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Who ever braved Him, and prospered?
* * * * * *
How then can I (address or) answer Him?
Or choose my words (for argument) with Him?
I could not be induced to make reply
Though just: but I would supplicate my Judge
* * * * * *
If I appeal to strength; Lo! He is strong,
And if to justice; who could summon Him?"
(Job 9: - Metrical Version of Companion Bible).
The paranomasia of the two words contend and content may help us to see the Divine
lesson. To fight against the divinely appointed hiding of God's work "from the
beginning unto the end" leads to contending or judging God. Judging need not mean
condemning, it may mean justifying--God requires us to do neither. We are as wrong
when we labour to justify His ways with man, as we are when we rebel against His
appointments. Better, far better, to obey Him, walk humbly with Him, wait patiently for
Him, and trust Him. Who are we to express our conviction that "If God were to do so
and so then He would be.......!" Is this asked of us? Have we still failed to learn the
humiliating estate of the sons of Adam? Not till resurrection dawns shall we begin "to
know even as we are known".
Elihu speaks in harmony with this, when he said to Job:--
"But surely, thou hast spoken in mine ears,
And I have heard a voice of words like these:
`A man without transgression, pure am I:
Yea, I am clean, without iniquity.
He is against me, seeking grounds of strife,
That He may count me as His enemy,
My feet He setteth fast within the stocks,
And taketh observation of my ways.'
Behold, thou art not just: I answer thee:
HOW GREAT IS GOD COMPARED WITH MORTAL MAN?
Why then `gainst Him didst thou dare make complaint,
That by no word of His He answ'reth thee?"
(Job 33: 8-13. - Metrical Version of Companion Bible).
Job, afflicted by a discipline the causes of which were hidden from his eyes, contends
with God, and when the Lord does speak to him, He says to Job:--
"Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? he that reproveth God, let
him answer it" (Job 40: 2).
What a title for Job, "He that REPROVETH God"! His only answer is, "Behold I am
vile".
"Then answered Job, and to Jehovah said:--
I know, I know, that Thou canst all things do
[Thou askedst] (38: 3; 40: 2).
`Who is this that counsel hides,
And darkens all because of knowledge void'?
`'tis I! I uttered things I could not know';