more important, and to this usage we appeal.  The reader may have no

facilities for the investigation of dead Hebrew roots, but he can survey the

language of Scripture and by the testimony of its usage he can abide in face

of all men.  The verb 'to make' used in Job 10:8, is the Hebrew atsab.  It

occurs in a variety of forms and, together with derived substantives, is

found fifty-five times in the Old Testament.  It is translated ten times

'grieve', as we have already seen.  The substantives give us the 'sorrow' of

childbearing (Gen. 3:16) and of human toil (Gen. 3:17; 5:29).  It gives the

title to the 'bread of sorrows' (Psa. 127:2) where the translation 'labour'

occurs; in Isaiah 58:3 the margin suggests 'griefs' or 'things wherein ye

grieve others'.  We have looked at the usage of atsab as found in the holy

Scriptures, and we fail to see any justification for the exceptional

treatment of Job 10:8.  We find exactly the same form of the verb in Isaiah

63:10 where we read:

'They rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit'.

It would be intolerable to attempt to make this translation conform to

the A.V. of Job 10:8 (where the margin reads 'took pains about me'), yet they

are practically identical.  We leave this matter for a moment to consider

another passage, and then to bring the two together.  Job is still pondering

the problem, but the light of resurrection and hope now illuminates some of

the obscurity.  We read in Job 14 the question:

'If a man die, shall he live again?' (Job 14:14),

and the question is answered:

'All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: Thou wilt have a desire to the

work of Thine hands' (Job 14:14,15).

We must omit everything else, for the time being, and concentrate on the

expression 'to have desire'.  Kasaph, the word so translated, means 'to be

pale' with longing and desire, and gives us the word for silver, the 'pale'

metal, even as argent means 'white' as well as 'silver'.

'My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord' (Psa.

said the Psalmist, and so said Job, the Lord 'longs' so intently, that Job

can say, 'He turns pale with the intensity of His longing' for the day to

come when in resurrection glory Job and all like him shall at length stand in

beauty, to sorrow no more for ever.  When God fashioned the body of Job, He

knew the challenge that Job's life would make to Satan, and how at length

that body, so wonderfully made, would be afflicted with such loathsome sores

that His servant Job would be glad to take a potsherd to scrape himself.  Did

God have no feelings as He saw all this in prospect?  He did.  He grieved as

He made this earthen vessel.  He was not indifferent to human sorrow, but Job

has taken us to the other end of the story.  From his birth into a world of

sorrow, he has led us to a new birth into a world of joy.  lf God grieved at

the fashioning of Job's body when he was born into this world, He is depicted

as 'turning pale' with the extreme longing with which He awaits the day of

Job's new birth into resurrection glory.  Here is a God unto Whom we may

stretch out our hands, and feel a grasp almost akin to our own.  Here is the

'God of all flesh', Who knows, Who is not untroubled, Who shares the

suffering brought about by sin, even as He plans to share the joy brought