Wherefore is light given to him that is in trouble, and life to those bitter of soul,
Seven days of silence from his three friends break Job open. What comes out is not a curse on God but a question about his own life: why keep a man in agony alive at all? Commentators read this first "why" both as an honest cry and as a complaint that needed an answer.
One writer traces the question back to that silence, and notes how many have asked it since:
When his three friends arrived, their seven days' silence showed only that they had no words of comfort for him. In their hearts they thought instead that Job was getting what his deeds deserved. Then he began to despair of everything, and in the bitterness of his heart he spoke his first presumptuous "why?" ... "Why, yes why?" Many millions have asked the same question since. Why do I live at all? Would it not be better if I had never been born?
"Light" here means simply being alive and in this world — being born and seeing the day. One writer points out that the verse has a hidden subject: someone is giving that light, and Job knows who, even while he will not say the name.
The last verses (20-26) put the question, first generally, and then with pointed application to himself: why should he live, being thus miserable? There is no need to give verse 20 the impersonal turn found in the English Bible and many others, though there is still the avoidance of uttering the name of God.
Job longs for death, yet one line he never crosses. A commentator sees restraint here, and a reason for it that Job did not know:
He was in misery and bitterness of soul. He asks why life should be given to one in such a state, though he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while allowing him to make Job suffer so badly. And God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about results of great blessing.
Sympathy for Job does not make the question a good one. Read as an argument, it puts the sufferer in the place of correcting God:
The first question of Job, "Why has God given me life only to send me such suffering now?" is the language of the natural man in rebellion against his Maker. Contending with the Almighty, man wants to instruct Him. He curses the past and attacks the present, and all his future hope is gone. He is like Jeremiah, who mourns not only his torments but his very existence.
Commentators differ on how much blame to place on Job. One treats the very wish for death as part of what God is working out, though the discontent in it is wrong:
While I learn how wretched man is on earth, I may give way to rebellion and discontent. But I have to feel this if self is to be given up completely. I ought not to blame God for it, but I need to realize it as man's true place... He does not know that God is seeking to make him a witness of dependence on Himself against Satan. But this is God's way. Discipline may have the effect of making us feel that death is preferable to life, but it is working out God's purpose.
The question has an answer, but not one Job could reach. Kelly finds it outside the book:
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the Christian would be the most miserable of all men. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who sleep... So the Christian can glory in troubles, and die daily. Job can only say that if he even had a fear, it at once overtook him.
Another writer sets this lament beside what faith says elsewhere — including what Job himself would later say:
Job's own words are a refutation of his unbelief here: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Ps. 17:15)... And take the full Christian statements of the letters. Do words like "away from the body and at home with the Lord," or "my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better," echo Job's unbelieving laments?
- Silence started it. Friends sat wordless for a week, sure Job deserved his losses. Their silence drove him to his first "why" — a question millions have asked since.
- Light has a Giver. The verse should not be read impersonally; Job will not say God's name, but he knows who gives the light he no longer wants.
- Death wished, never seized. Job longs for death, yet never turns to suicide — and God had already forbidden Satan to take his life.
- The wish served a purpose. Feeling that death is better than life can be discipline at work. It teaches a man his true place — though blaming God for it is wrong.
- The answer came later. The full reply to "why go on living in misery" is a risen Christ; without that, the Christian would be the most miserable of all.
Who long for death, and it [cometh] not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
Job has broken a week of silence by cursing the day he was born. Now he asks why God keeps giving life to people who hunt for death like treasure-seekers digging for gold — and never find it.
Job's wish is plain, and so is the fact that it went unanswered.
Here Job comes closer to facing facts as they actually were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul. He questions why life should be given to someone in such a state, when he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while allowing him to make Job suffer terribly. God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it so.
Job wants out. He is not the only man in Scripture who has wanted it.
We see from these expressions that his mind turned to death as the great emancipator. Moses and Elijah show the same trend of thought and weakness; so did disappointed Jonah when he said, "It is better for me to die."
Job cannot reach death, so he begins to blame the One he thinks is blocking the way. A later sufferer used almost the same words and drew a very different conclusion.
He asks why one so wretched as he should be shut out from the rest he seeks. He adds to this the first of his charges against God, calling himself "the man whom God has hedged in." Jeremiah uses similar language in Lamentations: "He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light… He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; He has made my chains heavy" (Lamentations 3:2-7). But he goes on: "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (verses 22 and 26). We fail to find anything like this in Job's words.
Both men sit in the same darkness. The difference is whether the sufferer waits for God inside it.
Just before this, Job described the grave as a place where everyone rests alike. Pressed to its end, that picture becomes something worse than rest.
