Paraphrase on the Book of Job, Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
1. IObs three friends that came to1. Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, comfort him, having all this while diligently attended to his passionate discourse; Eliphaz the Temanite, having his spirit stirred therewith, at length attempts to addresse himselfe to Job, seeing that hee himselfe had broken the silence, and had administred such an unexpected occasion of reproofe: And said,
2. We have purposely forborne all2. If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? But who can withhold himselfe from speaking? this while, therefore, now at last, let it not grieve thee to heare us speake. But how ever thou takest it at our hands, there are none of us that heares thee, that either can or may with a good conscience forbeare to reply to this thy sinful unbeseeming discourse.
3. Therefore consider with thy selfe3. Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weake hands. how unworthy of thee is this thy passionate exclamation (now that it pleaseth God to lay his afflicting hand upon thee) and how devoid of all religious integrity: For that alwaies heretofore thou hast beene a forward instructer of others how to beare afflictions, and by thy counsell thou hast strengthened them to a patient enduring their distresses.
4. In so much that by thy comfortable4. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. speeches, very many feeble ones have beene incouraged and upheld from fainting, and with faith and patience have beene inabled to goe through-stitch with their calamities.
5. But now that the same lot is falne5. But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest, it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled. to thee, and that thou shouldst make good thy words with thy actions, thou now contrary to all mens expectations, and to the scandall of thy profession, in stead of honouring religion by manifesting thy faith and patience under the hand of God, most shamefully degenerates into a faithlesse pusillanimity, and unbeseeming impatiency, contradicting by thine owne practice (in expressing such extreme trouble at the first touch of these calamities) all that ever thou hast heretofore advised to others.
6. But see now I pray thee by this,6. Is not this thy feare, thy confidence; and the uprightnes of thy waies, thy hope? that which (it appeares) hath hitherto beene hid from thine eyes, I meane, the deceit of thine owne heart touching those graces which till now thou thoughtest to have beene sincerely in thee, and eftsoones made thy brags of, Thou maist now plainly see by this alteration which affliction hath wrought in thee, what was thy feare, thy faith, thy uprightnesse and thy hope heretofore in the time of thy prosperity; for had thy graces beene any other than counterfeit pretences, and thy waies beene any other than sinister practices, not aiming … and directly at God, but indirectly at thy selfe and thine owne advantage they would never have suffered thee thus to have forgot thy selfe, and broken out into their contrary vices against God, neither certainely … God have laid this great punishment upon thee.
7. For, where ever canst thou call7. Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? to minde so much as any one that being truly such as thou salsely mistakest thy selfe to be, was ever plagued with the destroying hand of God as thou art; or in the whole world, where canst thou reckon one that ever thou knewst sincerely righteous, that ever God shewed such formidable wrath upon?
8. But on the contrary, I have continually8. Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickednesse, reape the same. observed in sundry examples, how that it hath ever beene Gods way of proceeding, only to bring evill sufferings upon such as either do or purpose evill, which wee have reason the rather to believe to be true, because this is so agreeable to justice, for men to reape as they sow, that is, for God to bring the evill they purposed to others, upon their owne heads, which otherwaies it were not.
9. And such men indeed, I have9. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrills are they consumed. commonly seen (with the manifestation of a most evident wrath from God) to be like thee, all of a sudden strangely ruined, and quite brought to nought in a moment.
10. For be men never so potent and10. The roaring of the Lyon, and the voyce of the fierc… Lyon, and the teeth of the young Lyons are broken. able to doe mischiefe, or be they never so well furnished with will and power thereunto; yet God, who sees mens hearts a far off, can, and does ordinarily, in the midst of their carreere, disable and intercept them, which no doubt, but God fore-saw in thee and thy children, though thou seest it not in thy selfe.
