Exposition of the Whole Bible

| 334 / wae aye! Ch.xx. ¥ 4 and therefore it was he was in fuch hafte to return. an anfwer; though fome * think he here pretends:to a divine oracle, like that which Elipbaz makes mention of in the beginning of this difpute, ch. iv. 12, €c. which he had from God, and _-which he had heard the correétion of his reproach®, or‘a full‘confutation of the thing ¥eb had ed him with 5 and being thus divinely furnifhed, thought it his duty to deliver it:

my underfianding caufeth me to anfwer; or his rational fpirit, his natural underftanding, furnifhed him once with an anfwer; he had fuch a clear infight into the controverfy on foot, and fuch a full view of it, that he thought himfelf capable of very particularly to the matter in hand, and to the conviction. and confufion of ¥ob; nay, his con-~ fcience, or the fpirit of his confcience, as Mr. Broughton renders it, not only readily dictated him what he fhould fay, but obliged him to it; though fome think he meant the Holy Spirit of joy God, by which he would be thought to be infpired; that he out of his underftanding ‘, enlightened by him, caufed him to anfwer, or would anfwer for him, or fupply him with matter fufficient to qualify him for it; and this he might obferve to ‘fob, in order to raife his attention to what he was about joriginal text to be from near*; it is bi at a I while ago when it began; and as the Targum jraphrafes it, it will be quickly ended: and tbe *e hypocrite but for a moment 5 the word. fromthe former claufe, may fignify the fame called ‘the hypocrite; but inafmuclr as the reproach- jone reftlefs and troublefome, one that is he and deftitute of the fear of God, that and the fpirit of in him but wickednefs, who. is continu mitting it, and is abandoned to its it mi at'thought not to hit the charaCter of Jo » Who Zopber had in his view, and therefore this is added as defcriptive of him; an hypocrite is one who peaking feems to be that he is not, holy, righteous, good and godly; who profefies to have what he has not, the true grace of God, and pretends to worfhip God, but does not do it cordially, and from rig tojprinciples; and who feeks himfelf in all het and not the glory of God: now there may-be a in fuch fort of perfons; they may hear rinifters gladly, as Hered heard Fobn, and receive the word with’ joy, as the tony -eroutd a they may feem to delight in the ways and ordinances of God, and even have fome taftes of the powers of the world to come, and fome pleafing thoughts and hopes of heaven and happinefs; as to fay. well as they triumph in, and boaft of their’ pro-

¥. 4. Knoweft thou not this of old, &c.] Or from eternity *, from the beginning of time, ever fince the world was; as if he fhould fay, if you are the knowing man you pretend to be, you muft know this I am about to obferve; and if you don’t know it, you muft be an ignorant man, fince it is an ancient truth, confirmed by-all experience from the creation; not that Fob could know it fo early, he was not the firft man that was born, nor was he made before the hills, but was of yefterday, and comparatively knew nothing; but the fenfe is, that this about to be delivered was an old eftablifhed maxim, of which there had been nume-| rous inftances, /ince man, or Adam was placed upon earth, referring to the putting of Adam in Eden to drefs the garden,.and keep it; and every man, ever fince, is placed on earth by the ordination, and according to the will of God, where and for purpofes he pleafes: the inftances Zopbar might have in view, are perhaps the expulfion of our firft feffion of religion and performance of duties, and rejoice in their boaftings, which is evil; but then this is like the pleafures of fin, which are but for a feafon, or like the crackling of thorns under a pot, which make a great noife and blaze, but foon over, Eccl. vii. 6. and fo their joy in civil as well as religious things. It is poffible Zophar might be fo ill-natured as to have reference to Fob"s triumph of faith, ch. xix. 25. and by this would fuggeft, that his faith in a living Redeemer, and the joy of it he profeffed, would be foon over and no more; which fhows what fpirit he was of. |

¥.6. Though bis excellency mount up to the beavens, &c.] Though in worldly grandeur and glory, he fhould arrive to fuch a pitth as the Afyrian monarch was ambitious of, as to afcend into heaven, exalt his throne above the ftars of God, and be like the moft High; or be comparable to fuch a tree, by which the greatnefs of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom is expreffed, the height whereof reached parents out of paradife, the vagabond ftate of Cain, the deftruction of the old world by a flood, and of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven; which fhew that God, fooner or later, gives manifeft tokens of his difpleafure at fin and finners, by his punifhment of them for it. What he means is as follows.

y. 5. That the triumphing of the wicked is fort, &c.]

fet out with this notion, that the wicked never flourifhed and profpered, but it always went ill with them in providence; but being beat out of that, they own they may be for a fmall time in flourifhing and profperous cireumftances, but it is but fora Ma#t, xi. 23.

y. 7. Yet be ball perifh for ever like Bi dung, &c.] Not only in this world, but ij world to come, both in his outward fubftar and in his body in the grave, and in his unto heaven, // xiv. 12, 14. Dan. iv. 11. and bis head reach unto the clouds; being lifted up with pride, becaufe of his greatnefs, and looking with contempt and fcorn on others; the Sepiuagint verfion is, if bis gifts afcend up to heaven, 8c. which well agrees with an hypocrite poffefied of great gifts, and proud of them; as Capernaum was highly favoured with external things, as the prefence o

