{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JOB","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Job","commonName":"Job","introduction":"JOB A REAL PERSON.--It has been supposed by some that the book of Job is an allegory, not a real narrative, on account of the artificial character of many of its statements. Thus the sacred numbers, three and seven, often occur. He had seven thousand sheep, seven sons, both before and after his trials; his three friends sit down with him seven days and seven nights; both before and after his trials he had three daughters. So also the number and form of the speeches of the several speakers seem to be artificial. The name of Job, too, is derived from an Arabic word signifying repentance.\n\nBut Eze 14:14 (compare Eze 14:16, Eze 14:20) speaks of \"Job\" in conjunction with \"Noah and Daniel,\" real persons. St. James (Jam 5:11) also refers to Job as an example of \"patience,\" which he would not have been likely to do had Job been only a fictitious person. Also the names of persons and places are specified with a particularity not to be looked for in an allegory. As to the exact doubling of his possessions after his restoration, no doubt the round number is given for the exact number, as the latter approached near the former; this is often done in undoubtedly historical books. As to the studied number and form of the speeches, it seems likely that the arguments were substantially those which appear in the book, but that the studied and poetic form was given by Job himself, guided by the Holy Spirit. He lived one hundred and forty years after his trials, and nothing would be more natural than that he should, at his leisure, mould into a perfect form the arguments used in the momentous debate, for the instruction of the Church in all ages. Probably, too, the debate itself occupied several sittings; and the number of speeches assigned to each was arranged by preconcerted agreement, and each was allowed the interval of a day or more to prepare carefully his speech and replies; this will account for the speakers bringing forward their arguments in regular series, no one speaking out of his turn. As to the name Job--repentance (supposing the derivation correct)--it was common in old times to give a name from circumstances which occurred at an advanced period of life, and this is no argument against the reality of the person.\n\nWHERE JOB LIVED.--\"Uz,\" according to GESENIUS, means a light, sandy soil, and was in the north of Arabia-Deserta, between Palestine and the Euphrates, called by PTOLEMY (Geography, 19) Ausitai or Aisitai. In Gen 10:23; Gen 22:21; Gen 36:28; and Ch1 1:17, Ch1 1:42, it is the name of a man. In Jer 25:20; Lam 4:21; and Job 1:1, it is a country. Uz, in Gen 22:21, is said to be the son of Nahor, brother of Abraham--a different person from the one mentioned (Gen 10:23), a grandson of Shem. The probability is that the country took its name from the latter of the two; for this one was the son of Aram, from whom the Arameans take their name, and these dwelt in Mesopotamia, between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Compare as to the dwelling of the sons of Shem in Gen 10:30, \"a mount of the East,\" answering to \"men of the East\" (Job 1:3). RAWLINSON, in his deciphering of the Assyrian inscriptions, states that \"Uz is the prevailing name of the country at the mouth of the Euphrates.\" It is probable that Eliphaz the Temanite and the Sabeans dwelt in that quarter; and we know that the Chaldeans resided there, and not near Idumea, which some identify with Uz. The tornado from \"the wilderness\" (Job 1:19) agrees with the view of it being Arabia-Deserta. Job (Job 1:3) is called \"the greatest of the men of the East\"; but Idumea was not east, but south of Palestine: therefore in Scripture language, the phrase cannot apply to that country, but probably refers to the north of Arabia-Deserta, between Palestine, Idumea, and the Euphrates. So the Arabs still show in the Houran a place called Uz as the residence of Job.\n\nTHE AGE WHEN JOB LIVED.--EUSEBIUS fixes it two ages before Moses, that is, about the time of Isaac: eighteen hundred years before Christ, and six hundred after the Deluge. Agreeing with this are the following considerations: 1. Job's length of life is patriarchal, two hundred years. 2. He alludes only to the earliest form of idolatry, namely, the worship of the sun, moon, and heavenly hosts (called Saba, whence arises the title \"Lord of Sabaoth,\" as opposed to Sabeanism) (Job 31:26-28). 3. The number of oxen and rams sacrificed, seven, as in the case of Balaam. God would not have sanctioned this after the giving of the Mosaic law, though He might graciously accommodate Himself to existing customs before the law. 4. The language of Job is Hebrew, interspersed occasionally with Syriac and Arabic expressions, implying a time when all the Shemitic tribes spoke one common tongue and had not branched into different dialects, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. 