Job 1:11 But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face. There are two kinds of hypocrisy in the world — conscious hypocrisy and unconscious. Of conscious hypocrisy it is not our intention to speak; we would fain believe that deliberate hypocrisy is as rare as deliberate atheism. We do not think that it was with conscious hypocrisy that Satan intended to charge God's servant Job, or with knowingly serving the Lord for what he could gain by it. Had he been guilty of this his probation must have made it manifest. It was a more latent hypocrisy the tempter wished to detect. The accusation of the adversary had reference to unconscious hypocrisy, and this is not so rare in the world. The insinuation against the patriarch was, that there was a measure of hypocrisy in him unknown to his own soul; that there was some self-interest at the root of his service of which he was not aware; that he was not so honest as he thought himself, or as others thought him; and that his affliction would elicit these facts against him. It is true that, to some extent, men are not so good as they seem; that there is not a little unconscious hypocrisy in the world; that the characters of men depend, more than they are disposed to acknowledge, upon their circumstances; that many of us would not be so good as we are were our positions in life worse. We ought to have examined ourselves very narrowly, and be well assured of our spiritual estate, ere we think, still less affirm, that we should not be the same as they — in worse social positions — did we by some providential reverse change places with them. This unconscious hypocrisy is a danger to which we are all liable. (Alfred Bowen Evans.) Parallel Verses KJV: But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.WEB: But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face." |
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