Behold, God [is] great, and we know [him] not neither can the number of his years be searched out.
26. we know him not ] He is so great as to transcend all knowledge of man. The Eternity of God is referred to in the second clause in order to fill the mind more completely with the sense of His greatness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Chap. Job 36:26-33. The greatness and unsearchableness of God, seen in His marvellous operations in the skies; and exhortation to Job to allow these wonders duly to impress him, and to bow beneath the greatness of God, who surpasses all comprehension
The passage has two sections:
First, ch. Job 36:26 to Job 37:13, the incomprehensible greatness of God, seen in the phenomena of the atmosphere: in the formation of the rain-drops (ch. Job 36:26-28); in the thunder-storm (ch. Job 36:29 to Job 37:5); in snow and ice, which seals up the hand of man and makes him powerless before the mighty power of God ( Job 36:6-10); in His lading the cloud with moisture, and guiding it to the fulfilment of His varied behests upon the whole earth ( Job 36:11-13).
Second, ch. Job 37:14-21, Elihu exhorts Job to consider these marvels of Him which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working, and to let them duly impress him; bidding him behold the wonderful balancing of the summer cloud in the heavens, when the earth is still with the south wind ( Job 36:14-17), and the burnished sky is stretched out like a molten mirror ( Job 36:18). With what words shall man come before the Omnipotent to contend with Him! Man, who is dazzled by the light of the sky, how should he behold the terrible glory around God! Therefore all men do fear Him; and He hath not respect to those that are wise in their own understanding ( Job 36:19-21).
Ch. Job 36:26 to Job 37:13, The greatness of God and the wonderfulness of His operations in the phenomena of the atmosphere.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Behold, God is great, and we know him not – That is, we cannot fully comprehend him; see the notes at Job 11:7-9.
Neither can the number of his years be searched out – That is, he is eternal. The object of what is said here is to impress the mind with a sense of the greatness of God, and with the folly of attempting fully to comprehend the reason of what he does. Man is of a few days, and it is presumption in him to sit in judgment on the doings of one who is from eternity. We may here remark that the doctrine that there is an Eternal Being presiding over the universe, was a doctrine fully held by the speakers in this book – a doctrine far in advance of all that philosophy ever taught, and which was unknown for ages in the lands on which the light of revelation never shone.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 36:26-27
God is great, and we know Him not.
The knowledge of God
These words recall the supreme questions which divide hostile philosophies. Even Christian apologists have maintained that God is inaccessible to human thought, and that our highest knowledge of Him can have only a relative truth. Many who are antagonistic to the. Christian faith maintain that mans knowledge is necessarily limited to the universe of phenomena, and that all attempts to pass beyond it are the result of an ambitious discontent with the eternal limitations of our intellectual power. The words of the text cannot mean that God is absolutely unknown. We know God, and therefore we worship Him; but there is infinitely more to know. His greatness passes beyond the widest limits, not only of our actual knowledge, but of all knowledge possible to us. This truth is pressed upon us in whatever direction thought may travel.
1. Our hearts should be filled with awe when we meet to worship Him.
2. That God is great, and we know Him not, should encourage the largest and freest confidence in His ability and willingness to meet and to satisfy all the exigencies of our personal life.
3. It is the infinite greatness of God–a greatness that can never be defined or exhausted by created thought–which alone enables us to accept calmly, and without dread, the gift of immortality.
4. If this is the strength and joy of those who are conscious that through His infinite mercy their sins are forgiven, and they are restored to the light and blessedness of His love, it is full of terror to all with whom He is not at peace, and who are exposed to His eternal condemnation. (R. W. Dale, D. D. , LL. D.)
