This study is from an on going online Daily Bible Study at:
DailyBibleStudy.Org | Daily Bible Study Index Page | Daily Bible Study Online E-Book Library
Job 30:11
11 Because he hath loosed [pathach] my cord [yether], and afflicted [`anah] me, they have also let loose [shalach] the bridle [recen] before [paniym] me. KJV-Interlinear
11 'Because He has loosed His bowstring and afflicted me, They have cast off the bridle before me. NASB
The people which Job is describing, is a no good rabble intent on destruction when the restraints of truth are loosened from them.
During all of human history, there is a restraint set upon the activities of humanity, preventing man from destroying himself.
When man disregards truth, he becomes antagonistic, critical, hateful, vindictive, and violent. There is no such thing as the dignity of mankind. Dignity comes only from the influence of truth, which comes only from God.
Without truth, man degenerates into a rabble whose set purpose is to ridicule, criticize, and destroy.
The loosened cord is the description of the restraint which God holds over the world. It also represents the bowstring, which the rabble pulls tight, then lets loose their wickedness.
The bridle is also a picture of the restraint on a horse, a warhorse. That, once loosened, the horse gallops off in a frenzy to the fight and the sounds of battle.
Here, God has relaxed the restraints of society in taking Jobs prosperity and freedoms, and allowing those who stand off to the side observing, to add to the attacks against Job. God has allowed suffering to enter into Jobs life, and the rabble see this as an open invitation for them to add their own attacks against Job. This is also the view of the world opening up its attack against truth whenever possible.
Without feelings of remorse, without conscience, without regard to the suffering of others, the spiritually deficient person will always, add his two cents worth of criticism, and more, to a situation for which he has no reason for getting involved.
Job had occupied a position of honor, of rank, of integrity, and now has lost those things of life. But Job is still Job, regardless of the things he possessed. Whether he lost his status through events of his own doing or not, is irrelevant.
Jesus Christ controls history. Christ promotes and demotes in accordance with his own will, for his own reasons, and it is not for man to second-guess His plan, nor add to it.
The rabble takes advantage of Jobs situation, and treats him with indignity, inconsideration, disrespect, and add insult to injury, with impunity. And in so doing they only seal their own dreadful fate.
