel charges, and displays the noblest traits of character. “The commemoration of former blessings,” says the Oriental proverb, cited by Ali Hazin, “is the possession of the wretched.”