5. He speaks of the most ancient kind of writing, namely, sculpture. Riches also are reckoned by cattle. The Hebrew word, translated \"a piece of money,\" ought rather be rendered \"a lamb.\" 6. There is no allusion to the exodus from Egypt and to the miracles that accompanied it; nor to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (PATRICK, however, thinks there is); though there is to the Flood (Job 22:17); and these events, happening in Job's vicinity, would have been striking illustrations of the argument for God's interposition in destroying the wicked and vindicating the righteous, had Job and his friends known of them. Nor is there any undoubted reference to the Jewish law, ritual, and priesthood. 7. The religion of Job is that which prevailed among the patriarchs previous to the law; sacrifices performed by the head of the family; no officiating priesthood, temple, or consecrated altar.\n\nTHE WRITER.--All the foregoing facts accord with Job himself having been the author. The style of thought, imagery, and manners, are such as we should look for in the work of an Arabian emir. There is precisely that degree of knowledge of primitive tradition (see Job 31:33, as to Adam) which was universally spread abroad in the days of Noah and Abraham, and which was subsequently embodied in the early chapters of Genesis. Job, in his speeches, shows that he was much more competent to compose the work than Elihu, to whom LIGHTFOOT attributes it. The style forbids its being attributed to Moses, to whom its composition is by some attributed, \"whilst he was among the Midianites, about 1520 B.C.\" But the fact, that it, though not a Jewish book, appears among the Hebrew sacred writings, makes it likely that it came to the knowledge of Moses during the forty years which he passed in parts of Arabia, chiefly near Horeb; and that he, by divine guidance, introduced it as a sacred writing to the Israelites, to whom, in their affliction, the patience and restoration of Job were calculated to be a lesson of especial utility. That it is inspired appears from the fact that Paul (Co1 3:19) quotes it (Job 5:13) with the formula, \"It is written.\" Our Savior, too Mat 24:28), plainly refers to Job 29:30. Compare also Jam 4:10 and Pe1 5:6 with Job 22:29; Rom 11:34-35 with Job 15:8. It is probably the oldest book in the world. It stands among the Hagiographa in the threefold division of Scripture into the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa (\"Psalms,\" Luk 24:44).\n\nDESIGN OF THE BOOK.--It is a public debate in poetic form on an important question concerning the divine government; moreover the prologue and epilogue, which are in prose, shed the interest of a living history over the debate, which would otherwise be but a contest of abstract reasonings. To each speaker of the three friends three speeches are assigned. Job having no one to stand by him is allowed to reply to each speech of each of the three. Eliphaz, as the oldest, leads the way. Zophar, at his third turn, failed to speak, thus virtually owning himself overcome (Job 27:1-23). Therefore Job continued his reply, which forms three speeches (Job 26:1-14; Job 27:1-23; Job 28:1-28; Job 29:1-31:40). Elihu (Job 32:1-37:24) is allowed four speeches. Jehovah makes three addresses (Job 38:1-41:34). Thus, throughout there is a tripartite division. The whole is divided into three parts--the prologue, poem proper, and epilogue. The poem, into three--(1) The dispute of Job and his three friends; (2) The address of Elihu; (3) The address of God. There are three series in the controversy, and in the same order. The epilogue (Job 42:1-17) also is threefold; Job's justification, reconciliation with his friends, restoration. The speakers also in their successive speeches regularly advance from less to greater vehemence. With all this artificial composition, everything seems easy and natural.\n\nThe question to be solved, as exemplified in the case of Job, is, Why are the righteous afflicted consistently with God's justice? The doctrine of retribution after death, no doubt, is the great solution of the difficulty. And to it Job plainly refers in Job 14:14, and Job 19:25. The objection to this, that the explicitness of the language on the resurrection in Job is inconsistent with the obscurity on the subject in the early books of the Old Testament, is answered by the fact that Job enjoyed the divine vision (Job 38:1; Job 42:5), and therefore, by inspiration, foretold these truths. Next, the revelations made outside of Israel being few needed to be the more explicit; thus Balaam's prophecy (Num 24:17) was clear enough to lead the wise men of the East by the star (Mat 2:2); and in the age before the written law, it was the more needful for God not to leave Himself without witness of the truth. Still Job evidently did not fully realize the significance designed by the Spirit in his own words (compare Pe1 1:11-12). The doctrine, though existing, was not plainly revealed or at least understood. Hence he does