Bible Commentaries

Quiet Resting-places

Job 25:4).

Is there not more than theology in that inquiry? Perhaps not to the consciousness of the speaker himself. Yet we often say things which we do not put into definite words. There is a region of inference in human association, and fellowship, and education. Was the inquiry equal to saying, We have done with thee; we cannot work this miracle of curing thine obstinacy, O thou woman-born; thou art like all the rest of thy face; thou hast thy mother's obstinacy in thee—a stubbornness that nothing can melt, or straighten, or in any wise be rendered manageable: how can he be clean that is born of a woman? how can a man such as thou art, and, indeed, such as we ourselves are, be set right if once wrong in the head and in the heart? Bildad did not say all that in words; yet we may so preach even a gospel discourse as to lead men to think that we have formed but a low opinion of them, and have no expectations as to their graciousness of reply. We may be evangelical, yet critical. We may ask a question in a tone which conveys the reply. Bildad would hurl the stars at Job 26:6-13).

Here at all events is a sense of almightiness, sovereignty, something that can be got hold of. We must beware how we credit Job with true astronomical ideas as to the poising of the north over the empty place, and the hanging of the earth upon nothing. Let us call it Hebrew poetry. We must be careful how we seize any one point even that is exact, and make that too much of an argument, because when we come upon points that are not so applicable how can we refuse their being turned as against the biblical contention? There is no need to make this a merely astronomic discovery: but poetry does sometimes outrun science, and get the truth first of all. The expression may have to be dressed a little, modified somewhat, perhaps lowered in temperature; but even poetry is a child of God. The idea that abides is the conception of the almightiness that keeps things in their places. Who can turn the north into the south? Who can take the earth out of the emptiness which it apparently occupies, and set it upon pillars? On what would the pillars stand? How do the stars keep in their courses? Why is it they do not break away? If heaven should come down upon us we should be crushed: what keeps the great, blue, kind heaven up where it Job 26:14).

The man who said that was not left comfortless. Sometimes in our very desolateness we say things so deep and true as to prove that we are not desolate at all, if we were only wise enough to seize the comfort of the very power which sustains us. He who has a great thought has a great treasure. A noble conception is an incorruptible inheritance. Job's idea is that we hear but a whisper. Lo: this is a feeble whispering: the universe is a subdued voice; even when it thunders it increases the whisper inappreciably as to bulk and force: all that is now possible to me, Job would say, is but the hearing of a whisper; but the whisper means that I shall hear more by-and-by; behind the whispering there is a great thundering, a thunder of power; I could not bear it now; the whisper is a gospel, the whisper is an adaptation to my aural capacity; it is enough, it is music, it is the tone of love, it is what I need in my littleness and weariness, in my initial manhood. How many controversies this would settle if it could only be accepted in its entirety! We know in part, therefore we prophesy in part; we see only very little portions of things, therefore we do not pronounce an opinion upon the whole; we hear a whisper, but it does not follow that we can understand the thunder. There is a Christian agnosticism. Why are men afraid to be Christian agnostics? Why should we hesitate to say with patriarchs and apostles, I cannot tell, I do not know; I am blind, and cannot see in that particular direction; I am waiting? What we hear now is a whisper, but a whisper that is a promise. We must let many mysteries alone. No candle can throw a light upon a landscape. We must know just what we are and where we are, and say we are of yesterday, and know nothing when we come into the presence of many a solemn mystery. Yet how much we do know! enough to live upon; enough to go into the world with as fighting men, that we may dispute with error, and as evangelistic men, that we may reveal the gospel. They have taken from us many words which they must bring back again. When Rationalism is restored amongst the stolen vessels of the Church, Agnosticism also will be brought in as one of the golden goblets that belong to the treasure of the sanctuary. We, too, are agnostics: we do not know, we cannot tell; we cannot turn the silence into speech, but we know enough to enable us to wait. Amid all this difficulty of ignorance we hear a voice saying, What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter: I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now: if it were not Job 27:11).

