Job 22:26

THE Lord said to Eliphaz and his friends, "you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has." And, therefore, we must always regard what they said with careful discrimination. They were wise men according to their light, but they were quite at sea in their judgment of Job. However, in this particular verse, Eliphaz declared that which is taught in many other parts of Holy Scripture and we may profit by his utterance. God grant that by His Spirit we may fully experience the joys described in the words before us. Eliphaz and his friends had judged Job from their own point of view, making their own experience to be the standard. They, themselves, had prospered and, therefore, they inferred that if a man served God, he must necessarily prosper in worldly things—and that if he did not succeed as they had done, he must have been guilty of great crimes. Though they could not discover any actual fault in Job, they concluded, without further evidence, that he must have been a hypocrite and have acted oppressively to his servants, or have been unmindful of the claims of the poor, or in some other way have brought upon himself the wrath of God. It never entered their mind that so terrible a sickness and such a list of dreadful calamities could have befallen any man except as a punishment for special sin. They inferred virtue from prosperity, and sin from adversity. Unrighteous and cruel logic! At once false and brutal! It renders men at once false witnesses and Pharisees, condemning the innocent because of their sorrows, and flattering themselves because of their ease. To judge according to outward circumstances has been the tendency of men in all times—even David could not understand how it was that the wicked were so free from troubles while all day long he was, himself, plagued and chastened every morning.

For then shalt thou have thy delight - Thou shalt know, from thy temporal prosperity, that God favors thee; and for his bounty thou shalt be grateful.

Shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty - Instead of complaining of him as you now do, you would then find calm enjoyment in contemplating his character and his moral government. This is a correct account of the effects of reconciliation. He who becomes truly “acquainted” with God has pleasure in his existence and attributes; in his law and administration. No longer disposed to complain, he confides in him when he is afflicted; flees to him when he is persecuted; seeks him in the day of prosperity; prefers him to all that this world can give, and finds his supremest joys in turning away from all created good to hold communion with the Uncreated One. And shalt lift up thy face unto God - An emblem of prosperity, happiness, and conscious innocence. We hang our face down when we are conscious of guilt; we bow the head in adversity. When conscious of uprightness; when blessed with prosperity, and when we have evidence that we are the children of God, we look up toward heaven. This was the natural condition of human beings - made to look upward, while all other animals look grovelling on the earth. So Milton describes the creation of man: There wanted yet the master-work, the end Of all yet done; a creature, who, not prone And brute as other creatures, but endued With sanctity of reason, might erect His stature, and upright with front serene Govern the rest, self-knowing; and from thence Magnanimous to correspond with heaven, But grateful to acknowledge whence his good Directed in devotion, to adore And worship God supreme, who made him chief Of all his works. Paradise Lost, B. vii. The Classic reader will instantly recollect the description in Ovid: Pronaque cum spectent animalia caetera terram; Os homini sublime dedit; coelumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. Meta. 1:84.