By blurring the future this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. Put plainly, he is longing for annihilation. We know how materialists and believers in conditional immortality have turned to words like these to support their unscriptural views.
Job would later say the opposite. Jesus also corrected people in His own day who held this same view of the dead.
Job's own words are a refutation of his unbelief here: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Psalm 17:15). Our Lord answers the Sadducees, whom Job unknowingly sides with here, about what the Old Testament teaches on the state of the dead: "He is not God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). He also points out the fearful contrast between the careless rich man and the believing beggar, Lazarus (Luke 16).
Job's question — why give life to a man who only wants to lose it — has an answer he could not yet see.
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ: if it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the first-fruits of those who sleep. Fear of evil is gone for ever for the one who now walks by faith… So the Christian can glory in troubles, and die daily. Job, by contrast, can only say that the moment he imagined a fear, it overtook him.
The problem was never that Job wanted relief. The only relief he could imagine was the grave.
Weighed in the light of the New Testament, all these expressions fall short. Death is not a friend whose visit we should want; it is an enemy. The hope of God's people in affliction and sorrow, in the light of the gospel, is not relief by death, but the coming of the Lord. The promise of the New Testament, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Corinthians 15:52), is unknown in the Old Testament.
- Digging — Job hunts for death like a man digging for buried treasure. Yet he never reaches for suicide: God had set a limit on what could touch his life.
- Drifting — The grave he digs for is a blank one. Longing for rest slides into longing for nothing at all, which is how far grief had carried him from the truth.
- Blaming — Death will not come, so Job makes his first charge against God: God has fenced him in. Jeremiah knew the same darkness, but Jeremiah waited quietly for God.
- Dawning — Job's later cry, that his Redeemer lives, overturns these words. Despair is not his teaching; it is his lowest point.
- Delivered — The full answer to "why go on living?" arrives in a Christ who died and rose. Death is an enemy, not a rescuer, and the Christian's hope is the Lord's coming, not the grave.
Who rejoice even exultingly and are glad when they find the grave? --
Job has lost his children, his wealth and his health. In this verse he pictures people who dance for joy when they find a grave, and he asks why God keeps giving life to anyone who wants it to end.
This verse sits inside a question that runs from verse 20 to verse 23. Here is that whole question, translated from the Hebrew by one writer.
Why does He give light to the wretched one, and life to the bitter in soul? Why to those who long for death, and it does not come, and who dig for it more than for hidden treasure — who rejoice so much that they dance, and shout for joy when they find the grave? Why to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?
Job is not only describing other sufferers. He is asking why God keeps him from the one thing he wants, and in the same breath he makes his first accusation.
He longs for death (vv. 20-23). Having pictured death as a state of dreamless sleep, Job gives vent to his longing for this rest. He asks why one so wretched as he should be kept from the repose he seeks. He adds to this the first of his charges against God, calling himself "the man whom God has hedged in."
Job digs for death, yet he never lifts a hand against himself. That restraint matters, and so does the reason death never came.
In these verses Job comes closer to facing facts as they actually were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul, and he questions why life should be given to one in such a state, though he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. Satan had been told to spare Job's life, though he was allowed to make him suffer terribly. God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it so.
The longing in this verse is not unique to Job. Other faithful men wanted the same release.
We see from these expressions that his mind turned to death as the great rescuer. Moses and Elijah show the same trend of thought and weakness; so did disappointed Jonah when he said, "It is better for me to die."
If a grave is the best thing a sufferer can hope to find, then hope itself ends at a hole in the ground. One writer weighs Job's words against the New Testament, and finds them short.
Weighed in the light of the New Testament all these expressions are found wanting. Death is not a friend whose visit we should want, but an enemy. In the light of the gospel, the hope of God's people in affliction and sorrow is not relief by death, but the coming of the Lord. The promise of the New Testament, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51-52), is unknown in the Old Testament, for it is one of the mysteries hidden in former ages. Job's language is that of a man in despair; he seems to have quite forgotten the bright and blessed days of the past and fears a hopeless future.
Job's question never got an answer on his own terms. One writer points forward to where the answer lies.
The last verses (20-26) put the question, first in general, and then aimed straight at himself: why should he live, when he is this miserable? … The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For the one who now walks by faith, fear of evil is gone for ever… So the Christian can glory in tribulations, and die daily. But Job can only say that, if he so much as felt a fear, it came upon him at once.
- Rest wanted. Job pictures people hunting death like buried treasure and dancing when they find the grave. To him, the grave looks like the only rest left.
- Rest refused. He asks why God keeps that rest from him. The question becomes his first complaint against God: he is the man God has hedged in.
