and more abundant colour to represent his dignity. Men listened to him
and waited. Like a refreshing rain upon thirsty ground--and how
thirsty the desert could be!--his counsel fell on their ears. He
smiled upon them when they had no confidence, laughed away their
trouble, the light of his countenance never dimmed by their
apprehensions. Even when all about him were in dismay his hearty
hopeful outlook was unclouded. Trusting God, he knew his own strength
and gave freely of it.
"_I chose out their way, and sat as a chief,
And dwelt as a king in the crowd,
As one that comforteth the mourners._"
Looked up to with this great esteem, acknowledged leader in virtue of
his overflowing goodness and cheerfulness, he seemed to make sunshine
for the whole community. Such was the past. All that had been, is gone
apparently for ever.
* * * * *
How inexpressibly strange that power so splendid, mental, physical and
moral strength used in the service of less favoured men should be
destroyed by Eloah! It is like blotting out the sun from heaven and
leaving a world in darkness. And most strange of all is the way in
which low men assist the ruin that has been wrought.
The thirtieth chapter begins with this. Job is derided by the miserable
and base whose fathers he would have disdained to set with the dogs of
his flock. He paints these people, gaunt with hunger and vice, herding
in the wilderness where alone they are suffered to exist, plucking
mallows or salt-wort among the bushes and digging up the roots of broom
for food. Men hunted them into the desert, crying after them as thieves,
and they dwelt in the clefts of the wadies, in caves and amongst rocks.
Like wild asses they brayed in the scrub and flung themselves down among
the nettles. Children they were of fools, base-born, men who had
dishonoured their humanity and been whipped out of the land. Such are
they whose song and by-word Job is now become. These, even these abhor
him and spit in his face. He makes the contrast deep and dreadful as to
his own experience and the moral confusion that has followed Eloah's
strange work. For good there is evil, for light and order there is
darkness. Does God desire this, ordain it?
One is inclined to ask whether the abounding compassion and humaneness
of the Book of Job fails at this point. These wretched creatures who
make their lair like wild beasts among the nettles, outcasts, branded as
thieves, a wandering base-born race, are still men. Their fathers may
have fallen into the vices of abject poverty. But why should Job say
that he would have disdained to set them with the dogs of his flock? In
a previous speech (chap. xxiv.) he described victims of oppression who
had no covering in the cold and were drenched with the rain of the
mountains, clinging to the rock for shelter; and of them he spoke
gently, sympathetically. But here he seems to go beyond compassion.
Perhaps one might say the tone he takes now is pardonable, or almost
pardonable, because these wretched beings, whom he may have treated
kindly once, have seized the occasion of his misery and disease to
insult him to his face. While the words appear hard, the uselessness
of the pariah may be the main point. Yet a little of the pride of
birth clings to Job. In this respect he is not perfect; here his
prosperous life needs a check. The Almighty must speak to him out of
the tempest that he may feel himself and find "the blessedness of
being little."
These outcasts throw off all restraint and behave with disgraceful
rudeness in his presence.
"_Upon my right hand rise the low brood,
They push away my feet,
And cast up against me their ways of destruction;
They mar my path,
And force on my calamity--
They who have no helper.
They come in as through a wide breach,
In the desolation they roll themselves upon me._"
The various images, of a besieging army, of those who wantonly break
up paths made with difficulty, of a breach in the embankment of a
river, are to show that Job is now accounted one of the meanest, whom
any man may treat with indignity. He was once the idol of the
populace; "now none so poor to do him reverence." And this persecution
by base men is only a sign of deeper abasement. As a horde of terrors
sent by God he feels the reproaches and sorrows of his state.
"_Terrors are turned upon me;
They chase away mine honour as the wind,
And my welfare passeth as a cloud.
And now my soul is poured out in me
The days of affliction have taken hold upon me._"
Thought shifts naturally to the awful disease which has caused his
body to swell and to become black as with dust and ashes. And this
leads him to his final vehement complaint against Eloah. How can He so
abase and destroy His servant?
