JOB.

Every scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its own

particular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; the

anterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should have

been very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of--1, the

benevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim so

young a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writ

itself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the years

were lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah and

Eber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, each

had children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives of

all varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred.

And many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say of

Abraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, and

Elisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell how

probable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history.

There is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient Jewish

Scripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here,

after our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample.

The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very

needlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and

really happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insight

into what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain of

eternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly

presented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it

here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities

will be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the

doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It

signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so

long as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity,

and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if

written by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, the

wealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or

whoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true;

and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been

decreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would have

been wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long

and dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never have

been given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and

trust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and

redeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish

Scripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond

all modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative are

scarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability,

especially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we have

shown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the

denizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first

chapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two

chapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected.

Let us see what happened:

"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before

the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan,

whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going

to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the

Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is

none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that

feareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said,

Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and

about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast

blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the

land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will

curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that

he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So

Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."--[Job 1. 6-13.]

It is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its

quiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in

allusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of

God: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his

servant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan's

constant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldly

wealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore all

this scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holy

man, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment:

"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves

before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself

before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And

Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth,

and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast

thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the

earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth

evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me

against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord,

and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his

life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh,

and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan,

Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth from

the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole

of his foot unto his crown."

Some such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, and

permitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to have

been looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many of

life's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; what

limits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed some

such insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what is

continually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plain

and simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, of

innocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph.

Lo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many,

against reason, disbelieve it!

Note, in allusion to our after-theme, the _locus_ of heaven, that there

is some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the open

unchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrasted

with the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgar

proverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that let

him lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of his

own skin. And there are many more such notabilities.

Why did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity;

for their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness;

for their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previously

to it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? and

were they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented?

We have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by the

pure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton had

Job to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plain

inspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceive

so just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without having

painted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy are

always made the most of.

One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give

way, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another

fall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's

chosen three, "Noah, Daniel, and Job:" and worthy that the Lord should

bless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch

on; the great compensation which God gave to Job.

Children can never be regarded as other than individualities: and

notwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality

is, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to

be born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a

father loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching

void that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and

because I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the

difficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found.

It will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionate

objection. Now, this is the state of the case.

The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, and

oxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to him

by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his

great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and

purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from

different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses

had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience

follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or

false. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the

good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by

the double of every thing once lost--his children remain the same in

number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor

children, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and

schemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as also

did the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say

that these things happened; but that certain emissaries said they

happened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers were

scared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a natural

increase of camels, &c., meanwhile,) the patriarch's paternal heart was

more than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dear

children. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and are

found. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the

Resurrection in a figure.

If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were

real, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply,

that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the

other, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gist

of the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind

be overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction

as children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed the

evil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how double

was the joy of Job over those ten dear children.

Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job at

the last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has

ten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer,

think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of it

would have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so

numerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth while

here to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case,

if only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of

being confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal

reward was anteriorly more probable.