Verse 14 Thou sparest me with dreams - There is no doubt that Satan was permitted to haunt his imagination with dreadful dreams and terrific appearances; so that, as soon as he fell asleep, he was suddenly roused and alarmed by those appalling images. He needed rest by sleep, but was afraid to close his eyes because of the horrid images which were presented to his imagination. Could there be a state more deplorable than this?

Job 7:14

Scared with dreams.

This seems to be one of the symptoms of Job’s terrible disease, elephantiasis. Sleep even does not give him rest from his sufferings. The bodily torments of the day only give place to horrible dreams and alarming visions at night.

I. DREAM-TERRORS ARE REAL IN EXPERIENCE. Look at the man in a nightmare, how he groans and shrieks! We smile at his fancied troubles. Yet to him, while he endures them, they are very real. We feel according to our subjective state, not according to our objective circumstances. Souls are tortured by day-dreams which have no better foundation than those of the night, yet are not their distresses the less acute. Superstition peoples the heavens with dream-fancies of horror. There are no corresponding realities. Yet the victims of superstition are in real agony. An enormous amount of terrible mental suffering seems to be experienced by the heathen in their superstitious terrors of malignant divinities. One happy result of Christian missionary work is to sweep away those gloomy dreams, and bring the peace and confidence of Christian daylight to the benighted regions of the world.

II. SOME OF OUR WORST DISTRESSES HAVE NO BETTER FOUNDATION THAN IDLE DREAMS. They are terrible so long as we are under their spell; but if we only knew they were but fancies of the diseased mind, we should be relieved of their incubus. Note some of these.

1. The idea that God is opposed to us. This was Job’s thought. He thought that even his ill dreams came from God, and that it was God who was scaring him. The too common notion in religion was and is that God is averse to us, and that we have to do something to win his favour, whereas the Scriptures tell us that he loves us and seeks us to be reconciled to him, and that, instead of our needing to do something to make him gracious, he has given his Son to redeem us to himself.

2. The notion that our sins are incurable. People will not believe that holiness is possible; therefore of course they do not have it, because they have not the heart of hope to seek it. We scare ourselves with ugly dreams of our own irretrievably ruined condition. Our sin is not a dream, but our despair is one.

3. The terror of death. To the Christian this is but an idle dream. Death is no hideous Miltonic monster, but the servant of Christ, Dying is the advent of Christ to the soul that lives in Christ’s service.

III. CHRIST HAS COME TO DISPEL IDLE DREAMS. We are troubled about God’s dealings with us because we do not know him. We have but to acquaint ourselves with him in order to be at peace (Job 22:21). Christ reveals God in his Fatherhood. There are reasonable fears that are no dreams, but which spring from our consciousness of guilt. Often the dream is found in the illusion that ignores or excuses sin. Christ dispels that dream by revealing a dread reality, but only that he may lead us through repentance to pardon. Then all terrors of the night flee away in the glad daylight of God’s love.—W.F.A.

Job 7:17, Job 7:18

The littleness of man.

These verses have been characterized as a parody on Psa 8:5. While following the form of the psalmist’s language, and proceeding on the same general thesis, they suggest a very different inference. The psalmist was amazed at the condescension of God in noticing man, and filled with wonder at the honour that is put on so puny a creature. But Job is here represented as expressing his dismay that God should stoop to try and trouble so small a being. There is no equality in the contest, and it appears to Job as though God were taking advantage of the weakness of his victim. In spite of Job’s perplexity and shortsighted complaints, there are truths behind what he says. We must endeavour to disentangle these truths, and separate them from the illusions unworthy of the goodness of God with which they are confused.

I. GOD IS WRONGLY CHARGED WITH WHAT HE DOES NOT DO. We know from the prologue that it is not God, but Satan, who is the "watcher of men," in the sense of the spy who delights to pounce on a fault and to worry the miserable in their helplessness. Most of the sufferings of life do not come directly from the Divine will, but proceed from the injustice of other men, from our own faults and mistakes, and from "spiritual wickedness in high places." We must beware of the dualism which would give this evil an independent power over against God. Satan can only go as far as God permits him. Still, the evil is from Satan, not from God. It is sin, not providence, that brings the greatest trouble of life, and yet providence overrules that trouble for ultimate good.

II. THE SUFFERER IS TEMPTED TO MAGNIFY HIS OWN IMPORTANCE. Job’s troubles were unique. But every sufferer is tempted to think that no one was ever troubled as he is. Feeling his own pain most intensely, he is inclined to make this the central experience of the universe, and to fancy that he is singled out for peculiar attacks of adversity. Job, however, generalizes, and regards himself as a specimen of mankind. Man himself seems unduly marked out for affliction. But no one is justified in coming to this conclusion till he knows how other beings are treated. It may be that man’s hardships are but a part, and a fair part, of the hardships of the universe.

III. TO BE SPECIALLY TROUBLED IS TO BE MAGNIFIED IN IMPORTANCE. If it be so that man is specially singled out for affliction, no doubt a peculiar, though a most painful, importance is attached to him. Job becomes a great figure in Scripture through his troubles. Christ, crowned with thorns, is most significant on his cross. The sublimity of supreme sorrow is the inspiration of tragedy. Man is sometimes called out of his littleness by being made to suffer greatly. If God has a hand in all human sufferings—as God had in Job’s, behind Satan—he is honouring man by condescending to permit him to receive exceptional trials.

IV. GREAT SUFFERING IS PERMITTED FOR THE SAKE OF GREAT GOOD. This is seen in the final outcome of Job’s sufferings. They throw light on the higher life, and demonstrate the existence of disinterested devotion. The parody in Job is not so far from the original in the psalm. It is wonderful that God should permit human life to be honoured as the theatre in which the great tragedy of the conflict between evil and good is displayed. God is not stooping to torment men—like a giant torturing an insect—as to Job he appears to be doing with surprising effort. He is condescending to lead man on to greatness through suffering.—W.F.A.