The thoughts of the Lord are very deep. Our lives float upon them like skiffs upon an unfathomable ocean of power and fatherly care. Of the treatment he receives from men Job complains, yet not because they are the means of his overthrow. "_How long will ye vex my soul And crush me utterly with sayings? These ten times have ye reproached me; Ye are not ashamed that ye condemn me. And be it verily that I have erred, Mine error remaineth to myself. Will ye, indeed, exult against me And reproach me with my disgrace? Know now that God hath wronged me And compassed me about with His net._" Why should his friends be so persistent in charging him with offence? He has not wronged them. If he has erred, he himself is the sufferer. It is not for them to take part against him. Their exultation is of a kind they have no right to indulge, for they have not brought him to the misery in which he lies. Bildad spoke of the snare in which the wicked is caught. His tone in that passage could not have been more complacent if he himself claimed the honour of bringing retribution on the godless. But it is God, says Job, who hath compassed me with His net. "_Behold, of wrong I cry, but I am not heard; I cry for help, but there is no judgment._" Day after day, night after night, pains and fears increase: death draws nearer. He cannot move out of the net of misery. As one neglected, outlawed, he has to bear his inexplicable doom, his way fenced in so that he cannot pass, darkness thrown over his world by the hand of God. Plunging thus anew into a statement of his hopeless condition as one discrowned, dishonoured, a broken man, the speaker has in view all along the hard human judgment which numbers him with the godless. He would melt the hearts of his relentless critics by pleading that their enmity is out of place. If the Almighty is his enemy and has brought him near to the dust of death, why should men persecute him as God? Might they not have pity? There is indeed resentment against providence in his mind; but the anxious craving for human sympathy reacts on his language and makes it far less fierce and bitter than in previous speeches. Grief rather than revolt is now his mood. "_He hath stripped me of my glory And taken my crown from my head. He hath broken me down on every side, Uprooted my hope like a tree. He hath also kindled his wrath against me And counted me among His adversaries. His troops come on together And cast up their way against me And encamp around my tent._" So far the Divine indignation has gone. Will his friends not think of it? Will they not look upon him with less of hardness and contempt though he may have sinned? A man in a hostile universe, a feeble man, stricken with disease, unable to help himself, the heavens frowning upon him--why should they harden their hearts?