THE BOOK OF JOB.
WE are told in the Bible (Job, i, 16)--
"While he [Job] was yet speaking, there came also another, and said,
_The fire of God is fallen from heaven_ and hath burned up the sheep,
and the servants, and _consumed them_, and I only am escaped alone to
tell thee."
And in verse 18 we are told--
"While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy
sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest
brother's house:
"19. And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and
smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men,
and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee."
We have here the record of a great convulsion. Fire fell from heaven;
the fire of God. It was not lightning, for it killed the seven
thousand sheep, (see chap. i, 3,) belonging to Job, and all his
shepherds; and not only killed but consumed them--burned them up. A
fire falling from heaven great enough to kill seven thousand sheep
must have been an extensive conflagration, extending over a large
area of country. And it seems to have been accompanied by a great
wind--a cyclone--which killed all Job's sons and daughters.
Has the book of Job anything to do with that great event which we
have been discussing? Did it originate out of it? Let us see.
In the first place it is, I believe, conceded by the foremost
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scholars that the book of Job is not a Hebrew work; it was not
written by Moses; it far antedates even the time of Abraham.
That very high orthodox authority, George Smith, F. S. A., in his
work shows that--
"Everything relating to this patriarch has been violently
controverted. His country; the age in which he lived; the author of
the book that bears his name; have all been fruitful themes of
discord, and, as if to confound confusion, these disputants are
interrupted by others, who would maintain that no such person ever
existed; that the whole tale is a poetic fiction, an allegory!"[1]
Job lived to be two hundred years old, or, according to the
Septuagint, four hundred. This great age relegates him to the era of
the antediluvians, or their immediate descendants, among whom such
extreme ages were said to have been common.
C. S. Bryant says:
"Job is in the purest Hebrew. The author uses only the word _Elohim_
for the name of God. The compiler or reviser of the work, Moses, or
whoever he was, employed at the heads of chapters and in the
introductory and concluding portions the name of _Jehovah_; but all
the verses where _Jehovah_ occurs, in Job, are later interpolations
in a very old poem, written at a time when the Semitic race had no
other name for God but _Elohim_; before Moses obtained the elements
of the new name from Egypt."[2]
Hale says:
"The cardinal constellations of spring and autumn, in Job's time,
were _Chima_ and _Chesil_, or Taurus and Scorpio, of which the
principal stars are Aldebaran, the Bull's Eye, and Antare, the
Scorpion's Heart. Knowing, therefore, the longitudes of these stars
at present, the interval
[1. "The Patriarchal Age," vol. i, p. 351.
2. MS. letter to the author, from C. S. Bryant, St. Paul, Minnesota.]
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of time from thence to the assumed date of Job's trial will give the
difference of these longitudes, and ascertain their positions then
with respect to the vernal and equinoctial points of intersection of
the equinoctial and ecliptic; according to the usual rate of the
precession of the equinoxes, one degree in seventy-one years and a
half."[1]
A careful calculation, based on these principles, has proved that
this period was 2338 B. C. According to the Septuagint, in the
opinion of George Smith, Job lived, or the book of Job was written,
from 2650 B. C. to 2250 B. C. Or the events described may have
occurred 25,740 years before that date.
It appears, therefore, that the book of Job was written, even
according to the calculations of the orthodox, long before the time
of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, and hence could not
have been the work of Moses or any other Hebrew. Mr. Smith thinks
that it was produced _soon after the Flood_, by an Arabian. He finds
in it many proofs of great antiquity. He sees in it (xxxi, 26, 28)
proof that in Job's time idolatry was an offense under the laws, and
punishable as such; and he is satisfied that all the parties to the
great dialogue were free from the taint of idolatry. Mr. Smith says:
"The Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Canaanites, Midianites,
Ethiopians of Abyssinia, Syrians, and other contemporary nations, had
sunk into gross idolatry long before the time of Moses."
The Arabians were an important branch of the great Atlantean stock;
they derived their descent from the people of Add.
"And to this day the Arabians declare that _the father of Job was the
founder of the great Arabian people_."[2]
[1. Hale's "Chronology," vol. ii, p. 55.
