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I. GOD'S MERCIFUL REGARD TO MAN. "He looketh upon man." The looking upon man is not of a general kind; it is expressive of that kind, benignant attention which has immediate respect to the welfare of its objects. It is not the scrutinising look of a hard and rigorous taskmaster, who feels a pleasure in finding out a fault; it is the look of a Father, who, though when He sees evil may not and cannot suffer it to pass unnoticed, desires to behold nothing but what is right, and affectionately fixes His eyes upon the least sign of a favourable kind in the conduct of His child.

II. WHAT GOD EXPECTS FROM MAN. He looks to discover a humbled, penitent state of heart. All morality, and all that is called religion which is not founded on a sense of guilt, and which does not rise from humiliation for sin, is but a splendid delusion, a mere form, and shadow, and mockery of piety. There must be the full, open, frank acknowledgment of guilt. Confession is the first, proper, natural language of repentance. When your minds are deeply humbled, you will not only confess that you have sinned, but you will feel and acknowledge too that it "profited you not."

III. THE BLESSINGS WHICH GOD IMPARTS TO THOSE WHO COMPLY WITH THIS DEMAND. "He will deliver his soul from going down into the pit, and his life shall see the light." It is not certain Elihu meant more than that humiliation before God would he the means of preserving Job's life, and of restoring him to his former peace and prosperity. We can have no difficulty in giving to the language a much wider and more general meaning. Beyond the grave there is a deeper and more awful pit. But there is now no condemnation to the humble and believing penitent.

(Stephen Bridge, M. A.)

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KJV: He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;

WEB: He sings before men, and says, 'I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn't profit me.