The unknowable God
Unknown, unknowable–truly; yet not on that account unusable and unprofitable. That is a vital distinction. The master of science humbly avows that he has not a theory of magnetism; does he, therefore, ignore it, or decline to inquire into its uses? Does he reverently write its name with a big M, and run away from it, shaken and whitened by a great fear? Verily, he is no such fool. He actually uses what he does not understand. I will accept his example, and bring it to bear upon the religious life. I do not, scientifically, know God; the solemn term does not come within the analysis which is available to me; God is great, and I know Him not; yet the term has its practical uses in life, and into those broad and obvious uses all men may inquire. What part does the God of the Bible play in the life of the man who accepts Him and obeys Him with all the inspiration and diligence of love? Any creed that does not Come down easily into the daily life to purify and direct it, is by so much, imperfect and useless. I cannot read the Bible without seeing that God (as there revealed) ever moved His believers in the direction of courage and sacrifice. These two terms are multitudinous, involving others of kindred quality, and spreading themselves over the whole space of the upper life. In the direction of courage–not mere animal courage, for then the argument might be matched by gods many, yet still gods, though their names be spelt without capitals; but moral courage, noble heroism, fierce rebuke of personal and national corruption, sublime and pathetic judgment of all good and all evil. The God-idea made mean men valiant soldier-prophets; it broadened the piping voice of the timid inquirer into the thunder of the national teacher and leader; for brass it brought gold; and for iron, silver; and for wood, brass; and for stones, iron; instead of the thorn it brought up the fir tree, and instead of the brier the myrtle tree, and it made the bush burn with fire. Wherever the God-idea took complete possession of the mind, every faculty was lifted up to a new capacity, and borne on to heroic attempts and conquests. The saints who received it subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire; out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Any idea that so inspired in man life and hope, is to be examined with reverent care. The quality of the courage determines its value and the value of the idea which excited and sustained it. What is true of the courage is true also of the sacrifice which has ever followed the acceptance of the God-idea. Not the showy and fanatical sacrifice of mere blood letting: many a Juggernaut, great and small, drinks the blood of his devotees; but spiritual discipline, self-renunciation, the esteeming of others better than ones self, such a suppression of the self-thought as to amount to an obliteration of every motive and purpose that can be measured by any single personality–such are the practical uses of the God-idea. It is not a barren sentiment. It is not a coloured vapour or a scented incense, lulling the brain into partial stupor or agitating it with mocking dreams; it arouses courage; it necessitates self-sacrifice; it touches the imagination as with fire; it gives a wide and solemn outlook to the whole nature; it gives a deeper tone to every thought; it sanctifies the universe; it makes heaven possible. Unknown–unknowable! Yes; but not therefore unusable or unprofitable. Say this God was dreamed by human genius. Be it so. Make Him a creature of fancy. What then? The man who made, or dreamed, or otherwise projected such a God, must be the author of some other Work of equal or approximate importance. Produce it! That is the sensible reply to so bold a blasphemy. Singular if man has made a Jehovah, and then has taken to the drudgery of making oil paintings and ink poems, and huts to live in. Where is the congruity? A man says he kindled the sun, and when asked for his proof, he strikes a match which the wind blows out! Is the evidence sufficient? Or a man says that he has covered the earth with all the green and gold of summer, and when challenged to prove it, he produces a wax flower which melts in his hands! Is the proof convincing? The God of the Bible calls for the production of other gods–gods wooden, gods stony, gods ill-bred, gods well shaped, and done up skilfully for market uses: from His heavens He laughs at them, and from His high throne He holds them in derision. He is not afraid of competitive gods. They try to climb to His sublimity, and only get high enough to break their necks in a sharp fall. Again and again I demand that the second effort of human genius bear some obvious relation to the first. The sculptor accepts the challenge, so does the painter, so does the musician–why should the Jehovah-dreamer be an exception to the common rule of confirmation and proof? We wait for the evidence. We insist upon having it; and that we may not waste our time in idle expectancy, we will meanwhile call upon God, saying, Our leather which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The greatness of God
I. The greatness of God infinitely surpasses our knowledge of Him. Behold, God is great, and we know Him not. Consider how imperfect our knowledge is–l. Of the Divine nature. We are greatly to seek in the first notion of God, that He is a Spirit; then, that He is a Trinity in Unity.
2. Of the Divine decrees and counsels. We must conjecture uncertainly about His decrees, because we are so distant and so incompetent in all our speculations about the Divine nature.
3. Of the Divine work in creation and providence.
II. Useful inferences.
1. What an inestimable treasure the Holy Scriptures ought to be esteemed by us.
2. How reasonable a thing it is for us to love one another in some differences of opinion and thought while we are on this side heaven.
3. How justly the wise and the good mind may be longing after that state where their knowledge of God may be advanced to such unspeakable degrees, suitably both to the nature of God and the capacious nature of our souls. (Nathanael Resbury, A. M.)