2. Smith's "Sacred Annals," vol. i, p. 360.]
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Again, the same author says:
"Job acted as high-priest in his own family; and, minute as are the
descriptions of the different classes and usages of society in this
book, we have not the slightest allusion to the existence of any
priests or specially appointed ministers of religion, _a fact which
shows the extreme antiquity of the period_, as priests were, in all
probability, first appointed about the time of Abraham, and became
general soon after."[1]
He might have added that priests were known among the Egyptians and
Babylonians and Phœnicians from the very beginning of their
history.
Dr. Magee says:
"If, in short, there be on the whole, that genuine air of the antique
which those distinguished scholars, Schultens, Lowth, and Michaelis,
affirm in every respect to pervade the work, we can scarcely hesitate
to pronounce, with Lowth and Sherlock, that _the book of Job is the
oldest in the world now extant_."[2]
Moreover, it is evident that this ancient hero, although he probably
lived before Babylon and Assyria, before Troy was known, before
Greece had a name, nevertheless dwelt in the midst of a high
civilization.
"The various arts, the most recondite sciences, the most remarkable
productions of earth, in respect of animals, vegetables, and
minerals, the classified arrangement of the stars of heaven, are all
noticed."
Not only did Job's people possess an alphabet, but books were
written, characters were engraved; and some have even gone so far as
to claim that the art of printing was known, because Job says, "Would
that my words were printed in a book!"
[1. Smith's "Sacred Annals," p. 364.
2. Magee "On the Atonement," vol. ii, p. 84.]
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The literary excellence of the work is of the highest order. Lowth
says:
"The antiquary, or the critic, who has been at the pains to trace the
history of the Grecian drama from its first weak and imperfect
efforts, and has carefully observed its tardy progress to perfection,
will scarcely, I think, without astonishment, contemplate a poem
produced so many ages before, so elegant in its design, so regular in
its structure, so animated, so affecting, so near to the true
dramatic model; while, on the contrary, the united wisdom of Greece,
after ages of study, was not able to produce anything approaching to
perfection in this walk of poetry before the time of Æschylus."[1]
Smith says:
"The debate rises high above earthly things; the way and will and
providential dealings of God are investigated. All this is done with
the greatest propriety, with the most consummate skill; and,
notwithstanding the expression of some erroneous opinions, all is
under the influence of a devout and sanctified temper of mind."[2]
Has this most ancient, wonderful, and lofty work, breathing the
spirit of primeval times, its origin lost in the night of ages,
testifying to a high civilization and a higher moral development, has
it anything to do with that event which lay far beyond the Flood?
If it is a drama of Atlantean times, it must have passed through many
hands, through many ages, through many tongues, before it reached the
Israelites. We may expect its original meaning, therefore, to appear
through it only like the light through clouds; we may expect that
later generations would modify it with local names and allusions; we
may expect that they would even strike out parts whose meaning they
failed to understand, and
[1. "Hebrew Poetry," lecture xxxiii.
2. "Sacred Annals," vol. i, p. 365.]
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interpolate others. It is believed that the opening and closing parts
are additions made in a subsequent age. If they could not comprehend
how the fire from heaven and the whirlwind could have so utterly
destroyed Job's sheep, servants, property, and family, they would
bring in those desert accessories, Sabæan and Chaldean robbers, to
carry away the camels and the oxen.
What is the meaning of the whole poem?
God gives over the government of the world for a time to Satan, to
work his devilish will upon Job. Did not God do this very thing when
he permitted the comet to strike the earth? Satan in Arabic means a
serpent. "Going to and fro" means in the Arabic in "the heat of haste
"; Umbreit translates it, "from _a flight over the earth_."
Job may mean a man, a tribe, or a whole nation.
From a condition of great prosperity Job is stricken down, in an
instant, to the utmost depths of poverty and distress; and the chief
agency is "fire from heaven" and great wind-storms.
Does this typify the fate of the world when the great catastrophe
occurred? Does the debate between Job and his three visitors
represent the discussion which took place in the hearts of the
miserable remnants of mankind, as they lay hid in caverns, touching
God, his power, his goodness, his justice; and whether or not this
world-appalling calamity was the result of the sins of the people or
otherwise?
Let us see what glimpses of these things we can find in the text of
the book.
