thought when the anticipation was thrown out of spiritual life going
on beyond death ("would I wait"), retaining intellectual potency in
that region otherwise dark and void to the human imagination ("I would
answer Thee"). From both the human side and the Divine the poet has
advanced a magnificent intuition, a springing arch into which he is
unable to fit the keystone--the spiritual body; for He only could do
this who long afterwards came to be Himself the Resurrection and the
Life. But when this poem of Job had been given to the world a new
thought was implanted in the soul of the race, a new hope that should
fight against the darkness of Sheol till that morning when the sunrise
fell upon an empty sepulchre, and one standing in the light asked of
sorrowful men, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
"Thou would'st have a desire to the work of Thy hands." What a
philosophy of Divine care underlies the words! They come with a force
Job seems hardly to realise. Is there a High One who makes men in His
own image, capable of fine achievement, and then casts them away in
discontent or loathing? The voice of the poet rings in a passionate
key because he rises to a thought practically new to the human mind.
He has broken through barriers both of faith and doubt into the light
of his hope and stands trembling on the verge of another world. "One
must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the
creature and his Maker in the past to be able to give utterance to
such an imaginative expectation respecting the future."
But the wrath of God still appears to rest upon Job's life; still He
seems to keep in reserve, sealed up, unrevealed, some record of
transgressions for which He has condemned His servant. From the height
of hope Job falls away into an abject sense of the decay and misery to
which man is brought by the continued rigour of Eloah's examination.
As with shocks of earthquake mountains are broken, and waters by
constant flowing wash down the soil and the plants rooted in it, so
human life is wasted by the Divine severity. In the world the children
whom a man loved are exalted or brought low, but he knows nothing of
it. His flesh corrupts in the grave and his soul in Sheol languishes.
"_Thou destroyest the hope of man.
Thou ever prevailest against him, and he passeth;
Thou changest his countenance and sendest him away._"
The real is at this point so grim and insistent as to shut off the
ideal and confine thought again to its own range. The energy of the
prophetic mind is overborne, and unintelligible fact surrounds and
presses hard the struggling personality.
THE SECOND COLLOQUY.
XIII.
_THE TRADITION OF A PURE RACE._
ELIPHAZ SPEAKS. CHAP. xv.
The first colloquy has made clear severance between the old Theology
and the facts of human life. No positive reconciliation is effected as
yet between reality and faith, no new reading of Divine providence has
been offered. The author allows the friends on the one hand, Job on
the other, to seek the end of controversy just as men in their
circumstances would in real life have sought it. Unable to penetrate
behind the veil the one side clings obstinately to the ancestral
faith, on the other side the persecuted sufferer strains after a hope
of vindication apart from any return of health and prosperity, which
he dares not expect. One of the conditions of the problem is the
certainty of death. Before death, repentance and restoration,--say the
friends. Death immediate, therefore should God hear me, vindicate
me,--says Job. In desperation he breaks through to the hope that
God's wrath will pass even though his scared and harrowed life be
driven into Sheol. For a moment he sees the light; then it seems to
expire. To the orthodox friends any such thought is a kind of
blasphemy. They believe in the nullity of the state beyond death.
There is no wisdom nor hope in the grave. "The dead know not anything,
neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is
forgotten"--even by God. "As well their love, as their hatred and
their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for
ever in anything that is done under the sun" (Eccles. ix. 5, 6). On
the mind of Job this dark shadow falls and hides the star of his hope.
To pass away under the reprobation of men and of God, to suffer the
final stroke and be lost for ever in the deep darkness;--anticipating
this, how can he do otherwise than make a desperate fight for his own
consciousness of right and for God's intervention while yet any breath
is left in him? He persists in this. The friends do not approach him
one step in thought; instead of being moved by his pathetic entreaties
they draw back into more bigoted judgment.
