Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my 2. The Anger against Misunderstanding
The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers 53
of the prig about them. It was this form of pseudoevangelism, so unlike the New Testament evangelism, that made Huxley10 say—"I object to Christians: they know too much about God." Eliphaz can tell Job everything about God, but when we come to the facts of the case we find that the man who is criticising Job is not fit to sit down beside him. Eliphaz was in a much better condition at the beginning when he did not open his mouth, then he was not a prig, but a man facing facts which had no explanation as yet.
If the study of the Book of Job is making us reverent with what we don't understand, we are gaining insight. There is suffering before which you cannot say a word; you cannot preach "the gospel of temperament"; all you can do is to remain dumb and leave room for God to come in as He likes. The point for us is—Do I believe in God apart from my reasoning about Him? Theology is a great thing, so is a man's creed; but God is greater than either, and the next greatest thing is my relationship to Him.
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de proFundIs
Job 6–7
Oh the regret, the struggle and the failing! Oh the days desolate and useless years! Vows in the night, so fierce and unavailing! Stings of my shame and passion of my tears!
the outskirts of the experience of Job's suffering and perplexity and is in touch with the problems at the heart of life, he will probably do one of two things— either tell a lie for the honour of God and say, "I must be much worse than I thought I was," or else accept a form of belief which does away with thinking. Most of us take our salvation much too cheaply. There is no hope for Job, and no hope for anyone on the face of the earth, unless God does something for him. One result of the war will be just this, that when a man faces things he knows despair is inevitable unless there is room for God to perform His almighty acts. This line of things may sound foreign to us because we do not think, we are too contented with what we are; we have not been desperately hit. Job's melancholy is occasioned by his acceptance of the worst point of view, not a temperamental point of view.
How have I knelt with arms of my aspiring Lifted all night in irresponsive air, Dazed and amazed with overmuch desiring, Blank with the utter agony of prayer!
F. W. H. Myers11
At this stage of his suffering Job portrays the terrific despair that can lay hold of a man; yet Job is not interested in himself, his is not the art of expressing the consciousness of every symptom of mind and heart characteristic of so many introspectionists to-day.
1. The Anatomy of Melancholy ( Job 6:1–14) Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! ( Job 6:2)
2. The Anger against Misunderstanding ( Job 6:15–30) My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away. ( Job 6:15)
As previously stated, no sane man who thinks and who is not a Christian can be optimistic. Optimism, apart from a man's belief and his acceptance of Christianity, may be healthy-minded, but it is blinded; when he faces the facts of life as they are, uncoloured by his temperament, despair is the only possible ending for him. There is a melancholy that is insane, it comes from having a fixed idea about things and is the result of a diseased brain; but Job's melancholy is the result of an intense facing of the things that have happened to him, and of his refusal to allow his religious beliefs to blind him to what he sees. Job refuses to tell a lie either for the honour of God or for his own comfort. When a man gets within
Job complains that his friends have "dealt deceitfully as a brook," i.e., they have answered his words and not his meaning (cf.—"wilt Thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that are not sure?" rv mg.) A Quaker friend of mine referring to a certain man said he did not like him because he did not hate properly. Job's anger seems to be of the order the apostle Paul mentions—"Be ye angry, and sin not" (Ephesians 4:26); his anger was against the misunderstanding of his friends, he had a right to expect that they would not misunderstand. The reason they misunderstood was that they took Job's words and deliberately
10. Most likely Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95), English biologist and teacher. 11. F. W. H. Myers (1843–1901), British poet and educator.