Albert Barnes Commentary Job 3:26

"I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; But trouble cometh." — Job 3:26 (ASV)

I was not in safety - That is, I had no peace. שׁלה shâlâh Septuagint, οὔτε εἰρήνευσα oute eirēneusa — “I had no peace.” The sense is, that his mind had been disturbed with fearful alarms, or perhaps that at that time he was filled with dread.

Neither had I rest - Trouble comes upon me in every form, and I am wholly a stranger to peace. The accumulation of phrases here, all meaning nearly the same thing, is descriptive of a state of great agitation of mind. Such an accumulation is not uncommon in the Bible to denote anything that language can scarcely describe. So in (Isaiah 8:22):

And they shall look upward;
And to the earth shall they look;
And lo!
Trouble and darkness,
Gloom, oppression, and deepened darkness.

So (Job 10:21–22):

To the land of darkness and the death-shade,
The land of darkness like the blackness of the death-shade,
Where is no order, and where the light is as darkness.

Thus, in the Hamasa (quoted by Dr Good), “Death, and devastation, and a remorseless disease, and a still heavier and more terrific family of evils.” The Chaldee has made a remarkable addition here, arising from the general design in the author of that Paraphrase, to explain everything. “Did I not dissemble when the annunciation was made to me respecting the oxen and the asses? Was I not stupid (unalarmed, or unmoved, שדוכית), when the report came about the conflagration? Was I not quiet, when the report came respecting the camels? And did not indignation come, when the report was made respecting my sons?”

Yet trouble came - Or rather, “and trouble comes.” This is one of the cumulative expressions to denote the rapidity and the intensity of his sorrows. The word rendered “trouble” (רגז rôgez) means properly trembling, commotion, disquiet. Here it signifies such misery as made him tremble. Once the word means wrath (Habakkuk 3:2); and it is so understood here by the Septuagint, who renders it ὀργή orgē.

In regard to this chapter, containing the first speech of Job, we may remark that it is impossible to approve the spirit which it exhibits, or to believe that it was acceptable to God. It laid the foundation for the reflections—many of them exceedingly just—in the following chapters, and led his friends to doubt whether such a man could be truly pious. The spirit manifested in this chapter is undoubtedly far from that calm submission which religion should have produced, and from that which Job had before evinced. That he was, in the main, a man of eminent holiness and patience, the whole book demonstrates; but this chapter is one of the conclusive proofs that he was not absolutely free from imperfection. From this chapter we may learn:

1. Even eminently good men sometimes give utterance to sentiments that are a departure from the spirit of religion, and which they will have occasion to regret. Such was the case here. There was a language of complaint, and a bitterness of expression, which religion cannot sanction, and which no pious man, on reflection, would approve.

2. We see the effect of heavy affliction on the mind. It sometimes becomes overwhelming. It is so great that all the ordinary barriers against impatience are swept away. The sufferer is left to utter language of complaining, and there is the impatient wish that life were closed, or that he had not existed.

3. We are not to infer, because a man in affliction uses some expressions that we cannot approve and that are not sanctioned by the word of God, that he is therefore not a good man. There may be true piety, yet it may be far from perfection. There may be general submission to God, yet the calamity may be so overwhelming as to overcome the usual restraints on our corrupt and fallen nature. When we remember how feeble our nature is at best, and how imperfect the piety of the holiest of men is, we should not harshly judge him who is left to express impatience in his trials, or who gives utterance to sentiments different from those sanctioned by the word of God. There has been but one model of pure submission on earth—the Lord Jesus Christ. After contemplating the best of men in their trials, we can see that there is imperfection in them, and that if we would survey absolute perfection in suffering, we must go to Gethsemane and to Calvary.

4. Let us not make the expressions used by Job in this chapter our model in suffering. Let us not suppose that because he used such language, we may therefore also use it. Let us not infer, because they are found in the Bible, that they are therefore right; or, because he was an unusually holy man, that it would be proper for us to use the same language he did. The fact that this book is a part of the inspired truth of revelation does not make such language right.

   All that inspiration does, in such a case, is to secure an exact record of what was actually said; it does not necessarily sanction it, any more than an accurate historian can be supposed to approve all that he records.

   There may be important reasons why it should be preserved, but the one who makes the record is not answerable for the truth or propriety of what is recorded. The narrative is true; the sentiment may be false.

   The historian may state exactly what was said or done, but what was said or done may have violated every law of truth and justice. Unless the historian expresses some sentiment of approval, he can in no sense be held answerable for it.

   So it is with the narratives in the Bible. When a sentiment of approval or disapproval is expressed, the sacred writer is answerable for it; in other cases, he is answerable only for the correctness of the record.

   This view of the nature of inspiration will leave us at liberty freely to examine the speeches made in the book of Job. It also makes it more important that we compare the sentiments in those speeches with other parts of the Bible, so that we may know what to approve and what was erroneous in Job or his friends.