"_I cry unto Thee and Thou dost not hear me;
I stand up, and Thou lookest at me.
Thou art turned to be cruel unto me:
With the might of Thine hand Thou persecutest me.
Thou liftest me up to the wind, Thou causest me to ride on it;
And Thou dissolvest me in the storm.
For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death,
And to the house appointed for all living.
Yet in overthrow doth not one stretch out his hand?
In destruction, doth he not because of this utter a cry?_"
Standing up in his wretchedness he is fully visible to the Divine eye,
still no prayer moves Eloah the terrible from His purpose. It seems to
be finally appointed that in dishonour Job shall die. Yet, destined to
this fate, his hope a mockery, shall he not stretch out his hand, cry
aloud as life falls to the grave in ruin? How differently is God
treating him from the way in which he treated those who were in trouble!
He is asking in vain that pity which he himself had often shown. Why
should this be? How can it be, and Eloah remain the Just and Living One?
Pained without and within, unable to refrain from crying out when people
gather about him, a brother to jackals whose howlings are heard all
night, a companion to the grieving ostrich, his bones burned by raging
fever, his harp turned to wailing and his lute into the voice of them
that weep, he can scarce believe himself the same man that once walked
in honour and gladness in the sight of earth and heaven.
Thus the full measure of complaint is again poured out, unchecked by
thought that dignity of life comes more with suffering patiently
endured than with pleasure. Job does not know that out of trouble like
his a man may rise more human, more noble, his harp furnished with new
strings of deeper feeling, a finer light of sympathy shining in his
soul. Consistently, throughout, the author keeps this thought in the
background, showing hopeless sorrow, affliction, unrelieved by any
sense of spiritual gain, pressing with heaviest and most weary weight
upon a good man's life. The only help Job has is the consciousness of
virtue, and that does not check his complaint. The antinomies of life,
the past as compared with the present, Divine favour exchanged for
cruel persecution, well-doing followed by most grievous pain and
dishonour, are to stand at the last full in view. Then He who has
justice in His keeping shall appear. God Himself shall declare and
claim His supremacy and His design.
* * * * *
This purpose of the author achieved, the last passage of Job's
address--chap. xxxi.--rings bold and clear like the chant of a victor,
not serene indeed in the presence of death, for this is not the Hebrew
temper and cannot be ascribed by the writer to his hero, yet with firm
ground beneath his feet, a clear conscience of truth lighting up his
soul. The language is that of an innocent man before his accusers and
his judge, yea of a prince in presence of the King. Out of the
darkness into which he has been cast by false arguments and
accusations, out of the trouble into which his own doubt has brought
him, Job seems to rise with a new sense of moral strength and even of
restored physical power. No more in reckless challenge of heaven and
earth to do their worst, but with a fine strain of earnest desire to
be clear with men and God, he takes up and denies one by one every
possible charge of secret and open sin. Is the language he uses more
emphatic than any man has a right to employ? If he speaks the truth,
why should his words be thought too bold? The Almighty Judge desires
no man falsely to accuse himself, will have no man leave an unfounded
suspicion resting upon his character. It is not evangelical meekness
to plead guilty to sins never committed. Job feels it part of his
integrity to maintain his integrity; and here he vindicates himself
not in general terms but in detail, with a decision which cannot be
mistaken. Afterwards, when the Almighty has spoken, he acknowledges
the ignorance and error which have entered into his judgment, making
the confession we must all make even after years of faith.
I. From the taint of lustful and base desire he first clears himself.
He has been pure in life, innocent even of wandering looks which might
have drawn him into uncleanness. He has made a covenant with his eyes
and kept it. Sin of this kind, he knew, always brings retribution, and
no indulgence of his ever caused sorrow and dishonour. Regarding the
particular form of evil in question he asks:--
"_For what is the portion from God above,
And the heritage of the Almighty from on high?