Who is it that proposes to teach? Actually the suffering man himself. The suffering man must always become teacher. Who can teach so well? Now he begins to see a new function in life. Hitherto he has been "my lord." He says,—I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame: when I passed by the elders rose up and saluted me, and young men fled from my path: I was a prince amongst men. The talk was indeed haughty, as became a fine sheik, a gentleman of Eastern lands, overloaded with estates; but now, having passed through all this sorrow, he says, "I will teach you." Not only so, "I will teach you by the hand of God." Sorrow is always eloquent True suffering is always expository, as well as comforting. Have we not seen that there are many chapters of the Bible which a prosperous man cannot read? He can spell them, parse them, pronounce the individual words correctly, but he cannot read them, round them into music, speak them with the eloquence of the heart, utter them with his soul; because they can only be read by the lame and the blind, and the sorrow-laden and the poor: but oh, how they can read them! Keep away the rhetorician from the twenty-third Psalm; the fourteenth chapter of John; the Lord's Prayer. For a man who knows nothing but words to read such passages is blasphemy. Sometimes they cannot be read aloud; they can only be read to the heart by the heart itself. So it is with preaching. Here it is that the older man has a great advantage over the young man. Not that the young man should be deprived of an opportunity of speaking in the time of zeal and prophetic hopefulness. Nothing of the kind. The young man has a work to do, but there are some texts which he must let alone for a good many years; they do not yet belong to him; when he reaches his majority then he will have his property, so to say, given to him, and he can use it in harmony with the donor's will. The young man must be zealous, perhaps efflorescent, certainly enthusiastic, occasionally somewhat eccentric and even wild: but was not Paul himself sometimes a fool in glorying? He would have been a less apostle if he had been a more careful man. He plunged into the great work; he leaped into it, and seemed to say to the sea, O sea, thyself teach me how to swim, that I may come right again to the shore. So we need the young, ardent, fearless, enthusiastic, chivalrous; but at the same time who can teach like the man who has suffered most? He knows all the weight of agony, all the load of grief, all the loneliness of bereavement He tells you how deep was the first grave he dug. Then you begin to think that your grief was not quite so deep as his. He has lost wife, or child, or friend, or property, or health, or hope. He tells how the battle went, how cold the wind was, how tempestuous the storm, how tremendous the foe, how nearly once he was lost, and was saved as by the last and supreme miracle of God. As he talks, you begin to take heart again; from providence you reason to redemption; and thus by help of the suffering teacher the soul revives, and God's blessing comes upon the life. Young persons should be patient with men who are talking out of the depths of their experience. It is sometimes difficult to sit and hear an older man talk about life's battles and life's sorrows, when to the young hearer life is a dream, a holiday, a glad recreation; the ear full of the music of chiming bells, wedding metal clashing out its nuptial music to the willing wind to be carried everywhere, a gospel of festivity and joy. We would not chill you, we would not shorten the feast by one mouthful; but the flowers that bedeck the table are plucked flowers, and when a flower is plucked it dies.

Sorrowing men, broken hearts, souls conscious of loss and desolation, the story of the patriarchs will be lost upon us if we do not apply it to ourselves as a balm, a cordial, a gospel intended for our use and privilege. Risk it all by taking the comfort. But are we worthy of the comfort? Do not attempt too much analysis. There are some things by which analysis is resisted; they say, If you thus take us to pieces you will lose the very thing we meant to convey to you. We have heard of the patience of Job , we have listened to his colloquies with his friends, and seen how they have been puzzled and bewildered; Job has now come into the parabolical period of speech: presently another voice will come across the whole scene—a young voice, bell-like in tone, incisive; a young man who will take up another tone of talk altogether, and then the great whirlwind platform will be erected, and from its lofty heights there will come a tempest of questions; then will come the long eventide—quiet, solemn, more hopeful than a morning dawn. Meanwhile, at this point, here is the feast of comfort. The suffering man says, We only know a part, we only hear a whisper: the great thunder has not yet broken upon us because we are not prepared for it. Let us stand in this, that God is working out a great plan, and must not be interrupted in the continuance of his labour, in the integrity of his purpose. O mighty, gracious, miracle-working Son of God, help us to wait!