Vexation shall give understanding

Job 21:19 God layeth up his iniquity for his children:
he rewardeth him, and he shall know it.

Know it to his cost. Vexation shall give understanding; he that, before this judgment came,

would know nothing of the bitter effect of sin upon him and his,

now hath his eyes forced open (as the blind mole is said to have by the pangs of death), and cry out with the lion in the snare, Si praescivissem, Oh! if I had foreknown the mischief, &c.

The wicked are wise too late; the fool passeth on and is punished; he knows not the evil of sin till he feels it.

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It is not good for men to take pleasure in pleasure

Ver. 12. They take the timbrel and the harp] They take them, and are taken with them, being melted in sensual delights, which wise men slight. The philosopher told the fiddlers that he could be merry without music.

Parents think not on this

Job 21, Ver. 11. They send forth their little ones like a flock.

Sunt qui de eorum vitulis intelligunt recens natis, saith Mercer. Some understand it to be young calves, but better of young children, which have here their name from a root which signifieth wickedness, naughtiness, to show what little ones are, not innocents, as we call them, not pueri quasi puri; νηπιος, is both a fool and a child.

 

Threefold dreadful spectacle, death, judgment, hell

Job 20:25 Terrors are upon him.

Heb. The terrible upon him; which some interpret of devils or hell hags.

The Vulgate rendereth it, Then horrible ones shall come upon him.

The word is used for giants, #De 2:10. The Emims shall fall upon him, that is, men of fierce and cruel spirits.

Evil, because idle

He that buried his talents gave a heavy account to the master, and was therefore called evil, because an idle servant,

But his lord answered and said to him, You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. (Matthew 25:26)

He had many kinsfolk, but few friends

Job 19 Ver. 14. My kinsfolk have failed.

scil. In courtesy, as Ruth’s kinsman did. Job had many kinsfolk, but few friends; and this was a great grief to him, as it was afterwards also to David:

Ham and his posterity were little the better for the deluge

Job Ch. 18 Ver. 20. They that come after him shall be astonished at his day.

Future ages, hearing the relation of his dismal destruction, shall stand aghast, as if they beheld the dirty ruins of some once beautiful city. Happy they, if in good earnest they could make that good use of it which Herodotus, the historian, saith men should make of the overthrow of Troy; viz. to take notice thereby that great sinners must look for great punishments from God, Των μεγαλων αδικηματων μεγαλιε εισι και αι τιμωριαι παρα του Θεου (Herod.).

When the mind is unsettled

17:12. They change the night into day.

i.e. My troubled thoughts render my nights restless, filling me with confusion. When the mind is unsettled the man cannot rest.

The good man’s adjuncts and titles of honour

Job 17:9 And he that hath clean hands…

Upright, innocent, righteous, clean handed, these all are the good man’s adjuncts and titles of honour, far beyond those of the world’s greatest magnificent.