Job 3:1-26 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.… Job's tongue is loosened and his words are many. And what other form of speech was so true to his inmost feeling as the form which is known as malediction? The speech is but one sentence, and it rushes from a soul that is momentarily out of equipoise. Our friends often draw out of us the very worst that is in us. We best comment upon such words by repeating them, by studying the probable tone in which they were uttered. Thank God for this man, who in prosperity has uttered every thought appropriate to grief, and has given anguish a new costume of expression. 1. Notice how terrible, after all, is Satanic power. Look at Job if you would see how much the devil can, under Divine permission, do to human life. Perhaps it was well that, in one instance at least, we should see the devil at his worst. 2. See what miracles may be wrought in human experience. In Job's malediction, existence was felt to be a burden; but existence was never meant to be a heavy weight. It was meant to be a joy, a hope, a rehearsal of music and service of a quality and range now inconceivable. But under Satanic agency even existence is felt to be an intolerable burden. Even this miracle can be wrought by Satan. He can turn our every faculty into a heavy calamity. He can so play upon our nerves as to make us feel that feeling is intolerable. But the speech of Job is full of profound mistakes, and the mistakes are only excusable because they were perpetrated by an unbalanced mind. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.WEB: After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. |
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