Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints
In holy men, set apart for himself by his grace, whose sins are
expiated by the blood of his Son, and whose hearts are sanctified
by his Spirit, and who live holy lives and conversations, as
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; these, though he trusts many of them
with much, as the prophets of old with the messages of his grace
and will, and the ministers of the word with treasure, in their
earthen vessels, the sacred "depositum" of the glorious Gospel,
with gifts of grace, fitting them for their work, and with the
care of the souls of men; yet he trusts none of them with
themselves, with the redemption and salvation of their souls,
with the regeneration and sanctification of their hearts, and
with their preservation to eternal glory; he has put those into
the hands of his Son and Spirit, and keeps them by his power
through faith unto salvation: the Targum renders it, in his
saints above, in the saints in heaven, in glorified men; he is
there their all in all; as their happiness, so their safety and
protection; see an instance of his care and preservation of them
after the resurrection, when in a perfect state, ( Revelation
20:8 Revelation
20:9 ) ; or this may be understood of the angels, who
sometimes are called saints, ( Deuteronomy
33:2 ) ; who though they have been trusted with many things
to impart to the sons of men, yet not with the salvation of men,
nor even with the secret of it; they were not of God's privy
council when the affair was debated and settled; nor with other
secrets, as the day and hour of the last judgment, the coming of
the Son of Man: or the sense may be, "he putteth no perfection or
stability" F4 in them, that is, perfection in
comparison of his; for if theirs were equal to his, they would be
gods, which it is impossible to be, or for God to make them such;
and likewise such stability as to have been able to have stood of
themselves, which it appears they had not, since many of them
fell, and the rest needed confirming grace, which they have by
Christ, the Head of all principalities and powers:
yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight;
heaven born men, partakers of the heavenly calling, whose hearts
and affections are set on heavenly things, and have their
conversation in heaven; yet these, in the sight of a pure and
holy God, and in comparison of him, are impure and unholy; or
they of heaven, as Mr. Broughton renders it, the inhabitants of
heaven; the angels on high, as the Targum paraphrases it; these
are charged by him with folly, and they, conscious of their
imperfection with respect to him, cover their faces with their
wings, while they celebrate the perfection of his holiness, who
is so glorious in it; though the natural heavens may be intended,
at least not excluded, and the luminous bodies in them, as Bildad
seems to explain it, ( Job 25:5 Job 25:6 ) ; the stars are
reckoned the more dense and thick part of the heavens, the moon
has its spots, and by later discoveries it seems the sun is not
without them, and the heavens are often covered with clouds and
darkness, and the present ones will be purified with fire at the
general conflagration, which supposes them unclean, and they
shall pass away, and new ones succeed, which implies imperfection
in the former, or there would be no need of others; this is the
proof Eliphaz gives of what he had suggested in ( Job 15:14 ) .