Is it not calamity to the unrighteous,
And disaster to them that work iniquity?_"
Grouped along with this "lust of the flesh" is the "lust of the eyes,"
covetous desire. The itching palm to which money clings, false dealing
for the sake of gain, crafty intrigues for the acquisition of a plot
of ground or some animal--such things were far from him. He claims to
be weighed in a strict balance, and pledges himself that as to this
he will not be found wanting. So thoroughly is he occupied with this
defence that he speaks as if still able to sow a crop and look for the
harvest. He would expect to have the produce snatched from his hand if
the vanity of greed and getting had led him astray. Returning then to
the more offensive suspicion that he had laid wait treacherously at
his neighbour's door, he uses the most vigorous words to show at once
his detestation of such offence and the result he believes it always
to have. It is an enormity, a nefarious thing to be punished by the
judges. More than that, it is a fire that consumes to Abaddon, wasting
a man's strength and substance so that they are swallowed as by the
devouring abyss. As to this, Job's reading of life is perfectly sound.
Wherever society exists at all, custom and justice are made to bear as
heavily as possible on those who invade the foundation of society and
the rights of other men. Yet the keenness with which immorality of the
particular kind is watched fans the flame of lust. Nature appears to
be engaged against itself; it may be charged with the offence, it
certainly joins in bringing the punishment.
II. Another possible imputation was that as a master or employer he
had been harsh to his underlings. Common enough it was for those in
power to treat their dependants with cruelty. Servants were often
slaves; their rights as men and women were denied. Regarding this, the
words put into the mouth of Job are finely humane, even prophetic:--
"_If I despised the cause of my man-servant or maid
When they contended with me ...
What then shall I do when God riseth up?
And when He visiteth what shall I answer Him?
Did not He that made me in the womb make him?
And did not One fashion us in the womb?_"
The rights of those who toiled for him were sacred, not as created by
any human law which for so many hours' service might compel so much
stipulated hire, but as conferred by God. Job's servants were men and
women with an indefeasible claim to just and considerate treatment. It
was accidental, so to speak, that Job was rich and they poor, that he
was master and they under him. Their bodies were fashioned like his,
their minds had the same capacity of thought, of emotion, of pleasure
and pain. At this point there is no hardness of tone or pride of birth
and place. These are well-doing people to whom as head of the clan Job
stands in place of a father.
And his principle, to treat them as their inheritance of the same life
from the same Creator gave them a right to be dealt with, is prophetic,
setting forth the duties of all who have power to those who toil for
them. Men are often used like beasts of burden. No tyranny on earth is
so hateful as many employers, driving on their huge concerns at the
utmost speed, dare to exercise through representatives or underlings.
The simple patriarchal life which brought employer and employed into
direct personal relations knew little of the antagonism of class
interests and the bitterness of feeling which often menaces revolution.
None of this will cease till simplicity be resumed and the customs which
keep men in touch with each other, even though they fail to acknowledge
themselves members of the one family of God. When the servant who has
done his best is, after years of exhausting labour, dismissed without a
hearing by some subordinate set there to consider what are called the
"interests" of the employer--is the latter free from blame? The question
of Job, "What then shall _I_ do when God riseth up, and when He visiteth
what shall I answer Him?" strikes a note of equity and brotherliness
many so-called Christians seem never to have heard.
III. To the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the perishing, Job next
refers. Beyond the circle of his own servants there were needy persons
whom he had been charged with neglecting and even oppressing. He has
already made ample defence under this head. If he has lifted his hand
against the fatherless, having good reason to presume that the judges
would be on his side--then may his shoulder fall from the
shoulder-blade and his arm from the collar-bone. Calamity from God was
a terror to Job, and recognising the glorious authority which enforces
the law of brotherly help he could not have lived in proud enjoyment
and selfish contempt.
