The supposed attack of Job' by implication, upon the justice of God gives an opening for renewed admonitions and rebukes on the part of his friends. Bildad now comes forward and delivers a discourse full of noble faith, however its principles may be in this case misapplied. Rebuking the grievous complaints of Job as a wind, full of noise and emptiness (ver. 2), he proceeds -

I. TO INSIST ON THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. This is an axiom of his faith. God cannot do unrighteousness. It, is impious to admit the thought for a single moment into the mind. He insists on the inflexibility of God's rectitude. He will not bend right and duty (ver. 3). There can be no twisting, deviation, compromise, with God. His path is ever a straight line. Bildad will therefore rather draw an unfavorable conclusion about his friend than allow the slightest shadow to be cast on the splendour of the Supreme. Job may be guilty, nay, probably is so; but there can be no probability of any failure of right in God. The principle may appear somewhat harshly and rigidly stated; and yet from the sincere, even if narrow and limited, point of view of Bildad no doubt he is in the right. Rather seek any explanation of suffering, or leave it in mystery, than bring a charge against the unbending righteousness of God.

1. Application to the past and present. Following out this reasoning, the fate of Job's sons would seem to point to the fact that they had committed a deadly sin. And so, too, Job's present sufferings lead to the inference that he is very far from pure. The terrible example of his sons should be his warning. Yet this is expressed with some kindliness and forbearance. It is put hypothetically: "if thy sons" (ver. 4). Bildad, though rigid in doctrine, is not untender at heart - a kind of character we often see exemplified in life. But we have the lesson again and again from the conduct of these friends that friendship demands intelligence as well as heart. There is a missing link in Bildad's reasoning, which destroys its power in the present case.

2. Application to the future. There is hope for the sufferer if he will but betake himself in humility and repentance to God.

(1) There must be the seeking, striving, straining, agonizing effort of the whole soul to recover its lost treasure - peace with him.

(2) There must be prayer, the sincere expression of this desire (ver. 5). In life and in thought there must be conversion from evil and towards him, the Good and the Holy, the Gracious, and the Forgiving. The result will be the recovery of the lost happiness.

(a) Innocence will be restored (ver. 6); grand hope and promise of the eternal gospel - the crimson stain may be removed from the heart and the hand, past sins and iniquities may be remembered no more. The possibility of a renovation of which men are tempted in themselves to despair.

(b) Divine protection will be felt. God will watch over him (ver. 6) or "awake for him." The Shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not, will guard him from evil by night and by day, in his going out and his coming in.

(c) Peace will be in his homestead - the peace which dwells with right and innocence. Over garden and orchard, on fields and barns, and around the hearth, will be felt brooding the nameless presence of the favour of God.

(d) There will be increase of prosperity (ver. 7). The little one will become a thousand. The seed of right, germinating and producing, will grow to waving harvests of internal joy. of external good. Such are the cheering deductions from Bildad's high principles, the suggestions of his profound faith. The righteous God will be true to the righteous man. Sin is the only root of sorrow, virtue and godliness the only secret of abiding and eternal bliss.

II. APPEAL TO ANCIENT TRADITION.

1. The wisdom of the primeval fathers the guide of to-day. Bildad founds this upon the fact that:

(1) They lived to a greater age' according to the accepted tradition, than present men. They therefore knew better the abiding laws of life than we of lesser insight, who are of yesterday and brief-lived like shadows (vers. 8, 9).

(2) Their wisdom was that of ripe conviction (ver. 10). They did not speak at second-hand nor repeat by rote what they had learnt. Theirs was the wisdom of the heart. Contempt is expressed in several places in this book for mere lip-wisdom, the froth of the mouth as opposed to the genuine utterances of the mind (Job 11:2; Job 15:3; Job 18:2).

(3) There was therefore the stamp of sincerity on their wisdom. It came from men who had seen through life's illusions and cheats, and who had touched the foundation of things.

2. Specimens of ancient wisdom. (Ver, 11, seq.) Here Bildad passes into citation of some old sayings, which condense the truths of life.

(1) The papyrus and the grass of the Nile (vers. 11, 12 ). They cannot live without their proper element and nutriment of water; they quickly wither in its absence. So must it be with man where he is devoid of Divine grace (ver. 13). A new figure is introduced in the "paths" of the forgetters of God - they are lost like a wind-swept tract in the desert (comp. Psalm 1.); and the hope of the unholy "goes under," disappears like the sun below the horizon's verge, to be seen no more.

(2) The spider's web (ver. 14). He who trusts in his own strength or resources, without God, will have his confidence rent from him as the spider's web gives way at a slight touch or at the breath of the wind. The habitation which he thinks secure is but a gossamer thing; it cannot stand (ver. 15).

