Job 7:20 Komentář

Job, in this chapter, goes on to express the bitter sense he had of his calamities and to justify himself in his desire of death. I. He complains to himself and his friends of his troubles, and the constant agitation he was in (Job 7:1-6). II. He turns to God, and expostulates with him (Job 7:7, to the end), in which, 1. He pleads the final period which death puts to our present state (Job 7:7-10). 2. He passionately complains of the miserable condition he was now in (Job 7:11-16). 3. He wonders that God will thus contend with him, and begs for the pardon of his sins and a speedy release out of his miseries (Job 7:17-21). It is hard to methodize the speeches of one who owned himself almost desperate, Job 6:26.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 7 In this chapter Job goes on to defend himself in an address to God; as that he had reason to complain of his extraordinary afflictions, and wish for death; by observing the common case of mankind, which he illustrates by that of an hireling, Job 7:1; and justifies his eager desire of death by the servant and hireling; the one earnestly desiring the shadow, and the other the reward of his work, Job 7:2; by representing his present state as exceeding deplorable, even worse than that of the servant and hireling, since they had rest at night, when he had none, and were free from pain, whereas he was not, Job 7:3; by taking notice of the swiftness and shortness of his days, in which he had no hope of enjoying any good, Job 7:6; and so thought his case hard; and the rather, since after death he could enjoy no temporal good: and therefore to be deprived of it while living gave him just reason of complaint, Job 7:8; and then he expostulates with God for setting such a strict watch upon him; giving him no ease night nor day, but terrifying him with dreams and visions, which made life disagreeable to him, and death more eligible than that, Job 7:12; and represents man as unworthy of the divine regard, and below his notice to bestow favours on him, or to chastise him for doing amiss, Job 7:17; and admitting that he himself had sinned, yet he should forgive his iniquity, and not bear so hard upon him, and follow him with one affliction after another without intermission, and make him the butt of his arrows; but should spare him and let him alone, or however take him out of the world, Job 7:19.

I have sinned,.... Some render it, "if I have sinned" (w); be it so that I have, as my friends say, yet since there is forgiveness with thee, why should I be so afflicted as I am? but there is no need of such a supplement, the words are an affirmation, I have sinned, or I am a sinner; not that he owned that he had been guilty of any notorious sin, or had lived a sinful course of life, on account of which his afflictions came upon him, as his friends suggested; but that he was not without sin, was daily guilty of it, as men, even the best of men, ordinarily are; and being a sinner was not a match for a holy God; he could not contend with him, nor answer him for one sin of a thousand committed by him in thought, word, or deed; and therefore desires him to desist and depart from him, see Luk 5:8, what shall I do unto thee? this he said, not as one in distress of mind on account of sin, and under the load of the guilt of it, inquiring what he must do to make satisfaction for it, how and what way he could be saved from it; for he knew that nothing done by him in a ceremonial way by sacrifices, nor in a moral way by the performance of duties, could take away sin, or atone for it, or save him from it; he knew this was only by his living Redeemer, and whom he knew and determined should be his salvation, and he only; see Job 9:30; but rather as it may be rendered, "what can or ought I do unto thee?" (x) that is, more than I have done, namely, to confess my sin unto thee; what more dost thou require of me? or what more can be done by me, than to repent of my sin, acknowledge it, and beg pardon for it? as he does in Job 7:21, or "what can I do unto thee?" thou art all over match for me, I cannot struggle and contend with thee, a sinful man with an holy God: O thou preserver of men? as he is in a providential way, the supporter of men in their lives and beings; or, "O thou keeper of men" (y), as he is, not only of Israel, but of all others, and that night and day; perhaps Job may refer to his setting and keeping a watch over him, Job 7:12; and enclosing and hedging him all around with afflictions, so that he could not get out of the world as he desired; or, "O thou observer of men" (z), of their words, ways, works, and actions, and who kept such a strict eye upon him while wrestling with him, and therefore what could he do? or, "O thou Saviour of men" (a), by whom only I can be saved from the sins I have been and am daily guilty of: why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? as a butt to shoot thine arrows at, one affliction after another, thick and fast, see Job 16:12 Lam 3:12; the words I think may be rendered, "why hast thou appointed me to meet thee", or "for a meeting