Job 31:40

Cockles] RM 'noisome weeds.' Job for the last time has maintained the integrity of his past life, and expressed his readiness to answer all charges of guilt brought against him. The third and final series of his speeches comes to an end. It cannot be said that any explanation of the ways of Providence has been put forward so far, but the popular theories that suffering must always imply previous sin, and that compensation according to conduct is invariably meted out to both good and bad in this world, have been refuted. Moreover, we see the noble spectacle of a good man in adversity clinging in spite of all his trials to his uprightness. Job has been able to find no foothold in the thought that God would revive him, or that the life beyond the grave will restore him to blessed fellowship with God. Nor has he gained any hope that the government of the world will become more righteous. But he has reached the assurance that God will vindicate his innocence, and that he shall be permitted to know of this vindication.