When Job's afflictions fall upon him he curses his day--the day, as
commonly understood, wherein he was born. But how can one curse a
past period of time and ask the darkness to cover it?
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The original text is probably a reference to the events that were
_then_ transpiring:
"Let that day _be turned into darkness_; let not God regard it from
above; and _let not the light shine upon it_. Let darkness and the
_shadow of death cover it;_ let a mist overspread it, and let it be
wrapped up in bitterness. _Let a darksome whirlwind_ seize upon that
night. . . . Let them curse it who curse the clay, who are _ready to
raise up a leviathan_."[1]
De Dieu says it should read, "And thou, leviathan, rouse up." "Let a
mist overspread it"; literally, "let a gathered mass of dark clouds
cover it."
"The Fathers generally understand the devil to be meant by the
leviathan."
We shall see that it means the fiery dragon, the comet:
"Let the stars be darkened _with the mist thereof;_ let it _expect
light and not see it, nor the rising of the dawning of the day_."[2]
In other words, Job is not imprecating future evils on a past
time--an impossibility, an absurdity: he is describing the events
then transpiring--the whirlwind, the darkness, the mist, the day that
does not come, and the leviathan, the demon, the comet.
Job seems to regret that he has escaped with his life:
"For now," he says, "_should I have lain still and been quiet_," (if
I had not fled) "I should have slept: then had I been at rest, with
kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for
themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses
with silver."[3]
Job looks out over the whole world, swept bare of its inhabitants,
and regrets that he did not stay and bide the
[1. Douay version, chapter iii, verses 4-8.
2. Ibid., verse 9.
3. King James's version, chapter iii, verses 18-15.]
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pelting of the pitiless storm, as, if he had done so, he would be now
lying dead with kings and counselors, who built places for
themselves, now made desolate, and with princes who, despite their
gold and silver, have perished. Kings and counselors do not build
"desolate places" for themselves; they build in the heart of great
communities; in the midst of populations: the places may become
desolate afterward.
Eliphaz the Temanite seems to think that the sufferings of men are
due to their sins. He says:
Even _as I have seen_, they that plough wickedness and sow
wickedness, reap the same. _By the blast of God they perish, and by
the breath of his nostrils are they consumed_. The roaring of the
lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young
lions are broken. _The old lion perisheth for lack of prey_, and the
stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad."
Certainly, this seems to be a picture of a great event. Here again
the fire of God, that consumed Job's sheep and servants, is at work;
even the fiercest of the wild beasts are suffering: the old lion dies
for want of prey, and its young ones are scattered abroad.
Eliphaz continues:
"In thoughts, from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth
on me, _fear came upon me_, and trembling, which made all my bones to
shake. Then a spirit _passed before my face_, the hair of my flesh
stood up."
A voice spake:
"Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure
than his Maker? Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his
angels he charged with folly: How much less them that dwell in houses
of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before
the moth. _They are destroyed from morning to evening; they perish
forever without any regarding it_."
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The moth can crush nothing, therefore Maurer thinks it should read,
"crushed like the moth." "They are destroyed," etc.; literally, "they
are _broken to pieces in the space of a day_."[1]
All through the text of Job we have allusions to the catastrophe
which had fallen on the earth (chap. v, 3):
"I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I," (God,) "cursed
his habitation."
"4. His children are far from safety," (far from any place of
refuge?) "and they are _crushed in the gate_, neither is there any to
deliver them.
"5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the
thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance."
That is to say, in the general confusion and terror the harvests are
devoured, and there is no respect for the rights of property.
"6. Although affliction _cometh not forth of the dust_, neither doth
trouble _spring out of the ground_."
In the Douay version it reads:
"Nothing on earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring
out of the ground" (v, 6).
I take this to mean that the affliction which has fallen upon men
comes not out of the ground, but from above.
"7. Yet man is born unto trouble, _as the sparks fly upward_."
In the Hebrew we read for sparks, "sons of _flame_ or burning coal."
Maurer and Gesenius say, "As the sons of lightning fly high"; or,
"troubles are many and fiery as sparks."
[1. Faussett's "Commentary," iii, 40.]
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"8. I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause;
"9. Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things
without number:
10. Who _giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the
fields_."
