《The Biblical Illustrator–Job (Ch.0~6)》(A Compilation)
General Introduction
Over 34,000 pages in its original 56 volume printing, the Biblical Illustrator is a massive compilation of treatments on 10,000 passages of Scripture. It is arranged in commentary form for ease of use in personal study and devotion, as well as sermon preparation.
Most of the content of this commentary is illustrative in nature, and includes from hundreds of famous authors of the day such as Dwight L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, J. C. Ryle, Charles Hodge, Alexander MacLaren, Adam Clark, Matthew Henry, and many more. The collection also includes lesser known authors published in periodicles and smaller publications popular in that ara. Unlike modern publishers, Exell was apparently not under any pressure to consolidate the number of pages.
While this commentary is not known for its Greek or Hebrew exposition, the New Testament includes hundreds of references to, and explanations of, Greek words.
Joseph S. Exell edited and compiled the 56 volume Biblical Illustrator commentary. You will recognize him as the co-editor of the famous Pulpit Commentary (this commentary is even larger than the Pulpit Commentary). This remarkable work is the triumph of a life devoted to Biblical research and study. Assisted by a small army of students, the Exell draws on the rich stores of great minds since the beginning of New Testament times.
The Biblical Illustrator brings Scripture to life in a unique, illuminating way. While other commentaries explain a Bible passage doctrinally, this work illustrates the Bible with a collection of:
- illustrations
- outlines
- anecodtes
- history
- poems
- expositions
- geography
- sermons
- Bible backgrounds
- homiletics
for nearly every verse in the Bible. This massive commentary was originally intended for preachers needing help with sermon preperation (because who else in that day had time to wade through such a lengthy commentary?). But today, the Biblical Illustrator provides life application, illumination, inspiriation, doctrine, devotion, and practical content for all who teach, preach, and study the Bible.
00 Overview
JOB
INTRODUCTION
Interpretation of the Book of Job
We purpose to give a concise view of our reasons for maintaining--
I. The existence and reality of Job.
II. The patriarchal antiquity, origin, and authorship of the Book.
III. Its references to a future state and the way of salvation; and
IV. Its Divine inspiration and canonical authority.
1. That Job is not a poetical or imaginary, but an historic character, appears from the mention of him in connection with Noah and Daniel, in Ezekiel 14:14; Ezekiel 14:20; and the allusion of St. James, James 5:10-11. Here we think it may be inferred that Job was among, “the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord,” and who, he says, “were to be taken for an example of suffering and patience”; for he immediately adds, “Behold we count them happy who endure” (itself a reference to Job 5:17). “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, etc., and seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy.” It has been suggested that this quotation does not refer to Job’s faith, but his patience. But surely faith is the foundation of patience; and the Divine writer would not have cited him, even as an instance of suffering, if he had not been a real character. We find no such personifications of our Lord’s parables in the Epistles. It has also been objected that Job is not among the instances of faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. But this was probably because the apostle was addressing arguments derived from the law and the writings of the Hebrews; and an objector might have refused to bow to Job who would yield to Moses and Samuel. But even if it were otherwise, he shares the omission together with Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Ruth, whose books are placed by the Jews, with Job and Daniel, among the Hagiographae, not with the prophets. Very little, indeed, can be argued from omission, as Paley has shown, with reference to historical facts. The particularity of names and circumstances, the very dramatis personae, are before our eyes in all the individuality of real characters. “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job,” is not less definite or historical in style than, “Now it came to pass in the days when the Judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land; and a certain man of Bethlehem Judah,” etc., with which the Book of Ruth opens.
