Job 2:10

But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not {n} receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his {o} lips. (n) That is, to be patient in adversity as we rejoice when he sends prosperity, and so to acknowledge him to be both merciful and just. (o) He so bridled his desires that his tongue through impatience did not murmur against God.

But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. But he said unto her — He did not start up, and lay upon her with his unmanly fist (Chrysostom saith it is the greatest reproach in the world for a man to beat his wife), but he reproveth her, and that sharply, as she deserved; and so did Jacob his best beloved Rachel, when the offence was against God, Genesis 30:2 . A wise husband, saith Marcus Aurelius, must often admonish, never smite, and but seldom reprove, and that with the spirit of meekness too, Galatians 6:1 ; meekness of wisdom, James 3:13 . That was wonderful patience that was exercised by Dr Cowper, bishop of Lincoln, who, when his wife had burnt all his notes, which he had been eight years in gathering, lest he should kill himself with overmuch study (for she had much ado to get him to his meals), showed not the least token of passion, but only replied, Indeed, wife, it was not well done; so, falling to work again, he was eight years in gathering the same notes, wherewith he composed his dictionary (Young’s Benef. of Afflict., 153). Job, though somewhat more tart, as reason required, the offence being of so high a nature, yet he breaks not out into fierce and furious language; he saith not, Go, go, thou art an arrant fool, a wicked woman, an abominable wretch, but, Thou speakest like one of the foolish women — Like one of the women of Idumea, that have no sap of wisdom or goodness in them, but do whip their gods (as the Chinese are said to do at this day) when they cannot have what they would have of them, and revile them for neglecting their worshippers. Note here that Job’s wife might be a good woman for the main, though in this particular she did amiss; but it is a fault in God’s people when it shall be said unto them, Are ye not carnal, and walk as men? when it shall be said of God’s daughters, that they speak or act like one of the foolish women. David’s daughters were known by their party coloured garments; so should God’s, by the law of wisdom in their lips and lives, by their patient mind made known to all men, by their eximious and exemplary holiness. What, should Job’s wife, the governess of such a religious family, the yoke fellow of such a holy husband, be talking of cursing God! be speaking after the rate of profane Edomites! The heathen comedian can say, that she is a wise woman who can be well content to suffer hardship; and not repine that it is now worse with her than formerly it hath been; Quae aequae animo pati potest sibi esse peius quam fuit. Job would fain bring his wife to this, and therefore addeth, What? shall we receive good? … — He seeketh to set her down, not with rage, but with reason; and that, indeed, is the right way of backing a reproof; wherein as there must be some warmth, so it may not be scalding hot. Words of reviling and disgrace, they scald, as it were; but words that tend to convince the judgment, and to stir up the conscience to a due consideration of the fault, they be duly warm, and tend to make the physic work the more kindly. Shall we receive good at the hands of God, and not evil? — Shall we not eat the crust with the crumb? drink the sour with the sweet? bless God as well for taking away as for giving? accept of the chastisement of our iniquity? receive it patiently, thankfully, fruitfully? Shall we be all for comforts, and nothing at all for crosses? Is it not equal that we should share in both, since it is the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed? Genesis 49:28 , Jacob is said to have blessed all his sons. Now he seemeth rather to curse Reuben, Simeon, and Levi; for he speaks only of evil to them; but because they were not rejected from being among God’s people, because they were not cut out of the list (as Dan afterwards was, 1 Chronicles 7:1 ; 1 Chronicles 7:13 ; 1 Chronicles 7:30 Revelation 7:7 ), though they were under great and sore afflictions, they are counted blessed. Doles quod amisisti? gaude quod evasisti, saith Seneca: Grievest thou at thy losses? be glad that thyself art escaped. Be ready at all hours to send God home again the blessings which he lent us with thankfulness. There is a complaint of some men, so ungrateful, that if you do them nineteen courtesies, and then deny them the twentieth, you lose all your thank with them; carry them on your back to the very suburbs of Rome, and not into the city itself, you do nothing for them (Auson.). God is not to be thus dealt with; especially since he altereth the property of those evils and crosses which he layeth upon us, turning them to our greatest good, Romans 8:28 , like as the skilful apothecary turneth a poisonous viper into a wholesome antdote. Good, therefore, and worthy of all acceptation is that counsel of the wise man, "In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider." Consider? What? This, that "God also hath set the one over against the other," and, therefore, thou must take the one as well as the other, Ecclesiastes 7:14 ; that is but reasonable and equitable. Plato saith, that God doth always γεωμετρειν , act the geometrician, do and dispose of all things in number, weight, and measure; such an order and vicissitude he hath set of good and evil in the life of man, that they are, as it were, interwoven. Accept them, therefore, and acquiesce in them both, as the Hebrew word here signifieth. In all this Job sinned not with his lips — Hitherto he did not, though in a pitiful pickle, and much provoked by the wife of his bosom. He did not murmur against God, nor let flee at his wife; he did not threaten her, as Lamech, nor fall out with the whole sex, as he that said, Femina nulla bona est. There is no good woman. He doth not wish himself single again, as Augustus saith; or hold himself, therefore, only unhappy because married, as Sulla did, Sylla faelix, si non habuisset uxorem. Sulla the blessed, if he had had no wife. No such unsavoury speech falls from Job’s lips, as the devil wished and waited for it. Neither doth it follow (as some Rabbis would infer from this text) that Job sinned in his heart though not with his lips (Chaldaeus Paraphrastes et Talmudici); for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth would have spoken. Look what water is in the well, the like will be in the bucket; and what stuff is in the warehouse, the like will be in the shop. If his heart had been exulcerate he would not meekly and wisely have withstood his wife’s motion to blaspheme. Hitherto, certainly, God had helped him. It was the uncouth and unkind carriage of his friends concurring with the increase of his bodily pain, besides the eclipse of inward comforts, that drew from him those passionate expressions, Job 3:1-26 .

