A Hero and Some Other Folks

by William A. Quayle

So the drama sweeps on. Jobs sits silent, but not silenced. He makes no reply to Elihu's invective. Here is a dignified silence more impressive than any speech. He has been shot at by all the volleys of the earth and sky; and, wounded in every part, he retains his faith in God; nay, his faith is burning brightly, like a newly-trimmed lamp: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. I am misconceived by man, but not by God;" and his face has a strange light, as if he had been with Moses on the mount; and when, in a whirlwind's sweep, and above it, God's voice is heard; and it is Job God answers, as if to say, "Yours is the argument." God has no controversy with Elihu, nor yet with the aged counselors. Them he ignores; them, by and by, he rebukes. Job, and not they, had been right. God is come as vindicator. If his voice thunders like tempestuous skies, there is to appear an unspeakable tenderness in it at the last. He is not come to ride Job down, like a charge of Bedouin cavalry. He is come to clear his sky. He is come to give him vision and to show him wisdom, of which, though Job has spoken, he has had none too much. In the drama, God speaks in discussion to two persons. In conversational tones, in the prologue to the drama, he talks with Satan when he leads Job to trial. Job's calamities, instead of being a proof of his turpitude, are proof of the confidence God reposes in him.

What a revelation in character that is! If for a time God had, as object-lesson to the Jew and through him to the world, granted visible rewards and visible punishments, that was not the permanent scheme. God's administration is hid from vulgar eyes truly, but also from the eyes "of the wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in which all furnishings are visible; rather a twilight gloom, where men and women grope. We know enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice very despicable, and God very apparent—and these be the sufficient data for the monograph of life. "All things work together for good to them that love God," is the far-away response to Job's troubled cry. God converses with Satan long enough to deny the allegation that Job serves God as a matter of dollars and cents, that it is convenient—so runs the devil's sneer—convenient for Job to be good; for he finds it profitable. But if God will lower his rate of profit in goodness, and if God will shipwreck all Job's prosperity, and sting him with the serpent-touch of dire disease, then will Job become as others. Profit in goodness gone, his goodness will "fade as doth a leaf." This is evil's pessimistic philosophy, and Job, on whom calamitous circumstances pile as Dagon's temple on Samson's head; Job, trusting where he can not see, and making his appeal to God, whose ways are hid,—is the lie given to Satan's prophecies, and the vindication of God's confidence in Job. Job has been as one sold into servitude for a month. Satan hath been a hard master, has thrust him exceeding sore, has given no intermission of peril or anguish, has crowded sorrow on sorrow, has snatched away every flower from the field of this good man's life, and watches, leering, to hear him say, "I will curse God and die;" but when, after arguments compounded of pain and tears and hope, Job returns to his silence, saying, "The words of Job are ended," Satan has witnessed the triumph of a good man, and disproof of his own sorry accusations, and the vindication of God's estimate; and, as is fitting, he stays not to acknowledge defeat, but slips away as the whirlwind chariot of Jehovah dashes into sight. Satan, not Job, has been defeated.

And in the long years of a prosperous life, no confidence has been reposed in Job so worthy as this reposed in him of God, to put to silence the slanders of wickedness that goodness was a species of selfishness; so that what Job did not understand, and what his friends interpreted as the certain disfavor of God, was sign of the trust God reposed in him. Satan had done his worst on a good man, and had failed! What an apocalypse this was! The second person with whom God holds conversation is Job. Satan he talked with in conversational tones, with no state nor eloquence. Job he honors, coming in regal splendor, by thundering with his voice, by treating Job as if he were ambassador for some potentate whom God held in high regard. God's argument is the climax of sublimity reached in literature; is mountain summit of sublime thought and utterance. What effect is wanting to make this scene bewildering in sublimity? One? No. The auditor is Job, sitting in the ruin of home and love, and friendships and consequence among men, and good repute, and if, bending low, you will hear him, you shall know he is sobbing for children that are not. One lonely, distraught, mystified, sorely-beleagured, and still surely-trusting man,—this is the audience. The scene is a tawny desert, once sown to oases of flowers, and billowing grain, and stately palm-tree, and olive-groves, now harvestless, flowerless, palmless. Once a stately palace rose beside a fountain here, and from its open doors ran genial hospitality, to greet the coming guest and the wayfarer overtaken by the night and weariness; and from the windows singing and laughter rose, like a chorus of youthful voices; and now—where these things were are only ruins, havoc, disaster; and Job sits amidst the desolation that once was home as if he were crowned king of the realm of Calamity; and the desert, tawny as a tiger's skin, stretches away to the horizon, barren as the sea, than which is nothing more solitary or pregnant with melancholy and thought.

The sky is ample and open. Not a cloud flecks it with its foam. From desert line to the blue zenith is only bewildering blue; when, black as a stormy midnight, driving as if lightnings were its chariot steeds, comes the whirlwind whereon the Almighty rides, and halts; and God pitches his midnight pavilion in front of silent Job on the silent desert, and from this tent, whose curtains are not drawn, there trumpets a voice. God is come! And God speaks! "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind." Eloquence like this on forum like this, literature knows nothing of. Sublimity is come to its noon.

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?" is the astounding introductory. No exordium is here. Into the thick of argument, God leaps as a soldier might leap into the midst of furious battle. "Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner-stones thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when I made the cloud the garment thereof, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth that the wicked might be shaken out of it? It is changed as clay under the seal; and all things stand forth as a garment; and from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Where is the way where light dwelleth? And as for darkness, where is the place thereof? Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? By what way is the light parted, or the east wind scattered upon the earth? Who hath cleft a channel for the waterflood, or a way for the lightning of the thunder? Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the zodiac in their seasons? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? Who provideth for the raven his food, when his young ones cry unto God, and wander for lack of meat? But seeing thou canst not understand these things, and they are too high for thee, canst thou understand some little things, and answer some trivial questions I will put to thee? Knowest thou the secret of the wild goat or the wild ass on the desert? or the wild ox? or the ostrich that scorneth the horse and his rider? or the horse, hast thou given him strength? for he paweth in the valley, and leaps as a locust, and rejoiceth in his strength, and goeth out to meet the armed men; he mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed, neither turneth his back from the sword; he smelleth the battle afar off. Doth the hawk soar by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? And behemoth, what of him? His limbs are like bars of iron; he is confident, though Jordan swell even to his mouth. Or leviathan, what canst thou do with him, and what knowest thou of him? In his neck abideth strength; his breath kindleth coals; his heart is as firm as a stone; he counteth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood; and when he raiseth himself up, the mighty are afraid. Hast thou an arm like God? and canst thou thunder with a voice like him? Deck thyself now with excellency and dignity, and array thyself with honor and majesty. Pour forth the overflowings of thy anger; and look upon every one that is proud, and abase him. Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked where they stand, and hide them in the dust together."

And Job called, so that his words sounded through the whirlwind's curtains: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be restrained. Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that which I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And Job has learned this salutary lesson, that no man can comprehend all the ways life leads, nor need to. God is above the ways of life:

"He leads us on by paths we do not know;
Upward he leads us, though our steps be slow;
Though oft we faint and falter by the way;
Though clouds and darkness oft obscure the day,
And still He leads us on."

Job has learned to rest his case with God.

"My God knows best! Through all my days
This is my comfort and my rest;
My trust, my peace, my solemn praise,—
That God knows all, and God knows best.

My God knows best! That is my chart—
That thought to me is always blest:
It hallows and it soothes my heart;
For all is well, and God knows best.