with thee?" (b) as one man challenge, another to meet him in such a place and fight him: alas! I am not equal to thee, I am a mere worm, not able to contend with thee the mighty God, or to meet thee in the way of thy judgments, and to endure the heavy strokes of thy angry hand; and so Bar Tzemach paraphrases it,"thou hast hated me, and not loved me; that thou hast set, or appointed me to meet thee, as a man meets his enemy in the time of his wrath, and he stirs up against him all his fury:''and to the same sense, and much in the same words, Jarchi interprets it: so that I am a burden to myself? weary of his life, through the many pressing and heavy afflictions upon him, as Rebekah was of hers, because of the daughters of Heth, Gen 27:46. The reading which we follow, and is followed by the Targum, and by most interpreters, Jewish and Christian, is a correction of the scribes, and one of the eighteen places corrected by them; which is no argument of the corruption of the Hebrew text, but of the contrary; since this was only placed in the margin of the Bible, as the Masorites afterwards did with their various readings, showing only what was their sense of this, and the like passages; and as an instruction how in their opinion to understand them, still retaining the other reading or writing; and which, according to Aben Ezra, may be rightly interpreted, and is, "so that I am a burden to thee" (c); and which is followed by some, signifying, as Job thought at least, that he was so offensive to him that he could not bear him, but treated him as an enemy; was weary of him, as God is said to be of sinners and their sins, and of the services and duties of carnal professors, see Isa 1:14; so Abendana interprets it,"thou hast set me for a mark unto thee, as if I was a burden to thee.'' (w) Vatablus, Drusius, Schmidt; so Sept. Syr. & Ar. (x) "quid faciam aut facere possum tibi", Michaelis; "debeam", Schmidt. (y) "custos hominum". V. L. Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus. (z) "Observator", Schultens. (a) "Sospitatur", Codurcus; "servator", Drusius, Schmidt, Michaelis. Vid. Witsii Oeconom. Foeder. l. 4. c. 3. sect. 30. (b) "in occursum tibi", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Drusius. (c) , Sept. "et tibi", Beza, Grotius.

What does Job mean when he says, “What shall I be able to do for you?” What should I do in order to expiate my fault, in order to be reconciled with you? “O you who understand the human mind, why did you make me to be your accuser?” Job speaks this way not because he accuses God—God forbid!—but because what has happened to him raises a serious accusation against God. That is why he says, “You who understand the human mind.” Even if they do not speak, you know their secret thoughts and all their intimate reflections, “such a righteous man has suffered such tremendous misfortunes!” But Job does not have the attitude of a man who tries to justify himself. In fact, he has not said, “I am righteous.” Rather, they are deeply concerned about me, and that is why they have complained against you because of my trials.

I have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee, O Thou Preserver of men? Observe how he confesses the ill that he has done, but the good that he should present to God in compensation, he no where can find, in that all virtue whatever of human practice is without power to wash out the guilt of sin, except His mercifulness in sparing foster it, and not His justice in judging press hard upon it. Whence it is well said by the Psalmist, Because Thy mercy is better than the life; in that howsoever innocent it may seem to be, yet with the strict Judge our life doth not set us free, if the lovingkindness of His mercy loose not to it the debt of its guilt. Or indeed when it is said, What shall I do unto Thee? it is plainly, shewn us that those very good things, which we are commanded to practise, are not a gain to Him that imposes the command, but to ourselves. Whence it is said again by the Psalmist, My goodness extendeth not unto Thee. Now the abjectness of our destitution is set forth, when God is called the 'Preserver of men,' in that if His preserving hand defend us not in the face of the snares of the secret adversary, the eye of our heedfulness sleeps on watch, as the Psalmist again bears record, who saith, Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. For it is through ourselves, that we have been brought to the ground, but to rise again by our own strength is beyond our ability. The fault of our own will laid us low once, but the punishment of our fault sinks us worse day by day. We strive by the efforts of our earnest endeavours, to lift ourselves to the uprightness we have lost, but we are kept down by the weight of our just dues. And hence it is fitly added, Why hast Thou set me opposite to Thee, so that I am a burthen to myself? Then did God 'set man opposite to Him,' when man forsook God by sinning. For being taken captive by the persuasions of the Serpent, he became the enemy of Him, Whose precepts he despised. But the righteous Creator 'set man opposite