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Job Chapter
Twelve
Job 12
Chapter Contents
Job reproves his friends. (1-5) The wicked often
prosper.(6-11) Job speaks of the wisdom and power of God. (12-25)
Commentary on Job 12:1-5
(Read Job 12:1-5)
Job upbraids his friends with the good opinion they had
of their own wisdom compared with his. We are apt to call reproofs reproaches,
and to think ourselves mocked when advised and admonished; this is our folly;
yet here was colour for this charge. He suspected the true cause of their
conduct to be, that they despised him who was fallen into poverty. It is the
way of the world. Even the just, upright man, if he comes under a cloud, is
looked upon with contempt.
Commentary on Job 12:6-11
(Read Job 12:6-11)
Job appeals to facts. The most audacious robbers,
oppressors, and impious wretches, often prosper. Yet this is not by fortune or
chance; the Lord orders these things. Worldly prosperity is of small value in
his sight: he has better things for his children. Job resolves all into the absolute
proprietorship which God has in all the creatures. He demands from his friends
liberty to judge of what they had said; he appeals to any fair judgment.
Commentary on Job 12:12-25
(Read Job 12:12-25)
This is a noble discourse of Job concerning the wisdom,
power, and sovereignty of God, in ordering all the affairs of the children of
men, according to the counsel of His own will, which none can resist. It were
well if wise and good men, who differ about lesser things, would see how it is
for their honour and comfort, and the good of others, to dwell most upon the
great things in which they agree. Here are no complaints, or reflections. He
gives many instances of God's powerful management of the children of men,
overruling all their counsels, and overcoming all their oppositions. Having all
strength and wisdom, God knows how to make use, even of those who are foolish
and bad; otherwise there is so little wisdom and so little honesty in the
world, that all had been in confusion and ruin long ago. These important truths
were suited to convince the disputants that they were out of their depth in
attempting to assign the Lord's reasons for afflicting Job; his ways are
unsearchable, and his judgments past finding out. Let us remark what beautiful
illustrations there are in the word of God, confirming his sovereignty, and
wisdom in that sovereignty: but the highest and infinitely the most important
is, that the Lord Jesus was crucified by the malice of the Jews; and who but
the Lord could have known that this one event was the salvation of the world?
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Job》
Job 12
Verse 2
[2] No
doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
Ye — You have engrossed
all the reason of mankind; and each of you has as much wisdom as an whole
people put together. All the wisdom which is in the world, lives in you, and
will be utterly lost when you die. When wise and good men die, it is a comfort
to think that wisdom and goodness do not die with them: it is folly to think,
that there will be a great, irreparable loss of us when we are gone, since God
has the residue of the spirit, and can raise up others more fit to do his work.
Verse 3
[3] But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea,
who knoweth not such things as these?
But — In
these things, which he speaks not in a way of boasting, but for the just
vindication both of himself, and of that cause of God, which for the substance
of it he maintained rightly, as God himself attests, chap. 42:7.
Such things —
The truth is, neither you nor I have any reason to be puffed up with our
knowledge of these things: for the most barbarous nations know that God is
infinite in wisdom, and power, and justice. But this is not the question
between you and me.
Verse 4
[4] I am
as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the
just upright man is laughed to scorn.
Upon God —
Even by my religious neighbours, by those who call upon God, and not in vain;
whose prayers therefore I covet, not their reproaches.
The just — I,
who, notwithstanding all their hard censures dare still own it, that through
God's grace I am an upright man.
Verse 5
[5] He
that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him
that is at ease.
Slip with his feet —
And fall into trouble; tho' he had formerly shone as a lamp, he is then looked
upon as a lamp going out, as the snuff of a candle, which we throw to the
ground and tread upon; and accordingly is despised in the thought of him that
is at ease.
Verse 6
[6] The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure;
into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.
Are secure —
Job's friends had all supposed, that wicked men cannot prosper long in the
world. This Job opposes, and maintains, that God herein acts as sovereign, and
reserves that exact distribution of rewards and punishments for the other
world.
Verse 7
[7] But
ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and
they shall tell thee:
But — If
thou observest the beasts, and their properties and actions, and events, from
them thou mayst learn this lesson: that which Zophar had uttered with so much
pomp and gravity, chap. 11:7,8,9, concerning God's infinite wisdom,
saith Job, thou needest not go into heaven or hell to know. but thou mayst
learn it even from the beasts.
Verse 9
[9] Who
knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?
Lord —
This is the only time that we meet with the name Jehovah in all the discourses
between Job and his friends. For God in that age was more known by the name of
Shaddai, the Almighty.
Verse 11
[11] Doth
not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?
Doth not —
This may be a preface to his following discourse; whereby he invites them to
hear and judge of his words candidly and impartially; that they and he too
might agree in disallowing what should appear to be false, and owning of every
truth.
Verse 12
[12] With
the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.
Wisdom —
These words contain a concession of what Bildad had said, chap. 8:8,9, and a joining with him in that appeal;
but withal, an intimation that this wisdom was but imperfect, and liable to
many mistakes; and indeed mere ignorance and folly, if compared with the Divine
wisdom, and therefore that antiquity ought not to be received against the
truths of the most wise God.
Verse 14
[14]
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man,
and there can be no opening.
No opening —
Without God's permission. Yea, he shuts up in the grave, and none can break
open those sealed doors. He shuts up in hell, in chains of darkness, and none
can pass that great gulf.
Verse 15
[15]
Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out,
and they overturn the earth.
The waters —
Which are reserved its the clouds, that they may not fall upon the earth.
They —
The waters upon the earth, springs, and brooks, and rivers. As at the time of
the general deluge, to which here is a manifest allusion.
Verse 16
[16] With
him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.
With him —
The same thing he had said before, verse 13, but he repeats it here to prepare the way
for the following events, which are eminent instances, both of his power and
wisdom.
Are his —
Wholly subject to his disposal. He governs the deceiver and sets bounds to his
deceits, how far they shall extend; he also over-rules all this to his own
glory, and the accomplishment of his righteous designs of trying the good, and
punishing wicked men, by giving them up to believe lies. Yet God is not the
author of any error or sin, but only the wise and holy governor of it.
Verse 17
[17] He
leadeth counsellors away spoiled, and maketh the judges fools.
Spoiled —
The wise counsellors or statesmen, by whom the affairs of kings and kingdoms
are ordered, he leadeth away as captives in triumph, being spoiled either of
that wisdom which they had, or seemed to have; or of that power and dignity
which they had enjoyed.
Fools — By
discovering their folly, and by infatuating their minds, and turning their own
counsels to their ruin.
Verse 18
[18] He
looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle.
Looseth — He
freeth them from that wherewith they bind their subjects to obedience, their
power and authority, and that majesty which God stamps upon kings, to keep
their people in awe.
Girdeth — He
reduces them to a mean and servile condition; which is thus expressed, because
servants did use to gird up their garments (that after the manner of those
parts were loose and long) that they might be fitter for attendance upon their
masters: he not only deposes them from their thrones, but brings them into
slavery.
Verse 20
[20] He
removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of
the aged.