- Rest denied on purpose. Death never came, because Satan had orders to spare Job's life. God knew the suffering was working toward blessing. Job would not die until God ordained it.
- Rest misjudged. Moses, Elijah and Jonah wanted the same release. But death is an enemy, not a friend, and the believer's hope is not relief by dying but the coming of the Lord.
- Rest found. Only a dead and risen Christ fully answers Job's "why." That is why a Christian can glory in trouble, while Job could only dread the next blow.
To the man whose way is hidden, and whom +God hath hedged in?
Job's lament reaches its sharpest point here. He asks why God keeps giving life to a man who can see no road ahead. For the first time he lays a charge against God Himself.
He wants to know why God keeps giving breath to a man who would rather be dead. Yet he never reaches for the way out that many take today.
Here Job comes closer to facing the facts as they really were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul. He asks why God should give life to a man in such a state, when he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while allowing him to make Job suffer terribly. And God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it.
The phrase describes a man who can no longer trace where God is taking him. The explanation did come to him, but only after a long wait.
Notice, God will explain His ways with you in good time, but not today. Isn't most of your difficulty the wish to have that explanation now? Most likely. Must God explain to us the reasons for His discipline? Is that needed for us? Must we give our children the reason why we see fit to correct them?... Job went through many a long chapter of trial before God let him know the reason for his losses, bereavements and trials. But the reason came at last, and he understood it and valued it.
Job now blames God for fencing him in. Scripture records the same complaint from another sufferer, but it ends very differently.
He longs for death (vv. 20-23)... He asks why one as wretched as he should be shut out from the rest he seeks. He adds to this the first of his charges against God, calling himself "the man whom God has hedged in." Jeremiah uses similar language in Lamentations: "he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light... he has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy" (Lam. 3:2-7) [older translations read "he has hedged me about"]. But that writer goes on: "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end... It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (vv. 22, 26). We fail to find anything like this in Job's words.
The same hedge Job now complains of was once Satan's own complaint against him.
He had long wanted to crush Job, but he had to admit that God had "put a hedge around him... on every side." He could not get at him until God made a breach in the hedge and gave him permission to go so far. He went as far as God allowed, and brought almost unspeakable suffering on Job, but he had a limit. "And the LORD said to Satan, 'Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life'" (Job 2:6). God did not allow him to go the full length of his malice, and turned his evil into great good for Job.
Job asks a real question. The full answer would only come much later.
As yet Job did not know the end, that the Lord is full of pity and tender mercy... The last verses (20-26) put the question, first in general terms and then about himself: why should he live, when he is so miserable? ... The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the Christian would be the most miserable of all men. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Fear of evil is gone for ever for the one who now walks by faith... So the Christian can rejoice in troubles and die daily. Job could only say that if he so much as imagined a fear, it overtook him at once.
His own future was better than the small mercy he was asking for.
Little did he realise that God would give him more than a little comfort in this present world. In the end he would go to a land of pure light and unspeakable joy. For he did not have the great revelation that believers have today. That revelation shows the matchless grace of the Lord Jesus for every present need, and the eternal glory of His presence, which every believer will enter in the future.
- Light given — Job asks why life goes on for a man in bitterness of soul. God kept him alive because his suffering would bring great blessing.
- Light withheld — his way was hidden because God had not yet told him the reason. The explanation came at last, and he valued it.
- Light misread — the hedge he calls a prison was protection Satan could not break. God opened it only so far, and limited the harm.
- Light contrasted — the same complaint in Lamentations ends by waiting quietly for the LORD to save. Job does not reach that note here.
- Light arrived — the full answer to Job's question came only in a dead and risen Christ. Ahead of Job lay a land of pure light and unspeakable joy.
For my sighing cometh before my bread, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.
Job's grief has broken into speech, and it fills a whole chapter that curses the day of his birth. Verse 24 turns from the birth he wishes away to the misery he cannot escape, where sighing has taken the place of food.
One commentator reads the picture plainly: pain has crowded out appetite, and behind the pain lies a fear about God Himself.
His anguish comes before his hunger. He could say with the psalmist, "My tears have been my food." Perhaps that same psalm explains something of Job's misery: "while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'" (Ps. 42:3). Job had lost the sense of God's favour. His sighs gush out like a torrent because he fears God has forsaken him.
Job could carry this alone. Company changed that.
Two things may have upset Job's mind. One is the sympathy of his friends, for we can bear alone, in God's presence, what we cannot bear when we have the chance to make our complaint in front of people. The other is the pride that lies quiet while we are alone but is wounded when others see our misery. Perhaps the two worked together. And he curses the day of his birth. The depths of his heart are displayed. It was this that he needed.
