Job 29:1-5
‘Job continued…and said…: “In months past…, God preserved me…. His candle shone upon my head…. By His light, I walked through darkness…. In the days of my youth…., God was upon my tent…. The Almighty was still with me!’ Job 29:1-5.
In his Sermons on Job, Calvin remarked: “Beset with many troubles and dangers…, if our Lord provided not for us — we could not step one pace forward! No, nor so much as stir one finger — but we would stumble into many miseries. But God remedies all things, by showing us His lamp — and by making it to shine upon us!
“Therefore, let us learn to yield Him the praise that He deserves!…. We cannot hold out in this transitory life, unless He always looks upon us and guides us….
“What does He deserve, in respect of the instruction which He gives us by His Word? So long as we live here below, we live as it were in darkness…. We would fall into confusion at every step, if we were not enlightened by the lamp of God’s Word….
“I do not doubt but Job meant to say — ‘When I was in my riches; when God had given me so great abundance of goods that they flowed into my house’…. Therefore [the meaning of it is] when I had the providence of God upon my tent — that is to say, when God watched over me, to guide all my affairs….
“Job still directs himself unto God — and glorifies Him by confessing that the benefits which he had received in times past, fell not to him by casual adventure…. ‘It is God (he says), Who had lit His lamp upon me!’… Let us then learn to glory God for all things, after the example of Job — both in prosperity, and adversity!”
God’s light was a figure for His favourable enlightening and prospering of Job during the joyful fruit-gathering period of his previous life. That was the time God intimately watched over his tent. Then, his happiness overflowed.
Those were the olden times, which Job now wished back. The time when God’s light shone above his head, when he otherwise walked in darkness. God’s light, which then preserved Job from straying and falling. God then ruled over his tent. But God was even now still with Job, blessing him wonderfully — beyond desire and comprehension. For the Almighty was still with Job!
He had lived well previously — and he still lived! Right down till his death, Job would hold onto his convictions — and to his gratitude to God. He would never leave the Lord, faithlessly!
What a privilege; what a grace — to be able to give such a witness! Yet oh, that he were as in the previous days when God had so preserved him! Nevertheless, there were better days yet, ahead!