The speech — By
taking away or restraining the gift of utterance from them. Or, by taking away
their understanding which should direct their speech.
Trusty — Of
those wise and experienced counsellors, that were trusted by the greatest
princes.
Verse 22
[22] He
discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow
of death.
Darkness —
The most secret counsels of princes, which are contrived and carried on in the
dark.
Verse 23
[23] He
increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and
straiteneth them again.
Nations —
What hitherto he said of princes, he now applies to nations, whom God does
either increase or diminish as he pleases.
Verse 25
[25] They
grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken
man.
Grope —
Thus are the revolutions of kingdoms brought about by an overruling providence.
Heaven and earth are shaken: but the Lord remaineth a king forever.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Job》
12 Chapter 12
Verses 1-25
Verses 1-5
But I have understanding as well as you.
The effect of the friends’ speeches upon Job
The whole world, Job feels, is against him, and he is left forlorn
and solitary, unpitied in his misery, unguided in his perplexity. And he may
well feel so. All the religious thought of his day, all the traditions of the
past, all the wisdom of the patriarchal Church, if I may use, as I surely may,
the expression, is on one side. He, that solitary sufferer and doubter, is on
the other. And this is not all, or the worst. His own habits of thought, his
own training, are arrayed against him. He had been nursed, it is abundantly
clear, in the same creed as those who feel forced to play the part of his
spiritual advisers. The new and terrible experience of this crushing
affliction, of this appalling visitation, falling upon one who had passed his
life in the devout service of God, strikes at the very foundation of the faith
on which that life, so peaceful, so pious, and so blessed, as it has been put
before us in the prologue to the tragedy, has been based and built up. All
seems against him; his friends, his God, his pains and anguish, his own
tumultuous thoughts; all but one voice within, which will not be silenced or
coerced. How easy for him, had he been reared in a heathen creed, to say, “My
past life must have been a delusion; my conscience has borne me false witness.
I did justice, I loved mercy, I walked humbly with my God. But I must in some
way, I know not how, have offended a capricious and arbitrary, but an
all-powerful and remorseless Being. I will allow with you that that life was
all vitiated by some act of omission or of commission of which I know nothing.
Him therefore who has sent His furies to plague me, I will now try to
propitiate.” But no! Job will not come before his God, a God of righteousness,
holiness, and truth, with a lie on his lips. And so he now stands stubbornly at
bay, and in this and the following two chapters he bursts forth afresh with a
strain of scorn and upbraiding that dies away into despair, as he turns from
his human tormentors, once his friends, to the God who seems, like them, to
have become his foe, but to whom he clings with an indomitable tenacity. (Dean
Bradley.)
Independency of thought in religion
Now in these verses Job asserts his moral manhood, he rises from
the pressure of his sufferings and the loads of sophistry and implied calumny
which his friends had laid upon his spirit, speaks out with the heart of a true
man. We have an illustration of independency of thought in religion, and this
shall be our subject. A man though crushed in every respect, like Job, should
not surrender this.
I. From the
capacity of the soul.
1. Man has a capacity to form conceptions of the cardinal principles
of religion. He can think of God, the soul, duty, moral obligation, Christ,
immortality, etc.
2. Man has a capacity to realise the practical force of these
conceptions. He can turn them into emotions to fire his soul; he can
embody--them as principles in his life.
II. From the
despotism of corrupt religion. Corrupt religion, whether Pagan or Christian,
Papal or Protestant, always seeks to crush this independency in the individual
soul.
III. From the
necessary means of personal religion. Religion in the soul begins in individual
thinking.
IV. From the
conditions of moral usefulness. Every man is bound to be spiritually useful,
but he cannot be so without knowledge, and knowledge implies independent study
and conviction.
V. From the
teachings of the Bible. The very existence of the Bible implies our power and
obligation in this matter.
VI. From the
transactions of the judgment. In the great day of God men will have to give an
account of their thoughts and words as well as deeds. Let us, therefore, have
the spirit of Job, and when amongst bigots who seek to impose their views on us
and override our judgment, let us say, “No doubt ye are the people, end wisdom
shall die with you; but I have understanding as well as you.” (Homilist.)
Verse 4
I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and He
answereth.
The man who gets answers may mock him who gets none
The antecedent to “who” seems to be uncertain. It may be Job; it
may be the neighbour about whom Job speaks. They who have had experience of
God’s tenderness to help them and hear their prayers, should be very tender to
others, when they call to them, and seek their help. Learn--
1. It is the privilege of the saints, when men fail and reject them,
to make God their refuge and their recourse to heaven.
2. The repulses which we meet with in the world, should drive us
nearer to God.
3. Prayer and seeking unto God are not in vain or fruitless.
4. As it is sinful, so it is extremely dangerous to mock those who
have the ear of God, or acceptance with God in prayer. (Joseph Caryl.)
Verse 7
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee.
An appeal to the living creatures
Rosenmuller supposes that this appeal to the inferior creation
should be regarded as connected with Job 12:3, and that the intermediate
verses are parenthetic. Zophar had spoken with considerable parade of the
wisdom of God. He professed to have exalted views of the Most High. In reply to
this, Job says that the views which Zophar had expressed were the most
commonplace imaginable. He need not pretend to be acquainted with the more
exalted works of God, or appeal to them as if his knowledge corresponded with
them. Even the lower creation--the brutes, the earth, the fishes--could teach
him knowledge which he had not now. Even from their nature, properties and
modes of life, higher views might be obtained than Zophar had. Others suppose
the meaning is that in the distribution of happiness, God is so far from
observing moral relations that even among the lower animals, the rapacious and
the violent are prospered, and the gentle and innocent are the victims. Lions,
wolves, and panthers are prospered--the lamb, the kid, the gazelle are the
victims. The object of Job is that rewards and punishments are not distributed
according to character. This is seen all over the world, and not only among
men, but even in the brute creation. Everywhere the strong prey upon the weak;
the fierce upon the tame; the violent upon the timid. Yet God does not come
forth to destroy the lion and the hyena, or to deliver the lamb and the gazelle
from their grasp. Like robbers, lions, panthers, and wolves prowl upon the
earth; and the eagle and the vulture from the air pounce upon the defenceless;
and the great robbers of the deep prey upon the feeble, and still are
prospered. What a striking illustration of the course of events among men, and
of the relative condition of the righteous and the wicked. (Albert Barnes.)
Religious lessons taught to man
1. The great lesson which the animal creation, regarded simply as the
creature and subject of God, is fitted to teach us, is a lesson of the wisdom
and power and constant beneficence of God. Job reminds the friends that what
they had been laying down to him in so pompous a manner constituted only the
mere elements of natural religion, and that a man had only to look around him
and observe and ponder the phenomena of the visible universe, to be abundantly
convinced that God, the maker of all things, was also the upholder of all
things, and the supreme disposer of all events. Job sends us to the animal
creation that we may gather from it instances of the greatness of the Creator’s
hand, and the constancy of the Creator’s providence. Himself invisible, God is
revealed in all the work of His hands, and it needs but the observing eye and
the candid judgment to satisfy every one of His being and His perfections. God
reveals Himself no less in the lapse of events than in the arrangements of
creation. There is no nation, there is no household, but has in the record of
its own experience abundant manifestations of His constant, and wise, and
gracious superintendence of the affairs of earth. In the lesson which is thus
taught to us concerning God, the animal creation bears its part. Not one of the
creatures but is “fearfully and wonderfully made”; not one of them but is
wisely and mercifully provided for. For every one of them there is a place, and
to this each is adapted with transcendent skill and beneficence. Even the lower
animals may be our teachers and speak to us of God.