The chapter is bitter from start to end. The question is whether bitterness ever turns into rebellion.
Notice this: Job gives way to his feelings in this passionate outburst, yet he did not renounce God. There is not a word of rebellion against Him. All through his answer to his friends' arguments he does not lose sight of God. Again and again he expresses confidence in the unseen One, as in that matchless saying: "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (13:15).
Yet the outcry does expose something. Set beside Christ, the difference is not in the feeling but in the accepting:
The great point is his mourning over this terrible lot of his. Why was he ever allowed to come into the world to bear such awful suffering? Where do you find that in Christ? "I was sent for this very purpose." The Lord accepts it; He felt it, deeply felt it; He was troubled in spirit. He felt it, but He also accepted it. This was why He had come. But not so Job.
Job wants out. Notice what he does not do — and why God does not grant his wish.
It is good that he does not even consider suicide, as many would today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while letting him make Job suffer so terribly. God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it.
One writer says such despair can go two ways. The difference is whether the sufferer knows God.
The first thought, and the most bitter one, after waking up to a full sense of your own misery, is to curse your day. It is a terrible impression, and the one that leads to suicide when God is not known. But when God is known, as with Job, it is the beginning of healthy action. The good is not in the discontent and wretchedness it reveals. It is that the sense of death — of being completely cut off from everything — is known and felt.
Job's cry gets no answer in this chapter. One writer says the full answer came much later.
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ: if it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. The one who now walks by faith has lost the fear of evil forever. To faith, evil is already put away before God. Nothing but good remains and triumphs in Him whom we know on the throne of God, now appearing in His presence for us. So the Christian can glory in tribulations, and die daily.
- Sighing. Pain has taken the place of Job's meals — and the deepest cause is not the pain but his fear that God has abandoned him.
- Exposed. Company, not solitude, drew the depths of Job's heart into the open — and that was what he needed.
- Limit. The complaint curses his birthday, never his God; even here Job keeps hold of the One he cannot understand.
- Held. He begs for death, but God will not grant it; God spared his life on purpose, and the suffering was working toward blessing.
- Answered. Only a risen Christ gives what Job's cry was reaching for. Fear of evil is gone, and the Christian can glory even in trouble.
For I feared a fear, and it hath come upon me, and that which I dreaded hath come to me.
Job breaks a long silence by cursing the day of his birth. Then he admits what he never said while he was rich: the disaster that struck him was the one he had always dreaded.
The verse looks backward. Long before the raiders came and the house fell on his children, Job had been living with a dread of exactly this.
Among people almost everywhere, a birthday is an occasion for remembering and rejoicing. To poor Job it seemed a moment to be lamented and cursed. In his days of prosperity he had feared that some kind of adversity might come. Now it had come upon him with unequalled force.
That dread cost him his peace while everything was still intact.
Clearly, in the days of his prosperity he feared that just such disasters might overtake him. He knew testing times would come, and he had no quietness. But now that they have come, and the three evils he expected have overwhelmed him, he would be glad to find the grave.
Fear of losing a gift shows how tightly we hold it. One writer reads Job's words as proof of where his heart had settled. He reads the disaster itself as an act of love, not abandonment.
The floods of sorrow that broke in on Job were proofs of God's love to him, and of the jealousy of that love too. For Job had enjoyed the gifts more than the Giver. While he was enjoying them, he said that calamity would surely come. I think it was a bad state that made the gifts loved more than the Giver. Job did look up, but his own mind was at work within. Instead of waiting for God to come in and explain everything, Job showed himself and prolonged the furnace and the trial. But God did come in, and Job learned.
One writer sets the two ends of Job's story side by side. At the start Job owned everything and held it in fear. At the close nothing shadows him: no enemy outside, no fear inside.
At the beginning, Job held all his blessings with reserve and suspicion. He was not in safety, nor at rest, nor in quiet; yet trouble came... It had to be so. Turning away from God has made every possession and every gain here unstable, and that is what makes it necessary. But at the end there are no "fears within." There are no Chaldeans, and no "fightings without." No shadow crosses the settled sunshine that rests on everything around him. No shadow crosses the calm light that fills everything within.
This did not happen to Job alone. One writer asks why God lets the feared thing arrive.
Sometimes people are terrified they might catch a certain disease. Then that disease overtakes them. Why? Is it not because God is showing them that His grace is enough for them even in the most dreaded circumstances? So Job was not at ease, not quiet; he had no rest, yet trouble came. He needed to learn the heart of God as he did not know it.
What hurt Job most was not the loss of property or the pain in his body. He feared God had abandoned him.