For He maketh small the drops of water.—
Gods greatness in small things
We lose God in His greatness, and it is well for us to be told that the great God can do small things, and that small things are often the illustrations of His greatness.
I. God illustrates His greatness in doing small things. Illustrate from the statesman, who can find time to contribute to the literature of his country; the great builder, who cares for minute ornament. Or from Gods attention in creation to every detail. Or from the ritualism of the old dispensation, which included the elaborate and minute. It is to reduce God to our littleness, to suppose that He measures all things by our scale. He does not even measure time by our computation. Great and small are terms which have not the same meaning with God as with man. How can anything be great to Him but Himself? He regulates the ripples on the sea of human life, caused by trivial circumstances, as well as the lifting up of the floods, when the angry waves threaten us with shipwreck. God is great, and He is so great that He is gentle; there are no hands so strong, and none so tender. God does great things, but He does them silently. The greatest forces operate without bustle and noise. Gentleness is the perfection of strength.
II. Christ, the manifested God, does all things beautifully, small as well as great things. He comes, as all the race come, by birth. He grew in wisdom and stature. No one but a teacher, in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, could have discoursed with such beautiful simplicity on the highest themes, The doctrine of providence tie brings down to the little things of daily life. What a Gospel He gives us in a few words. His conduct to childhood illustrates the singular beauty with which He did everything.
III. The way to greatness is to do small things. Men who have obtained greatness have begun with the beginning of things. Great men have always been men of detail–great works are done by careful attention to little things. To overlook the importance of small things, is to forget that these give birth to great things. Life, to a great extent, is made up of small things. It is with small things we build up character. (H. J. Bevis.)
Gods incomprehensible greatness illustrated by little things
I. Man cannot comprehend it. God is great, and we know Him not, neither can the number of His years be searched out.
1. Man cannot comprehend His nature. Great in Himself. All His attributes transcend our understanding.
2. Man cannot comprehend His history. Neither can the number of His years be searched out. In the presence of His greatness–
(1) All the glories of man, kind dwindle into insignificance. In the presence of His greatness–
(2) With what profound reverence should we ever think and speak of Him.
II. Little things illustrate it. For He maketh small the drops of water; or, as some render it, He draweth up the drops of water. Elihu seems to connect Gods greatness with His attention to the drops of water.
1. The greatness of His wisdom is seen in the small. Take the microscope and examine life in its minutest form, and what wonderful skill you discover in the organisation: as much wisdom as the telescope will show you amongst the rolling worlds of space.
2. The greatness of His goodness is seen in the small.
3. The greatness of His taste is seen in the small. Take the wing of the smallest insect, or the smallest grain of ore, and what exquisite forms and what beautiful combinations of colour.
4. The greatness of His power is seen in the small (Homilist.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 26. God is great] He is omnipotent.
We know him not] He is unsearchable.
Neither can the number of his years be searched out.] He is eternal.
These three propositions are an ample foundation for endless disquisition. As to paraphrase and comment, they need none in this place; they are too profound, comprehensive, and sublime.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
God is great; infinite in majesty, and power, and wisdom, and all perfections, and therefore just in all his ways. We
know him not, to wit, perfectly. Though we see something of him in his works, as was now said, yet we see and know but little of him in comparison of that which is in him. He is incomprehensibly great in his essence and in his works, and therefore be not so rash, O Job, as to censure those ways of God which thou canst not fully understand. He is from everlasting to everlasting, eternal, as in his being, so in all his counsels; which therefore must be infinitely wise, and above the comprehension of short-lived men.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
26. (Job37:13). God’s greatness in heaven and earth: a reason why Jobshould bow under His afflicting hand.
know him notonly inpart (Job 36:25; 1Co 13:12).