2. The way in which the creatures spend their life, and use the
powers which God has given them. In many respects they are examples to us, and
by the propriety of their conduct rebuke the folly and wickedness of ours. The
beasts, etc., will teach us the following things as characteristic of their
manner of life.
Does God treat men here according to character
I. The experience
of human life. The fact that Job here refers to--the prosperity of wicked men,
may be regarded--
1. As one of the most common facts of human experience. All men in
all lands and ages have observed it, and still observe it. It is capable of
easy explanation: the conditions of worldly prosperity are such that sometimes
the wicked man can attend to them in a more efficient way than the righteous.
As a rule, the more greed, cunning, tact, activity, and the less conscience and
modesty a man has, the more likely he is to succeed in the scramble for wealth.
2. One of the most perplexing facts in human experience. What
thoughtful man in passing through life has not asked a hundred times,
“Wherefore do the wicked prosper?” and has not felt, with Asaph, stumbling into
infidelity as he saw the prosperity of the wicked?
3. One of the most predictive facts in human experience. This fact
points to retribution.
II. The history of
inferior life. “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee,” etc.
Solomon sends us to the ant; Agur to the coney, the locust, the spider; Isaiah
to the ox and the ass; Jeremiah to the stork, the turtledove, the crane, the swallow;
and the Heavenly Teacher Himself to the fowls of the air. Job’s argument is
that the same lack of interference on God’s part in the free operations of men
in this life, in punishing the wicked and rewarding the good, you see around
you in all the lower stages of life. Look to the beasts of the field. Does the
Governor of the world interfere to crush the lion, the tiger, the panther, or
the wolf from devouring the feebler creation of His hands? Does He come to the
rescue of the shrieking, suffering victims? Behold the “fowls of the air.” See
the eagle, the vulture, the hawk pouncing down on the dove, the thrush, the
blackbird, or the robin. Does He interfere to arrest their flight, or curb
their savage instincts? “Speak to the earth.” See the noxious weeds choking the
flowers, stealing away life from the fruit trees, does He send a blast to
wither the pernicious herb? Not He. Turn to the “fishes of the sea.” Does He
prevent the whale, the shark, and other monsters from devouring the smaller
tenants of the deep? No; He allows all these creatures to develop their
instincts and their propensities. It is even so with man. He allows man full
scope here to work out what is in him, to get what he can.
III. The maxims of
philosophic life. “Doth not the ear try His words? and the mouth taste His
meat? With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days is understanding.”
There is something like a syllogism in this verse.
1. That the more the mind exercises itself upon moral questions, the
more capable it is to pronounce a correct judgment. Just as the gourmand gets a
nicer appreciation of the qualities of wines and viands as he exercises his
palate, so the mind gets a clearer conception of things the more it makes them
the subject of reflection.
2. That the ancients did greatly exercise their minds on these
subjects, and therefore their judgment is to be taken, and it confirms Job’s
conclusions. (Homilist.)
Our duty to the creatures
In order to enforce the moral and religious duty which we all owe
to the inferior creatures, consider--
I. The nature of
our authority over them.
1. It arises out of that capacity of reason which places us above
them. And as reason is our great distinction and prerogative, it is that alone
which is to influence us in the exercise of the power which it has entrusted to
our hands. As these creatures are endowed with a capacity to enjoy pleasure,
and as abundant provision is made for the gratification of their several
senses, reason teaches us to conclude that the Creator wills their happiness,
and that our nobler faculties are to be employed, not in counteracting, but in
furthering His benevolent purpose. Whatever unnecessarily deprives them of any
portion of their enjoyment, violates the authority of reason, and deposes the
sovereign of the lower world from that throne which he converts into an engine
of tyranny and oppression.
2. This, likewise, is constituted authority. Man has received the
creatures by an original grant from the hands of their Maker. In virtue of this
all-comprehensive endowment, the investiture of property is added to the
natural authority of reason, so that we have an unquestionable right to make
all the tribes of being subservient to our interest. But our authority is
limited--it is the authority of men over dependents, not of demons over their
victims. We are not at liberty to use the creatures as we please. Where
necessity ends, inhumanity begins. The meanest reptile on earth has its
inalienable rights, and it is at our peril that we immolate them on the altar
of our hard-hearted selfishness. The persecuted, injured, suffering children in
nature’s universal family are not forgotten by their beneficent Parent, nor
will their wrongs remain unredressed.
II. Their claims
upon our humanity and kindness. The creatures who are beneath us ought not only
to be protected from ill-treatment, but they are entitled to humane and
benevolent consideration, as parts of the great family specially committed to
our guardianship. Many, who would shrink from the imputation of cruelty, by a
constitutional indifference to the wants and sufferings of the beings around
them, are really chargeable with all the wretchedness which it is in their
power to prevent and alleviate. A wise and considerate humanity in its direct
operation is most beneficial to universal happiness; and in its indirect
influence as an example, fails not to deter many an incipient offender from the
premeditated act of cruelty, while it gently diffuses its own benignant spirit
through the circle in which it unostentatiously moves, protecting, saving,
blessing all. And nothing tends to our felicity so much as cherished feeling of
enlightened benevolence. Many reasons may be assigned why the inferior
creatures ought to excite in us such a spirit.
1. They are the creatures of God.
2. They have the same origin with ourselves.
3. They are the care of Divine providence.
4. Their claims arise out of the lessons they teach.
5. They confer on us innumerable benefits of another kind. Of the
general usefulness of the creatures we have the most palpable evidence every
day.
6. Remember their susceptibility to pain. And we may add--
7. That these creatures owe all their natural sufferings to the fall
of man; and to him therefore they have a right to look for sympathy. (J.
Styles, D. D.)
Verse 8
Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.
