1. Constancy in piety, notwithstanding the sharp temptations of an afflicted condition, is a singular commendation in God’s esteem; for hereby Job so acquits himself that the old characters of his piety are not sufficient without this new addition to his commendation (1Pe_1:7). And the reason of this is insinuated in the word “holding fast,” which in the original imports a retaining and holding of a thing firmly and with our whole strength, because of difficulties and opposition; as the traveller keeps his garment on a windy day.
2. Whatever it be in religion wherewith men please themselves, yet nothing pleaseth God better than sincerity and uprightness when it is persevered in under affliction, and in a trying condition.
3. As God is specially pleased with men’s sincerity, so it is against this that Satan plants his chief engines and battery. Satan did not assault Job’s outward prosperity, but to better his integrity thereby. Nor is it men’s formality or outward profession that he doth so much malign, if he can keep them from being sincere in what they do.
4. Albeit it be no small difficulty to stand fast, and to continue straight and upright in sharp trials, yet the truly sincere are, by the grace of God, able to do it, and to abide never so many and sharp assaults. Even weak grace, supported by God, is a party too hard for all opposition.
5. It is an act of Divine wisdom, when things of the world are going to ruin, not to cast away piety also, and a good conscience; or, because God strips us of outward contentments, therefore to turn our back upon that which ought to be a cordial under all pressures: for this is commended as an act of great wisdom in Job, when other things were pulled from him, still “he held fast his integrity.” To take another course will nothing benefit men, or ease their griefs, but doth indeed double their losses. (George Hutcheson.)
Graces held fast in trial
1. That Satan in all his temptations plants his chiefest battery against sincerity. Satan did not care at all to pull Job’s oxen from him, or his sheep from him, or his children from him, but to pull his grace from him; therefore it is said, Job held that fast.
2. That whatsoever a godly man loseth, he will be sure to lay hold of his graces, he will hold spirituals, whatever becomes of temporals. As it is with a man at sea in a shipwreck, when all is cast overboard, the corn that feeds him, and the clothes that cover him, yet he swims to the shore if he can, with his life in his hand. Or as it is with a valiant standard bearer, that carries the banner in war, if he sees all lost he will wrap the banner about his body, and choose rather to die in that as his winding sheet than let any man take it from him.
3. That grace doth not only oppose, but conquers Satan and all his temptations. He doth prevail in his integrity (so the Hebrew may be rendered in the letter).
4. That true grace gains by opposition. True grace is increased the more it is assaulted. (J. Caryl.)
God unchangeable toward the afflicted servant
He is still His servant, and one prominent among His children, and a word is now added showing that Jehovah notes the fidelity of His own: “Holdeth fast his integrity.” How beautiful is this! Poor and stricken, bereft of all, Job is still “My servant.” The living God loses not interest in His tried and suffering ones. Drink deep from this sweet well. Though change of circumstance oft brings change in those we once called friends, and those from whom we look for comfort give only blame, God is not a man that He should change, and it is still “My servant Job.” (H. E. Stone.)
The moral law and its observance
Thelowest step of the religious life is obedience to the moral law, and our time can never be lost when we are gazing at those simple, infinite, eternal sanctions. This is to all Christian life as the primitive granite on which the world is built. The man who strives to be faithful to the moral law, be he even a heathen or a publican, may be nearer to the kingdom of God than they who, in theologic hatreds, systematically violate its most essential precept: “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” The sum and substance of the moral law, as Christ set it forth, is truth and love. Only a few men are, in the highest sense, men of principle. A man of principle is one of the noblest works of God. He has learned the sacredness of eternity, the awful axiomatic certainty of law. Two most necessary cautions.
1. None of you may suppose for a moment that it needs no more than an appeal to reason and to conscience to secure obedience to this moral law. This, as all history proves, is a vital error.
2. You cannot see the face of God unless you keep your bodies in temperance, soberness, and chastity. It is not the grandeur of the moral law alone which can help you in this. You have to hear the voice of Christ. (Dean Farrar, D. D.)
Although thou movedst Me against him.
Satanic importunity
1. That Satan is an earnest and importunate solicitor against the people and Church of God.
2. That pure, or rather impure, malice stirreth Satan against the people of God.
3. That God doth afflict His people sometimes without respect unto their sins. Thou didst move Me against him without cause.
4. That God will at the last give testimony for the clearing of the innocency of His servants against all Satan’s malicious accusations. (J. Caryl.)
Satan’s malicious incitements
The expression “although thou movedst Me against him” is startling. Is it an admission, after all, that the Almighty can be moved by any consideration less than pure right, or to act in any way to the disadvantage or hurt of His servant? Such an interpretation would exclude the idea of supreme power, wisdom, and righteousness which unquestionably governs the book from first to last. The words really imply a charge against the adversary of malicious untruth. The saying of the Almighty is ironical, as Schultens points out: “Although thou, forsooth, didst incite Me against him.” He who flings sharp javelins of detraction is pierced with a sharper javelin of judgment. Yet he goes on with his attempt to ruin Job, and prove his own penetration the keenest in the universe. (R. A. Watson.)
