27:11-23 Job's friends, on the same subject, spoke of the misery of wicked men before death as proportioned to their crimes; Job considered that if it were not so, still the consequences of their death would be dreadful. Job undertook to set this matter in a true light. Death to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country; but, to a wicked man, it is like a storm, that hurries him away to destruction. While he lived, he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will pour out upon him his wrath. When God casts down a man, there is no flying from, nor bearing up under his anger. Those who will not now flee to the arms of Divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. And what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and thus lose his own soul?

Verse 22. - For God shall out upon him, and not spare. Some commentators regard the storm as still the subject, and translate, "For it shall east itself upon him [or, 'rush upon him'] and not spore" (Sohultens, Merx). The difference is not great, since the storm represents God's judgment. He would fain flee out of his hand; or, if the storm is meant, out of its hand.

For God shall cast upon him, and not spare,.... Cast his sins upon him, which will lie as an intolerable weight upon his conscience; and his wrath upon him, which being poured out like fire, he will not be able to bear it; and deserved punishment on him, which, like a talent of lead, will bear him down to the lowest hell; and this will be done without showing any mercy at all; for, though the wicked have much of sparing mercy in this world, they have none in the next; there is sparing mercy now, but none in hell; God, that spared not the angels that sinned, nor the old world, nor Sodom and Gomorrah, will not spare them, 2 Peter 2:4; he that made them will have no mercy on them; and he that formed them will show them no favour:

he would fain flee out of his hands; in whose hands he is, not as all men are, being the works of his hands, and supported by him; much less as his people are, secure there; but in his hands as an awful and terrible Judge, condemning him for his sins, and sentencing him to everlasting punishment; and a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living and almighty God: there is no getting out of them, though "fleeing, he flees", as the phrase is, with all his might and main, with all the swiftness he can; it is all to no purpose; he is where he was, and must continue in the torment and misery he is in to all eternity; his worm of conscience will never die, nor the fire of divine wrath be ever quenched; though he will desire death ten thousand times over, he shall not find it, it shall flee from him, Revelation 9:6.

22. cast—namely, thunderbolts (Job 6:4; 7:20; 16:13; Ps 7:12, 13).

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