A35537:1086
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of the book of Job being the substance of thirty-five lectures / by Joseph Caryl ...
London: printed by M. Simmons, 1664
AN EXPOSITION WITH Practical Observations UPON The Thirty-fifth, Th… › Chapter 36 › Verses 18-20
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly, the night in Scripture, as also in humane Authors, is put improperly for death. All the dead are wrapped up in a night of darkness. Hence that counsel (John 9.4.) Work while you have the day, the night cometh when no man can work. We may work, yea, much work is done in the natural night. It is said of the virtuous woman (Prov. 31.18.) Her candle goes not out by night; she and her maids are at work in the night; therefore it cannot be strictly meant, that no man can work in the night. The night there is the night of death,1 or of an extreme troublous life; in these nights, especially in the former, no man can work, for there is no wisdom, nor device, nor labour in the grave whether we are going, (Eccl. 9.10.) According to this Scripture interpretation, desire not the night, is desire not death. Job had put forth such desires more than once (Chap. 7.15.) My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life. Mr. Broughton translates, Breath not unto that night: for peoples passage to their place: That is, (saith he) desire not death, the common passage of all men, as thou hast done. Therefore Elihu seems here to call Job off from those desires; do not thou peevishly or impatiently (because of the trouble of thy life) call for death, lest it come too soon, and it do by thee as it hath done by many others, whom it hath cut off in judgment. So it follows here, Desire not the night, When people are cut off in their place.
Secondly, the night in Scripture, as also in humane Authors, is put improperly for death. All the dead are wrapt up in a night of darkness. Hence that counsel (John 9.4.) Work while you have the day, the night cometh when no man can work. We may work, yea, much work is done in the natural night. It is said of the vertuous woman (Prov. 31.18.) Her candle goes not out by night; she and her maids are at work in the night; therefore it cannot be strictly meant, that no man can work in the night. The night there is the night of death,