The teaching of the earth
To the attentive ear all the earth is eloquent; to the reflecting
mind all nature is symbolical. Each object has a voice which reaches the inner
ear, and speaks lessons of wise and solemn import. The stream murmurs
unceasingly its secrets; Sibylline breeze in mountain glens and in lonely
forests sighs forth its oracles. The face of nature is everywhere written over
with Divine characters which he who runs may read. But beside the more obvious
lessons which lie as it were on the surface of the earth, and which suggest
themselves to us often when least disposed for inquiry or reflection, there are
more recondite lessons which she teaches to those who make her structure and
arrangements their special study, and who penetrate to her secret arcana. She
has loud tones for the careless and superficial, and low suggestive whispers to
those who hear with an instructed and attentive mind. And those who read her
great volume, admiring with the poet and lover of nature the richly-coloured
and elaborate frontispieces and illustrations, but not arrested by
these--passing on, leaf after leaf, to the quiet and sober chapters of the
interior--will find in these internal details revelations of the deepest
interest. As we step over the threshold, and penetrate into the inner chambers
of nature’s temple, we may leave behind us the beauty of the gardens and
ornamented parterres; but we shall find new objects to compensate us: cartoons
more wonderful than those of Raphael adorning the walls; friezes grander than
those of the Parthenon; sculptures more awe-inspiring than those which have
been disinterred from the temples of Karnak and Assyria. In descending into the
crust of the earth, we lose sight of the rich robe of vegetation which adorns
the surface, the beauties of tree and flower, forest, hill, and river, and the
ever-changing splendours of the sky; but we shall observe enough to make up for
it all in the extraordinary relics of ancient worlds, strewn around us and
beneath our feet. This lesson which the earth teaches, it may be said, is a
very sombre and depressing one. True in one sense; but it is also very
salutary. Besides, there is consolation mingled with it. The teaching of the
earth does not leave man humbled and prostrated. While it casts down his
haughty and unwarrantable pretensions, it also enkindles aspirations of the
noblest kind. While it shows to him the shortness of his pedigree, it also
reveals to him the greatness of his destiny. It declares most distinctly, that
the present creation exceeds all the prior creations of which the different
strata of the earth bear testimony, and that the human race occupies the foremost
place among terrestrial creatures. It teaches unmistakably that there has been
a gradual course of preparation for the present epoch--that “all the time
worlds of the past are satellites of the human period.” There are a thousand
evidences of this in the nature and arrangement of the earth’s materials, so
clear and obvious that it is impossible to misunderstand them. The nature of
the soil on the surface; the value, abundance, and accessibility of the metals
and minerals beneath; the arrangement of the various strata of rock into
mountain and valley, river and ocean bed: all these circumstances, which have
had a powerful influence in determining the settlement, the history, and the
character of the human race, were not fortuitous--left to the wild, passionate
caprices of nature--but have been subjected to law and compelled to subserve
the interests of humanity. The carboniferous strata themselves, their
geographical range, and the mode in which they have been made accessible and
workable by volcanic eruptions, clearly evince a controlling power--a designing
purpose wisely and benevolently preparing for man’s comfortable and useful
occupancy of the earth. Some object that the teaching of the earth is delusive
and uncertain. This opinion is fostered by the varied, and, in many cases,
conflicting readings and interpretations of the geological record. Theories
have been formed which more advanced knowledge has demonstrated to be false and
untenable; and these hasty conclusions have tended in some measure to throw
discredit upon the whole study, by giving it a vague appearance. It was to have
been expected beforehand that a science, offering such great temptations to
speculation, so flesh and young and buoyant, with such boundless fields for
roaming before her, would have been excited to some extent by the vagaries of
fancy, and that individuals on the slenderest data would build up the most
elaborate structures. But geology, upon the whole, has been less encumbered
with these than perhaps any other science; and the researches of its students
have been conducted in a singularly calm and philosophical spirit. Every step
has been deliberately taken; every acquisition made to its domains has been
carefully surveyed; and hence, we are at this moment in possession of a mass of
observations which, considering the very recent origin of the science, is truly
astonishing, and which is entitled to the utmost confidence. Furthermore, the
teaching of the earth is not irreligious--is not calculated to undermine our
faith in the inspiration of the Bible, and to nurture infidel propensities.
This objection has been frequently brought against it, and urged with vehemence
and rancour; and a feeling of repulsion, a strong and unreasonable prejudice,
has in consequence been raised against it in the minds of many pious and
estimable individuals. They look upon the science with dread, and place the
study of it in the same category with that of the blasphemous dogmas of the
Rational School. I believe that a careful study of the leading works, and
accumulated facts of geology, by any candid, unbiassed mind, will result in the
conviction that nothing connected with the progress of science has ever yet
truly infringed the integrity of revelation. (Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)
The Gospel of nature
And what on Job’s lips was irony and taunt stands for something
totally different to many of you. You have come from the great cities where you
know the world, but not the earth, and you wish that here earth and sea would
teach you some secret of mental renewal and physical recuperation. And the more
devout among you will wish that you might speak to the earth and it might teach
you of the great and eternal God. Such teaching would be in harmony with many
of the passages in the Old Testament. It is true that, except in the Song of
Songs, with its vineyards a-blossom and a-bud, with its gardens astir with
fragrance, and with its streams that flow from Lebanon, the Old Testament
reveals little feeling for scenery as scenery. But right through all its books
there is an evident appreciation of earth and sea and mountains and stars, as
revealing the greatness of the Creator. “The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” “He gathereth the waters of the sea
together as an heap.” “The sea is His and He made it.” From such sayings as
these you can learn how good men stood amazed in the midst of creation, and
strained reverent eyes towards the High and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity.
There are those on both sides who speak as though religion and science are set
in eternal antagonism, and too often the laboratory is regarded as the natural
enemy of the temple. But as a matter of fact, science is really a side chapel
in the great cathedral of humanity, upbuilt by the reverence and worship of the
world. The most capable man of science is the man who is best endowed with
capacity for thinking God’s thoughts after Him. And the more we learn of the
wonders of creation, the greater the marvel of Him who created and sustains.
Hence it comes to pass that whatever the scientist may say, science itself
makes for an intensifying of religion. It would seem, then, that if we speak to
the earth it can teach us something about religion. The shimmering sea, the
bold black rocks, the sun flooding headland and sands with a searching
splendour can tell us of the greatness and power of Him who conceived, created,
and sustains the marvel of their appearing. Nature is the garment of God. So
far, then, the beginnings of a religion. But man is so made that he wants more
than the garment of the Divine. The robe is magnificent, but what of the heart
that beats beneath? After Solomon was dead there grew up a legend that his
regal garments shrouded a heart of fire. Do the fires that glow at the earth
centre represent the heart of God, or where may we turn for our revelation? A
religion begins when men learn something, anything, about God. But a Gospel
only begins when men learn about His heart. And there is no original Gospel of
nature. But to begin with, all that the earth shows you is a God of power and
wisdom. Now, the important thing in a revelation of God is not simply that you
know Him, but the character of the God that you know. It were better, perhaps,
for men not to be aware of a God who is less than righteousness and love. And
the only God that nature shows you is a personification of energy and wisdom
Further, much that might seem informing in nature concerning God would be
absolutely misleading. There is one side of the world process that Tennyson
speaks of as “Nature red in tooth and claw.” By that he means that one part of
the animal creation lives on the other. The tiger rends the fawn, and the pike
will feed on the smaller fish. Is God, then, callous to cruelty? We cannot
believe that He is. Yet it is something beyond nature that teaches us to trust
there is some hidden meaning in all this that at present we do not see. But,
mind you, we dare to hope this because we know something of the heart of God.