IV. Next he repudiates the idolatry of wealth and the sin of adoring
the creature instead of the Creator. Rich as he was, he can affirm
that he never thought too much of his wealth, nor secretly vaunted
himself in what he had gathered. His fields brought forth plentifully,
but he never said to his soul, Thou hast much goods laid up for many
years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. He was but a
steward, holding all at the will of God. Not as if abundance of
possessions could give him any real worth, but with constant gratitude
to his Divine Friend, he used the world as not abusing it.
And for his religion: true to those spiritual ideas which raised him
far above superstition and idolatry, even when the rising sun seemed
to claim homage as a fit emblem of the unseen Creator, or when the
full moon shining in a clear sky seemed a very goddess of purity and
peace, he had never, as others were wont to do, carried his hand to
his lips. He had seen the worship of Baal and Ishtar, and there might
have come to him, as to whole nations, the impulses of wonder, of
delight, of religious reverence. But he can fearlessly say that he
never yielded to the temptation to adore anything in heaven or earth.
It would have been to deny Eloah the Supreme. Dr. Davidson reminds us
here of a legend embodied in the Koran for the purpose of impressing
the lesson that worship should be paid to the Lord of all creatures,
"whose shall be the kingdom on the day whereon the trumpet shall be
sounded." The Almighty says: "Thus did We show unto Abraham the
kingdom of heaven and earth, that he might become of those who firmly
believe. And when the night overshadowed him he saw a star, and he
said, This is my Lord; but when it set he said, I like not those that
set. And when he saw the moon rising he said, This is my Lord; but
when he saw it set he said, Verily, if my Lord direct me not, I shall
become one of the people who go astray. And when he saw the rising sun
he said, This is my Lord; this is the greatest; but when it set he
said, O my people, verily I am clear of that which ye associate with
God; I direct my face unto Him who hath created the heavens and the
earth." Thus from very early times to that of Mohammed monotheism was
in conflict with the form of idolatry that naturally allured the
inhabitants of Arabia. Job confesses the attraction, denies the sin.
He speaks as if the laws of his people were strongly against
sun-worship, whatever might be done elsewhere.
V. He proceeds to declare that he has never rejoiced over a fallen
enemy nor sought the life of any one with a curse. He distinguishes
himself very sharply from those who in the common Oriental way dealt
curses without great provocation, and those even who kept them for
deadly enemies. So far was this rancorous spirit from him that friends
and enemies alike were welcome to his hospitality and help. Verse 31
means that his servants could boast of being unable to find a single
stranger who had not sat at his table. Their business was to furnish
it every day with guests. Nor will Job allow that after the manner of
men he skilfully covered transgressions. "If, guilty of some base
thing, I concealed it, as men often do, because I was afraid of losing
caste, afraid lest the great families would despise me...." Such a
thought or fear never presented itself to him. He could not thus have
lived a double life. All had been above-board, in the clear light of
day, ruled by one law.
In connection with this it is that he comes with princely appeal to
the King.
"_Oh that I had one to hear me!--
Behold my signature--let the Almighty answer me.
And oh that I had my Opponents charge!
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder,
I would bind it unto me as a crown.
I would declare unto Him the number of my steps,
As a prince would I go near unto Him._"
The words are to be defended only on the ground that the Eloah to whom a
challenge is here addressed is God misunderstood, God charged falsely
with making unfounded accusations against His servant and punishing him
as a criminal. The Almighty has not been doing so. The vicious reasoning
of the friends, the mistaken creed of the age make it appear as if He
had. Men say to Job, You suffer because God has found evil in you. He
is requiting you according to your iniquity. They maintain that for no
other reason could calamities have come upon him. So God is made to
appear as the man's adversary; and Job is forced to the demonstration
that he has been unjustly condemned. "Behold my signature," he says: I
state my innocence; I set to my mark; I stand by my claim: I can do
nothing else. Let the Almighty prove me at fault. God, you say, has a
book in which His charges against me are written out. I wish I had that
book! I would fasten it upon my shoulder as a badge of honour; yea, I
would wear it as a crown. I would show Eloah all I have done, every step
I have taken through life by day and night. I would evade nothing. In
the assurance of integrity I would go to the King; as a prince I would
stand in His presence. There face to face with Him whom I know to be
just and righteous I would justify myself as His servant, faithful in
His house.