2. With reference to the patriarchal antiquity of the times and history of Job, we remark, that the Book contains no allusion to any of the historical facts or even ceremonies of the Israelites, or to any events later than their sojourn in Egypt; even if some reference to the deluge, or the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, may be traced. The language also of the body of the work (chaps. 3 to 12) is indeed as distinct from the introductory and concluding chapters as the style of AEschylus from that of Xenophon, or Milton from Goldsmith. It is poetical and archaic; that is, not only elevated in style, but also has many ancient forms of expression, brief and obscure; words of Chaldaic or Aramaean origin, such as we meet with in those parts of the Book of Genesis which refer to the affairs of Jacob and Laban in Padan Aram, and some whereof the roots are only to be found in Arabic. There is no reference to an established priesthood, or to the worship of images; but to that most ancient form of idolatry, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars; much less to any of the peculiar ordinances of the Jewish ritual. The frequent use of the name of God in the singular (Eloah), and of El-Shaddai, the Almighty, are marks of a primitive age; while the sacred name of Jehovah is only once used except in the prologue and epilogue. But here it corresponds with the language used, which is pure Hebrew. Hence the conjecture of Kennicott, Michaelis, and Lee (adopted also by Mr. Titcomb) is, that Moses, finding the poem among the Midianites, when he was with his father-in-law Jethro, committed it to writing, with an introduction and conclusion, for the comfort of the Israelites, Job himself being the original author; whether or not it was committed to writing, or existed only in floating recitations, like the songs of the Celtic nations, or perhaps only in fragments, as the poems of Homer before the time of Pisistratus, almost every subsequent writer of the Old Testament will be found to have borrowed from the Book of Job. Job is said to have lived in the land of Uz; and from this it has been concluded that he was a descendant, either of Uz, the son of Aram, or of Huz, the son of Nahor (if they were not the same person, spoken of by anticipation, as the names are the same in Hebrew). There was a place in Idumea named Uz, as appears from Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:20; Lamentations 4:23). The greater number of writers, ancient and modern, incline to the land of Edom as the dwelling place of the illustrious patriarch, “the greatest of the sons of the East,” who stands forth amidst a system of theology which has nothing in common with any of the relics of subsequent times among the nations surrounding Judea. Of contemporary times there are no other relics. Arabia itself has no literature earlier than the Koran of Mohammed; but the doctrine of Job is perfectly accordant with the glimpses which we gather from the writings of Moses of the state of those nations in patriarchal times, when an Abimilech in Syria, a Pharaoh in Egypt, a Jethro in Midian, a Johab (who by many, including the Septuagint writers, is supposed to be the same with Job), and even Balaam, in the mountains of the East, had some reverence for true religion--“the fear of the Lord.” Even the subsequent corruptions and idolatrous rites point to a primitive state of things such as we find in the Book of Job; when the nomadic tribes went everywhere “lifting up holy hands” to God; looking for some great deliverer--an avenger--to overcome the power of the serpent; practising burnt sacrifices, and worshipping the Supreme on hills and in groves; cherishing the tradition of an invisible world of spirits, and a future eternal judgment.
3. We do not wonder, therefore, at the indications of an eternal world, or the way of salvation--the Christology--which the Church of the Jews, as well as of the Christians, have found in this sublime Book. Were there, in fact, no traces of these primitive truths, we should have found a system of mere Theism existing amidst a world possessed with supernatural convictions; and this is just that conclusion to which the school of modern infidelity would fain conduct us, and reduce this Book to its own negation of revealed truth. For the glorious hope of a final reward, which made Job so confident, they would “fill themselves with the east wind” of a stoical endurance of evil for virtue’s sake; or a mystic love of God, without reference to any past or future experience of His loving kindness--a system at once at variance with what we know practically and experimentally of ourselves, as agents influenced by hope and fear, and opposed to all the discoveries of His dealings with us. God has never required us to love Him merely from an adoration of His abstract excellencies, independent of all experience of His mercy. When we find the woman praised who gave much because “she loved much,” and set forth as an example of a true motive of action, we perceive only a reflexive exercise of the same principle,--a grateful sense of favours already received,--she had been forgiven much. Those writers, therefore, who deny to Job, under his troubles, the hope of a restitution in the eternal world (he certainly expected none in this life), and would set him forth as an instance of that love which disregards alike reward and punishment, describe a creature as fabulous as the centaur or the griffin, the offspring of their own vain imagination, wedded to an ignorance of human nature, or a hatred of evangelical truth. But can it be shown that either prophets or apostles, martyrs or warriors, had no “regard to the recompense of the reward”? Such, indeed, we are told, was a motive not unworthy of our Saviour’s own consideration, whom even these moralists would exalt at least as our example--“for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame.” To have found, therefore, in Job a patient sufferer, without a hope of deliverance or reward, in time or eternity, would have been a greater contradiction of experience than any of the miracles of the New Testament, and would have required a stronger force of evidence to support its existence. A priori, therefore, in any record, or even parabolic narrative, which affected to describe man as he is, much more in one which did contain such august truths relative to God, angels, true wisdom, human corruption, the fear of the Lord, the Jehovah of the patriarchs, propitiated by sacrifice, and interfering in human affairs, we should be warranted in expressing surprise did we not learn “that there is a judgment”; that the universally looked for Avenger or Redeemer were introduced; and that, while “the hope of the hypocrite was as the spider’s web,” he who relied on the Lord, and who, even in death, would not let go his integrity, should find spiritual deliverance, filling his heart with hope, and his lips with praise. An attempt is made to get rid of the testimony of Elihu, by asserting that “it is now decisively pronounced by Hebrew scholars not to be genuine.” This decision we deny, both as to its critical truth and intrinsic justice. What manuscript or version wants this integral part of the Book? Does Kennicott or De Rossi intimate any such deficiency? Lightfoot, indeed, and Rosenmuller, attribute the Book itself to Elihu. And though it stands apart from the other interlocutions, it is introductory in its arguments to the grand conclusion; when not only the three mistaken friends are reproved, but both Job and Elihu silenced by the awful voice of God repeating and expanding, in magnificent language, the Abrahamic sentence, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” With reference to the principal passage, “The Testament of Job” (Job 19:23-29), little that is new can be brought forward either for or against the received interpretation; the difficulties of which occurred to Grotius and Warburton, and have only been repeated by modern sceptics. There stands the oracle--“I know that my Redeemer liveth”--introduced by the most solemn announcement of an all-important truth, worthy of perpetual and durable record. On the translation of the introductory sentences there seems to be no substantial difference of opinion--
“Would that, now, my words were recorded;
Would that in a book they were engraven;
With an iron style and lead;
Forever on the rock, that they were hewn!”