not mainly refer to this solution. Yes, and even now, we need something in addition to this solution. David, who firmly believed in a future retribution (Psa 16:10; Psa 17:15), still felt the difficulty not entirely solved thereby (Psa. 83:1-18). The solution is not in Job's or in his three friends' speeches. It must, therefore, be in Elihu's. God will hold a final judgment, no doubt, to clear up all that seems dark in His present dealings; but He also now providentially and morally governs the world and all the events of human life. Even the comparatively righteous are not without sin which needs to be corrected. The justice and love of God administer the altogether deserved and merciful correction. Affliction to the godly is thus mercy and justice in disguise. The afflicted believer on repentance sees this. \"Via crucis, via salutis\" [\"The way of the cross, the way of deliverance\"]. Though afflicted, the godly are happier even now than the ungodly, and when affliction has attained its end, it is removed by the Lord. In the Old Testament the consolations are more temporal and outward; in the New Testament, more spiritual; but in neither to the entire exclusion of the other. \"Prosperity,\" says BACON, \"is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity that of the New Testament, which is the mark of God's more especial favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost has labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.\" This solution of Elihu is seconded by the addresses of God, in which it is shown God must be just (because He is God), as Elihu had shown how God can be just, and yet the righteous be afflicted. It is also acquiesced in by Job, who makes no reply. God reprimands the \"three\" friends, but not Elihu. Job's general course is approved; he is directed to intercede for his friends, and is restored to double his former prosperity.\n\nPOETRY.--In all countries poetry is the earliest form of composition as being best retained in the memory. In the East especially it was customary for sentiments to be preserved in a terse, proverbial, and poetic form (called maschal). Hebrew poetry is not constituted by the rhythm or meter, but in a form peculiar to itself: 1. In an alphabetical arrangement somewhat like our acrostic. For instance, Lam. 1:1-22. 2. The same verse repeated at intervals; as in Psa 42:1-11; Psa. 107:1-43. 3. Rhythm of gradation. Psalms of degrees, Psa. 120:1-134:3, in which the expression of the previous verse is resumed and carried forward in the next (Psa 121:1-8). 4. The chief characteristic of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, or the correspondence of the same ideas in the parallel clauses. The earliest instance is Enoch's prophecy (Jde 1:14), and Lamech's parody of it (Gen 4:23). Three kinds occur: (1) The synonymous parallelism, in which the second is a repetition of the first, with or without increase of force (Psa 22:27; Isa 15:1); sometimes with double parallelism (Isa 1:15). (2) The antithetic, in which the idea of the second clause is the converse of that in the first (Pro 10:1). (3) The synthetic, where there is a correspondence between different propositions, noun answering to noun, verb to verb, member to member, the sentiment, moreover, being not merely echoed, or put in contrast, but enforced by accessory ideas (Job 3:3-9). Also alternate (Isa 51:19). \"Desolation and destruction, famine and sword,\" that is, desolation by famine, and destruction by the sword. Introverted; where the fourth answers to the first, and the third to the second (Mat 7:6). Parallelism thus often affords a key to the interpretation. For fuller information, see LOWTH (Introduction to Isaiah, and Lecture on Hebrew Poetry) and HERDER (Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, translated by Marsh). The simpler and less artificial forms of parallelism prevail in Job--a mark of its early age. \n\n\n\nNext: Job Chapter 1\n\n","order":18,"numberOfChapters":42,"sha256":"e28c73d19b068ae7148f623bfa79b3c43dd6e60e7a803672cdd5f8a7d5080b3a","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JOB/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JOB","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":42,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JOB/42.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JOB","chapter":42},"totalNumberOfVerses":954},"chapter":{"number":9,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["If he--God \n\nwill contend with him--literally, \"deign to enter into judgment.\" \n\nhe cannot answer, &c.--He (man) would not dare, even if he had a thousand answers in readiness to one question of God's, to utter one of them, from awe of His Majesty.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["wise in heart--in understanding!--and mighty in power! God confounds the ablest arguer by His wisdom, and the mightiest by His power. \n\nhardened himself--or his neck (Pro 29:1); that is, defied God. To prosper, one must fall in with God's arrangements of providence and grace.