In opening the new circle of debate Eliphaz might be expected to yield
a little, to admit something in the claim of the sufferer, granting at
least for the sake of argument that his case is hard. But the writer
wishes to show the rigour and determination of the old creed, or
rather of the men who preach it. He will not allow them one sign of
_rapprochement_. In the same order as before the three advance their
theory, making no attempt to explain the facts of human existence to
which their attention has been called. Between the first and the
second round there is, indeed, a change of position, but in the line
of greater hardness. The change is thus marked. Each of the three,
differing _toto cœlo_ from Job's view of his case, had introduced an
encouraging promise. Eliphaz had spoken of six troubles, yea seven,
from which one should be delivered if he accepted the chastening of
the Lord. Bildad affirmed
"_Behold, God will not cast away the perfect:
He will yet fill thy mouth with laughter
And thy lips with shouting._"
Zophar had said that if Job would put away iniquity he should be led
into fearless calm.
"_Thou shall be steadfast and not fear,
For thou shalt forget thy misery;
Remember it as waters that are passed by._"
That is a note of the first series of arguments; we hear nothing of it
in the second. One after another drives home a stern, uncompromising
judgment.
* * * * *
The dramatic art of the author has introduced several touches into the
second speech of Eliphaz which maintain the personality. For example,
the formula "I have seen" is carried on from the former address where
it repeatedly occurs, and is now used quite incidentally, therefore
with all the more effect. Again the "crafty" are spoken of in both
addresses with contempt and aversion, neither of the other
interlocutors of Job nor Job himself using the word. The thought of
chap. xv. 15 is also the same as that ventured upon in chap. iv. 18, a
return to the oracle which gave Eliphaz his claim to be a prophet.
Meanwhile he adopts from Bildad the appeal to ancient belief in
support of his position; but he has an original way of enforcing this
appeal. As a pure Temanite he is animated by the pride of race and
claims more for his progenitors than could be allowed to a Shuchite or
Naamathite, more, certainly, than could be allowed to one who dwelt
among worshippers of the sun and moon. As a whole the thought of
Eliphaz remains what it was, but more closely brought to a point. He
does not wander now in search of possible explanations. He fancies
that Job has convicted himself and that little remains but to show
most definitely the fate he seems bent on provoking. It will be a
kindness to impress this on his mind.
The first part of the address, extending to verse 13, is an
expostulation with Job, whom in irony he calls "wise." Should a wise
man use empty unprofitable talk, filling his bosom, as it were, with
the east wind, peculiarly blustering and arid? Yet what Job says is
not only unprofitable, it is profane.
"_Thou doest away with piety
And hinderest devotion before God.
For thine iniquity instructs thy mouth,
And thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.
Thine own mouth condemneth thee; not I;
Thine own lips testify against thee._"
Eliphaz is thoroughly sincere. Some of the expressions used by his
friend must have seemed to him to strike at the root of reverence.
Which were they? One was the affirmation that tents of robbers prosper
and they that provoke God are secure; another the daring statement
that the deceived and the deceiver are both God's; again the confident
defence of his own life: "Behold now I have ordered my cause, I know
that I am righteous; who is he that will contend with me?" and once
more his demand why God harassed him, a driven leaf, treating him with
oppressive cruelty. Things like these were very offensive to a mind
surcharged with veneration and occupied with a single idea of Divine
government. From the first convinced that gross fault or arrogant
self-will had brought down the malediction of God, Eliphaz could not
but think that Job's iniquity was "teaching his mouth" (coming out in
his speech, forcing him to profane expressions), and that he was
choosing the tongue of the crafty. It seemed that he was trying to
throw dust in their eyes. With the cunning and shiftiness of a man who
hoped to carry off his evil-doing, he had talked of maintaining his
ways before God and being vindicated in that region where, as every
one knew, recovery was impossible. The ground of all certainty and
belief was shaken by those vehement words. Eliphaz felt that piety was
done away and devotion hindered, he could scarcely breathe a prayer in
this atmosphere foul with scepticism and blasphemy.