(3) The creeping plant in its pride (vers. 16, 17). Before the burning glow of the sun, full of sap, it spreads over the garden, fixing itself firmly among the stones, and proudly lording it, as it were, over them. But when God withdraws the water, it perishes, unpitied by the home which it adorned. The wicked is thus denied and forsaken by his own connections, when he would rely upon them. Such is the pleasure of his way, turned into the deepest misery. Others spring from his remains, like suckers from the overthrown tree; let them take warning by his fate (vers. 18, 19). What powerful images of the nonentity of evil! It never really was - and, its semblance passing away, not a trace is left behind.

III. RECAPITULATION. (Vers. 20-22.)

1. In the way of solace. God does not despise the innocent. This is a meiosis' a saying leas than is meant. He regards, he tends, he loves them, feeds them with water in the desert, keeps them as the apple of his eye. His will is to make them happy - to bring smiles to the dejected lines of the mouth, and to fill it with the fruits of praise.

2. In the way of warning. He holds not fast the evil-doers' hand," and therefore when they stumble they are helpless. The enemies of the good man will see with shame that he is raised up from every fall (ver. 22); and once more, in final reverberation of the thunder of menace, the tent of the wicked shall vanish and be no more! LESSONS.

1. The distinction between seeming and real prosperity - that which is for a time and that which is for ever.

2. Life by Divine grace, and recovery from seeming ruin. Death without Divine grace, and overthrow of seeming prosperity. - J.

In physics, in morals, in religion, reality has no respect for those who have no regard for truth and fact. Abused nature, undeterred by rank, plies her scourge on all the votaries of sin. Reality does not in moral matters seem to many so honest and severe. Fancy and imagining hold here a completer sway. Men propose to sip the sensual sweet and decline the sensual bitter. In religion, reality might seem to reign without a rival, for here is no dreamland for fancy, but the field of revelation for the activities of mind and heart. Some make religion their mirror, in which they see themselves the end of their whole devotion. Some overact their part in the temple, the more easily to overreach their brethren in the market. Some forge the name of God to the cheque of a sanctified deportment and present it for golden profits at the bank of Christian confidence. These are the hypocrites who trust that God will not expose them this side the grave; but their hope shall be cut off; "their trust is as a spider's web," which, while very beautiful in its structure, is equally fragile as to its texture, and, though adequate to the builder's purposes, yet, being self-spun, self-built, is destined to be swept away.

I. BEAUTIFUL AS TO ITS STRUCTURE. Admirable is the fairy architecture of the spider's web. This tracery of insect art, on hawthorn or holly fence, seen before the sun grows hot, strung with beads of dew, asks no painter's skill, no poet's eulogy; its beauty, like the sun's glory, is its own evidence. Beautiful, too, is the hypocrite's trust, and the religion that trust inspires. The hypocrite's religion satisfies the eye; it is the bright cloud which for the moment passes for the sun itself; it is the sacrifice without spot or blemish in the skin; an argument constraining charity to hope it is pure and right in heart. To men's sight the hypocrite's religion is like the spider's web, beautiful in its structure, but when tried it is found to be —

II. VERY FRAGILE IN ITS TEXTURE. This is no disparagement to the web. For such a tiny weaver, it is strong and wonderful. Were man as insignificant as the spider, his paltry trust would be no indignity; being but little lower than the angels, a hypocritical trust merits the comparison. God hangs great weights on small wires; the hypocrite hangs them all upon the semblance of them. There is nothing real but his wickedness, nothing true but his deception.

III. IT IS ADEQUATE TO THE OWNER'S PURPOSES AND SUCCESSFUL IN SECURING THEM. The hypocrite, wanting to fly with the doves to their windows, decks himself with their feathers. All of the true prophet is his hairy garment. His success often equals the completeness of his disguise. Charity hopes that under the leaves there is fruit; that behind the smile there is the loving heart; that the fragrance of profession steals from the true flower of grace within. It is adequate to his purposes, and too often successful in securing them. The spider ensnares his prey; the hypocrite does make a gain of godliness, and a ladder of religion.

IV. THEIR TRUST, BEING FALSE, SHALL, WITH ALL THAT RESTS UPON IT, BE UTTERLY SWEPT AWAY. The truth, holiness, and honour of God require it. Hypocrisy! It is a tomb with the lettered porch and golden dome of a temple. It is deception sublimed to a science. The hypocrite takes the precious name of Christ as an angler does a worm, and, thrusting it on the hook of his crooked purposes, angles for suffrages or lucre. But the pious dissembler will exhaust his last resource, and wear out his last disguise. This human spider may take hold with his hands, and pursue his close-couched schemes in the great King's palace, but coming judgment will sweep him and them away. The anger of the Lord will smoke against the hypocrite. No sacrifice can be presented without salt; no service can be accepted without sincerity.

(W. G. Jones.)