Their outward profperity and felicity, of]Chrift, which they make their boaft, and in which they glory and triumph for a while; at firft 7od’s friends {mall time; which may be true in many inflances, but it is not invariable and without exception the cafe: the fenfe is, it is but a little while that they are in fo much mirth and jollity, and triumphyis over their neighbours, as being in more advan-} tageous circumftances than they;

his miniftry and miracles, and fo faid to be exalted unto heaven, yet, becaufe of its im tence and unbelief, fhould be brought down te all eternity, and that in the moft fhameful-and aa. graceful manner; he fhall perith in his ruption, and like his own dung. inevitabl never returned to its place again: de were reckoned by the ancients as dun, this is faid in thelcarcafes of men are rather to be caft out tha and the Arabians ufed to bury in dunghils even their kings *; to which fome' think the allufion is: they

‘which have feen him fall fay, where is be? fuch as formerly gazed at him in his profperity, with won- - der and amazement at his grandeur and grteatnefs, now being removed from his outward {plendor, or from the world by death, afk where he is, not being able to fee him in his former luftre, nor in the Jand of the living; fee ch. xiv. 10. ¥.8. He feall fly away as a dream, and fall not be found, &c.] Either as a dream which is forgotten, as Nebuchadnezzar’s was, and can’t be recovered; or as the matter and fubftance of a dream, which, though remembered, is amere illufion; as ‘when a hungry and thirfty man dreams he eats or drinks, but awaking finds himfelf empty, and not at all refrefhed; what he fancied is fled and gone”, and indeed never had any exiftence but in ‘his ima gination, J/. xxix. 8. yea, be hall be chafed away as a vifion of the night, either the fame as a nocturnal dream, or what a man fancies he fees in his dream; or like a mere fpectre or apparition, which is a mere phantom, and when followed and purfued, vanifhes and difappears; fo fuch a man before defcribed is chafed out of the world, and is feen in it no more, fee ch. xviii. 18. the firft claufe, according to Sepborus, refers to the generation of the flood, and. the fécond to the flaying of the firft born of Egyp# in the night.: ¥.9. The eye alfo which faw him, fhall fee him no more, &c.|] In this world, concerned in the affairs of life, and bufy in worldly employments, and efpecially in the grandeur he fometimes was, if not removed by death: but the former fenfe feems moft agreeable by what follows, neither hall his place any more behold him; the men of his place, as Ben Gerfom, thofe that lived in the fame place he did; or he fhall not be feen, and known, and acknowledged any more as the mafter, owner and proprietor of the houfe he formerly dwelt in; this feems to be taken from ob’s own words in ch. vii. 10. “The above Fewi/> commentator interprets this verfe of Pharach and the Egyptians,whom Mofes and the J/raelites would fee no more, Ewod. x. 29. and xiv. 13. ¥. an His children fhall feek to pleafe the poor, &c.] In this and fome following verfes, the miferable ftate of a wicked man is defcribed and which begins with his children, who are often vifited in wrath for their parents fins, efpecially when they tread in their fteps, and ‘follow their example; and it is an affliction to parents to fee their children in diftrefs, and particularly on their account, and even to be threatened with it. According to our verfion, the fenfe of this claufe is, that after a wicked man’s death, his children fhall feek to gain the good-will and favour of the poor who have been opprefs’d by him, that they may not reproach them, or take revenge on them, or apply to the civil magiftrate to have juftice done them; but Yarchi renders the words, ‘ the poor fhall opprefs or deftroy his children;” and fo the margin of our bible, who being enraged with the ill ufage of their parents, fhall fall upon them in at wrath, and deftroy them, Prov. xxviii. 3. and the fame Fewi/2 writer reftrains the words to the men of Sedom, who were oppreffive and cruel to the poor: or rather the fenfe is, that the children of the wicked man fhaJl be reduced to fuch extreme poverty, that they fhall even feek sreliet tanus, Vatablus, Schmidt.

° So the Englifh annotator.

of the poor, and fupplicate and inttéat thém to give them fomething out of theit {mall pittance;

with which others in a good meafure agree, who render the words, Ais children fall pleafe being poor”; it fhall be a pleafure and fatisfaction to thole they have been injurious to, to fee their children begging their bread from door to door; fee Pf. cix. 5, 10. and bis hands fhall reftore their goods; or for bis bands, &c.* and fo are a reafon why his children fhall be fo reduced after his death; as to need the relief of others, becaufe their parent in

‘ais life-time was obliged to make reftitution of his ill-gotten goods; fo that in the end he had nothing’.