The writer means us to enter into the feelings of this man, to think
with him, for the time, sympathetically. It is no moral fault to be
over-jealous for the Almighty, although it is a misconception of man's
place and duty, as Elijah learned in the wilderness, when, having
claimed to be the only believer left, he was told there were seven
thousand that never bowed the knee to Baal. The speaker has this
justification, that he does not assume office as advocate for God. His
religion is part of him, his feeling of shock and disturbance quite
natural. Blind to the unfairness of the situation he does not consider
the incivility of joining with two others to break down one sick
bereaved man, to scare a driven leaf. This is accidental. Controversy
begun, a pious man is bound to carry on, as long as may be necessary,
the argument which is to save a soul.
Nevertheless, being human, he mingles a tone of sarcasm as he proceeds.
"_The first man wast thou born?
Or wast thou made before the hills?
Did'st thou hearken in the conclave of God?
And dost thou keep the wisdom to thyself?_"
Job had accused his friends of speaking unrighteously for God and
respecting His person. This pricked. Instead of replying in soft words
as he claims to have been doing hitherto ("Are the consolations of God
too small for thee and a word that dealt tenderly with thee?"),
Eliphaz takes to the sarcastic proverb. The author reserves dramatic
gravity and passion for Job, as a rule, and marks the others by
varying tones of intellectual hardness, of current raillery. Eliphaz
now is permitted to show more of the self-defender than the defender
of faith. The result is a loss of dignity.
"_What knowest thou that we know not?
What understandest thou that is not in us?_"
After all it is man's reason against man's reason. The answer will
only come in the judgment of the Highest.
"_With us is he who is both grey-haired and very old,
Older in days than thy father._"
Not Eliphaz himself surely. That would be to claim too great
antiquity. Besides, it seems a little wanting in sense. More probably
there is reference to some aged rabbi, such as every community loved
to boast of, the Nestor of the clan, full of ancient wisdom. Eliphaz
really believes that to be old is to be near the fountain of truth.
There was an origin of faith and pure life. The fathers were nearer
that holy source; and wisdom meant going back as far as possible up
the stream. To insist on this was to place a real barrier in the way
of Job's self-defence. He would scarcely deny it as the theory of
religion. What then of his individual protest, his philosophy of the
hour and of his own wishes? The conflict is presented here with much
subtlety, a standing controversy in human thought. Fixed principles
there must be; personal research, experience and passion there are,
new with every new age. How settle the antithesis? The Catholic
doctrine has not yet been struck out that will fuse in one commanding
law the immemorial convictions of the race and the widening visions of
the living soul. The agitation of the church to-day is caused by the
presence within her of Eliphaz and Job--Eliphaz standing for the
fathers and their faith, Job passing through a fever-crisis of
experience and finding no remedy in the old interpretations. The
church is apt to say, Here is moral disease, sin; we have nothing for
that but rebuke and aversion. Is it wonderful that the tried life,
conscious of integrity, rises in indignant revolt? The taunt of sin,
scepticism, rationalism or self-will is too ready a weapon, a sword
worn always by the side or carried in the hand. Within the House of
God men should not go armed, as if brethren in Christ might be
expected to prove traitors.
The question of the eleventh verse--"Are the consolations of God too
small for thee?"--is intended to cover the whole of the arguments
already used by the friends and is arrogant enough as implying a
Divine commission exercised by them. "The word that dealt tenderly
with thee," says Eliphaz; but Job has his own idea of the tenderness
and seems to convey it by an expressive gesture or glance which
provokes a retort almost angry from the speaker,--
"_Why doth thine heart carry thee away,
And why do thine eyes wink,
That thou turnest thy breathing against God,
And sendest words out of thy mouth?_"
We may understand a brief emphatic word of repudiation not unmixed with
contempt and, at the same time, not easy to lay hold of. Eliphaz now
feels that he may properly insist on the wickedness of man--painfully
illustrated in Job himself--and depict the certain fate of him who
defies the Almighty and trusts in his own "vanity." The passage is from
first to last repetition, but has new colour of the quasi-prophetic kind
and a certain force and eloquence that give it fresh interest.
Formerly Eliphaz had said, "Shall man be just beside God? Behold He
putteth no trust in His servants, and His angels He chargeth with
folly." Now, with a keener emphasis, and adopting Job's own confession
that man born of woman is impure, he asserts the doctrine of
creaturely imperfection and human corruption.