Rain here signifies the great floods which cover the earth.
"11. To set up _on high_ those that be low; that those which mourn
may be _exalted to safety_."
That is to say, the poor escape to the high places--to safety--while
the great and crafty perish.
"12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands
can not perform their enterprise.
"13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness," (that is, in the
very midst of their planning,) "and the counsel of the froward is
_carried headlong_," (that is, it is instantly overwhelmed).
"14. They MEET WITH DARKNESS IN THE DAY-TIME, and _grope in the
noonday as in the night_." (Chap. v.)
Surely all this is extraordinary--the troubles of mankind come from
above, not from the earth; the children of the wicked are crushed in
the gate, far from places of refuge; the houses of the wicked are
"crushed before the moth," those that plow wickedness perish," by the
"blast of God's nostrils they are consumed"; the old lion perishes
for want of prey, and its whelps are scattered abroad. Eliphaz sees a
vision, (the comet,) which "makes his bones to shake, and the hair of
his flesh to stand up"; the people "are destroyed from morning to
evening"; the cunning find their craft of no avail, but are taken;
the counsel of the froward is carried headlong; the poor find safety
in high places; and darkness comes in midday, so that the people
grope their way;
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and Job's children, servants, and animals are destroyed by a fire
from heaven, and by a great wind.
Eliphaz, like the priests in the Aztec legend, thinks he sees in all
this the chastening hand of God:
"17. Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise
not thou the chastening of the Almighty:
"18. For he _maketh sore_, and bindeth up: he _woundeth_, and his
hands make whole." (Chap. v.)
We are reminded of the Aztec prayer, where allusion is made to the
wounded and sick in the cave "whose mouths were full of _earth_ and
scurf." Doubtless, thousands were crushed, and cut, and wounded by
the falling stones, or burned by the fire, and some of them were
carried by relatives and friends, or found their own way, to the
shelter of the caverns.
"20. In _famine_ he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the
power of the sword.
"21. _Thou shalt be hid_ from the scourge of the tongue: neither
shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh." (Chap. v.)
"The scourge of the tongue" has no meaning in this context. There has
probably been a mistranslation at some stage of the history of the
poem. The idea is, probably, "You are hid in safety from the scourge
of the comet, from the tongues of flame; you need not be afraid of
the destruction that is raging without."
"22. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh neither shalt thou be
afraid of the beasts of the earth.
"23. For thou shalt be in league with THE STONES OF THE FIELD: and
the beasts of the field shall _be at peace with thee_." (Chap. v.)
That is to say, as in the Aztec legend, the stones of the field have
killed some of the beasts if the earth, "the lions have perished,"
and their whelps have been scattered;
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the stones have thus been your friends; and other beasts have fled
with you into these caverns, as in the Navajo tradition, where you
may be able, living upon them, to defy famine.
Now it may be said that all this is a strained construction; but what
construction can be substituted that will make sense of these
allusions? How can the stones of the field be in league with man? How
does the ordinary summer rain falling on the earth set up the low and
destroy the wealthy? And what has all this to do with a darkness that
cometh in the day-time in which the wicked grope helplessly?
But the allusions continue
Job cries out, in the next chapter (chap. vi)
"2. Oh that my grief" (my sins whereby I deserved wrath) "were
thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
3. _As the sands of the sea this would appear heavier_, therefore my
words are full of sorrow. (Douay version.)
'14. For the _arrows of the Almighty are within_ me, the poison
whereof drinketh up my spirit; _the terrors of God do set themselves
in array against me_" ("war against me"-Douay ver.).
That is to say, disaster comes down heavier than the sands--the
gravel of the sea; I am wounded; the arrows of God, the darts of
fire, have stricken me. We find in the American legends the
descending _débris_ constantly alluded to as "stones, arrows, and
spears"; I am poisoned with the foul exhalations of the comet; the
terrors of God are arrayed against me. All this is comprehensible as
a description of a great disaster of nature, but it is extravagant
language to apply to a mere case of boils.
"9. Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let
loose his hand and cut me off."
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The commentators say that "to destroy me" means literally "to grind
or crush me." (Chap. vi.)
