Job 29:7

Now Job speaks of going out to the gate of the city, the place of public administration (v.7), and taking his seat there. His dignity was such that young men instinctively drew back, and old men stood up to honour him (v.8). The leading men would not speak first, for everyone waited for Job (vv.9-10)... Though these things might be perfectly true, he ought not to have dared to glory in such honour. In fact, the honour men give to us should only humble us to the dust.

Honour did not fail him outside his own lands either. When he went from the gate up into the city and took his seat in the open square or market, young men hid themselves in awe. Old men rose and stayed standing until he sat down. Leading men and rulers said nothing and kept a respectful silence. The nobles and men of note, whose voices were usually heard, fell silent, unable to speak a word. Such was the reverence that met Job when he came among them — and his influence counted all the more because he held no office.

This is truly a most remarkable statement. We look in vain for any breathing of a broken and contrite spirit here. There are no signs of self-loathing, or even of self-distrust. We cannot find so much as a single expression of conscious weakness and nothingness. In the course of this one chapter, Job refers to himself more than forty times, while the references to God are only five.

It is pitiful to hear a truly great man describing his supremacy over others. The young men hid themselves, the elders rose up and remained standing until he took his seat. Ah, had not this sense of his greatness fostered a pride in Job which made his downfall a necessary dealing of God? He was a prince of princes; nobles were struck dumb in his presence!

All that was very pleasant to Job. And we are apt to think so too. There is nothing, men say, that succeeds like success. No maxim is more wicked, or more completely against God. Nothing denies more thoroughly that our place now is one of suffering, of being despised and rejected for Christ's sake.

Now one of the beautiful features about Job was that he did not pretend to be noble, and he did not seek to be a prince... he was truly noble in his ways; and all that would have been admirable if he had not said or thought it; for that is the important point. "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." It does not mean that other people do not know about it. The wrong is that our own left hand should know what our right hand does. That is, we ought not to think about it.

Now Job had to lose all this. Compare Job 29 with Job 30, and we can form some idea of how painful that stripping must have been. There is a particular force in the words, "But now." Job draws a striking contrast between his past and his present... The very men who flattered him in the day of his prosperity treat him with contempt in the day of his trouble.