his years (Psa 90:2;Psa 102:24; Psa 102:27);applied to Jesus Christ (Heb 1:12).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Behold, God [is] great,…. In his power and might, in his wisdom and knowledge, in his truth and faithfulness, in his love, grace, and mercy, and that to admiration; and it is worthy of notice and attention, which the word “behold”, prefixed hereunto, is expressive of: or is “much” or “many” f; as he is in his persons: for though his essence is one, his persons are more, they are three, Father, Son, and Spirit; in his perfections, of which there is a fulness; in his thoughts, counsels, purposes? and decrees, which respect other persons and things; in his works of creation, providence, and grace, and in the blessings of his goodness, which are so many as not to be reckoned up;
and we know [him] not; God is to be known by the works of creation, and even by the very Heathen; though such is their inattention to them, that they are said not to know God; yea, even the wisest among them, by all their wisdom, knew not God, 1Co 1:21; for though they might know there was a God, they knew not who and what he was. God is known by his word among those who are favoured with a divine revelation of him, and especially by true believers in Christ, who know God in Christ, whom to know is life eternal; and yet these know but in part, there is no finding out the Almighty to perfection; God is not known clearly, fully, and perfectly, by any: or “we know [it] not”; the greatness of God; he is great, but we know not how great he is; his greatness is beyond all conception and expression;
neither can the number of his years be searched out; years are ascribed to God, after the manner of men, otherwise, properly speaking, they are not applicable to him; by which time is measured, and which belongs not to the eternal God; however, the number of his years in an eternity past, and of those to come, cannot be searched out and reckoned up: it requires no great skill in arithmetic to reckon up the years of the oldest man that ever lived; yea, the months, the days, the hours, and minutes, of his life may be counted; but the years of the Most High cannot; this is a phrase expressive of the eternity of him which is, and was, and is to come, and who from everlasting to everlasting is God. He was before the world was, as the creation of it out of nothing shows. Jehovah the Father had a Son, and he loved him before the foundation of the world, and all his people in him; he made an everlasting choice of them in him, before the world began; he made an everlasting covenant with them in him, and gave them grace in him as early as that; he set him up as Mediator from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; and will be the everlasting and unchangeable portion of his people to all eternity. Cocceius thinks that these words are expressive of the constant love of God to the church, and the continuance of his kingdom in it; and of his most fixed purpose of love to men, and indefatigable care of them.
f , Sept. “multus”, Mercerus, Drusius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
26 Behold, God is exalted-we know Him not entirely;
The number of His years, it is unsearchable.
27 For He draweth down the drops of water,
They distil as rain in connection with its mist,
28 Which the clouds do drop,
Distil upon the multitude of men.
29 Who can altogether understand the spreadings of the clouds,
The crash of His tabernacle?
The Waw of the quasi-conclusion in Job 36:26 corresponds to the Waw of the train of thought in Job 36:26 (Ges. 145, 2). is, as the subject-notion, conceived as a nominative (vid., on Job 4:6), not as in similar quasi-antecedent clauses, e.g., Job 23:12, as an acc. of relation. here and Job 37:23 occurs otherwise only in Old Testament Chaldee. In what follows Elihu describes the wondrous origin of rain. “If Job had only come,” says a Midrash ( Jalkut, 518), “to explain to us the matter of the race of the deluge (vid., especially Job 22:15-18), it had been sufficient; and if Elihu had only come to explain to us the matter of the origin of rain ( ), it had been enough.” In Gesenius’ Handwrterbuch, Job 36:27 is translated: when He has drawn up the drops of water to Himself, then, etc. But it is , not ; and neither in Hebr. nor in Arab. signifies attrahere in sublime (Rosenm.), but only attrahere (root ) and detrahere; the latter signification is the prevailing one in Hebr. (Job 15:8; Job 36:7). With the transcendent exaltation of the Being who survives all changes of creation is shown by an example: He draws away (draws off, as it were) the water-drops, viz., from the waters that are confined above on the circle of the sky, which pass over us as mist and cloud (vid., Genesis, S. 107); and these water-drops distil down ( , to ooze, distil, here not in a transitive but an intransitive signification, since the water-drops are the rain itself) as rain, , with its mist, i.e., since a mist produced by it (Gen 2:6) fills the expanse ( ), the downfall of which is just this rain, which, as Job 36:28 says, the clouds (called on account of its thin strata of air, in distinction from the next mist-circle) cause to flow gently down upon the multitude of men, i.e., far and wide over the mass of men who inhabit the district visited by the rain; both verbs are used transitively here, both as Isa 45:8, and , as evidently Pro 3:20. , Job 36:29, commences an intensive question: moreover, could one understand = could one completely understand; which certainly, according to the sense, is equivalent to: how much less ( ). is, however, the interrogative an, and corresponds to in the first member of the double question, Job 34:17; Job 40:8. are not the burstings, from = , frangere, findere , but spreadings, as Eze 27:7 shows, from , expandere , Psa 105:39, comp. supra on Job 36:9. It is the growth of the storm-clouds, which collect often from a beginning ”small as a man’s hand” (1Ki 18:44), that is intended; majestic omnipotence conceals itself behind these as in a (Psa 18:12) woven out of thick branches; and the rolling thunder is here called the crash ( , as Job 39:7, is formed from , to rumble, whence also , if it is not after the form , migration, exile, from morf , , vid., on Job 30:3) of this pavilion of clouds in which the Thunderer works.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Strophe b The infinitely exalted and eternal God displays his beneficence in the subtle elaboration of rain, a work which blends together wisdom and power, providence and love, and which can be fully comprehended only by him who spreads out the clouds and sends forth the crashing thunder from the thick cloud, which is his pavilion, Job 36:26-29.
