_Job_ (Vol. v., p. 26.).--The Rev. T. R. BROWNE interprets one of the
Persepolitan inscriptions as representing the coronation and titles of
Job. As no previous commentator had supposed Job to be a Persian prince,
and as (among other unexpected results) it would follow that the poem
bearing his name was a translation into Hebrew by some unknown hand, I
hastened at once to the Bodleian to examine the authorities on which MR.
BROWNE bases his interpretation.
On one glance at the work cited (_Kaempferi Amoenitatum Exoticarum
Fasciculi V._) it was plain enough that Kaempfer had made his
transcription so carelessly, that barely _one letter in a hundred_ was
correct; and, on turning to Niebuhr's copy of the same inscription
(plate xxiv. A.), and to Porter's (vol. i. plate xliv. p. 631.), my
suspicions were amply confirmed. But the most singular part was to come.
Aided by the minute identifications which MR. BROWNE gives of the words
which he translates, _Aiub taij_, I discovered that the reverend
gentleman had mistaken two letters for two words. His whole theory,
therefore, falls to the ground.
As some of your readers may like to know the real interpretation of this
inscription, I give the translation of Rawlinson as amended from
Westergaard's notes, and which is undoubtedly correct:
"The great God Ormazd, who has given this world, who has given
that heaven, who has given mankind, who has given life to mankind;
who has made Xerxes king, both the king of the people, and the
law-giver of the people. I am Xerxes the king, the great king, the
king of kings, the king of many-peopled countries, the supporter
also of this great world, the son of King Darius the Achæmenian,"
&c.