The commonplaces of pious thought fall stale and flat in a controversy like the present. Bildad does not realise wherein the right of man in the universe consists. He is trying in vain to instruct one who sees that moral desire and struggle are the conditions of human greatness, who will not be overborne by material splendours nor convicted by the accident of death. XXII. _THE OUTSKIRTS OF HIS WAYS._ JOB SPEAKS. CHAPS. xxvi., xxvii. Beginning his reply Job is full of scorn and sarcasm. "_How hast thou helped one without power! How hast thou saved the strengthless arm! How hast thou counselled one void of knowledge, And plentifully declared the thing that is known!_" Well indeed hast thou spoken, O man of singular intelligence. I am very weak, my arm is powerless. What reassurance, what generous help thou hast provided! I, doubtless, know nothing, and thou hast showered illumination on my darkness.--His irony is bitter. Bildad appears almost contemptible. "_To whom hast thou uttered words?_" Is it thy mission to instruct me? "_And whose spirit came forth from thee?_" Dost thou claim Divine inspiration? Job is rancorous; and we are scarcely intended by the writer to justify him. Yet it is galling indeed to hear that calm repetition of the most ordinary ideas when the controversy has been carried into the deep waters of thought. Job desired bread and is offered a stone. But since Bildad has chosen to descant upon the greatness and imperial power of God, the subject shall be continued. He shall be taken into the abyss beneath, where faith recognises the Divine presence, and to the heights above that he may learn how little of the dominion of God lies within the range of a mind like his, or indeed of mortal sense. First there is a vivid glance at that mysterious under-world where the shades or spirits of the departed survive in a dim vague existence. "_The shades are shaken Beneath the waters and their inhabitants. Sheol is naked before Him, And Abaddon hath no covering._" Bildad has spoken of the lofty place where God makes peace. But that same God has the sovereignty also of the nether world. Under the bed of the ocean and those subterranean waters that flow beneath the solid ground where, in the impenetrable darkness, poor shadows of their former selves, those who lived once on earth congregate age after age--there the power of the Almighty is revealed. He does not always exert His will in order to create tranquility. Down in Sheol the _refaim_ are agitated. And nothing is hid from His eye. Abaddon, the devouring abyss, is naked before Him.