Job had lost the sense of God's favour; his sighs pour out like a torrent because he fears God has forsaken him. He had no conscious sense of being God's son. That was normal in that earlier age, though he was truly born of God. So he could not withstand the tormenting doubt that God had given him over to hopeless misery. This fear had apparently been lurking in his heart — possibly even in his bright days — and now it has come upon him!
God invites us to hand our fears to Him. One writer asks why we hold on to them.
If He invites us to cast all our cares on Him, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7), why then can't we turn our fears over to Him? Is it because we are afraid He will let us down? Is it because we are not willing to submit our wills to Him?
- Fear came first. Job dreaded disaster while he was still rich; the anxiety stole his rest years before the raiders did.
- Fear revealed the grip. Holding blessings with suspicion showed the gifts had come to mean more than the Giver.
- Fear met love. The blow was not God turning away but a jealous love reaching for what Job had not yet learned of God's heart.
- Fear prolonged the fire. Job argued instead of waiting for God to explain, and that stretched out the furnace. Yet God did come in, and Job learned.
- Fear ended. At the close there are no fears inside and no enemies outside. Settled sunshine rests on everything Job has, and calm light fills everything he is.
I was not in safety, neither had I quietness, neither was I at rest, and trouble came.
Job's long opening lament ends with a confession: three things he did not have, and one thing that came anyway. The verse raises two questions. Is Job describing his past prosperity or his present torment? And why does a man of real piety find no rest at all?
Samuel Ridout reads the verse as fresh blows landing before the old bruises have healed. He also notes that another reading is possible. (The version Ridout used puts the whole verse in the past tense, which is where the question begins.)
In verse 26 he speaks of a fresh avalanche of trouble before real relief from the former anguish had been given. Our version seems to refer this to Job's condition of former prosperity: that he was not living in worldly ease, but walking in the fear of God, when trouble came. This does fit Job's state of soul as it comes out later. Even so, it seems a little too early to find him defending himself here. It seems more likely to be his grief at the repeated attacks of misery he is now suffering.
The verse before this one admits that what Job feared had happened. Leslie Grant asks why God lets a dreaded thing arrive.
In verse 25 Job records that the thing he feared so much had come upon him. Such a thing often happens. He had not been feeling secure and confident of continuing in constant prosperity... Sometimes people are terrified that they might catch a certain disease, and that disease overtakes them. Why? Is it not because God is showing them that His grace is enough for them even in the most dreaded circumstances? So Job was not at ease, not quiet; he had no rest, yet trouble came. He needed to learn the heart of God as he did not know it.
G. V. Wigram traces the missing rest to Job's own heart, and then names where rest is found.
The inbreaks of Job's sorrows on him were proofs of God's love to him, and of the jealousy of that love too; for Job had enjoyed the gifts more than the Giver... Job did look up. But his own mind was at work within. Instead of waiting for God to come in and explain everything, Job showed what Job was, and so prolonged the furnace and the trial. But God did come in, and Job learned... I judge that the great thing is to acknowledge God, and be still: "I am mute... for it is you who have done it," said David... There is rest in this — giving to God His own place.
J. N. Darby argues that God had a deeper aim than anything Satan intended. It explains why a man of long piety can still lack settled peace.
But the depths of Job's heart were not yet reached, and to do this was the purpose of God, whatever Satan's thoughts may have been. Job did not know himself, and up to this time, with all his piety, he had never been in the presence of God. How often it is the case that even throughout a long life of piety the conscience has never been really set before God! So peace, such peace as cannot be shaken, and real liberty, are not known as yet.
Another writer adds that even the wish to be dead serves God's purpose.
Discipline may have the effect of making us feel that death is preferable to life, but it is working out God's purpose.
Charles Stanley moves from Job's sores to what every believer must find out about himself.
Job could not put a finger on a spot that was not a running sore. And the believer, sooner or later, must find that there is not a spot in his old self in which he can rest. It is one thing to talk about it. It is another thing to find that all I am of the first Adam is withered and dead before God. When this is learned, it is a great blessing to learn also the bright resurrection side of sorrowing Job.
- Fear. Job's dread was already at work in his prosperous days. The disaster did not create his unrest. It exposed it.
- Arrival. The dreaded thing came. Grant reads this as God proving His grace is enough in the very circumstance most feared.
- Cause. Job loved the gifts more than the Giver. Rest returns when we give God His own place.
- Purpose. Job had never yet stood in God's presence, so unshaken peace stayed unknown. God aimed the trial at that depth.
- Rest. Commentators differ over whether the verse looks back at Job's past or at his present. Either way the lesson holds: no spot in the old self can carry a person's rest.