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["and they know not--Hebrew for \"suddenly, unexpectedly, before they are aware of it\" (Psa 35:8); \"at unawares\"; Hebrew, which \"he knoweth not of\" (Joe 2:14; Pro 5:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["The earth is regarded, poetically, as resting on pillars, which tremble in an earthquake (Psa 75:3; Isa 24:20). The literal truth as to the earth is given (Job 26:7).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["The sun, at His command, does not rise; namely, in an eclipse, or the darkness that accompanies earthquakes (Job 9:6). \n\nsealeth up the stars--that is, totally covers as one would seal up a room, that its contents may not be seen.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["spreadeth out-- (Isa 40:22; Psa 104:2). But throughout it is not so much God's creating, as His governing, power over nature that is set forth. A storm seems a struggle between Nature and her Lord! Better, therefore, \"Who boweth the heavens alone,\" without help of any other. God descends from the bowed-down heaven to the earth (Psa 18:9). The storm, wherein the clouds descend, suggests this image. In the descent of the vault of heaven, God has come down from His high throne and walks majestically over the mountain waves (Hebrew, \"heights\"), as a conqueror taming their violence. So \"tread upon\" (Deu 33:29; Amo 4:13; Mat 14:26). The Egyptian hieroglyphic for impossibility is a man walking on waves.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["maketh--rather, from the Arabic, \"covereth up.\" This accords better with the context, which describes His boundless power as controller rather than as creator [UMBREIT]. \n\nArcturus--the great bear, which always revolves about the pole, and never sets. The Chaldeans and Arabs, early named the stars and grouped them in constellations; often travelling and tending flocks by night, they would naturally do so, especially as the rise and setting of some stars mark the distinction of seasons. BRINKLEY, presuming the stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in Job's time, calculates, by the precession of equinoxes, the time of Job to be eight hundred eighteen years after the deluge, and one hundred eighty-four before Abraham. \n\nOrion--Hebrew, \"the fool\"; in Job 38:31 he appears fettered with \"bands.\" The old legend represented this star as a hero, who presumptuously rebelled against God, and was therefore a fool, and was chained in the sky as a punishment; for its rising is at the stormy period of the year. He is Nimrod (the exceedingly impious rebel) among the Assyrians; Orion among the Greeks. Sabaism (worship of the heavenly hosts) and hero-worship were blended in his person. He first subverted the patriarchal order of society by substituting a chieftainship based on conquest (Gen 10:9-10). \n\nPleiades--literally, \"the heap of stars\"; Arabic, \"knot of stars.\" The various names of this constellation in the East express the close union of the stars in it (Amo 5:8). \n\nchambers of the south--the unseen regions of the southern hemisphere, with its own set of stars, as distinguished from those just mentioned of the northern. The true structure of the earth is here implied.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Repeated from Eliphaz (Job 5:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["I see him not: he passeth on--The image is that of a howling wind (Isa 21:1). Like it when it bursts invisibly upon man, so God is felt in the awful effects of His wrath, but is not seen (Joh 3:8). Therefore, reasons Job, it is impossible to contend with Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["If \"He taketh away,\" as in my case all that was dear to me, still a mortal cannot call Him to account. He only takes His own. He is an absolute King (Ecc 8:4; Dan 4:35).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["If God--rather, \"God will not withdraw His anger,\" that is, so long as a mortal obstinately resists [UMBREIT]. \n\nthe proud helpers--The arrogant, who would help one contending with the Almighty, are of no avail against Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["How much less shall I? &c.--who am weak, seeing that the mighty have to stoop before Him. Choose words (use a well-chosen speech, in order to reason) with Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["(Job 10:15). Though I were conscious of no sin, yet I would not dare to say so, but leave it to His judgment and mercy to justify me (Co1 4:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice--who breaketh me (as a tree stripped of its leaves) with a tempest.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["UMBREIT takes these as the words of God, translating, \"What availeth the might of the strong?\" \"Here (saith he) behold! what availeth justice? Who will appoint me a time to plead?\" (So Jer 49:19). The last words certainly apply better to God than to Job. The sense is substantially the same if we make \"me\" apply to Job. The \"lo!\" expresses God's swift readiness for battle when challenged.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["it-- (Job 15:6; Luk 19:22); or \"He,\" God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Literally, here (and in Job 9:20), \"I perfect! I should not know my soul! I would despise,\" [that is], \"disown my life\"; that is, Though conscious of innocence, I should be compelled, in contending with the infinite God, to ignore my own soul and despise my past life as if it were guilty [ROSENMULLER].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["one thing--\"It is all one; whether perfect or wicked--He destroyeth.\" This was the point Job maintained against his friends, that the righteous and wicked alike are afflicted, and that great sufferings here do not prove great guilt (Luk 13:1-5; Ecc 9:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["If--Rather, \"While (His) scourge slays suddenly (the wicked, Job 9:22), He laughs at (disregards; not derides) the pining away of the innocent.\" The only difference, says Job, between the innocent and guilty is, the latter are slain by a sudden stroke, the former pine away gradually. The translation, \"trial,\" does not express the antithesis to \"slay suddenly,\" as \"pining away\" does [UMBREIT].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Referring to righteous \"judges,\" in antithesis to \"the wicked\" in the parallel first clause, whereas the wicked oppressor often has the earth given into his hand, the righteous judges are led to execution--culprits had their faces covered preparatory to execution (Est 7:8). Thus the contrast of the wicked and righteous here answers to that in Job 9:23. \n\nif not, where and who?--If God be not the cause of these anomalies, where is the cause to be found, and who is he?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["a post--a courier. In the wide Persian empire such couriers, on dromedaries or on foot, were employed to carry the royal commands to the distant provinces (Est 3:13, Est 3:15; Est 8:14). \"My days\" are not like the slow caravan, but the fleet post. The \"days\" are themselves poetically said to \"see no good,\" instead of Job in them (Pe1 3:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["swift ships--rather, canoes of reeds or papyrus skiffs, used on the Nile, swift from their lightness (Isa 18:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["The apodosis to Job 9:27 --\"If I say, &c.\" \"I still am afraid of all my sorrows (returning), for I know that thou wilt (dost) (by removing my sufferings) not hold or declare me innocent. How then can I leave off my heaviness?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["The \"if\" is better omitted; I (am treated by God as) wicked; why then labor I in vain (to disprove His charge)? Job submits, not so much because he is convinced that God is right, as because God is powerful and he weak [BARNES].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["snow water--thought to be more cleansing than common water, owing to the whiteness of snow (Psa 51:7; Isa 1:18). \n\nnever so clean--Better, to answer to the parallelism of the first clause which expresses the cleansing material, \"lye:\" the Arabs used alkali mixed with oil, as soap (Psa 73:13; Jer 2:22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["(Ecc 6:10; Isa 45:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["daysman--\"mediator,\" or \"umpire\"; the imposition of whose hand expresses power to adjudicate between the persons. There might be one on a level with Job, the one party; but Job knew of none on a level with the Almighty, the other party (Sa1 2:25). We Christians know of such a Mediator (not, however, in the sense of umpire) on a level with both--the God-man, Christ Jesus (Ti1 2:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["rod--not here the symbol of punishment, but of power. Job cannot meet God on fair terms so long as God deals with him on the footing of His almighty power.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["it is not so with me--As it now is, God not taking His rod away, I am not on such a footing of equality as to be able to vindicate myself.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Job Chapter 10\n\n"]}],"introduction":"REPLY OF JOB TO BILDAD. (Job 9:1-35)\n\nI know it is so of a truth--that God does not \"pervert justice\" (Job 8:3). But (even though I be sure of being in the right) how can a mere man assert his right--(be just) with God. The Gospel answers (Rom 3:26).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JOB/9.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JOB","chapter":9},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JOB/10.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JOB","chapter":10},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JOB/8.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JOB","chapter":8},"numberOfVerses":29}