We do not learn it from nature. Not all the cold heights of the snow-crowned
Alps, and not all the deeps of the big blue sea could have taught us this. They
could give us the beginnings of a religion. But heart cries to heart, and your
heart wants to know about the heart of the Eternal. It is knowledge of the
heart of God that makes a Gospel. And you must turn elsewhere fox that. And to
where shall you turn? Where, indeed, save to the Christ? True Christianity is
an exposition of a Personality, and the Personality of Christ was an expression
of the heart of God. Therefore, it is to Him that you must look when you are in
search of a Gospel. And once you have found a Gospel in Christ, then you may
find a Gospel in nature. And how? Job says, “Speak to the earth., and it shall
teach thee.” We have seen that he was right in so far as we ask the earth to
teach us of the wisdom and power of God. But it has no original message beyond
that. It is echo and not originality that enables it to speak forth a Gospel.
In the matter of the higher phases of religion, nature gives to you essentially
what you first give her. She intensifies, glorifies, clarifies what you know
already of the heart of God, but she cannot originate a Gospel. For proof of
the fact that you only get from nature in the spiritual sphere what you first
give to her, you have only to think of her varying interpretation in the minds
of different men. Take, for example, say Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold. Arnold
was a Stoic, born out of due time, and so he found in nature what was first
shown him in his shadowed heart. He tells us himself how he looked out on the
beach at Dover when the night was calm, and the full, spacious tide was flooded
with moonlight. Most of us at such an hour would have gazed, subdued to
tranquillity. But Arnold heard the shifting pebbles grating on the shore, and
the tremulous cadence of the waves brought for him
The
eternal note of sadness in.
And where Wordsworth would have felt that the goodness of God was
rimming a world with the glory of a heavenly light, he only thought with
Sophocles of the turbid ebb and flow of human misery. And to him the outgoing
tide represented the receding of the sea of faith, and he only heard--
Its
melancholy long-withdrawing roar,
Retreating
to the breath
Of
the night wind, down the vast edge drear
And
naked shingles of the world.
That
is to say, he heard bodied forth in the sounding sea the sombre intuitions and
dismal forebodings of his own soul. Now, Wordsworth, with all his austerity of
demeanour, was an optimist, and his most sombre moods are touched with a quiet
gladness. He believed in a gentle God, and he had high hopes for man, and
nature yielded him a Gospel that was one with his beliefs. So, when he looked
out on the fields, it was his faith
. .
.That every flower
Enjoys
the air it breathes.
This meant that he enjoyed the air. And because in his own soul
there glowed “the light that never was on sea or land,” therefore, when he
stood on some headland, and saw the sun rise, he knew a visitation from the
living God, and was wrapt into a still communion and ecstasy of thanksgiving.
Nature gave back to him, intensified and clarified, the Gospel he first gave to
her. And the supreme message of this sermon this morning is a deduction from
what I have just said. You are on holiday, and detached from the workaday
world, and hence you have leisure for spiritual culture. I would, therefore,
have you realise the facts of your religion, and call the sleeping
spiritualities of your soul to life. I would bid you recall all you have ever
known and hoped of the love of God, all you have ever felt of the
imperativeness of the good Life. And with these ideas consciously in your mind
look out on nature for that which shall symbolise them, and so make them more
clear and more beautiful to your soul. See in the white foam of some spreading
wave an emblem of that purity that is so earnestly to be desired. See in the
anemone that clings to the rock a suggestion of the tenacity with which you
should hold to the bedrock of moral principle that is your spiritual safety;
and realise that as each tide leaves the anemone the more developed for its
engulfing, so, though faithfulness to principle means a whelming beneath waves
of trouble, yet shall you grow the more spiritually strong what time the waters
of affliction compass you round about. If you go into the country, and walk
through the fields white to harvest, think of Him who walked as you two
thousand years ago. And as you realise that their beauty is the sacrifice of
the earth that men may Live, remember Him who died in the very summer of His
manhood, that Life everlasting might be ours. “O loving God, if Thou art so
lovely in Thy creatures, how lovely must Thou be in Thyself.” It is to the
reverent soul and the devout mind that nature yields a Gospel. (J. G.
Stevenson.)
After the holiday
St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 14:10) says, “There
are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and no kind is without
signification.” He means, I suppose, that God has many ways of teaching men. It
may be that there is a teacher for every faculty--for every avenue into the
soul. A teacher for the ear--“holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost.” A teacher for the eye--for we are bidden by the Great Teacher to lift
up our eyes and look on the fields, the flowers, the birds, the corn. In this
age of much printing and many books, we too often think that we are learning
only when we are reading. A man is regarded as a student who is always poring
over books. But there were great students before there were books. Books are
only transcripts of things, or if they are not they ought to be--records of
what their authors saw or heard, or felt or imagined; and their value is in proportion
to their fidelity to the sights, sounds, feelings, imaginations which
proceeded. So that highly as we should value books, there are things more
valuable--teachers greater than books. The earth is a greater, more reliable,
more inspiring teacher than any books about her. The greatest learn of the
earth itself. Sir Isaac Newton learnt of the earth more than of books. Charles
Darwin spent his days in contact with nature far more than in his library. And
the Great Teacher, Jesus Christ, felt this. I think He was a greater student of
things than of books. And whilst He pointed men to the law and the prophets, He
also pointed them to the earth as their teacher. His word “consider,” in such
passages as “Consider the lilies of the field,” Consider the ravens,” implies
careful observation and reflection. As most of you know, I have been among the
mountains, and these have chiefly been my teachers.
1. Now, how has all this beauty come into being? By delicate and
gentle methods, such as the artist’s when he paints a picture? No, the very
reverse of this has been the case. All this glory of form and colour is the
result of the mightiest forces--forces which seemed to be only
destructive--which no one would have thought tended to beauty; but they have.
The glory of the mountains is the result of a mighty struggle. They are not the
children of peace, but of a sword. And is it not so in life? The beauty of
holiness--how is that wrought, by peaceful, quiet means, by “the rest and be
thankful” method? No, by a similar strife. Just as God moulds these great
mountains by forces that seem only destructive, so He moulds human life by
means that seem cruel, but are not--by difficulty, by adversity, by loss, by
sorrow, by things from which we shrink. But if these were taken out of life,
how poor a set of beings we should be. The struggle which made the mountains
was of long duration. Geology used to regard the earth as thrown into its
present form by great and sudden upheavals. It is now generally admitted that
the method was far slower and more gradual. And is it not so with the glory of
character? That is not the child of one sharp, sudden, decisive struggle,
though such may have contributed to its formation, but of long-continued strife
against evil and long-continued pursuit of good. It is by the patient
continuance in well-being that the prize of eternal life is won. We cry, Are we
never to rest on our arms--never to repose in our tents--never utter the
victor’s shout? Were it so the glory would be gone from life. Life would become
dull and commonplace. The glory of life is in the conflict!
2. The mountains tell us not to judge by appearance. Few things are
more deceptive in appearance than mountains. They belong to a land of illusion.
You look at a great mountain like Mont Blanc, and to climb it seems only like a
morning’s walk across the snow. Some of the peaks near it which are far
lower--some by thousands of feet--look as high or even higher. It is not till
you bring the telescope to your aid that you realise the vastness of its
height. The earth teaches no lesson more strongly than this, “Judge not by
appearance.” Appearances nearly always mislead. Is it not so in the human
realm? Here appearances conceal quite as often as they reveal. I once had a
very sharp lesson on this point. I was at a conversazione, and noticed a man
whose head and face were guiltless of the smallest scrap of hair. You know the
look this gives. I said to a friend near me, “Who is that idiot?” He replied,
“Professor, the great authority on international law.” I have never forgotten
that incident. Since then I have remembered that the jewel may be in the leaden
rather than the golden casket.