to Himself,' in that He accounted him an enemy by pride. And this very oppositeness of sin is itself made a weight of punishment to man, that he being wrongly free, might serve his own corruption, who while serving rightly exulted in the freedom of incorruption. For quitting the healthful stronghold of humility, he was brought by growing proud to the yoke of infirmity, and in erecting only bowed down the neck of the heart, in that he who refused to submit to the behests of God, prostrated himself beneath his own necessities; which we shall shew the better, if we set forth those burthens, first of the flesh and afterwards of the spirit, which he is made subject to after being cast down to the ground. For to say nothing of this, that he is liable to pains, that he gasps with fever; the very state of our body, which is called health, is straitened by its own sickness. For it wastes with idleness, it faints with work; failing with not eating, it is refreshed by food so as to hold up; going heavily with sustenance, it is relieved by abstinence, so as to be vigorous; it is bathed in water, not to be dry; it is wiped with towels, not by that very bathing to be too wet; it is enlivened by labour, that it may not be dulled by repose; it is refreshed by repose, that it faint not under the exertion of labour; worn with watching, it is recruited by sleep; oppressed with sleep, it is roused to activity by watching, lest it be worse wearied by its own rest; it is covered with clothing, lest it be pierced by the hardship of cold; fainting under the heat it sought, it is invigorated by the blowing of the air. And whereas it meets with annoyances from the very quarter whence it sought to shelter itself from annoyances, being badly wounded, so to say, it sickens by its own cure. Therefore fevers set aside and pains not in action, our very breath itself is sickness, whereunto there is never wanting the necessity of administering a cure. Since whatever the comforts we seek out for occasion of life, we as it were meet with so many medicines of our sickness; but the very medicine itself too is turned into a sore, in that attaching ourselves a little too long to the remedy we sought, we are more brought down in that which we prudently provide for our refreshment. Thus was presumption to be amended, thus was pride to be laid low. For whereas we once took to us a high spirit, so every day we carry the mud that runneth down. Our very mind too itself being banished from the secure delight of interior secresy, is now beguiled by hope, now tormented by fear; one while cast down by grief, at another time made light by a false mirth; it obstinately attaches itself to transitory objects, and is continually afflicted by the loss of them, in that it is also continually undergoing change by a course that carries it away; and being made subject to things changeable, it is also made to be at odds with its own self. For seeking what it has not got, it anxiously obtains it, and so soon as it has begun to possess the same, is sick of having obtained what it sought after. Oftentimes it loves what it once despised, and despises what, it used to love. It learns by dint of pains what are the things of eternity, but it forgets them in a moment, if it cease to take pains. It takes a long time to seek, that it may find, but a little concerning the things above, but speedily falling, back into its wonted ways, not even for a little space does it hold on in the things it has found. Desiring to be instructed, with difficulty it gets the better of its ignorance, and being so instructed it has a harder contest against the pride of knowledge; with difficulty it subjects to itself the usurping power of its fleshly part, yet it is still subject to the images of sin within, the works whereof it has already in vanquishing bound down without. It raises itself in quest of its Creator, but being thrown back, it is bewildered by the beguiling mist of corporeal attachments. It desires to survey itself, and to see how being incorporeal it bears rule over the body, and it cannot. It asks in a wonderful way what it is unable to answer itself, and remaining ignorant is at a loss under that, which it inquires with a wise purpose. Viewing itself as large and scanty at once, it knows nothing how to form a true estimate of itself, in that if it were not large it would not be seeking matters of so deep enquiry, and again if it were not little, it would at least find that which it asks of itself. Well therefore is it said, Thou hast set me opposite to Thee, so that I am a burthen to myself, in that whilst man being banished is both subject to annoyances in the flesh, and to perplexities in the mind, surely he carries about his own self as a grievous burthen. On every side he is beset with sicknesses, on every side he is hard bestead with infirmities, that he who, having abandoned God, thought to suffice to himself for his repose, might find nought in himself but a turmoil of disquietude, and might try to fly from himself so found, but having set his Creator at nought, might not have where to fly.

