death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes" where again the word rendered "redeem" is the corresponding term to " Goel" in the text of Job -"I will avenge them of death :" primarily those who have died for His name-witness the cry of the martyrs under the altar in heaven, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell on the earth" (Rev. vi. 9, 10)—but not exclusively, as the Apostle teaches, quoting this passage, in 1 Cor. xv., in reference to all who shall be raised in incorruption (ver. 54, 55). : Wonderful words! Wondrous power, and more wondrous grace of redemption! That which was man's punishment-the very wages and curse of sin --set to the account of his persecution!-that of which he shall be avenged! Great consolation truly! that on entering the very domain of death,—that spot where are collected and displayed the trophies of the enemy, we may, with our Church, in that service with which she consigns her departed members to the grave, take up the language of this Expectation, and say, "I know that my Avenger liveth!" while we join around it to pray for the fulfilment of this and the foregoing prophecies, "that it would please God shortly to accomplish the number of His elect, and to hasten His kingdom: that we, with all those that have departed in the true faith of His holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul in his eternal and everlasting glory!" In conclusion,-If any additional confirmation were needed of the scope of this prophecy and, in connexion with it, of the character which it is the aim of these remarks to assert for Job's trial, it is afforded us in the practical application of this history by an inspired writer, the Apostle James, in the fifth chapter of his Epistle: where,—writing to certain Christians, poor in worldly circumstances, and suffering from the exaction and tyranny of the rich, who not only kept back by fraud their hire, but even "condemned and killed the just unresisting,”—he thus exhorts and comforts them (ver. 7 and 8), "Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto THE COMING OF THE LORD. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH." Which exhortation he enforces by example; and whence is the example sought? "Take, my brethren," he adds, "the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. YE HAVE HEARD OF THE PATIENCE of Job, and have seen THE END OF THE LORD; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." This passage needs no comment. It may be taken as a key to the whole book before us. It tells us that in his trial, Job (as we have been led to conclude from the history) is a type of the suffering saints of God in all succeeding ages, so long as the power of Satan in the world shall continue; as also, that in his patience and the faith by which it was sustained, he exemplifies the consolation and unfailing support of the persecuted, not (as we often now hear said) death, which though in one sense a release from the enemy's power, in another is his victory and triumph; but“THE PATIENT WAITING FOR CHRIST," in that manifestation looked for by him, and still, as the Apostle states, the great object of the Church's hope. While, to complete the type, in his "END,"-" the end of the Lord," as the Apostle designates it, i. e. the vindication by the Lord Himself of His servant in the reproof of his accusers, and the restoration to him of all, and more than all, that Satan had deprived him of, so "blessing the latter end of Job more than his beginning," he had an earnest of his hope and such a confirmation of his prophecy as Enoch's translation was of his: and the Church has the lively emblem of the end of her trials and warfare, and the promise of "a better and an enduring inheritance," -better even than that of which man was originally possessed, in "the day of redemption," and "the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began," and "until which the heaven must receive Him" whom they have foretold as the Restorer,-"the Goel," Redeemer and Avenger, as well as Saviour. This day Job saw afar off, and earnestly longed for it to come: "My reins within me are consumed-with-earnest-desire [for that day]," he adds, as the margin, in accordance with the Hebrew idiom, renders the last clause of ver. 27.* Do we so desire it? In other words,-Do we (with some in our day) read this history as a poetic description, a Jewish myth, or Eastern allegory? Or do we believe, are we duly sensible of the power of the Evil One in all its awful reality as here disclosed to view? And do we believe that this his power in the world will only cease with the coming of Job's "Redeemer," in that "latter day" when He shall "stand upon the earth" to recover the dominion of it, long since usurped and still held by Satan: once manifested to establish His title to it, and again to come to assert it? Are our minds in unison with this "purpose" of God in the manifestation-the twofold manifestation of Christ," to destroy the works of the Devil," the development of which in these earliest intimations of it we have now been tracing? Then shall we too be found eagerly anticipating its accomplishment: and, in order to this, still, with Apostles and Christian Martyrs, and the Church of the New Testament, "waiting for His coming," and "loving His appearing," whose kingdom and glory patriarchs and prophets of old were thus inspired by His Spirit to foresee and reveal. "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly." May we have grace from our hearts to respond "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." , the reins (or renes), fig., the seat of the desires and affections, and said to waste with disappointed hope, &c. (Gesenius). |