As one of the foolish women, i.e. like a rash, and inconsiderate, and weak person that dost not understand nor mind what thou sayest. Or, like a wicked and most profane person; for such are frequently called fools in Scripture, as Psalm 14:1 74:18 , and everywhere in the Proverbs. Shall we poor worms give laws to our supreme Lord and Governor, and oblige him always to bless and favour us, and never to afflict us? And shall not those great, and manifold, and long-continued mercies, which from time to time God hath freely and graciously given us, compensate for these short afflictions? Ought we not to bless God for those mercies which we did not deserve, and contentedly to bear those corrections which we deserve and need, and (if it be not our own fault) may get much good by. In all this did not Job sin with his lips, by any reflections upon God, by any impatient or unbecoming expressions.

But he said unto her, thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh,.... The wicked and profane women of that age; he does not say she was one of them, but spake like them; which intimates that she was a good woman, and had always been thought to be so; but now spake not like herself, and one of her profession, but like carnal persons: Sanctius thinks Job refers to the Idumean women, who, like other Heathens, when their god did not please them, or they could not obtain of them what they desired, would reproach them, and cast them away from there, throw them into the fire, or into the water, as the Persians are said to do; and so Job's wife, because of the present afflictive providence, was for casting off God and all religion; in this she spake and acted like those wicked people later observed, Job 21:14 ; and like those carnal professors among the Jews in later times, Malachi 3:14 ; this was talking foolishly, and Job's wife spake after this foolish manner, which he resented: what? this he said as being angry with her, and having indignation at what she said; and therefore, in this quick, short, and abrupt manner, reproves her for her folly: shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? as all good things temporal and spiritual, the blessings of Providence; and all natural, though not moral evil things, even all afflictions which seem, or are thought to be evil, come from the mouth of God, and are according to his purpose, counsel, and will; so they are all dispensed by the hand of God, and should be kindly, cheerfully, readily, and willingly received, the one as well as the other; see Lamentations 3:38 . Job suggests that he and his wife had received many good things from the Lord, many temporal good things, as appears from Job 1:2 ; they had their beings in him, and from him; they had been preserved in them by him; they had had an habitation to dwell in, and still had; God had given them food and raiment, wherewith it became them to be content; they had had a comfortable family of children until this time, and much health of body, Job till now, and his wife still, for ought appears; of their former happy circumstances, see Job 29:1 ; and besides these outward mercies, they had received God as their covenant God, their portion, shield, and exceeding great reward; they had received Christ as their living Redeemer; they had received the Spirit, and his grace, the root of the matter was in them; they had received justifying, pardoning, and adopting: grace, and a right unto and meetness for eternal life, which all good men receive of God; and therefore such must expect to receive evil things, or to partake of afflictions, since God has appointed these for them, and has told them of them, that they shall befall them; and beside they are for their profit and advantage; and the consideration of the good things that have been received, and are now enjoyed, as well as what they have reason to believe they shall enjoy in heaven to all eternity, should make them ready and willing to bear evil things quietly and patiently; see Hebrews 11:26 ; so Achilles in Homer (m) represents Jove as having two vessels full of gifts, one of good things, the other of evil, and sometimes he takes and gives the one, and sometimes the other: in all this did not Job sin with his lips; not in what he said to his wife, it was all right and good; nor under the whole of his affliction hitherto, he had not uttered one impatient, murmuring, and repining word at the hand of God; the tongue, though an unruly member, and under such providences apt to speak unadvisedly, was bridled and restrained by Job from uttering anything indecent and unbecoming: the Targum, and many of the Jewish writers, observe that he sinned in his heart, but not with his lips; but this is not to be concluded from what is here said; though it is possible there might be some risings of corruptions in his heart, which, by the grace of God that prevailed in him, were kept under and restrained from breaking out. (m) Iliad 24. ver. 527-530.