Job despairs of final escape:
"11. What is my strength that I can hold out? And what is I end that
I should keep patience?" (Douay.)
"12 . Is my strength the _strength of stones?_ Or is my flesh of
brass? "
That is to say, how can I ever bold out? How can I ever survive this
great tempest? How can my strength stand the crushing of these
stones? Is my flesh brass, that it will not burn up? Can I live in a
world where such things are to continue?
And here follow allusions which are remarkable as occurring in an
Arabian composition, in a land of torrid beats:
"15. My brethren" (my fellow-men) "have dealt deceitfully" (have
sinned) "as a brook, and as the stream of brooks _they pass away_.
16. Which are blackish _by reason of the ice_, and wherein _the snow
is hid_.
"17. What time they wax _warm_, they vanish: when it is hot, they
_are consumed out of their place_.
18. The paths of their way are turned aside; they _go to nothing and
perish_."
The Douay version has it:
"16. They" (the people) "that fear the hoary frost, _the snow shall
fall upon them_.
"17. At the time _when they shall be scattered they shall perish;_
and after it _groweth hot they shall be melted out of their place_.
"18. The paths of their steps are entangled; _they shall walk in vain
and shall perish_."
There is a great deal of perishing here--some by frost and snow, some
by heat; the people are scattered, they lose their way, they perish.
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Job's servants and sheep were also consumed in their place; _they_
came to naught, _they_ perished.
Job begins to think, like the Aztec priest, that possibly the human
race has reached its limit and is doomed to annihilation (chap. vii):
"1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his
days also like the days of an hireling?"
Is it not time to discharge the race from its labors?
"4. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, _and the night be
gone?_ and I am full of tossings to and fro unto _the dawning of the
day_."
He draws a picture of his hopeless condition, shut up in the cavern,
never to see the light of day again. (Douay ver., chap. vii):
"12: Am I sea or a whale, _that thou hast inclosed me in a prison?_"
"7. My eyes _shall not return to see good things_.
"8. Nor shall the sight of man behold me; thy eyes are upon me, and I
shall be no more"; (or, as one translates it, thy mercy shall come
too late when I shall be no more.)
"9. As a cloud is consumed and passeth away, so he that shall go down
to hell" (or the grave, the cavern) shall not come up.
"10. Nor shall he return any more into his house, neither shall his
place know him any more."
How strikingly does this remind one of the Druid legend, given on
page 135, _ante_:
"The profligacy of mankind had provoked the Great Supreme to send a
pestilential wind upon the earth. A pure poison descended, every
blast was death. At this time the patriarch, _distinguished for his
integrity_, was _shut up, together with his select company_, in the
inclosure with the strong door. Here the just ones were safe from
injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose," etc.
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Who can doubt that these widely separated legends refer to the same
event and the same patriarch?
Job meditates suicide, just as we have seen in the American legends
that hundreds slew themselves under the terror of the time:
"21. For now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the
morning, but I shall not be."
The Chaldaic version gives us the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of
chapter viii as follows:
"The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat but it withereth the
grass, and the flower thereof faileth, and the grace of the fashion
of it perisheth, so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways."
And then Job refers to the power of God, seeming to paint the
cataclysm (chap. ix):
"5. Which _removeth the mountains_, and they know not which
_overturneth them in his anger_.
"6. Which _shaketh the earth out of her place_, and the _pillars
thereof_ tremble.
"7. Which commandeth the sun, _and it riseth not; and sealeth up the
stars_.
"8. Which alone spreadeth out the heavens and _treadeth upon the
waves of the sea_."
All this is most remarkable: here is the delineation of a great
catastrophe--the mountains are removed and leveled; the earth shakes
to its foundations; the sun _fails to appear_, and the stars are
sealed up. How? In the dense masses of clouds?
Surely this does not describe the ordinary manifestations of God's
power. When has the sun refused to rise? It can not refer to the
story of Joshua, for in that case the sun was in the heavens and
refrained from setting; and Joshua's time was long subsequent to that
of Job. But when we take this in connection with the fire
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falling from heaven, the great wind, the destruction of men and
animals, the darkness that came at midday, the ice and snow and sands
of the sea, and the stones of the field, and the fact that Job is
shut up as in a prison, never to return to his home or to the light
of day, we see that peering through the little-understood context of
this most ancient poem are the disjointed reminiscences of the age of
fire and gravel. It sounds like the cry not of a man but of a race, a
great, religious, civilized race, who could not understand how God
could so cruelly visit the world; and out of their misery and their
terror sent up this pitiful yet sublime appeal for mercy.