"_Eloah trusteth not in His holy ones,
And the heavens are not pure in His sight;
How much less the abominable and corrupt,
Man, who drinketh iniquity as water!_"
First is set forth the refusal of God to put confidence in the holiest
creature,--a touch, as it were, of suspicion in the Divine rule. A
statement of the holiness of God otherwise very impressive is marred by
this too anthropomorphic suggestion. Why, is not the opposite true, that
the Creator puts wonderful trust not only in saints but in sinners? He
trusts men with life, with the care of the little children whom He
loves, with the use in no small degree of His creation, the powers and
resources of a world. True, there is a reservation. At no point is the
creature allowed to rule. Saint and sinner, man and angel are alike
under law and observation. None of them can be other than servants, none
of them can ever speak the final word or do the last thing in any cause.
Eliphaz therefore is dealing with a large truth, one never to be
forgotten or disallowed. Yet he fails to make right use of it, for his
second point, that of the total corruption of human nature, ought to
imply that God does not trust man at all. The logic is bad and the
doctrine will hardly square with the reference to human wisdom and to
wise persons holding the secret of God of whom Eliphaz goes on to speak.
Against him two lines of reasoning are evident. Abominable, gone sour or
putrid, to whom evil is a necessary of existence like water--if man be
that, his Creator ought surely to sweep him away and be done with him.
But since, on the other hand, God maintains the life of human beings and
honours them with no small confidence, it would seem that man, sinful as
he is, bad as he often is, does not lie under the contempt of his Maker,
is not set beyond a service of hope. In short, Eliphaz sees only what he
chooses to see. His statements are devout and striking, but too rigid
for the manifoldness of life. He makes it felt, even while he speaks,
that he himself in some way stands apart from the race he judges so
hardly. So far as the inspiration of this book goes, it is against the
doctrine of total corruption as put into the mouth of Eliphaz. He
intends a final and crushing assault on the position taken up by Job;
but his mind is prejudiced, and the man he condemns is God's approved
servant, who, in the end, will have to pray for Eliphaz that he may not
be dealt with after his folly. Quotation of the words of Eliphaz in
proof of total depravity is a grave error. The race is sinful; all men
sin, inherit sinful tendencies and yield to them: who does not confess
it? But,--all men abominable and corrupt, drinking iniquity as
water,--that is untrue at any rate of the very person Eliphaz engages to
convict.
It is remarkable that there is not a single word of personal
confession in any speech made by the friends. They are concerned
merely to state a creed supposed to be honouring to God, a full
justification from their point of view of His dealings with men. The
sovereignty of God must be vindicated by attributing this entire
vileness to man, stripping the creature of every claim on the
consideration of his Maker. The great evangelical teachers have not so
driven home their reasoning. Augustine began with the evil in his own
heart and reasoned to the world, and Jonathan Edwards in the same way
began with himself. "My wickedness," he says, "has long appeared to me
perfectly ineffable and, swallowing up all thought and imagination,
like an infinite deluge or mountains over my head. I know not how to
express better what my sins appear to me to be than by heaping
infinite on infinite and multiplying infinite by infinite." Here is no
Eliphaz arguing from misfortune to sinfulness; and indeed by that line
it is impossible ever to arrive at evangelical poverty of spirit.
Passing to his final contention here the speaker introduces it with a
special claim to attention. Again it is what "he has seen" he will
declare, what indeed all wise men have seen from time immemorial.