3. The earth teaches us that there are things beyond description.
Beyond description in words, beyond description even in painting. Leslie
Stephen, one of the most renowned of Alpine climbers, in a recent book says,
“He has seen, and tried for years to tell, how he is impressed by his beloved
scenery, and annoyed by his own bungling whenever he has tried to get beyond arithmetical
statements of hard geographical facts.” With an envious sort of feeling he
tells how Tennyson, who had never been higher than 7000 feet, was able to
accomplish, through the genius of the poet, what he, with his far larger
knowledge of the Alps, had never been able to do. He refers to a four-line
stanza, which describes Monte Rosa as seen from the roof of Milan Cathedral, as
really describing mountain glory. Here are the lines -
How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair
Was Monte Rosa hanging there;
A thousand shadowy-pencilled valleys,
And snowy dales in golden air.
That is lovely, but even that would give no idea, to one who had
never seen, of the surpassing glory of that great mountain. Here lies the
preacher’s difficulty. He has to speak of that which is beyond language to
express. Even the apostles felt this difficulty, and so they spoke of a “peace
which passeth understanding,” of “a joy unspeakable and full of glory”; of “the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” But what eye cannot see, or ear hear,
or the heart conceive, God reveals by His Spirit. (W. G. Horder.)
The discipline of life
Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee of God; of order; of
man; of thyself. It cannot teach thee more. Consult the higher Teacher. Two
kinds of agency enter into the discipline of life. There are first the elements
that constitute the matter of life itself. These elements are such as make the
inward and outward history of the individual being: parentage, education,
examples, tendencies and temperaments. The matter which makes the history of
life continues always to be an influence of life. The course of our studies,
the activity of our business, the nature of our opinions, and of our
friendships, the force of our affections, our health and sickness, our success
or failure, our poverty or wealth, or ideas of poverty and wealth--all, in
fact, that makes the sum of our being, physical, social, moral, and spiritual.
The second kind of agency is that which we exercise of ourselves, and upon
ourselves. A man is thus both the object and the agent of his own discipline.
This kind of discipline cannot be too early begun, it cannot be too late
continued. It may be too long deferred. It is by this agency of ourselves that
we turn all things to account, that we make them our true property. But what is
this discipline to act on? What is any education to act on, but on the human
being, on the soul and its manifestations, on thought, on feeling, on habit, on
conduct? It requires some discipline to think, in the true sense, at all.
Whenever a real thought is born, it first meets with resistance, but when
accepted, soon becomes a tradition. Feeling not under the guidance of thought
is but blind impulse, and habits growing out of such impulse, even if
blameless, become only mechanical routine. What is life for? The end of
discipline is to make life that for which it is given. By deciding what that
is, we determine at once the purpose of life, and the direction of its
culture--moral and spiritual. Life, then, is for action, for work; for action
and for work in the order of duty and of goodness. (Henry Giles.)
The harvest
Each season has its appropriate moral. Each lays upon us its own
solemn obligation and duty. From a general and even a cursory sketch of the
outward world, everyone must confess that the Almighty Maker of all things is a
being of infinite benevolence and goodness. In connection with this fact of His
benevolence, we must also feel our own constant dependence upon His bounty.
There is incessant illustration of Divine providence. We cannot but view the
constant reproduction of sustenance for mankind as a strong argument for
Christian cheerfulness. But the facts of the harvest teach us, both in
reference to our temporal affairs, and the more important concerns that relate
to our everlasting salvation--where God operates, man must cooperate. “Speak to
the earth, and it shall teach thee.” As we watch the anxious husbandman placing
his corn seed into the ground, let every soul that is anxious for the spiritual
improvement of those around it take courage. “In due time he shall reap, if he
faint not.” Let our thoughts pass from the present life, which we spend here on
earth as a shadow, unto that day, which cannot be far from any, when we
ourselves shall be, in our bodies, sown for the great harvest of the assembled
universe. That sowing cannot be contemplated by anyone without sensations of
the profoundest awe and interest. (Thomas Jackson, M. A.)
Whispers of the spring
The argument of the patriarch is based on the fact that the hand
of God is to be traced everywhere in nature and in human life. The words of the
text are a striking expression of the truth that--
I. The earth is a
material symbol of spiritual ideas. This thought has ever been dear to
spiritual minds. They have loved to trace in visible nature suggestions
regarding the invisible. It was preeminently characteristic of the Hebrews that
they associated God with all natural phenomena. When Christ came He added
intensity to the idea by connecting God with all natural life in its most
commonplace as in its grandest manifestations. So the idea took possession of
the Christian Church that nature and Scripture are but two pages of one
revelation.
II. It is for us to
interpret its symbolism and find its hidden meanings. Restrict attention to
lessons suggested by the returning spring. What whisperings of hope, of trust,
of joy may the inner ear catch as we speak to the earth in this season of its
re-creation.
1. Speak, and it will teach thee of its Author. We see everywhere the
operation of a marvellous power. Everywhere life and beauty are manifesting
themselves. You may find secondary causes to explain the phenomena, but at last
you are driven to the necessity of recognising one great first cause.
2. Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee of God’s superabounding
care for the lowliest forms of life. The lowliest forms are shaped with the
same care, and adorned with the same profusion that belong to the mightiest
creations of God.
3. Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee that God means our
human life to be bright and joyous. God recognises our innate sense of beauty,
the imagination, the heart, with its chambers of imagery, and He makes appeal
to this sense in the loveliness with which this spring season adorns the earth.
Be not afraid of joy and brightness in life; they are no foes of a true
spirituality.
4. Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee lessons of hopefulness.
III. Speak then to
the earth.
1. Hold frequent communion with nature. Such a habit expands the mind
and refines the feelings.
2. Bring to the study of nature a spiritual heart. The “dry light of
reason” is not enough if you would hear the subtlest whispers of nature’s
voice.
3. Connect, as Christ did, all nature with God. He is the centre and
all-pervading Spirit. Without the Divine idea nature is a harp from which the
strings have been taken, a riddle to which there is no answer, a mystery
without possibility of solution. (James Legge, M. A.)
Man and nature
In this age of bustle and toil, when the time set apart for quiet
meditation and real recreation is so limited, we feel the more indebted to
nature for the comforting cheer she brings us. One of the saddest things about
our modern civilisation is that so many thousands of our fellow creatures have so
little opportunity for obtaining instruction and pleasure from the sights and
sounds of nature. The world of nature is in a very real sense our other self.