Is it audacity, impiety? The writer of the book does not mean it to be
so understood. There is not the slightest hint that he gives up his
hero. Every claim made is true. Yet there is ignorance of God, and
that ignorance puts Job in fault so far. He does not know God's action
though he knows his own. He ought to reason from the misunderstanding
of himself and see that he may fail to understand Eloah. When he
begins to see this he will believe that his sufferings have complete
justification in the purpose of the Most High.
The ignorance of Job represents the ignorance of the old world.
Notwithstanding the tenor of his prologue the writer is without a
theory of human affliction applicable to every case, or even to the
experience of Job. He can only say and repeat, God is supremely wise
and righteous, and for the glory of His wisdom and righteousness He
ordains all that befalls men. The problem is not solved till we see
Christ, the Captain of our salvation, made perfect by suffering, and
know that our earthly affliction "which is for the moment worketh for
us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory."
The last verses of the chapter may seem out of place. Job speaks as a
landowner who has not encroached on the fields of others but honestly
acquired his estate, and as a farmer who has tilled it well. This
seems a trifling matter compared with others that have been
considered. Yet, as a kind of afterthought, completing the review of
his life, the detail is natural.
"_If my land cry out against me,
And the furrows thereof weep together,
If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money,
Or have caused the owners to lose their life:
Let thistles grow instead of wheat
And cockle instead of barley.
The words of Job are ended._"
A farmer of the right kind would have great shame if poor crops or wet
furrows cried against him, or if he could otherwise be accused of
treating the land ill. The touch is realistic and forcible.
Still it is plain at the close that the character of Job is idealised.
Much may be received as matter of veritable history; but on the whole
the life is too fine, pure, saintly for even an extraordinary man. The
picture is clearly typical. And it is so for the best reason. An
actual life would not have set the problem fully in view. The
writer's aim is to rouse thought by throwing the contradictions of
human experience so vividly upon a prepared canvas that all may see.
Why do the righteous suffer? What does the Almighty mean? The urgent
questions of the race are made as insistent as art and passion, ideal
truth and sincerity, can make them. Job lying in the grime of misery
yet claiming his innocence as a prince before the Eternal King,
demands on behalf of humanity the vindication of providence, the
meaning of the world scheme.
ELIHU INTERVENES.
XXV.
_POST-EXILIC WISDOM._
CHAPS. xxxii.-xxxiv.
A personage hitherto unnamed in the course of the drama now assumes
the place of critic and judge between Job and his friends. Elihu, son
of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, appears suddenly and as
suddenly disappears. The implication is that he has been present
during the whole of the colloquies, and that, having patiently waited
his time, he expresses the judgment he has slowly formed on arguments
to which he has given close attention.
It is significant that both Elihu and his representations are ignored in
the winding up of the action. The address of the Almighty from the storm
does not take him into account and seems to follow directly on the
close of Job's defence. It is a very obvious criticism, therefore, that
the long discourse of Elihu may be an interpolation or an
afterthought--a fresh attempt by the author or by some later writer to
correct errors into which Job and his friends are supposed to have
fallen and to throw new light on the matter of discussion. The textual
indications are all in favour of this view. The style of the language
appears to belong to a later time than the other parts of the book. But
to reject the address as unworthy of a place in the poem would be too
summary. Elihu indeed assumes the air of the superior person from the
first, so that one is not engaged in his favour. Yet there is an honest,
reverent and thoughtful contribution to the subject. In some points this
speaker comes nearer the truth than Job or any of his friends, although
the address as a whole is beneath the rest of the book in respect of
matter and argument, and still more in poetical feeling and expression.