The companies of Sheba waited for them,
waited for the stream that never came. Ask some Australian
explorer, ask some soldier from the deserts that skirt the Nile,
— he will tell you the deadly significance of the metaphor,
ver. 22-30. And then, in bitter agony, he asks what else but the
precious gift of sympathy had he sought from them. No
gifts of money, no means to ransom him from some greedy
freebooter or powerful foe. 'Do not oifer me,' he seems
to say, ' these pious generalities, these good texts, this
good advice ; show me my sin, and I will repent of it,
Do not dwell on my hot words of pain, do not take
ver. 25-. advantage, make merchandise of, your lost friend. But
begin your course again, do me no wrong ; right is on my
side. Do I not know good from evil ? Yes, my cause is



yob's reply to Eliphaz. 67



righteous, my miseries are undeserved. Return, I pray you. Lecture
go back upon your words, Yea, return again, my cause is '



righteous!

Our thoughts, as we read this language and are tempted to
condemn its touch, its more than touch, of petulance, must go
back a moment to the character of the speaker as sketched
once and again in the Introduction. And that man was
perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil ;
the greatest, but lately, of the sons of the East.
And he turns in the seventh chapter from his friends, false Chap. vii.
friends he already calls them, to the God Who is afflicting him. ver. i-6.