When we stretch out our hands we feel her; we open our eyes and behold her; and
her voices fill our ears. Our flesh is made of her dust; our nerves quiver with
her energy; our blood is red with the life drawn from her bosom. In us is the
principle of life, but in the surrounding world of nature are the conditions of
that life. “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.” With how many voices
does she speak to us. The world of nature is like its God, entire wherever we
see a touch of His finger, whole in every one of its parts. In our own thoughts
we detect irregularity, uncertainty, and imperfection; but in nature all is
regular, blameless, and perfect. We can never sufficiently admire the
perfection and harmony of nature’s works; even the lowest and smallest
organisms, or the most delicate parts of these, like the fertilising parts of
plants, are carried out with an infinite care and untiring labour, as if this
particular part of nature were the only part, and that upon it she had been
free to expend all her art and all her power. She never tires, never bungles
her work. Not once or twice has she produced her masterpieces of workmanship,
but myriads of times. And the same ideal perfection is to be found
everywhere--perfection infinitely repeated. The abundance of natural beauty
invites our most serious contemplation and presses itself upon our consideration.
Disclosing itself to our view it will, almost without fail, deliver us from the
care and anxiety of the moment. It will lift us out of present selfishness or
foreboding fears and place us in a state of quiet rest. This is why a man who
is tormented by passion or deep sorrow is revived and restored and sent on his
way stronger in hope and abler for the duties of the day and hour by contact
with nature. Nature is meant to minister to us, to contribute to our inward
help and healing. There is as much Divine purpose in the coming of the seasons
as in the recurrence of our daily duties, burdens, and temptations. God made
the earth for the nurture of our spirits as well as for the support of our
bodies. Can we with the eye of sense look at the heavens above us, and with the
eye of faith pierce the external blue, and believe that the God who lives in
the universe is a Being who has ears, but heareth not; who has eyes, but seeth
not; who has a heart, but knows nothing of the wants and the needs of that
broken heart of ours? This earth has not been framed by a mere utilitarian on
the principle of feeding and clothing so many million consumers, but with
regard also to soul, to provide the inner eye scenes of beauty and sublimity,
to train our spirits to thought above dead matter by the spiritual forms with
which matter is clothed, to lift us up from the dull content of animal
existence to thoughts of illimitable freedom and range. We do not go to nature
as constantly, intelligently, and earnestly as we should do. We do not resort
to her as a teacher sent from God, as a great revealer of Divine truth. And yet
we may hear the Divine voice in nature if we open our ears to her message. That
voice was forever in the ears of the Psalmist; he heard God’s voice in the
hurricane and in the calm. And the reason why we today do not hear God speaking
to us in nature is that we allow the murmur of the world to stifle the whisper
of heaven. To hold silent communings with the silent God in nature we must
leave the bustle of the world behind us. We have come to regard mere bustle as
so essential an element of human life that a love of solitude is taken as a
mark of eccentricity. Too much solitude undoubtedly brings too great a
self-consciousness. The hurry and worry of modern life causes shallow thought,
unstable purpose, and wasted energy. The antidote is that silence and
meditation, that communion with nature and our own heart, without which no
great purpose is carried out and no great work is conceived or done. Nature’s
pictures ought to awaken into active life all that is really beautiful in the
sense of man. “Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.” If we cannot paint
her glories or print them upon the speaking pages of a book, we can at least
feel these glories and they should tend to our moral and spiritual elevation.
There seems to be a distinct need in our time for something of the freshness of
natural religion to be infused into our life. To shake ourselves free from
artificial restrictions and restraints to which we ordinarily may be content to
be subjected, to relax all conventional swathings, and to go forth in childlike
liberty and ease and eagerness, is to learn the secret of nature. “Live more
simply and purely in all things” is the message of nature; have intenser faith,
be open-hearted, keep the soul in a quiet, receptive attitude. In no haste
herself, she checks the hurry and fury of our habits and ensures a lofty
calmness. The eagle is said to escape atmospheric tumult by rising into an
upper calm that is always accessible. And, thanks to nature, there are blest
arcadian retreats, easy of access, to all who care to seek for them, where
pictures of wondrous beauty may be impressed upon the mind which for many a day
will form a pleasant and profitable recollection to the beholder. The great
thing is to be sincere and loving, ever thinking of nature as a revelation of
God. Science is apt to give us a strained view of the world and to make us see
only a chain of antecedents and sequences; it is apt to kill the finer and sweeter
aspects of nature; on the other hand, the constant groping in the dust and
grime of the market, and the incessant pursuit of pleasure are liable to
paralyse all noble impulses and aspirations and make us think that the world is
only for ignoble use and comfort. We must learn to look with Christ’s eyes at
the earth on which we dwell and to see in it the revelation of the life and
movement of the living God. (A. M. Sime.)
Verse 9-10
Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath
wrought this?
God and nature
If one could possibly laugh the laugh of the scornful, surely
there is temptation enough in the teachings of a modern science, and in the
attempt to build up before us a self-created world without God. But we are not
endowed with such a scornful spirit. Modern science is too wonderful, and its
discoveries too fascinating for us to laugh at it. We never dream of suggesting
that a vast edifice crammed with machinery and automatic looms, which can
produce webs of finest texture and perfect design, could possibly have evolved
itself from some primary simple structure. And why should we commit such an
outrage on our common reason, as to suggest that this world, unaided by any
outside hand, could have made itself? But if we add to this evolutionary
theory, the teaching that God may have endowed the materials and life of the
world with an inner spirit of development and adaptation, it would become, at
least, reasonable. No one who is familiar with the types of life on the earth,
and their remarkable history, can fail to perceive that there is in all forms,
even in the lowly fungus and the blade of grass, a certain power of choice and
adaptation. But whence came that power of choice and adaptation? No combination
of chemical elements could make it. None other could impart it than the hand of
a Person. We can observe, too, a wonderful linking together of all the forms of
life from the lowly creature to the highest man, though there are more blanks
in the chain than the links which have been discovered. Yet, how is it possible
for one species to pass on to a higher stage without some external directing
power?
I. The Christian
sees nature as a scientist. As the Christian studies a flower he marks the
secret intelligence which directs every part of it. The embryo in the seed
knows which part of it must descend to the earth, and which part must be raised
up to the heavens. The leaves place themselves at proper intervals, and follow
out their cyclical order. The plant creeps or climbs or shoots upwards with an
intelligent adaptation, and the flowers mix their colours and exhale their
odours to allure the passing bee. A Christian watches all this intelligence in
a flower, and with deeper reason than ever he can add, “God is the maker of
that flower.” The Christian, as he delights in spelling out the arithmetical
principles on which the chemical elements unite, asks who taught them the laws
of their combinations. Or as he takes his stand on the great orbit, and marvels
as he sees planet after planet come up in sublime order, and roll on
majestically in its marked and bounded path, he repeats with deeper conception
his belief in the greatness and power of the Almighty. He can read, too, the
records of the rocks, the story of the fire and water, of the grinding and
building up of the earth’s crust, of life that existed long before the advent
of man. As a scientist he can do all this, but to him it is all the work of
God, who is infinite in His power and duration, who works His great works by
these methods, and in these marvellous ways which science discovers and
unfolds.