"13. If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop
under him."
One commentator makes this read:
"Under him the whales below heaven bend," (the crooked leviathan?)
"17. For he shall crush me in a _whirlwind_, and multiplieth my
wounds even without cause." (Douay ver.)
And Job can not recognize the doctrine of a special providence; he
says:
"22. This is one thing" (therefore I said it). "He _destroyeth the
perfect and the wicked_.
"23. If the _scourge slay suddenly_, he will laugh at the trial of
the innocent.
"24. The earth _is given into the hands of the wicked:_ he covereth
the faces of the judges thereof; if it be not him, who is it then?"
(Douay ver.)
That is to say, God has given up the earth to the power of Satan (as
appears by chapter i); good and bad perish together; and the evil one
laughs as the scourge (the comet) slays suddenly the innocent ones;
the very judges who should have enforced justice are dead, and
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their faces covered with dust and ashes. And if God has not done this
terrible deed, who has done it?
And Job rebels against such a state of things
"34. Let him take his _rod away from me_, and let not his fear
terrify me.
"35. Then I would speak to him and not fear him but it is not so with
me."
What rod--what fear? Surely not the mere physical affliction which is
popularly supposed to have constituted Job's chief grievance. Is the
"rod" that terrifies Job so that he fears to speak, that great object
which cleft the heavens; that curved wolf-jaw of the Goths, one end
of which rested on the earth while the other touched the sun? Is it
the great sword of Surt?
And here we have another (chap. x) allusion to the "darkness,"
although in our version it is applied to death:
"21. Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of
darkness and the shadow of death.
"22. A _land of darkness_ as darkness itself, and of the shadow of
death, _without any order_, and _where the light is as darkness_."
Or, as the Douay version has it:
"21. Before I go, and return no more, to _a land that is dark and
covered with the mist of death_.
"22. A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no
order but _everlasting horror dwelleth_."
This is not death; death is a place of peace, "where the wicked
ceased from troubling "; this is a description of the chaotic
condition of things on the earth outside the cave, "without any
order," and where even the feeble light of day is little better than
total darkness. Job thinks he might just as well go out into this
dreadful world and end it all.
Zophar argues (chap. xi) that all these things have
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come because of the wickedness of the people, and that it is all
right:
"10. If he _cut off_ and _shut up_ and _gather together_, who can
hinder him?
"11. For he knoweth vain men: he seeth wickedness also; will he not
then consider it?
"If he cut off," the commentators say, means literally, "If he pass
by as a storm."
That is to say, if he cuts off the people, (kills them by the
million,) and shuts up a few in caves, as Job was shut up in prison,
gathered together from the storm, how are _you_ going to help it?
Hath he not seen the vanity and wickedness of man?
And Zophar tells Job to hope, to pray to God, and that he will yet
escape:
"16. Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it _as waters
that pass away_.
"17. And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt
shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning."
"Thou shalt shine forth" Gesenius renders, "though _now thou art in
darkness_ thou shalt presently be as the morning"; that is, the storm
will pass and the light return. Umbreit gives it, "Thy darkness shall
be as the morning; only the darkness of morning twilight, not
nocturnal darkness." That is, Job will return to that dim light which
followed the Drift Age.
"18. And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, _thou
shalt dig_ about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety."
That is to say, when the waters pass away, with them shall pass away
thy miseries; the sun shall yet return brighter than ever; thou shalt
be secure; thou shalt _dig thy way out of these caverns;_ and then
take thy rest in
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safety, for the great tempest shall have passed for ever. We are told
by the commentators that the words "about thee" are an interpolation.
If this is not the interpretation, for what would Job dig about him?
What relation can digging have with the disease which afflicted Job?
But Job refuses to receive this consolation. He refuses to believe
that the tower of Siloam fell only on the wickedest men in the city.
