Job 23:15

When I consider, I am afraid of Him.

God’s displeasure a source of fear

Notwithstanding the general evenness of Job’s temper, and his quiet submission to Divine providence, there were two things which touched him more sensibly than all the other circumstances of his afflictions. That God should seem so much displeased with him, as to single him out as a mark to shoot at, when he was not conscious to himself of any such impiety to deserve it, according to the common method of His providence. And that his friends should call in question his sincerity in religion, and suspect him guilty of hypocrisy and secret impiety; because they concluded that such signal calamities could hardly fall upon any man that was not guilty of some such great crime towards God. The words of the text may be understood--

I. With respect to Job’s apprehension of God’s displeasure against him. He declares his firm resolution never to let go his confidence in God, whatever became of him; but the presence which troubled him was the great appearance of God’s displeasure.

1. What made Job so afraid of God when he considered, seeing he insists so much on his own integrity? Doth not this seem to lessen the comfort and satisfaction of a good conscience, when such an one as Job was afraid of God? We reply that mankind ought always to preserve a humble and awful apprehension of God in their minds. And that from the sense of the infinite distance between God and us. Moreover, the best of mankind have guilt enough upon them to make them apprehend God’s displeasure under great afflictions. Job’s friends insist much upon this, that God may see just cause to lay great punishments upon man, although they may not see it in themselves. But God may not be so displeased with such persons as lie under great afflictions, as they apprehend Him to be. This was the truth of Job’s case. In the hardest condition good men can be cast into, they have more comfortable hopes towards God than other men can have. Two things supported Job under all his dismal apprehensions. The reflections of a good conscience in the discharge of his duties to God and man; and the expectation of a future recompense, either in this world or in another What apprehensions of God may we entertain in our minds, when even Job was “afraid of Him”? None ought to look upon God as so terrible, as to make them despair; and men ought to have different apprehensions of God, according to the nature and continuance of their sins.

II. With respect to Job’s vindication of himself from the unjust charge of his friends. As though he were a secret hypocrite, or a contemner of God and religion, under a fair outward shew of piety and devotion. Job declares the mighty value and esteem he had for the laws of God; and the fear of God in him came from the most weighty and serious consideration. Two things are implied--

1. That men’s disesteem of religion doth arise from the want of consideration; from their looking on religion as a matter of mere interest and design, without any other foundation: and from the unaccountable folly and superstitious fears of mankind, which make them think more to be in it than really is. Although the principles of religion in general are reasonable enough in themselves, and the things we observe in the world do naturally lead men to own a deity, yet when they reflect on the strange folly and superstitious fear of mankind, they are apt still to suspect that men, being puzzled and confounded, have frighted themselves into the belief of invisible powers, and performing acts of worship and devotion to them. But this way of reasoning is just as if a man should argue that there is no such thing as true reason in mankind, because imagination is a wild, extravagant, unreasonable thing; or that we never see anything when we are awake, because in our dreams we fancy we see things which we do not. Application--The more men do consider, the more they will esteem religion, and apply themselves to the practice of it.

Two things may be commended--

1. To consider impartially what is fit for men to do in religion.

2. To practise so much of religion as upon consideration will appear fitting to be done. God infinitely deserves from us all the service we can do Him. And we cannot serve ourselves better than by faithfully serving Him. (E. Stillingfleet, D. D.)

On the effects of consideration

Job here declares, in language of great sublimity, the unsearchableness of God. It was not a hasty glance at the character of God which gave rise to the fear which the patriarch expresses. His fear was the result of deep meditation, and not of a cursory thought. Deep meditation brought under review many attributes of the Almighty, and there was much in these attributes to perplex and discourage. It may have been only the unchangeableness of God which, engaging the consideration, excited the fears of the patriarch. But we need not limit to one attribute this effect of consideration. That the fear or dread of God is the produce of consideration; that it does not therefore spring from ignorance or want of thought; this is the general truth asserted in the passage. A superstitious dread of a Supreme Being is to be overcome by consideration; and a religious dread is to be produced by consideration. The absence of consideration is the only account that can be given of the absence of a fear of the Almighty. It is not by any process of thought that the great mass of our fellow men work themselves into a kind of practical atheism, Man is answerable for this want of consideration, inasmuch as it is voluntary, and not unavoidable. The truths of revelation are adapted according to the constitution of our moral capacity, to rouse within us certain feelings. By fixing our minds on these truths we may be said to insure the production of the feelings which naturally correspond to them.
See how the fear of God is produced by considering--