Someone could object that Job was unworthy to be spared by God because his sins merit that he be afflicted even more. This follows also from the opinion of Eliphaz who thought that he was scourged because of his sins. So he continues, "I have sinned," as if to say: Given that I have sinned and because of this merited to be afflicted, still there remains a reason why you should spare me. He adds to this three reasons why God should spare him which make reference to the frailty of man. The first is taken from man's powerlessness to make satisfaction. Man can do nothing worthy from his own powers to compensate for the offense which he committed against God. This is what he means when he says, "What will I do for you, O guardian of men?" as if to say: If you have such great care for man as if you were their watchman that you require an accounting of their individual acts, my powers are not sufficient to perform some act for which you will remit my sins. If then this is expected, you would never spare me and so please spare me despite this powerlessness. The second reason is taken from the powerlessness of man to persevere. For man cannot persevere after the corruption of human nature without the grace of God, and so it is customary even in Sacred Scripture to say that God hardens someone or blinds someone in the sense that he does not bestow the grace on him by which he may be softened and see. Job speaks here in this way saying, "Why do you pit me against you?" that is, Why did you not give me the grace of perseverance in this matter so that I might not be opposed to you by sin? For whoever sins is opposed to God, since he spurns the divine commandments which are either handed down in the written Law or naturally inscribed in human reason. Note that reason is the strongest of all the powers of the soul. A sign of this strength is that reason commands the other powers and uses them for its own end. Yet it happens that reason is somewhat absorbed at times by concupiscence, anger, or the other passions of the lower part of the soul and so a man sins. Nevertheless, the lower passions cannot hold reason bound, but rather reason always returns to its nature by which it tends to spiritual goods as its own proper end. Therefore, a kind of struggle goes on even of man against himself when reason resists him because he has sinned absorbed either by concupiscence or anger. Since a tendency to similar acts has been added to the lower powers from past sins as a result of habit, reason cannot freely make use of the lower powers to order them to higher goods or withdraw them from lower ones. Thus man becomes a burden even to himself in being opposed to God through sin. He shows this by saying, "Why have I become a burden to myself?" One sees in this that sin has its own punishment immediately. So too after this punishment, it seems man should be spared more easily.

The value of a good name, Ecc 7:1. Advantages of sorrow and correction, Ecc 7:2-5. The emptiness of a fool's joy, Ecc 7:6. Of oppression, Ecc 7:7. The end better than the beginning, Ecc 7:8. Against hastiness of spirit, Ecc 7:9. Comparison of former and present times, Ecc 7:10. Excellence of wisdom, Ecc 7:11, Ecc 7:12. Of the dispensations of Providence, Ecc 7:13-15. Against extremes, Ecc 7:16-18. The strength of wisdom, Ecc 7:19. Man is ever liable to sin and mistake, Ecc 7:20. We should guard our words, Ecc 7:21, Ecc 7:22. Difficulty of obtaining wisdom, Ecc 7:23-25, A bad woman dangerous, Ecc 7:26. There are few who are really upright, Ecc 7:27-29.

I have sinned; what shall I do - Dr. Kennicott contends that these words are spoken to Eliphaz, and not to God, and would paraphrase them thus: "You say I must have been a sinner. What then? I have not sinned against thee, O thou spy upon mankind! Why hast thou set up me as a butt or mark to shoot at? Why am I become a burden unto thee? Why not rather overlook my transgression, and pass by mine iniquity? I am now sinking to the dust! To-morrow, perhaps, I shall be sought in vain!" See his vindication of Job at the end of these notes on this book. Others consider the address as made to God. Taken in this light, the sense is plain enough. Those who suppose that the address is made to God, translate the Job 7:20 thus: "Be it that I have sinned, what injury can I do unto thee, O thou Observer of man? Why hast thou set me up as a mark for thee, and why am I made a burden to thee?" The Septuagint is thus: Ει εγω ἡμαρτον, τι δυνησομαι πραξαι, ὁ επισταμενος τον νουν των ανθρωπων; If I have sinned, what can I do, O thou who knowest the mind of men? Thou knowest that it is impossible for me to make any restitution. I cannot blot out my offenses; but whether I have sinned so as to bring all these calamities upon me, thou knowest, who searchest the hearts of men.

