well-poised top' of the lofty palm; or else a premature blight shall anticipate the ripening season, and strew the ground with the sour and spoiled fruit.

34. "For the abode of the wicked becometh a desolate rock,

"And fire consumeth the tents of the corrupt.

35. "Trouble was pregnant, and sorrow has been brought forth,

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Ay, disappointment was formed in their womb."

These four last lines may be considered either as the appliction of the ancient sage who composed the saying, or as Eliphaz's own application. He has quoted it against Job, as a remarkable attestation of the wisdom of antiquity to the doctrine of the just retribution of Providence, in this present life, on notorious transgressors. He is of opinion that Job's extraordinary calamities must be traced to a similar source.

SECTION VIII.

Job's Reply.

Chap. xvi. Ver. 1.-THEN answered Job and said:

2. I have heard many sayings' like these;

Most' irksome comforters are ye all!

a Mr. Good.

"Subversion," "casting down," or "overthrow," as of a rider thrown from his horse.

3. Let there be an end to words of wind:"

Ah! what can embolden thee to reply?

Referring to the opening of the last speech of Eliphaz, "should a wise man answer with airy knowledge' and 'fill his bosom with an east wind,' Job asks, what has encouraged or provoked him to make such a reply, so little deserved, as he feels confident, by what he had said.

4. I too, like you, could talk,

If my soul were in your soul's stead.

I could join together sayings against you,
I could shake my head at you:

5. I could urge you with my mouth,

And the motion of my lips could restrain.

An observation, not uncommon, that it is easy to talk;' and, for those that are untouched, to give advice to the afflicted; to quote against them wise adages and memorable sayings, to censure and to reprove; to bid them be strong and show more fortitude; and to check them in their expressions of grief or despair. All this is easy. But not so to bear up under misfortunes, and patiently to endure afflictions or excruciating pains. Could this be accomplished by talking, I could do that as well as you, but

6. If I talk, my sore will not be restrained"!

a

And if' I desist, what will it relieve me?

Invigorate, make you or exhort you, to be strong.

b, ulceration of body or mind; hence grief, agony, and affliction.

I could talk as you do, were I in your situation; but, in my afflictive circumstances, whether I address to myself topics of admonition or comfort, or whether I desist, it matters nothing, my grief and my pain rage the same; so different is the case of the unfeeling adviser and reprover, and that of the actual sufferer.

7. Ay, now hath He made me to fail!

THOU hast confounded all my testimonies".

8. That THOU shouldst cut me off, is for a testimony; My failure will stand up against me, and confront med!

с

Such I believe to be the sense of these difficult lines: Job has before him the conclusion drawn by his friends respecting his guilt, from the judgments he was suffering at the hand of God: he was prepared to clear himself from their suspicions respecting his character, and to adduce the testimony of his innocency. But, suddenly adverting to the hand of God which had struck him, he complains that, by that very act, God had made his defence of himself to fail in the eyes of his friends. Every testimony he could bring was invalidated, his mind was astounded, confounded, and silenced in plead

"Here, indeed, he has distracted me. Thou hast struck aghast all my witnesses." Mr. GOOD.

b Compare chap. xxxii. 12, 16. is-has become.'

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en my failure,' referring to the emblem of the blighted fruit in the last speech of Eliphaz. n is applied to the failure of fruit, Hab. iii. 17.

d" Answers, or contradicts me."

ing his cause. The very fact, that God had so prematurely cut him off by his judgment, was, in the opinion of his friends, a sufficient witness against him. My very failure, the blighted' and 'blasted' condition, in which I appear before them, is, in their estimation, an ocular demonstration of my guilt, and sufficient to refute all that I can plead in my behalf. This leads him again to bewail his sad condition, and complain of the heavy hand of God upon him.

9. His anger hath plucked" and invested me,
He hath grinded over me his teeth!

My afflicter sharpened his eyes at me;
They have opened wide their mouths over me.
10. They have rent to tatters my green-wood,
And glutted themselves together upon me!

This figurative description of the divine anger,'

* See Simonis, Lex. Heb. on, discerpsit, &c. The word is used, Gen. viii. 11, for the plucking off of the tender shoot of the olive by the dove, "Summus ramus olivæ carptus," vel portius" carptura; tenera," nempe illa et "recentior, e cacumine arboris." Hence, in the Syriac and Arabic, denotes the leaves and tender shoots of plants first cropped by the cattle.

whence the present, means, Mr. Good observes,' to smite, or strike generally,' and hence to wound, pierce, cut, or rend.' is literally to tatters; its radix, implies to strip, pull off, decorticate,' or strip off the bark;' and , a strip, shred, or tatter.', says Parkhurst, is spoken of the 'viridity of vegetables,' or 'floridity of animals,' 'green' as opposed to dry and withered," Gen. xxx. 37. It means also a smooth table, or plank of wood or stone.

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which Job had experienced, I am, upon the whole, led to conclude, should be referred, not to the common beast of prey, lacerating the body of an animal; but rather to some animal-the Rhinoceros, most probably, barking and devouring a

The last parable, quoted by Eliphaz, had used the metaphor of the broken or blasted tree, as designating the wicked man struck by the vengeance of God: the application intended, was, such visibly was Job; and, as he had just complained, that in defiance of all that he could say for himself, his failure,' in his friends' view, was enough to prove the justice of their accusation against him. If so, then sure enough, the failure of the once-flourishing tree was complete! His destruction had been like that of a tree attacked by some strong Rhinoceros, and afterwards devoured by the whole herd.

The animal is first described as cropping its tender shoots,-next investing the tree itself—then as hanging over it while he is masticating his food, discovering, by the bright glances of his eyes, his eager appetite to devour the remainder :-next, the whole herd attack with open mouth the chosen plant, and stripping up the bark, as their manner is, they rip up the tender wood itself with their sharp horn, and, dividing it into narrow slips or laths, devour the whole tree. Such, indeed, has been the fate of the once-flourishing plant in the sight of you all.