26. Behold, God is great The greatness of God is indicated by his unsearchableness and eternity. “Elihu shows that Job’s allegation that he has been unrighteously handled, and his impeachment of God’s righteousness, are contraventions of his nature as manifested in creation. The omnipotence and wisdom of God, which are everywhere apparent in the universe, furnish a testimony to God’s righteousness Every witness, therefore, in nature to God’s greatness as a Creator rises against an arraignment of God’s righteousness. Whoso will bring a charge against God’s justice must measure himself with the divine omnipotence.” Wordsworth.
The Unknowable God
Job 36:26
God Unknown, Unknowable; even so, yet not the less the one Reality, and the one Energy of the universe. What it is possible to know it must be possible to explain, to put into an equal number of words, which, being all set together, sum themselves into the exact measure of the thing that is known. What can be known can of course be contained by the faculty which knows it. The vessel is of necessity larger than its contents. It, then, any faculty of mine knows God, that faculty contains God, and is in that sense larger than God, which is impossible and absurd. Whatever I can know is, by the very fact that I can know it, less than I am; bigger, it may be, as to mere size in length and breadth, a huge disc that glares with light, or a globe flying fast, yet with speed that can be set down in so many ciphers or lines of ciphers on a child’s slate, so clearly that we can say: It is so much an hour the great wings fly, and not one mile more. What is that but mere bigness, an appeal to our easily excited wonder, a Size that shakes our pride and bids us mind our ways, or a weight may fall upon us from the sky? It is nothing but infinitised mud, nothing but an ascertainable quantity and intensity of fire a wide and high stair leading to nothing!
Unknown Unknowable. Thanks. I am tired of the Known and the Knowable, tired of saying this star is fifty millions of miles in circumference, that star is ninety millions of miles farther off than the moon, and yonder planet is five million times larger than the earth. It is mere gossip in polysyllables, getting importance by hugeness, something that would never be named in inches, and that owes its fame to the word millions. It is so that men want to make a mouthful of God! A great mouthful, no doubt, say even to the extent of super-millions squared and cubed into a whole slateful of ciphers, but pronounceable in words! Failing this, they suppose they have destroyed him by saying he is Unknowable and Unknown. It makes me glad to think he is! That any One or any Thing should be unknowable and should yet invite and stimulate inquiry is educationally most hopeful. O soul of mine, there are grand times in store for thee! I cannot rattle my staff against the world’s boundary wall, and say, The End! Poor staff! It thrusts itself into a cloud; it goes over the edge; it is like to be pulled out of my hand by gravitation from another centre stronger than the earth’s core, a gravitation that pulls even the earth itself and keeps it from reeling and falling. Yes, prying staff, thou canst touch nothing but a most ghostly emptiness. Soul of man, if thou wouldst truly see see the Boundless, see the Possible, see God go into the dark when and where the darkness is thickest That is the mighty and solemn sanctuary of vision. The light is vulgar in some uses. It shows the mean and vexing detail of space and life with too gross a palpable-ness, and frets the sensitiveness of the eyes. I must find the healing darkness that has never been measured off into millions and paraded as a nameable quantity of surprise and mystery. Dens absconditus . God hideth himself, oftenest in the light; he touches the soul in the gloom and vastness of night, and the soul, being true in its intent and wish, answers the touch without a shudder or a blush. It is even so that God comes to me. He does not come through man’s high argument, a flash of human wit, a sudden and audacious answer to an infinite enigma, or a toilsome reply to some high mental challenge. His path is through the pathless darkness without a footprint to show where he stepped; through the forest of the night he comes; and when he comes the brightness is all within! My God unknown and unknowable cannot be chained as a Prisoner of logic, or delivered into the custody of a theological proposition, or figured into literal art. Shame be the portion of those who have given him a setting within the points of the compass, who have robed him in cloth of their own weaving, and surnamed him at the bidding of their cold and narrow fancy! For myself, I know that I cannot know him, that I have a joy wider than knowledge, a conception that domes itself above my best thinking, as the sky domes itself in infinite pomp and lustre above the earth whose beauty it creates. God! God! God! best defined when undefined; a Fire that may not be touched; a Life too great for shape or image; a Love for which there is no equal name. Who is he? God. What is he? God. Of whom begotten? God. He is at once the question and the answer, the self-balance, the All.
