John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: February 13

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John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: February 13

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Contumely

Job 30

We might naturally suppose that by this time we are perfectly acquainted with Job’s present condition. But we are undeceived, when we come to read the contrast which he draws in the thirtieth chapter, between his existing state and the circumstances of happiness and honor set forth in the previous chapter; for we have here several new particulars which disclose to us that his social condition was even more deplorable than we had previously imagined. Essentially the treatment of a fallen man by his acquaintance, and by the unthinking multitude, has been the same in all ages and in all countries; varied only, and not varied much, by local habits and usages. But while knowing this, we are scarcely prepared for the malignancy of active persecution and insult to which, by this account, he was subjected in the very place where he had, not long since, been held in such high honor. The neglect of those who were once attentive, the coldness of those who once were warm, is what those who have been brought low have most to complain of; but we are unable to account for the positive maltreatment to which Job was exposed, but by concluding that—as, indeed, we have reason to suppose was the case—the doctrine of the friends, that Job could not have been thus signally afflicted but for the punishment of great though hidden crimes, was the common notion of the time, and was generally entertained by the people among whom Job dwelt. In fact, in the rapid and extraordinary succession of tremendous calamities which had befallen this man, there is that which would in almost any age—and would, perhaps even in ours—suggest to common minds, that he was thus pursued and branded by the Divine anger, for some atrocious crimes which human justice could not reach. The general popular sentiment in this matter, is conveyed in the account, which the familiar old ballad gives of the judgments, which befell the cruel uncle for the hidden murder of the “Babes in the Wood.”

“And now the heavy wrathe of God

Upon their uncle fell;

Yea, fearfull fiends did haunt his house,

His conscience felt an hell:

His barnes were fir’d, his goods consum’d,

His landes were barren made,

His cattled dyed within the field,

And nothing with him stayd.

And in the voyage of Portugal,

Two of his sonnes did dye;

And to conclude, himself was brought

Unto much miserye.”

When this idea had once got afloat, a thousand circumstances would, as is usual in such cases, be found to confirm it, and his best conduct, and his most innocent and noblest acts, would be tortured into new aspects; and would be seen to indicate deep design, hypocrisy, and a troubled conscience. Men are often as fatally misjudged by after-lights as by fore-lights.

If Job’s nearest friends so grievously misjudged him as they did, it is no marvel that the inconsiderate multitude should do the same; or that, so misjudging, they should evince in overt acts of insult and contumely the same convictions which the more grave and guarded friends set forth in biting speeches and cruel imputations.

He keenly complains, he sharply feels, that he who was once the honored chief among men, was now an object of insult to even the most abject and worthless, whose fathers he would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock. But now he says—“I am their song; yea, I am their by-word. They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.” They made him and his sufferings the subject of their low jests, and treated him with contempt; they even introduced his name and sufferings into their scurrilous songs, in mockery of the reduced condition of one formerly so much above them. Nothing to us here in the West can come near to, or give an idea of, the shocking and indecent scurrilities which the Orientals put into their satirical, or rather abusive songs; for much as personal and political liberty is restrained in the East, the liberty of the tongue has no check, and the street or bazaar mob may utter with impunity the most outrageously insulting and disgraceful language, against even the actual rulers of the land. It was the same formerly; for complaints of this occur repeatedly in the Bible. So the Psalmist says—“I was the song of the drunkards” (Psa_69:12); and Jeremiah complains—“I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.” Note: Lam_3:14.

Of having become “a by-word among the people,” Job had already complained. Note: Job_17:6. To be a jest and laughing-stock to all around him, touched him sorely. Then, perhaps, were heard such words as these—“As foul as Job;” “As bad as Job;” “As deceitful as Job.” He was at first a by-word in the way of reflection and insult; but the Lord in his own good time made his name a by-word or proverb of veneration and esteem, so that to this day, “As patient as Job,” “As poor as Job,” “As pious as Job,” etc., are similitudes which commemorate his high virtues and his great afflictions.

But while they thus insulted him, they took care to keep at a safe distance from the person of one tainted with leprosy. And to feel that he was personally abominable and loathsome to even the dirty rabble, was an aggravation to his many humiliations. But if they kept from coming near him, how could they “spit in his face?” The original may equally as well mean that they spat “before his face,” a well-known phrase to express a thing being done in the presence of any one. To spit in the presence of another is, in the East, nearly as much an insult as to spit upon him. No insult can, indeed, be greater. That the Orientals are great smokers at the present day, may suggest to most persons that they must necessarily spit. But the long pipes which they use, whereby the smoke is brought cool to the mouth, together with the mildness of the tobacco, prevent any unusual secretion of saliva, and the need for its emission; and they never in fact spit, unless for the purpose of insult, and the comparative rarity of the act therefore renders it the more pungently injurious. In inflicting this insult, it is much more frequent to spit on the ground before a person than at him or upon him; perhaps, because it is safest to keep beyond the arm’s length of a person thus insulted, as few would hesitate at a quick and fatal retaliation if, at the moment, in their power to inflict it. The Rev. Vere Munro, in his Summer Ramble in Syria, states, that when insulted by the people of Hebron on account of his Frank dress, he found that spitting was among their modes of insult, although none of them came near enough to reach him. “This mode of maligning,” he, adds, “is still common in the East, as it was eighteen [thirty] centuries ago; and I once witnessed it curiously applied. When travelling in the Faioum, one of the dromedaries did something which displeased the Bedouin who had the care of him, and instead of beating the offender he spat in his face.”

Job says, that people thus dealt with him “because He [God] hath loosed my cord,” an expression which has somewhat perplexed commentators. It appears to be a proverbial expression derived from nomad life, and referring to the overwhelming downfall which ensues when the cords of a tent are cut or broken. The image is used in the same sense by Jeremiah—“My tabernacle [tent] is spoiled, and all my cords are broken.”

Scott, in his metrical version of the book, renders the passage we have had under notice with considerable force and spirit—

“A herd of varlets, vagrants, without name,

Flayed by the lash, the spurious brood of shame,

Now their lewd doggrel jests my name profane;

They stare aloof as if my breath were bane;

They hoot, they spit, for God hath cast me down:

Hence their contempt of my once dreaded frown.”