JOB EXCUSES HIS DESIRE FOR DEATH. (Job 7:1-21) appointed time--better, "a warfare," hard conflict with evil (so in Isa 40:2; Dan 10:1). Translate it "appointed time" (Job 14:14). Job reverts to the sad picture of man, however great, which he had drawn (Job 3:14), and details in this chapter the miseries which his friends will see, if, according to his request (Job 6:28), they will look on him. Even the Christian soldier, "warring a good warfare," rejoices when it is completed (Ti1 1:18; Ti2 2:3; Ti2 4:7-8).

I have sinned--Yet what sin can I do against ("to," Job 35:6) thee (of such a nature that thou shouldst jealously watch and deprive me of all strength, as if thou didst fear me)? Yet thou art one who hast men ever in view, ever watchest them--O thou Watcher (Job 7:12; Dan 9:14) of men. Job had borne with patience his trials, as sent by God (Job 1:21; Job 2:10); only his reason cannot reconcile the ceaseless continuance of his mental and bodily pains with his ideas of the divine nature. set me as a mark--Wherefore dost thou make me thy point of attack? that is, ever assail me with new pains? [UMBREIT] (Lam 3:12).

20 Have I sinned - what could I do to Thee?! O Observer of men, Why dost Thou make me a mark to Thee, And am I become a burden to Thee? 21 And why dost Thou not forgive my transgression, And put away my iniquity? For now I will lay myself in the dust, And Thou seekest for me, and I am no more. "I have sinned" is hypothetical (Ges. 155, 4, a): granted that I have sinned. According to Ewald and Olsh., אפעל־לך מה defines it more particularly: I have sinned by what I have done to Thee, in my behaviour towards Thee; but how tame and meaningless such an addition would be! It is an inferential question: what could I do to Thee? i.e., what harm, or also, since the fut. may be regulated by the praet.: what injury have I thereby done to Thee? The thought that human sin, however, can detract nothing from the blessedness and glory of God, underlies this. With a measure of sinful bitterness, Job calls God האדם נצר, the strict and constant observer of men, per convicium fere, as Gesenius not untruly observes, nevertheless without a breach of decorum divinum (Renan: O Espion de l'homme), since the appellation, in itself worthy of God (Isa 27:3), is used here only somewhat unbecomingly. מפגּע is not the target for shooting at, which is rather מטּרה (Job 16:12; Lam 3:12), but the object on which one rushes with hostile violence (בּ פּגע). Why, says Job, hast Thou made me the mark of hostile attack, and why am I become a burden to Thee? It is not so in our text; but according to Jewish tradition, עלי, which we now have, is only a סופרים תקון, correctio scribarum, (Note: Vid., the Commentary on Habakkuk, S. 206-208; comp. Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, S. 308ff.) for אליך, which was removed as bordering on blasphemy: why am I become a burden to Thee, so that Thou shouldest seek to get rid of me? This reading I should not consider as the original, in spite of the tradition, if it were not confirmed by the lxx, εἰμὶ δὲ ἐπὶ σοὶ φορτίον. It is not to be objected, that he who is fully conscious of sin cannot consider the strictest divine punishment even of the smallest sin unjust. The suffering of one whose habitual state is pleasing to God, and who is conscious of the divine favour, can never be explained from, and measured according to, his infirmities: the infirmities of one who trusts in God, or the believer, and the severity of the divine justice in the punishment of sin, have no connection with one another. Consequently, when Eliphaz bids Job regard his affliction as chastisement, Job is certainly in the wrong to dispute with God concerning the magnitude of it: he would rather patiently yield, if his faith could apprehend the salutary design of God in his affliction; but after his affliction once seems to him to spring from wrath and enmity, and not from the divine purpose of mercy, after the phantom of a hostile God is come between him and the brightness of the divine countenance, he cannot avoid falling into complaint of unmercifulness. For this the speech of Eliphaz is in itself not to blame: he had most feelingly described to him God's merciful purpose in this chastisement, but he is to blame for not having taken the right tone. The speech of Job is directed against the unsympathetic and reproving tone which the friends, after their long silence, have assumed immediately upon his first manifestation of anguish. He justifies to them his complaint (ch. 3) as the natural and just outburst of his intense suffering, desires speedy death as the highest joy with which God could reward his piety, complains of his disappointment in his friends, from whom he had expected affectionate solace, but by whom he sees he is now forsaken, and earnestly exhorts them to