Job 40:5

40:1-5 Communion with the Lord effectually convinces and humbles a saint, and makes him glad to part with his most beloved sins. There is need to be thoroughly convinced and humbled, to prepare us for remarkable deliverances. After God had shown Job, by his manifest ignorance of the works of nature, how unable he was to judge of the methods and designs of Providence, he puts a convincing question to him; Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? Now Job began to melt into godly sorrow: when his friends reasoned with him, he did not yield; but the voice of the Lord is powerful. When the Spirit of truth is come, he shall convince. Job yields himself to the grace of God. He owns himself an offender, and has nothing to say to justify himself. He is now sensible that he has sinned; and therefore he calls himself vile. Repentance changes men's opinion of themselves. Job is now convinced of his error. Those who are truly sensible of their own sinfulness and vileness, dare not justify themselves before God. He perceived that he was a poor, mean, foolish, and sinful creature, who ought not to have uttered one word against the Divine conduct. One glimpse of God's holy nature would appal the stoutest rebel. How, then will the wicked bear the sight of his glory at the day of judgment? But when we see this glory revealed in Jesus Christ, we shall be humbled without being terrified; self-abasement agrees with filial love.

Once have I spoken; but I will not answer,.... Some think this refers to what he had just now said of his vileness, he had owned that, and that was all he had to say, or would say, he would give no other answer; Jarchi says, some suppose he has respect to his words in Job 9:22 ; yea, twice; but I will proceed no further; the meaning seems to be, that he who had once and again, or very often, at least in some instances, spoken very imprudently and indecently, for the future would take care not to speak in such a manner: for this confession was not quite free and full; and therefore the Lord takes him in hand again, to bring him to make a more full and ingenuous one, as he does in Job 42:1.

5 . I will proceed no further ] Or, but I will not again . The words “once”, “twice”, that is, sundry times, refer to what Job had often said in his speeches concerning the Almighty. The purpose of making these wonders of creation pass before Job’s eyes was to display God before him, and to heal the presumption of his heart. Every one of these wonders utters the name of God with a louder emphasis in Job’s ears. It is not any attribute of God that is dwelt upon, it is God in all the manifoldness of His being that passes before Job’s mind. It is entirely to misinterpret the design of these visions of creation presented to Job when we suppose that what is aimed at is to impress on Job the incomprehensibility of the Creator’s works, or the mystery that lies in them all; as if he was bidden consider that not in his own life alone, but everywhere, beneath his feet and around him, there lay unfathomable mysteries. The Lord does not reason with Job after the manner of the author of the Analogy of Religion . He does not say “you complain of darkness in your own history, look into the world and behold darkness everywhere”. This would have been sorry reasoning on the part of the Father of lights. On the contrary, He bids Job look away from his own darkness to the world which is luminous with God; and the exceeding light about God there, breaking on Job, swallows up his own darkness.

It is scarcely just to say that what Jehovah demands of Job here is simple submission, that he should bow absolutely and unconditionally under God. If this had been the meaning of Jehovah’s speeches out of the storm there was no reason for His speaking. Silence would have been more effective; or if He had spoken, it should have been with the voice of the thunder, terrifying Job into the dust. That the Lord speaks at all implies that He says something that may be understood by the creature of His hand. His speaking may be indirect, and in parables, but it will contain meaning. It is true that the object of the Divine speeches is, partly at least, to bring Job’s heart to submission and cause him to assume his right place before the Creator. And this was necessary, for Job, as he acknowledges, had sinned against the majesty of God. But the Lord does not command Job to take this place; He induces him. And he does so by the only means that will ever induce any human spirit to put itself right with God, the revelation of Himself. This revelation given to Job was patient, broad, and manifold. It was anything but a categorical command. We , indeed, may feel now that the revelation might have been different, that it might have contained other traits. The traits which we desiderate could hardly, perhaps, have been exhibited on an Old Testament stage.

Verse 5. - Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but l will proceed no further . The meaning is, "I have already spoken, not once, but more than once. Now I will be silent; I will say no more.' There is a sort of recognition that the arguments used were futile, but not a full and complete confession, as in Job 42:3 . Job 40:5

I will not answer, or speak again ; answering being oft put for speaking. I will contend no more with thee. Yea, twice, i.e. ofttimes, or again and again, the definite number being used indefinitely. I will proceed no further in such bold and presumptuous expressions and accusations of thy providence towards me. Vain therefore are the excuses which some interpreters make for Job, as if he were faultless in his foregoing discourses, when both God chargeth him with faultiness therein, and Job himself confesseth it.

Once have I spoken - That is, in vindicating myself. He had once spoken of God in an irreverent and improper manner, and he now saw it. But I will not answer - I will not now answer, as I had expressed the wish to do. Job now saw that he had spoken in an improper manner, and he says that he would not repeat what he had said. Yea, twice - He had not only offended once, as if in a thoughtless and hasty manner, but he had repeated it, showing deliberation, and thus aggravating his guilt. When a man is brought to a willingness to confess that he has done wrong once, he will be very likely to see that he has been guilty of more than one offence. One sin will draw on the remembrance of another; and the gate once open, a flood of sins will rush to the recollection. It is not common that a man can so isolate a sin as to repent of that alone, or so look at one offence against God as not to feel that he has been often guilty of the same crimes. But I will proceed no further - Job felt doubtless that if he should allow himself to speak again, or to attempt now to vindicate himself, he would be in danger of committing the same error again. He now saw that God was right; that he had himself repeatedly indulged in an improper spirit, and that all that became him was a penitent confession in the fewest words possible. We may learn here: (1) That a view of God is fitted to produce in us a deep sense of our own sins.

No one can feel himself to be in the presence of God, or regard the Almighty as speaking to him, without saying, "Lo I am vile? There is nothing so much fitted to produce a sense of sinfulness and nothingness as a view of God. (2) The world will be mute at the day of judgment. They who have been most loud and bold in vindicating themselves will then be silent, and will confess that they are vile, and the whole world "will become guilty before God." If the presence and the voice of God produced such an effect on so good a man as Job, what will it not do on a wicked world? (3) A true penitent is disposed to use but few words; "God be merciful to me a sinner," or, "lo, I am vile," is about all the language which the penitent employs. He does not go into long arguments, into metaphysical distinctions, into apologies and vindications, but uses the simplest language of confession, and then leaves the soul, and the cause, in the hands of God. (4) Repentance consists in stopping where we are, and in resolving to add no more sin. "I have erred," is its language. "I will not add to it, I will do so no more," is the immediate response of the soul. A readiness to go into a vindication, or to expose oneself to the danger of sinning again in the same way, is an evidence that there is no true repentance.