3650—The Spirit of Man
By Editor
Where is the agreement between Job 27:3 and Job 34:14, as given in the Common Version? D. R. M. We do not see any inharmony in the scriptures. The first is a statement by Job that his soul was vexed while his breath was in him, while the life of God was still with him—as the margin reads, the breath which God gave him. (Gen. 2:7.) The American Revised Version has it that his soul is still vexed, "for my life is yet whole in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils,"—that is, the life which God gave. Job 34:14, according to the context, has this lesson: that it is God's goodness that He rules over the earth. No man has given Him charge over it. No man has set Him there as a duty, and if He should set His heart upon Himself (read as in the Revised Version and as the margin of the Common Version), if He should set His heart upon Himself, if He should gather unto Himself His spirit and His breath, why, man would utterly perish. It is God's goodness which keeps men alive, and with God is the great fountain of life; and if He should gather this life home to Himself, as does selfish man, all men would be utterly destroyed. The Revised Version gives the better rendering.