Now, would such an exordium be fitting for any general assurance of a return of prosperity, which Job nowhere intimates; or of an exhibition of his righteousness in this life? Would such a hope be worthy of such a magniloquent expression? On the other hand, if the prophet were suddenly possessed with a Divine confidence in that hope of future things, which is not built “on transitory promises,” what more sublime or suitable introduction? And we know that the rocks of the Arabian desert are full of such inscriptions! We have similar asseverations or demands for attention, in Scripture, when important enunciations are about to follow. “Verily, verily I say unto you”; “This is a faithful saying”; “The voice said, Cry”; “I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Write.” All these precede important announcements. The exact meaning of the prophecy itself has found a variety of interpreters; but there can be no doubt that the words are very emphatic, brief, and pregnant.
“I assuredly know that my Deliverer liveth,
And hereafter, upon the dust shall He arise;
And (though) after my skin, they pierce this (body),
Yet from my flesh shall I see God.
Which I, and not another, shall see for me,
And mine eyes shall have beheld;
My reins have been consumed within me,
For ye shall say, ‘Why have they persecuted him.’
And the root of the matter shall have been found in me.
Withdraw ye from the presence of the sword,
For the anger which is due to transgression, is the sword;
Know ye, therefore, that there is a judgment.”
But this famous text is far from the only one in the Book which is an evidence of the faith of Job. What can be clearer, on the hypothesis of a future state, than Job 13:15 : “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” reading as in the text (Kethib), or, “Though He slay me, shall I not hope?” as in the margin (Keri). The sense is the same, as Calvin remarked, and the whole context agrees: “How could I risk my life, and rush into His presence, if I were not innocent? Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. I am prepared to argue my ways in His presence; and even this trial shall turn to my salvation (although) no hypocrite can come before Him.” Here he maintains his appeal to the Searcher of hearts, the final and eternal Judge; even beyond the bounds of time and sense. And this is also agreeable with other passages, in which he declares (Job 16:19) that “his Witness is in heaven, his record is on high.” While assured of his ultimate deliverance from the grave, he exclaims (Job 14:13-15), “Oh, that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a time, and remember me!” “If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer. Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands.’“ Here he will, as a soldier at his post, await the release of his spirit, by the arrival of the relief guard. He feels assured that God will not forget him, even in the dust; but will, in His own time, have a longing, as it were, a parental “desire to the work of His hands.” Many other expressions, indeed Job’s general confidence in his integrity, his readiness of appeal to the Supreme Tribunal on all occasions, in reply to the mistaken judgments of his friends, can only be reconciled by an inward consciousness of a future, infallible decision. The speech of Elihu next demands attention. It has been assailed as “not genuine,” upon mere supposition that it is “the work of a different hand,” which even if maintained would not amount to a diversity greater than that existing between the historical and poetical portions. But the argument of Elihu, though not void of infirmity, is certainly in advance of the previous speakers, and prepares the mind of the reader, as it may have done that of Job, for the voice of the Almighty, silencing rather than convincing the gainsayers. Elihu intimates that he is animated with a desire to direct Job to the true source of comfort: that he should humble himself, and not justify himself before God; that he speaks (Job 33:22-25), as none of the others had done, of the Messenger, or Interpreter, one of a thousand, to show man the Divine righteousness; of the ransom provided, and of the return of the sinner to the moral condition of a little child. That there should be some glimpses of the Gospel in patriarchal times is demanded by what we know from other sources, Jewish and Gentile, as well as the general economy of God, who left Himself not without a witness, either to His own being and attributes, or the remedy that He had provided for the sin of man,--the Great Deliverer or Avenger, on the head of the serpent, of the ruin of the primitive race; that Daystar whom Balaam, probably a countryman and descendant of Job, should “see, but not know; should behold, but not nigh”; and who, thus seen dimly by the blessed chain of ancient witnesses, stood out at last plainly revealed in the One Victorious Mediator and future Eternal Judge.