"_I will inform thee: hear me;
And what I have seen I will declare:
Things which wise men have told,
From their fathers, and have not hid,
To whom alone the land was given,
And no stranger passed in their midst._"
There is the pride. He has a peculiar inheritance of unsophisticated
wisdom. The pure Temanite race has dwelt always in the same land, and
foreigners have not mixed with it. With it, therefore, is a religion
not perverted by alien elements or the adoption of sceptical ideas
from passing strangers. The plea is distinctively Arabic and may be
illustrated by the self-complacent dogmatism of the Wahhābees of
Ri'ad, whom Mr. Palgrave found enjoying their own uncorrupted
orthodoxy. "In central Nejed society presents an element pervading it
from its highest to its lowest grades. Not only as a Wahhābee but
equally as a Nejdean the native of 'Aared and Yemāmah differs, and
that widely, from his fellow-Arab of Shomer and Kaseem, nay, of Woshem
and Sedeyr. The cause of this difference is much more ancient than the
epoch of the great Wahhābee, and must be sought first and foremost in
the pedigree itself. The descent claimed by the indigenous Arabs of
this region is from the family of Tameen, a name peculiar to these
lands.... Now Benoo-Tameem have been in all ages distinguished from
other Arabs by strongly drawn lines of character, the object of the
exaggerated praise and of the biting satire of native poets. Good or
bad, these characteristics, described some thousand years ago, are
identical with the portrait of their real or pretended descendants....
Simplicity is natural to the men of 'Aared and Yemāmah, independent of
Wahhābee puritanism and the vigour of its code." ("Central Arabia,"
pp. 272, 273.) To this people Nejed is holy, Damascus through which
Christians and other infidels go is a lax disreputable place. They
maintain a strict Mohammedanism from age to age. In their view, as in
that of Eliphaz, the land belongs to the wise people who have the
heavenly treasure and do not entertain strangers as guides of thought.
Infallibility is a very old and very abiding cult.
Eliphaz drags back his hearers to the penal visitation of the wicked,
his favourite dogma. Once more it is affirmed that for one who
transgresses the law of God there is nothing but misery, fear and
pain. Though he has a great following he lives in terror of the
destroyer; he knows that calamity will one day overtake him, and from
it there will be no deliverance. Then he will have to wander in search
of bread, his eyes perhaps put out by his enemy. So trouble and
anguish make him afraid even in his great day. There is here not a
suggestion that conscience troubles him. His whole agitation is from
fear of pain and loss. No single touch in the picture gives the idea
that this man has any sense of sin.
How does Eliphaz distinguish or imagine the Almighty distinguishing
between men in general, who are all bad and offensive in their
badness, and this particular "wicked man"? Distinction there must be.
What is it? One must assume, for the reasoner is no fool, that the
settled temper and habit of a life are meant. Revolt against God,
proud opposition to His will and law, these are the wickedness. It is
no mere stagnant pool of corruption, but a force running against the
Almighty. Very well: Eliphaz has not only made a true distinction, but
apparently stated for once a true conclusion. Such a man will indeed
be likely to suffer for his arrogance in this life, although it does
not hold that he will be haunted by fears of coming doom. But
analysing the details of the wicked life in vers. 25-28, we find
incoherency. The question is why he suffers and is afraid.
"_Because he stretched out his hand against God,
And bade defiance to the Almighty;
He ran upon Him with a neck
Upon the thick bosses of His bucklers;
Because he covered his face with his fatness
And made collops of fat on his flanks;
And he dwelt in tabooed cities,
In houses which no man ought to inhabit,
Destined to become heaps._"
Eliphaz has narrowed down the whole contention, so that he may carry it
triumphantly and bring Job to admit, at least in this case, the law of
sin and retribution. It is fair to suppose that he is not presenting
Job's case, but an argument, rather, in abstract theology, designed to
strengthen his own general position. The author, however, by side lights
on the reasoning shows where it fails. The account of calamity and
judgment, true as it might be in the main of God-defiant lives running
headlong against the laws of heaven and earth, is confused by the other
element of wickedness--"Because he hath covered his face with his
fatness," etc. The recoil of a refined man of pure race from one of
gross sensual appetite is scarcely a fit parallel to the aversion of God
from man stubbornly and insolently rebellious. Further, the
superstitious belief that one was unpardonable who made his dwelling in
cities under the curse of God (literally, cities _cut off_ or
_tabooed_), while it might be sincerely put forward by Eliphaz, made
another flaw in his reasoning. Any one in constant terror of judgment
would have been the last to take up his abode in such accursed
habitations. The argument is strong only in picturesque assertion.