Job 25:4 How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Leaving untouched the perplexing question of the prosperity of bad men, Bildad makes the point of his attack upon Job his assertions of innocence (Job 23:10-12). His object is to insist that, the distance between man and God being infinite, man cannot enter into controversy with God, nor can he be pure in his eyes. The address of Bildad consists mainly of repetitions from the previous discourses of Eliphaz (Job 4:17, sqq.; 15:14, sqq.) - descriptions of the majesty and sublimity of God. In reply, Job seizes the opportunity offered by his antagonist, and, after a few bitter words of self-vindication, proceeds to outvie and far surpass Bildad in his description of the greatness of God. I. GOD'S MAJESTY; AND APPLICATION. (Vers. 2-4.) 1. Absolute power carrying with it overwhelming awe into the minds of his subjects - a power which has quelled the earlier discord of heaven and made peace in those heights - is associated with God (ver. 2). He is "Lord of hosts," and those hosts are innumerable - the stars of heaven, the angels who inhabit and guide them (Job 15:15); and all the marvellous forces of nature - winds, lightnings, waves (Job 38:19-21; Psalm 104:4), which do his bidding (ver. 3). 2. He is the absolute Light' from which all others are but reflected and derived. It is his garment and his glory (Psalm 104:2; Ezekiel 1:27, 28; 1 Timothy 6:16). It blesses and cheers all that lives (Matthew 5:45). No living creature is exempt from its all-pervading beams. Then how can a mortal be just with God? How can man, in his feebleness, enter into court and contend with absolute Power (comp. Job 9:2)? Thus the speaker would convict Job of folly. And then comes the second member of ver. 4 leading to the second great thought of the speech: "How can he be pure that is born of a woman?" II. GOD'S PURITY; AND APPLICATION. (Vers. 5, 6.) The bright silver lustre of the moon seems pale, the stars are dimmed, when compared with the essential and eternal splendour of the Highest - to say nothing of man, the maggot, the worm! The stars are but the outer adornments of the palace and abode of God; and how, then, shall man, living on this dim spot that men call earth, think to meet God on equal terms and dispute with him? If he, like moon and stars, keeps to his rank and order, he may enjoy the benefit of God; if he attempts to travel beyond it, he will be crushed by the weight of the Divine majesty (Cocceius). The view of yonder glory reminds man of his sin and corruption. The celestial lustre is the sign of celestial purity in the inhabitants of heaven; his frailty and mortality are the evidence of his sin. The time has not yet come when, life and immortality being brought to light, man is conscious of the grandeur of his inward faith and of his spiritual destiny, when he refuses to be crushed by the dazzling might and splendour of the material universe because conscious of affinity to the creative thought. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?WEB: How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean? |
    |