We have tried to build our way up to him by using many words with some cunning and skill. We have thought to tempt him into our cognition by the free use of flattering adjectives. Surely, said we, he will pour his heart’s wine into the golden goblets which we hold to catch the sacred stream. We have called him Creator, Sovereign, Father; then Infinite Creator, Eternal Sovereign, Gracious Father, as if we could build up our word-bricks to heaven and surprise the Unknown and the Unknowable in his solitude, and look upon him face to face. We have come near to blasphemy herein. What wonder had we been thrust through with a dart! We have thought our Yesterday roomy enough to hold God’s Eternity, and have offered him with every show of abounding sufficiency the hospitality of our ever-changing words as a medium of revelation. Our words! Words that come and go like unstable fashions. Words that die of very age; words that cannot be accepted unanimously in all their suggestions and relations even by two men. Into these words we have invited God, and because he cannot come into them but as a devouring fire, we have stood back in offence and unbelief. God! God! God! ever hidden, ever present, ever distant, ever near; a Ghost, a Breath, making the knees knock in terror, ripping open a grave at the very feet of our pleasure, a mocking laugh at the feast, filling all space like the light, yet leaving room for all his creatures; a Terror, a Hope Undefinable, Unknow able, Irresistible, Immeasurable. God is a Spirit!
Undefinable, Unknown, Unknowable, Invisible, Incomprehensible, grim negatives, emptinesses that deceive us by their vast hollowness, and nothing more, are these surly words. The wrong word is to blame for the wrong conclusion. We have chosen the very worst word in our haste, and have needlessly humbled ourselves in doing so. We have made a wall of the word when we might have made it into six wings, twain to cover the face, twain to cover the feet, and twain with which to fly. Instead of Unknowable, Invisible, Incomprehensible, say Super-knowable, Supervisible, Supercomprehensible, and at once the right point of view is reached and the mystery is made luminous. From the Un knowable I turn away humiliated and discouraged; from the Super knowable I return humbled, yet inspired. The Un knowable says: Fool, why bruise thy knuckles in knocking at the final granite as if it were a door that could be opened? The Super knowable says: There is something larger than thy intelligence; a Secret, a Force, a Beginning, a God! Evermore is the difficulty in the lame word and not in the solemn truth. We make no progress in religion whilst we keep to our crippled feet; in its higher aspects and questionings it is not a road to walk upon, it is an open firmament to fly in. Alas for his progress who mistakes crutches for wings! Yet this absurdity has so recommended itself to our coldness as to win the name of prudence, sobriety, and self-suppression. We have lost the broad and mighty pinions that found their way to heaven’s gate, and the eye of burning love that looked steadfastly into the sacred cloud. We have now taken to walking, and our lame feet pick their uncertain way over such stones as Unknown, Unknowable, Invisible, Incomprehensible, and we finish our toilsome journey exactly where we began it. Enthusiasm sees God. Love sees God. Fire sees God. But we have escaped the revealing, because sympathetic, fire, and have built our prudent religion upon the sand. On the sand! Think of it! So we go to it, and walk around it, and measure it, and break it up into propositions, and placard it on church walls, and fight about it with infinite clamour and some spitefulness. My soul, amid all Unknowableness, Incomprehensibleness, and other vain and pompous nothings, hold fast to the faith that thou canst know God, and yet know nothing merely about him; know him by love and pureness, and not know about him by intellectual art or theological craft.