acknowledge the justice of his complaint (ch. 6). But can they? Yes, they might and should. For Job thinks he is no longer an object of divine favour: an inward conflict, which is still more terrible than hell, is added to his outward suffering. For the damned must give glory to God, because they recognise their suffering as just punishment: Job, however, in his suffering sees the wrath of God, and still is at the same time conscious of his innocence. The faith which, in the midst of his exhaustion of body and soul, still knows and feels God to be merciful, and can call him "my God," like Asaph in Ps 73, - this faith is well-nigh overwhelmed in Job by the thought that God is his enemy, his pains the arrows of God. The assumption is false, but on this assumption Job's complaints (ch. 3) are relatively just, including, what he himself says, that they are mistaken, thoughtless words of one in despair. But that despair is sin, and therefore also those curses and despairing inquiries! Is not Eliphaz, therefore, in the right? His whole treatment is wrong. Instead of distinguishing between the complaint of his suffering and the complaint of God in Job's outburst of anguish, he puts them together, without recognising the complaint of his suffering to be the natural and unblamable result of its extraordinary magnitude, and as a sympathizing friend falling in with it. But with regard to the complaints of God, Eliphaz, acting as though careful for his spiritual welfare, ought not to have met them with his reproofs, especially as the words of one heavily afflicted deserve indulgence and delicate treatment; but he should have combated their false assumption. First, he should have said to Job, "Thy complaints of thy suffering are just, for thy suffering is incomparably great." In the next place, "Thy cursing thy birth, and thy complaint of God who has given thee thy life, might seem just if it were true that God has rejected thee; but that is not true: even in suffering He designs thy good; the greater the suffering, the greater the glory." By this means Eliphaz should have calmed Job's despondency, so as to destroy his false assumption; but he begins wrongly, and consequently what he says at last so truly and beautifully respecting the glorious issue of a patient endurance of chastisement, makes no impression on Job. He has not fanned the faintly burning wick, but his speech is a cold and violent breath which is calculated entirely to extinguish it. After Job has defended the justice of his complaints against the insensibility of the friends, he gives way anew to lamentation. Starting from the wearisomeness of human life in general, he describes the greatness of his own suffering, which has received no such recognition on the part of the friends: it is a restless, torturing death without hope (Job 7:1-6). Then he turns to God: O remember that there is no second life after death, and that I am soon gone for ever; therefore I will utter my woe without restraint (Job 7:7-11). Thus far (from Job 6:1 onwards) I find in Job's speech no trace of blasphemous or sinful despair. When he says (Job 6:8-12), How I would rejoice if God, whose word I have never disowned, would grant me my request, and end my life, for I can no longer bear my suffering, - I cannot with Ewald see in its despair rising to madness, which (Job 7:10) even increases to frantic joy. For Job's disease was indeed really in the eyes of men as hopeless as he describes it. In an incurable disease, however, imploring God to hasten death, and rejoicing at the thought of approaching dissolution, is not a sin, and is not to be called despair, inasmuch as one does not call giving up all hope of recovery despair. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the book of Job is an oriental book, and therefore some allowance must be made of the intensity and strength of conception of the oriental nature: then that it is a poetical book, and that frenzy and madness may not be also understood by the intensified expression in which poetry, which idealizes the real, clothes pain and joy: finally, that it is an Old Testament book, and that in the Old Testament the fundamental nature of man is indeed sanctified, but not yet subdued; the spirit shines forth as a light in a dark place, but the day, the ever constant consciousness of favour and life, has not yet dawned. The desire of a speedy termination of life (Job 6:8-12) is in Job 7:7-11 softened down even to a request for an alleviation of suffering, founded on this, that death terminates life for ever. In the Talmud (b. Bathra, 16, a) it is observed, on this passage, that Job denies the resurrection of the dead (המתים בתחיים איוב שׁכפר מכאן); but Job knows nothing of a resurrection of the dead, and what one knows not, one cannot deny. He knows only that after death, the end of the present life, there