II. The Christian
sees nature as a poet. A flower is not a clever piece of machinery of subtle
forces and delicate laws. Beautiful must have been the hands, and beautiful the
thoughts of Him who could, out of gross earth, cause the primrose to make its
petals or the wild briar its tinted flowers. The Christian looks at the flower,
and to him it is a poem written by the hand of God. Even uncouth flowers and
hideous creatures become transformed when looked at in this light, and suggest
far-reaching thoughts of that wisdom which makes things useful as well as
beautiful. It is delightful to have the poet’s eye, and thus to look on God’s
nature. The spiked blade of grass, the curving stalk of corn, the uplifted bole
of the pine, the waving autumn field, and the moving life of the spring, are
the visible lines and measures of a great Divine poem. The crawling worm, the soaring
bird, the chirp of the sparrow, and the melody of the lark, the cows in the
field, and the snake in the grass, all repeat and increase the lines-Earth’s
crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God.
III. The Christian
sees nature as a pantheist. As scientific men, we open up our senses to
impressions from the outer world. As they come in by this way, they spell out
God, the Creator, the Architect, Infinite and Omnipotent. As we open other and
deeper sensibilities, and the charm, the grace, the tenderness, the strength
and life of nature flow in, they write out in measured form God the Ever
Glorious and Wondrous. (J. D. Watters, M. A.)
The hand of the Lord
Nothing can be disposed of without the good pleasure and
providence of God, who hath the life and breath of all creatures, men as well
as others, in His hand. Learn--
1. A providence is not seen and adored in dispensations which do not
please us. When we do not distinctly see and adore providence in ordinary, we
meet with intricate and thorny questions about it.
2. Though men, in their sins, presume to debate and question the
matter of God’s providence, yet they will not get it shifted nor denied.
3. When men turn atheists, and fall a questioning the providence of
God, they ought to be sharply dealt with and refuted. It is the common interest
of saints not to let the providence of God be denied in the faith whereof they
are so often comforted in darkness. And zeal for God should cause them to abhor
any thoughts prejudicial to His glory.
4. As God hath a dominion over all His creatures, particularly over
living things, and man in special, so the study of this dominion will help to
open our eyes to see Him and His providence, and to clear His providence in
every particular.
5. As God’s dominion over every living thing, so, particularly, His
dominion over man is to be studied and improved. Therefore it is particularly
instanced here that the breath of all mankind is in His hand.
6. God’s dominion over man reacheth even to his life, and no less. The
study of this invites us to stand in awe of God. To trust Him in difficulties.
To look upon ourselves, not as made for ourselves, but to be subservient to His
dominion. When we thus submit to and acknowledge His absolute dominion, we
should be without anxiety, as knowing in whose hand we and our concernments
are, and should leave it on Him to give a good account of everything He doeth,
and believe that His actings will be like the worker, who is God, and our God,
though we cannot discern it for the present. (George Hutcheson.)
Everywhere and yet forgotten
There is much temper here, but there is very much also of good
common sense. Job wished to show that the fact of the presence of God in all
things was so clearly discernible that men need not borrow the eagle’s wing to
mount to heaven, nor need they enter into the bowels of Leviathan to find a
chariot wherein to enter the depths of the sea.
I. The present
hand of God upon everything.
1. This is one of the doctrines which men believe, but are constantly
forgetting.
2. This is a fact of universal force.
3. A truth worthy of perpetual remembrance.
II. Our absolute
dependence upon a present God at this very moment.
1. Our life is entirely dependent upon God.
2. So are our comforts.
3. So is the power to enjoy those comforts. If this be true
concerning temporals, how doubly true is it with regard to spiritual things.
There is no Christian grace which has in it a particle of self-existence.
III. Lessons from
this subject. Child of God, see where thou art. Thou art completely in the hand
of God. Thou art absolutely and entirely, and in every respect, placed at the
will and disposal of Him who is thy God. Art thou grieved because of this? Does
this doctrine trouble thee? Let your conversation be as becometh this doctrine.
Speak of what thou wilt do, and of what will happen, always in respect to the
fact that man proposes, but God disposes. To the sinner we say, Man, you are in
the hand of God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Divine domination
I. A sense of our
own extreme insignificance.
II. A consciousness
of our absolute dependence. II we are in God’s hands, He can do with us as He
will.
III. A mighty
influence in life and behaviour. It impresses us with a feeling of--
1. Intense humility.
2. Great thankfulness.
3. Earnest effort. Effort to develop our moral nature.
IV. A readiness to
acquiesce in all the dispensations of so great a being. (J. J. S. Bird.)
Verses 13-25
Behold, He breaketh down.
Job’s maxims
Perhaps Job uses this lofty language concerning God for two
reasons.
1. To show that he could speak as grandly of the Eternal as his
friends had spoken.
2. To show that he had as correct and extensive a view of God’s
agency as they had. He gives them here at least six different ideas of God’s
agency.
I. That it is
active both in the mental and the moral world.
II. That it is
destructive as well as restorative. “Behold, He breaketh down, and it cannot be
built again.”
III. That it extends
to individuals as well as to communities. “He shutteth up a man, and there can
be no opening.”
IV. That it is
absolutely sovereign and resistless.
V. That it
operates in the unseen, as well as in the visible. “He discovereth deep things
out of darkness,” etc.
VI. That it in no
case appears to recognise moral distinctions among men. Not a word does Job
here say about the righteous and the wicked in relation to God’s agency. His
object being to show that God did not treat man on the ground of moral
character. (Homilist.)
Verse 20
Taketh away the understanding of the aged.
Insanity
The text is part of an address in which Job enumerates a variety
of events in which, more or less prominently, the interference of Divine
providence was to be traced.
I. The peculiar
dispensation which the text brings before us. Job is not stating here a general
rule of the Divine procedure, but only alluding to an event of occasional
occurrence.
1. The nature of the calamity referred to. It deals with the mind.
The operations of the mind are deranged and disabled. This is the heaviest
calamity to which human nature is subject. We cannot conceive of a more
pitiable object than a man bereft of understanding.
2. The subject of the calamity. “The aged.” Not exclusively. It often
overtakes persons in the meridian of life.
3. The author of the calamity. In some cases the individual himself,
by evil propensities. Sometimes the loss of understanding is occasioned by the
conduct of others. The Divine interference must be recognised as permitting the
calamity, but in the text it is treated as the occasion of it. It may be a part
of that plan which God has formed, in unerring wisdom and infinite love, as
best calculated to secure the attainment of His benevolent designs.
II. Some probable
reasons for which such dispensations may occur. The understanding may sometimes
be taken away--
1. As a just penalty for a perverted and injurious use of the
intellectual faculties. Scripture teaches that we may often calculate on the
loss of a privilege as the just penalty of its abuse; nor can human reason
question the propriety of this.
2. To exhibit, in the most striking manner, human frailty, and the
entire dependence of all upon God Himself. We can scarcely conceive of any case
which so forcibly impresses us with these truths.
3. As a means of important instruction and salutary discipline to
those more immediately connected with the sufferers.
4. To show the danger of procrastination on the subject of personal
religion. How many persons are satisfying themselves in a present neglect of
the soul and eternity, under a determination to regard these points more
seriously in advancing years! But they cannot be sure of the continued exercise
of those mental faculties, the continuance of which would be essential to
carrying their salutary resolutions into effect. (Essex Congregational
Remembrancer.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》