Invisible! This is what the Bible itself says. The invisible-ness of God is not a scientific discovery; it is a Biblical revelation; it is a part of the Bible. “No man hath seen God at any time” “No man can see God and live.” This is the difficulty of all life, and the higher the life the higher the difficulty. No man can see himself and live! He can see his incarnation, but his very self the pulse that makes him a man he has never seen, he can never see! Anatomy says it has never found the soul, and adds, “Therefore there is no soul.” The reasoning o’erleaps itself and takes away its own life by rude violence. Has anatomy found Genius? Has the surgical knife opened the chamber in which Music sings and seen the Singer? Or has anatomy laid its finger upon Imagination and held it up, saying, “Behold, the mighty wizard”? But if there is no soul, simply because anatomy has never found one, then there is no genius, no music, no imagination, no chivalry, no honour, no sympathy, because the surgeon’s knife has failed to come upon them in wounding and hacking the human frame! Anatomise the dead poet and the dead ass, and you will find as much genius in the ore as in the other; therefore there is no genius! Who that valued his life would set his foot on such a bridge as that rickety “therefore”? But some men will venture upon any bridge that seems to lead away from God; a very simple anatomy will find the reason; it is because “they do not like to retain God in their hearts” it is not because of intellectual superiority, but because of moral distaste. An internal cancer accounts for this invincible aversion.
Unknown; Unknowable; truly, yet not on that account unusable and unprofitable. That is a vital distinction. The master of science humbly avows that he has not a theory of magnetism; does he therefore ignore it, or decline to inquire into its uses? Does he reverently write its name with a big M, and run away from it shaken and whitened by a great fear? Verily he is no such fool. He actually uses what he does not understand. I will accept his example and bring it to bear upon the religious life. I do not scientifically know God; the solemn term does not come within the analysis which is available to me; God is great, and I know him not: yet the term has its practical uses in life, and into those broad and obvious uses all men may inquire. What part does the God of the Bible play in the life of the man who accepts him and obeys him with all the inspiration and diligence of love? Any creed that does not come down easily into the daily life to purify and direct it is by so much imperfect and useless. I cannot read the Bible without seeing that God (as there revealed) has ever moved his believers in the direction of courage and sacrifice. These two terms are multitudinous, involving others of kindred quality, and spreading themselves over the whole space of the upper life. In the direction of courage, not mere animal courage, for then the argument might be matched by gods many, yet still gods, though their names be spelt without capitals; but moral courage, noble heroism, fierce rebuke of personal and national corruption, sublime and pathetic judgment of all good and all evil. The God-idea made mean men valiant soldier-prophets; it broadened the piping voice of the timid inquirer into the thunder of the national teacher and leader; for brass it brought gold, and for iron silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron; instead of the thorn it brought up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier the myrtle-tree, and it made the bush burn with fire. Wherever the God-idea took complete possession of the mind every faculty was lifted up to a new capacity, and borne on to heroic attempts and conquests. The saints who received it subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions; quenched the violence of fire, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Any idea that so inspired in man life and hope is to be examined with reverent care. The quality of the courage determines its value, and the value of the idea which excited and sustained it. What is true of the courage is true also of the sacrifice which has ever followed the acceptance of the God-idea. Not the showy and fanatical sacrifice of mere blood-letting; many a Juggernaut, great and small, drinks the blood of his devotees; but spiritual discipline, self-renunciation, the esteeming of others better than one’s self, such a suppression of the self-thought as to amount to an obliteration of every motive and purpose that can be measured by any single personality, such are the practical uses of the God-idea. It is not a barren sentiment It is not a coloured vapour or a scented incense, lulling the brain into partial stupor or agitating it with mocking dreams: it arouses courage; it necessitates self sacrifice; it touches the imagination as with fire; it gives a wide and solemn outlook to the whole nature; it gives a deeper tone to every thought; it sanctifies the universe; it makes heaven possible. Unknown Unknowable. Yes, but not therefore unusable or unprofitable.
