Job 7:3-5 So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.… "Months of vanity" indicate a protracted time of uselessness, when no good cause is furthered by us, and we ourselves seem rather to be failing in piety than growing in grace; a time of suffering without Divine consolation; months which look not even like months of discipline, because no good end seems to be served by the affliction. The modes of spiritual distress are almost as varied as the modes of spiritual progress. I. THE EXPERIENCE OF "MONTHS OF VANITY." We must carefully distinguish between these and months of sin, or of punishment for sin. 1. Job's "months of vanity" were the result of disastrous circumstances. 2. Sickness was another factor of Job's distress. 3. Job suffered from the injudicious sympathy of his friends. There was no lack of tenderness in these men. They were, however, wholly mistaken in the man; they wholly misread the meaning of his affliction and the purpose of God. 4. Job was in the hand of Satan. Are there not times when every woe is aggravated, and all the sufferer's courage sapped by the consciousness that no help is being vouchsafed? There are powers of evil which make themselves felt, thoughts that come charged with doubt, despair, and death. These are the things that try a man, seeming to make his life valueless and his piety a dream. II. THE DIVINE MEANING IN THESE "MONTHS OF VANITY." All this takes place in the providence of God. The consciousness of the sufferer is no true exponent, as his past experience is no measure of the Divine purpose. 1. These "months of vanity" revealed the energy of Job's endurance. There are Christians whose mere endurance is a greater triumph of grace than the labours and successes of others. 2. See the manifest victory of Job's faith. His utterances become more and more the utterances of faith. The manifest victory of faith becomes an enlargement of faith. 3. An enlarged thought of God was another of the fruits of Job's "months of vanity." (See the last chapter.) 4. The profound compassion and awe awakened in others by the sight of the good man's sufferings. We always need to have a new flow of sympathy, to be disturbed in our self-complacency; the tragedy of life unfolds itself to us; we are awestricken to mark God's dealings with human souls. We learn in what a man's life consists; we watch with patience for the assured victory of the human spirit. Life becomes nobler and grander; homely piety takes on a new dignity as the infinite possibilities of the patient soul appear. (A. Mackennal, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.WEB: so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. |
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