Job 30:10

Now Job sets out the misery and degradation he had been suddenly reduced to. First, he dwells on the scorn that fell to him — not from the high and proud, but from the most wretched and despicable of men. No one was so low that he could not look at Job with derision and scorn. It would be hard to find such a picture of utter baseness in the habits of men. Yet he had to endure every expression of malicious contempt from these loathsome people. They set on him not only with their vulgar mockery, but with the coarsest practical jokes and rude behaviour, and it unnerved him completely. But a deeper and more constant sorrow weighed on him. He could not shut out the painful conviction that his endless bodily sufferings came from the hand of God — the very One from whom he might have looked for compassion.

Job's words about his former greatness described his kind pity for wretched outcasts. He comforted and cheered them. Moving to the present, he seems to have changed places with these people, or people like them. Now he speaks of them not with sympathy but with the deepest contempt… These are the contemptible wretches who now mock the man who was once so great… It is a hideous picture, reminding us of One who in a very different spirit said, "The drunkards make songs about me" (Ps. 69:12). But in Job there is no turning to God under such unjust treatment. Clearly the wound to his pride, in having such a rabble mock him, is the deepest of his mental sufferings.

"They abhor me." Think of that — these words were all true. "They keep aloof from me." They could not bear to look at him — at the agony, and the terrible effect of all these sores on his body. They could not go near him.

"They do not hesitate to spit in my face" (v.10). This was true of men's treatment of the Lord Jesus too, but it did not shake His confidence in the living God… In fact, this was similar to the Lord Jesus, whose words in Psalm 69:26 surely speak to us: "They persecute Him whom You have struck." But His case was very different from Job's, because God struck the Lord Jesus for our sins. Men, ignorant of such grace, only used the occasion to heap further abuse on the Son of God. If Job had had the example of the Lord Jesus to consider at that time, he might have thought differently. But Job let men's treatment of him affect him so much that he became virtually unable to look up.

Now all this, we may truly say, falls far short of the mark. Laments over lost greatness and bitter attacks on our fellow men will not do the heart much good. They show nothing of the spirit and mind of Christ, and they bring no glory to His holy name. When we turn our eyes toward the blessed Lord Jesus we see something completely different. That meek and lowly One met it all with an "Even so, Father" — all the rebuffs of this world, all the disappointments among His people Israel, all the unbelief and folly of His disciples. He could withdraw from the rebuffs of men into His resources in God. Then He came out with those soothing words: "Come to me… and I will give you rest."

He was restored to the confidence and esteem of all who had known him before. That is a great point, when we remember his sad complaint in Job 30 about the treatment he had received.