is no second life in this world, only a being in Sheôl, which is only an apparent existence = no existence, in which all praise of God is silent, because He no longer reveals himself there as to the living in this world (Psa 6:6; Psa 30:10; Psa 88:11-13; Psa 115:17). From this chaotic conception of the other side of the grave, against which even the psalmists still struggle, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead had not been set forth at the time of Job, and of the author of the book of Job. The restoration of Israel buried in exile (Ezek 37) first gave the impulse to it; and the resurrection of the Prince of Life, who was laid in the grave, set the seal upon it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was first of all the actual overthrow of Hades. Mortis seu inferni, observes Brentius, in accordance with Scriptures, ea conditio est, ut natura sua quoscunque comprehenderit tantisper teneat nec dimittat, dum Christus, filius Dei, morte ad infernum descenderit, h.e. perierit; per hunc enim devicta morte et inferno liberantur quotquot fide renovati sunt. This great change in the destiny of the dead was incomplete, and the better hope which became brighter and brighter as the advent of death's Conqueror drew near was not yet in existence. For if after death, or what is the same thing, after the descent into Shel, there was only a non-existence for Job, it is evident that on the one hand he can imagine a life after death only as a return to the present world (such a return does, however, not take place), on the other hand that no divine revelation said anything to him of a future life which should infinitely compensate for a return to the present world. And since he knows nothing of a future existence, it can consequently not be said that he denies it: he knows nothing of it, and even his dogmatizing friends have nothing to tell him about it. We shall see by and by, how the more his friends torment him, the more he is urged on in his longing for a future life; but the word of revelation, which could alone change desire into hope, is wanting. The more tragic and heart-rending Job's desire to be freed by death from his unbearable suffering is, the more touching and importunate is his prayer that God may consider that now soon he can no longer be an object of His mercy. Just the same request is found frequently in the Psalms, e.g., Psa 89:48, comp. Psa 103:14-16 : it involves nothing that is opposed to the Old Testament fear of God. Thus far we can trace nothing of frenzy and madness, and of despair only in so far as Job has given up the hope (נואשׁ) of his restoration, - not however of real despair, in which a man impatiently and forcibly snaps asunder the bond of trust which unites him to God. If the poet had anywhere made Job to go to such a length in despair, he would have made Satan to triumph over him. Now, however, the last two strophes follow in which Job is hurried forward to the use of sinful language, Job 7:12-16 : Am I a sea or a sea-monster, etc.; and Job 7:17-21 : What is man, that thou accountest him so great, etc. We should nevertheless be mistaken if we thought there were sin here in the expressions by which Job describes God's hostility against himself. We may compare e.g., Lam 3:9, Lam 3:10 : "He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, He hath made any paths crooked; He is to me as a bear lying in wait, a lion in the thicket." It is, moreover, not Job's peculiar sin that he thinks God has changed to an enemy against him; that is the view which comes from his vision being beclouded by the conflict through which he is passing, as is frequently the case in the Psalms. His sin does not even consist in the inquiries, How long? and Wherefore? The Psalms in that case would abound in sin. But the sin is that he dwells upon these doubting questions, and thus attributes apparent mercilessness and injustice to God. And the friends constantly urge him on still deeper in this sin, the more persistently they attribute his suffering to his own unrighteousness. Jeremiah (in Lamentations 3), after similar complaints, adds: Then I repeated this to my heart, and took courage from it: the mercies of Jehovah, they have no end; His compassions do not cease, etc. Many of the Psalms that begin sorrowfully, end in the same way; faith at length breaks through the clouds of doubt. But it should be remembered that the change of spiritual condition which, e.g., in Psa 6:1-10, is condensed to the narrow limits of a lyric composition of eleven verses, is here in Job worked out with dramatical detail as a passage of his life's history: his faith, once so heroic, only smoulders under ashes; the friends, instead of fanning it to a flame, bury it still deeper, until at last it is set free from its bondage by Jehovah himself, who appears in the whirlwind.