1. What we know of God in His nature. We know how powerful a restraint is imposed on the most dissolute and profane, by the presence of an individual who will not countenance them in their impieties. So long as they are under observation they will not dare to yield to impious desires. There is nothing so overwhelming to the mind, when giving itself to the contemplation of a great first cause, as the omnipresence of God. It is not possible that the least item of my conduct may escape observation. The Legislator Himself is ever at my side. The more I reflect, the more awful God appears. To break the law in the sight of the Lawgiver; to brave the sentence in the face of the Judge; there is a hardihood in this which would seem to overpass the worst human presumption. It is not the mere feeling that God exercises a supervision over my actions, which will produce that dread of Him which Job asserts in our text. The moral character of God vastly aggravates that fear which is produced by His omnipresence. We suppose God just, and we suppose Him merciful, and it is in settling the relative claims of these properties that men fancy they find ground for expecting impunity at the last. However on a hasty glance, and forming my estimate of benevolence from the pliancy of human sympathies, I may think that the love of the Almighty will forbid the everlasting misery of His creatures, let me consider, and the dreamy expectation of a weak and womanish tenderness will give place to apprehension and dread. The theory that God is too loving to take vengeance will not bear being considered. The opinion that the purposes of a moral government may have been answered by the threatening, so as not to need the infliction, will not bear to be considered.

2. The connection between consideration and fear will be yet more evident, if the works of God engage our attention; His works in nature and in redemption. There is nothing which, when deeply pondered, is more calculated to excite fears of God than that marvellous interposition on our behalf which is the alone basis of legitimate hope. God in redemption shows Himself a holy God, and therefore do I fear Him. (Henry Melvill, B. D.)

Of the fear of God

In this chapter Job gives a noble description of the sense he had upon his mind of the invisible omnipresence and omniscience of God. To a man of virtue and integrity, the consideration of this great truth is a solid ground of real and lasting satisfaction. Take the expression of the text as containing this general and very important proposition,--that the fear of God is the result of consideration, attention, and true reason; not of empty imagination and vain apprehension. By the “fear of God” is understood, not the superstitious dread of an arbitrary and cruel Being, but that awe and regard which necessarily arises in the mind of every man who believes and habitually considers himself as living and acting in the sight of an omnipresent Governor, of perfect justice, holiness, and purity; who sees every thought as well as every action; who cannot be imposed on by any hypocrisy, who, as certainly as there is any difference between good and evil, cannot but approve the one and detest the other; and whose government, as certainly as He has any power at all, consists in rewarding what He approves, and punishing what He hates. This fear of God is the foundation of religion. The great support of virtue among men is the sense upon their minds of a supreme Governor and Judge of the universe. The ground of this fear is reason and consideration.

1. As to the ground and foundation of religion. That there is an essential difference between good and evil, man clearly discerns by the natural and necessary perception of his own mind and conscience. ‘Tis not a man’s particular timorousness of temper, nor tradition, nor speculation, that makes him see when he is oppressed or defrauded, that these actions are in their own nature unrighteous, and the person who is guilty of them worthy of punishment. Laws do not make virtue to be virtue and vice to be vice, but only enforce or discourage the practice of such things.

2. As religion and superstition differ entirely in their ground and foundation, so do they likewise in their effects. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Religion makes men inquisitive after truth, lovers of reason, meek, gentle, patient, willing to be informed. Superstition makes men blind and passionate, despisers of reason, careless in inquiring after truth, hasty, censorious, contentious, and impatient of instruction. Religion teaches men to be just, equitable, and charitable toward all men. Superstition puts men on undervaluing the eternal rules of morality. (S. Clarke, D. D.)