11. And therefore to shew his exceeding11. The old Lyon perisheth for lacke of prey, and the stout Lyons whelps are scattered abroad. great power, in preventing the great evill which he fore-saw, was towards, by the power which thou hadst got into thine hand to worke it, and withall, to intimate a reason of his action, hath he thus wonderfully disappointed thee by an utter disablement both in thy selfe and thy posterity, bringing upon thee the same evill which doubtlesse, else thou wouldst have brought upon another.
12. And that thou maist be the better12. Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine eare received a little thereof. perswaded, of the truth of that which I have said concerning thee; Know that for certaine (after the manner of revealing heavenly messages to our humane capacities, which understand them but in part) I lately had a revelation thence to this very purpose, which I have spoken of to thee, and that upon this very occasion of thy affliction.
13. For when that I had heard what13. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deepe sleepe falleth on men. had befalne thee, and the manner of it; One night seriously thinking of thee, and pondering thy case, as I lay awake in the dead time of the night, when other men were asleepe, and disputing within my selfe, how the innocency of thy life, and these punishments could in justice stand together;
14. Of a sudden an extreme feare14. Feare came upon me, & trembling, which made all my bones to shake. seized upon mee, in so much that it made me exceedingly to tremble, and my very bones to lose their strength, and to shake as if they had beene all over me out of joynt, and while I marvelled what should be the reason of it, I streight way perceived it was to prepare my minde with reverence, and better discerning to entertaine the vision that immediately ensued.
15. For presently there appeared15. Then a spirit passed before my face, the haire of my flesh stood up. a spirit before mee, the sight whereof made my very haire to stand an end.
16. And though it stood still before16. It stood still, but I could not discerne the forme thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voyce, saying. my face, yet could I not distinctly comprehend in my mind the forme thereof, only this I can say for certaine, that I saw an image before mine eyes; And whilest I was in this amazement, silently waiting the issue, at last it spake to me, and said these very words concerning thee, of whom I was even then thinking.
17. Why dost thou thus wonder at17. Shall mortall man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker? Gods proceedings towards Job, and secretly in thine heart question his Justice, because of Jobs innocent life? canst thou with any reason or equity conceive mortall man to be righteous; and the eternall God to be unrighteous, or the creature to be pure and innocent, and yet his Creator to be culpable and blame worthy in what hee shall doe?
18. Alas, how art thou deceived,18. Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his Angells hee charged with folly. as thou maiest easily see, if thou doest but consider, that those glorious Angells, which are now his speciall domesticke sevants in heaven, stand not in that estate by their owne power and worth, but by the mere support and firme decree of God, which in grace hee passed upon them, knowing that else they would have fallen as well as other their fellowes did, who though they were Angells, and so the best of all his creatures farre surpassing man, yet hee found fault enough in them to condemne them everlastingly.
19. If this be so of the Angels which19. How much lesse on them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth? are in their natures such excellent spirituall and immortall creatures, so far exceeding man, and which were so neere to God in heavenly mansions; How much more then is man, what ever he thinke of himselfe, sinfull before God, and unfit to be justified against God, being nothing else but infirmity and sinne, and justly liable to confusion, who comes so farre short of Angelicall perfection: For his soule whereby hee comes the neerest them, that dwells farre from God, officiating here below on earth in a body composed of nothing but corruptible clay, and then in respect of his nature, he has no better a foundation to trust to than the dust whereof he is made, and who by reason of sinne is so subjected to mortality, as that through inward diseases and outward casualties hee is become as fraile and transitory as the weakest creature living.
20. His whole life is nothing but a20. They are destroyed from morning to ening: they perish for ever without any regarding it. lingring death, the one shortening, the other hastening every moment, and his departure hence, though it be everlasting, and never to returne againe, yet it is so ordinary, that therefore it is made no matter of, but accounted as a thing of course even among men themselves.
21. And what are they when they21. Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdome. are dead? Why they turne to clay from whence they were taken; for then their soule quite leaves them wherein all their excellency consisted, and they die even as brute creatures without any power or skill to helpe themselves and hinder it.