The devil tempts his own children, and draws them to sin, and afterwards torments, when he has brought them to ruin; but this child of God he tormented with affliction, and then tempted to make a bad use of his affliction. He provoked Job to curse God. The disease was very grievous. If at any time we are tried with sore and grievous distempers, let us not think ourselves dealt with otherwise than as God sometimes deals with the best of his saints and servants. Job humbled himself under the mighty hand of God, and brought his mind to his condition. His wife was spared to him, to be a troubler and tempter to him. Satan still endeavours to draw men from God, as he did our first parents, by suggesting hard thoughts of Him, than which nothing is more false. But Job resisted and overcame the temptation. Shall we, guilty, polluted, worthless creatures, receive so many unmerited blessings from a just and holy God, and shall we refuse to accept the punishment of our sins, when we suffer so much less than we deserve? Let murmuring, as well as boasting, be for ever done away. Thus far Job stood the trial, and appeared brightest in the furnace of affliction. There might be risings of corruption in his heart, but grace had the upper hand.

10. the foolish women—Sin and folly are allied in Scripture (1Sa 25:25; 2Sa 13:13; Ps 14:1). receive evil—bear willingly (La 3:39).

As one of the foolish women speaketh - The word here rendered "foolish" נבל nâbâl from נבל nâbêl, means properly stupid or foolish, and then wicked, abandoned, impious - the idea of "sin" and "folly" being closely connected in the Scriptures, or sin being regarded as supreme folly; 1 Samuel 25:25 ; 2 Samuel 3:33 ; Psalm 14:1 ; Psalm 53:2 . The Arabs still use the word with the same compass of signification. "Gesenius." The word is used here in the sense of "wicked;" and the idea is, that the sentiment which she uttered was impious, or was such as were on the lips of the wicked. Sanctius supposes that there is a reference here to Idumean females, who, like other women, reproached and cast away their gods, if they did not obtain what they asked when they prayed to them. Homer represents Achilles and Menelaus as reproaching the gods. Iliad i. 353, iii. 365. See Rosenmuller, Morgenland, "in loc." What shall we receive good at the hand of God - Having received such abundant tokens of kindness from him, it was unreasonable to complain when they were taken away, and when he sent calamity in their stead. And shall we not receive evil? - Shall we not expect it? Shall we not be willing to bear it when it comes? Shall we not have sufficient confidence in him to believe that his dealings are ordered in goodness and equity? Shall we at once lose all our confidence in our great Benefactor the moment he takes away our comforts, and visits us with pain? This is the true expression of piety. It submits to all the arrangements of God without a complaint. It receives blessings with gratitude; it is resigned when calamities are sent in their place. It esteems it as a mere favor to be permitted to breathe the air which God has made, to look upon the light of his sun, to tread upon his earth, to inhale the fragrance of his flowers, and to enjoy the society of the friends whom he gives; and when he takes one or all away, it feels that he has taken only what belongs to him, and withdraws a privilege to which we had no claim. In addition to that, true piety feels that all claim to any blessing, if it had ever existed, has been forfeited by sin. What right has a sinner to complain when God withdraws his favor, and subjects him to suffering? What claim has he on God, that should make it wrong for Him to visit him with calamity? Wherefore doth a living man complain, A man for the punishment of his sins?