to leave his children at his death; for this reftitution fpoken of is not voluntary, but forced. Sephorno thinks, reference is had to the Egyptians lending jewels and other riches to the J/raelites, whereby they were obliged to repay 600,000 men for their fervice.;

y¥. 11. His bones are full of the fins of bis youth, &c.] Man is born in -fin, and is a tranfgreffor from his womb; and the youthful age is addicted to many fins, as pride, -paffion, luft, luxury, intemperance and uncleannefs; and thefe are fometimes brought to mind, and men are convinced of them, and corrected for them when more advanced in years, and if not {topped in them, and reformed from them, they are continued in in old age; and the effects of them are feen in bodily difeafes, which a debauched life brings upon them, not only to the rottennefs and confumption of their flefh, but to the putrefaction of their bones; though. this may be underftood of the whole body, the bones, the principal and ftronger parts, being put for the whole, and denote thar general decay and wafte which gluttony, drunkennefs and uncleannefs bring into, fee Prov. v. 11—14. Some interpret this of /ecret fins”, as the word is thought to fignify, which if not cleanfed from and pardoned, will be found, and charged on them, and be brought:into judement, and they punifhed for them, Pfxc. 8. Eccl. xii. 14. which fhall lie down

‘with him in the duff; to be in the duft is to be in the ftate of the dead, to lie in the grave, where men lie down and fleep as on a bed; and this is common to good and bad men, all fleep in the duft of the earth, but with this difference, the fins of wicked men lie down with them; as they live in fin, they die in their fins; not that their fins die with them, and are no more, but they continue on them, and with them, and will rife with them, and will follow them to judgment, and remain with them after, and the guilt and remorfe of which’ will be always on their confciences, and is that worm that never dies: of fuch it is faid, that they are gone down to hell with their weapons of war, with the fame enmity againft God, againft Chrift, and his people, and all that is good, they had in their life-time: and they have laid their fwords under their beads; in the grave, and thall rife with the fame revengeful fpirit they ever had againft the faints, fee Rev. xx. 8, 9. but their iniquities foall be upon their bones, both them, and the punifhment of them, £zek. xxxii. 27, The Fewifo commentator, laft mentioned, interprets the whole verfe of Balaam, who died at the age of 33, and whofe profperity died with him, he leaving nothing to his children; and fo he interprets the following verfes of the curfe he was forced to hide, which he would gladly have pronounced, and of

O 336 Ky the riches he received from Balak falling into the f the J/raelites.! Woes: 'f adi wickednefs be fweet in bis eae &c.] Which may refpeét fome particular fin, on by the context it feems to be. the fin of covetoulnefs, or of getting riches in an unlawful way, which is very fweet and pleafing to wicked See whilft they are in fuch purfuits, that fucceed; an fo Mr. Broughton renders it by wrong; poe.. may be applied to fin in general, which is wécxe f nefs, or an evil, being contrary to the pure. holy nature, will and law of God; and it is evl in its effeéts on men, it having deprived them of the image and glory of God, and expofed them to his wrath, to the curfes of his Jaw, and to eternal death. Now this is /weet to an unregencrate man, who minds and favours the things of the ficth, whofe tafte is not changed, but is as 1t was from his birth, and who calls {weet, bitter, and bitter, fweet; fuch a man has the fame delight in fin, as a man has in his food, drinks up iniquity like water, and commits fin with greedinefs; for it is natural to him, he is conceived, born, and brought up in it; befides, fome fins are what are more particularly called conititution-fins, which fome are peculiarly addicted to, and in which they take a peculiar delight and pleafure; thefe are like the right-hand or right-eye, and they can’t be perfoaded at any rate to part with them: though Le hide it under bis tongue, not for the fake of concealing it, nor by denying, diffembling or excufing it, but for the fake of enjoying more pleafure in it; as a gluttonous man, when he has got a {weet morfel in his mouth, don’t let it go down his throat immediately, bur rolls it under his tongue, that he may have all the pleafure of it he can 5 fo a wicked man devifes fin in his heart, keeps it on his mind, revolves it in his thoughts, and his meditation on it is fweec; and he is fo far from hiding it from others, that he openly declares it, freely tells of it, and takes pleafure in fo doing: fools make amock at fin; it is their diverfion and recreation. y¥. 13. Though be fpare it, &c.}_ Not that he feeds fparingly on it, for he eats of it freely and plentifully, with great eagernefs and greedinels; it defigns the gratefulnefs of it to him; he does not {pit it out as loathfome, having tafted of is but retains it as fweet and pleafant; he fpares it as Saul did Agag, and as a man fpares his only fon; fin being a child, a brat of a wicked man, and therefore it is dear unto him: and forfake it not; as he never will, until he is fully convinced of the evil of it, and it becomes exceeding finful to him, and fo loathfome and difagreeable; and he is re- {trained from it by the grace of God, and enabled by it to defert it, for fuch an one only finds mercy, Prov. xxviii. 13. but keep it frill within bis mouth; like an epicure, that will not fuffer his food: quickly to go down his throat into his ftomach, that he may have the greater pleafure in tafting, palating and relifhing it; as PAiloxenus, who wifhed his throat as long as a crane’s, that he might be the longer in tafting the fweetnefs of what he eat and drank; fo the wicked man keeps fin within his mouth, not by reftraining his mouth from fpeak- ‘ing evil, rather by a non-confeffion of it, but chiefly by continuing and perfifting in it, that he might have all the pleafure and fatisfaction he has promifed himfelf in it,