Say this God was dreamed by human genius. Be it so. Make him a creature of fancy. What then? The man who made, or dreamed, or otherwise projected such a God must be the author of some other work of equal or approximate importance. Produce it! That is the sensible reply to so bold a blasphemy. Singular if man has made a Jehovah and then has taken to the drudgery of making oil paintings, and ink poems, and huts to live in. Where is the congruity? A man says he kindled the sun, and when asked for his proof he strikes a match which the wind blows out! Is the evidence sufficient? Or a man says that he has covered the earth with all the green and gold of summer, and, when challenged to prove it, he produces a wax flower which melts in his hands! Is the proof convincing? The God of the Bible calls for the production of other gods gods wooden, gods stony, gods ill-bred, gods well-shaped, and done up skilfully for market uses; from his heavens he laughs at them, and from his high throne he holds them in derision. He is not afraid of competitive gods. They try to climb to his sublimity, and only get high enough to break their necks in a sharp fall. Again and again I demand that the second effort of human genius bear some obvious relation to the first. The sculptor accepts the challenge, so does the painter, so does the musician; why should the Jehovah-dreamer be an exception to the common rule of confirmation and proof? We wait for the evidence. We insist upon having it; and, that we may not waste our time in idle expectancy, we will meanwhile call upon God, saying, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven!”
Prayer
O thou who didst never begin and who canst never end, All in all, more than heart can dream or tongue can tell, we are now about to speak of thee, and to tell the nothing that we know. Thou canst make our hearts burn within us; that burning shall be the purification of our souls and the chief comfort of our lives. Come to us, not in terror, but in love, not in the wrath which shakes the universe, but in the pity which saves the world. We have heard the crashing of thy thunder and would never hear it any more; henceforward do thou mercifully be unto us as the silent dew or the quiet light, and our souls shall live in thy forbearance. Jesus, save us! Jesus, cleanse us! Blood of the Lamb, take our sins away! God of gods and Lord of lords, by the showing of thyself make the universe look small and make our life a throb of thine own eternity. Deliver us from mistaken notions concerning thyself, and let us see all thy love in Christ Jesus thy dear Son. Surely thou art our heart’s perplexity by reason of thy mystery, and our heart’s supreme delight by reason of thy continual grace. We know that we have wronged thee by our mistaken views of thy character, yet dost thou gently correct us by many revelations of power and grace. Continue thy holy ministry in our hearts until all dross is burnt away and there is left only the fine gold of true wisdom. O Christ, cleanse us! Holy Spirit, make us like unto God himself! Amen.
Job 36:26 Behold, God [is] great, and we know [him] not, neither can the number of his years be searched out.
Ver. 26. Behold, God is great ] Yea, he is maximus in minimis, greatest and most of all seen in the meanest creatures; as in ants more than in elephants, &c. God showeth in his works of all sorts, se aliquantum esse; sed quantus sit rursus operibus involvit; that he is very great, but how great he is that appears not (Brent.).
Neither can the number of his years be searched out is great. See note on Job 36:5.
His years. Figure of speech Anthropopatheia. App-6.
God: Job 37:5, Psa 145:3
we: Job 11:7-9, Job 26:14, Job 37:23, 1Ki 8:27
neither: Psa 90:2, Psa 102:24-27, Heb 1:12, 2Pe 3:8
Reciprocal: Job 28:26 – he made Job 35:5 – Look Psa 102:27 – years Jer 51:16 – there is Dan 2:45 – the great
Job 36:26. Behold, God is great Infinite in majesty, and power, and wisdom, and all perfections, and therefore just in all his ways; and we know him not Namely, perfectly. Though we see something of him in his works, it is but little in comparison of that which is in him. He is incomprehensibly great in his essence, in his attributes, in his works, and in his ways; and therefore be not so inconsiderate and rash, O Job, as to censure those of his dispensations which thou canst not fully understand. Neither can the number of his years be searched out He is eternal, as in his being, so in all his counsels, which must be infinitely wise, and therefore above the comprehension of short-lived men.
36:26 Behold, God [is] great, {r} and we know [him] not, neither can the number of his years be searched out.
(r) Our infirmity hinders us so that we cannot attain the perfect knowledge of God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes