Satan moves for another trial of Job, which God permits, ver. 1 - 6.
Satan smites him with boils from head to foot, ver. 7,8.
He is tempted by his wife, but resists the temptation, ver. 9,10
His friends come to comfort him, ver. 11 - 13.
3: Still - Notwithstanding all his afflictions, and thy suggestion to
the contrary. Movedst - This, as the rest of this representation, is not
to be understood literally: But the design is to signify both the devil's
restless malice in promoting man's misery and God's permission of it for
wise and holy ends.
4: Skin, &c. - The sense is, this is so far from being an evidence
of Job's sincere and generous piety, that it is only an act of mere
self - love; he is contented with the loss of his estate, and children
too, so long as he sleeps in a whole skin; and he is well pleased, that
thou wilt accept of these a ransom in his stead; and it is not true
patience which makes him seem to bear his crosses so submissively, but
policy, that he may appease thy wrath against him, and prevent those
farther plagues, which, for his hypocrisy, he fears thou wilt otherwise
bring upon his own carcase.
6: In thine hand - If God did not chain up the roaring lion, how soon
would he devour us! As far as he permits the wrath of Satan and wicked
men, to proceed against his people, he will make it turn to his praise and
theirs, and the remainder thereof he will restrain. Job, in being thus
maligned of Satan, was a type of Christ. He had permission to bruise
his heel, to touch his bone and his flesh; yea, and his life also;
because by dying he was to do what Job could not do, to destroy him
that had the power of death.
7: Boils - Like those inflicted upon the Egyptians, which are
expressed by the same word, and threatened to apostate Israelites,(De 28:27), whereby he was made loathsome to himself, and to his
nearest relations, and filled with consuming pains in his body, and
no less torments and anguish in his mind.
8: Scrape - This he did not with soft linen clothes, either because
he had not now a sufficient quantity of them; or because therein he must
have had the help of others who abhorred to come near him. Nor with his
own hands or fingers, which were also ulcerous, and so unfit for that use;
but with potsherds, either because they were next at hand, and ready for
his present use; or in token of his deep humiliation under God's hand,
which made him decline all things that favoured of tenderness and delicacy.
Heb. in dust or ashes, as mourners used to do. If God lay him among the
ashes, there he will contentedly sit down. A low spirit becomes low
circumstances, and will help to reconcile us to them.
9: Then said his wife - Whom Satan spared, to be a troubler and
tempter to him. It is his policy, to send his temptations by the hands
of those that are dear to us. We must therefore carefully watch, that
we be not drawn to any evil, by them whom we love and value the most.
Die - I see thou art set upon blessing of God, thou blessest God for
giving, and thou blessest God for taking away, and thou art still blessing
God for thy loathsome diseases, and he rewards thee accordingly, giving thee
more and more of that kind of mercy for which thou blessest him. Go on
therefore in thy generous course, and bless God, and die as a fool dieth.
10: Shall we - Shall we poor worms give laws to our supreme Lord, and
oblige him never to afflict us? And shall not those great and manifold
mercies, which from time to time God hath given us, compensate these short
afflictions? Ought we not to bless God for those mercies which we did not
deserve; and contentedly bear those corrections which we do deserve. And
if we receive so much good for the body, shall we not receive some good for
our souls? That is, some affliction, whereby we may be made partakers of
his holiness? Let murmuring therefore, as well as boasting, be forever
excluded. Sin with his lips - By any reflections upon God, by any
impatient or unbecoming expression.
11: They - Who were persons eminent for birth and quality, for
wisdom and knowledge, and for the profession of the true religion,
being probably of the posterity of Abraham, a - kin to Job, and living
in the same country. Eliphaz descended from Teman, the grandson of
Esau, (Ge 36:11).
Bildad probably from Shuah, Abraham's son by Keturah,(Ge 25:2).
Zophar is thought to be same with Zepho, ((Ge 36:11).)
a descendant from Esau. The preserving of so much wisdom and piety
among those who were not children of the promise, was an happy presage
of God's grace to the Gentiles, when the partition wall should be
taken down.
13: Upon the ground - In the posture of mourners condoling with him.
Seven days - Which was the usual time of mourning for the dead, and
therefore proper both for Job's children, and for Job himself, who
was in a manner dead, while he lived: not that they continued in this
posture so long together, which the necessities of nature could not
bear; but they spent the greatest part of that time in sitting with
him, and silent mourning over him. None spake - About his afflictions
and the causes of them. The reason of this silence was the greatness
of their grief for him, and their surprize and astonishment at his
condition; because they thought it convenient to give him time to vent
his own sorrows, and because as yet they knew not what to say to him: for
though they had ever esteemed him to be a truly good man, and came with
full purpose to comfort him, yet the prodigious greatness of his miseries,
and that hand of God which they perceived in them, made them now question
his sincerity, so that they could not comfort him as they had intended,
and yet were loth to grieve him with reproofs.