He refers to his past experience of mankind. He thinks honest poverty
is without honor at the hands of successful fraud. He says (chap.
xii):
"5. He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp _despised in
the thought of him that is at ease_."
But--
"6. The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are
secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly."
And he can not see how, if this calamity has come upon men for their
sins, that the innocent birds and beasts, and even the fish in the
heated and poisoned waters, are perishing:
"7. But ask now the beasts," ("for verily," he has just said, "ye are
the men, and wisdom will die with you,") "and _they_ shall teach
thee; and the fowls of the air, and _they_ shall tell thee:
"8. Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of
the sea shall declare it unto thee.
"9. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath
wrought this?"
Wrought what? Job's disease? No. Some great catastrophe to bird and
beast and earth.
You pretend, he says, in effect, ye wise men, that only the wicked
have suffered; but it is not so, for aforetime I have seen the honest
poor man despised and the villain
{p. 295}
prosperous. And if the sins of men have brought this catastrophe on
the earth, go ask the beasts and the birds and the fish and the very
face of the suffering earth, what they have done to provoke this
wrath. No, it is the work of God, and of God alone, and he gives and
will give no reason for it.
"14. Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built up again; _he
shutteth up a man_, and there can be no opening.
"15. Behold, _he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up:_ also, he
sendeth them out, and _they overturn the earth_."
That is to say, the heat of the fire from heaven sucks up the waters
until rivers and lakes are dried up: Cacus steals the cows of
Hercules; and then again they fall, deluging and overturning the
earth, piling it into Mountains in one place, says the Tupi legend,
and digging out valleys in another. And God buries men in the caves
in which they sought shelter.
"23. He increaseth the nations, _and destroyeth them:_ he enlargeth
the nations, and straiteneth them again.
"24. He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the
earth, and causeth them to wander _in a wilderness where there is no
way_.
"25. _They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to
stagger like a drunken man_."
More darkness, more groping in the dark, more of that staggering like
drunken men, described in the American legends:
"Lo, mine eye," says Job, (xiii, 1,) "_hath seen all this, mine ear
hath heard_ and understood it. What ye know, the same do I know also."
We have all seen it, says Job, and now you would come here with your
platitudes about God sending all this to punish the wicked:
{p. 296}
"4. But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value."
Honest Job is disgusted, and denounces his counselors with Carlylean
vigor:
"11. Shall not his excellency make you afraid? _and his dread fall
upon you?_
"12. Your remembrances are like unto _ashes_, your bodies to bodies
of _clay_.
"13. Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on
me what will.
"14. Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in
mine hand?
"15. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain
mine own ways before him."
In other words, I don't think this thing is right, and, though I tear
my flesh with my teeth, and contemplate suicide, and though I may be
slain for speaking, yet I will speak out, and maintain that God ought
not to have done this thing; he ought not to have sent this horrible
affliction on the earth--this fire from heaven, which burned up my
cattle; this whirlwind which slew my children; this sand of the sea;
this rush of floods; this darkness in noonday in which mankind grope
helplessly; these arrows, this poison, this rush of waters, this
sweeping away of mountains.
"If I hold my tongue," says Job, "I shall give up the ghost!"
Job believes--
"The grief that will not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break."
"As _the waters fail from the sea_," says Job, (xiv, 11,) and the
flood _decayeth and drieth up:_
"12. So man _lieth down, and riseth not:_ till the heavens be no
more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.
{p. 297}
13. O that thou wouldest _hide me_ in the grave, that thou wouldest
keep me secret, _until thy wrath be past_, that thou wouldest appoint
me a set time, and _remember me!_"
What does this mean? When in history have the waters failed from the
sea? Job believes in the immortality of the soul (xix, 26): "Though
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Can these
words then be of general application, and mean that those who lie
down and rise not shall not awake for ever? No; he is simply telling
that when the conflagration came and dried up the seas, it
slaughtered the people by the million; they fell and perished, never
to live again; and he calls on God to hide him in a grave, a tomb, a
cavern--until the day of his wrath be past, and then to remember him,
to come for him, to let him out.
"20. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and _I am escaped
with the skin of my teeth_."
Escaped from what? From his physical disease? No; he carried that
with him.
But Zophar insists that there is a special providence in all these
things, and that only the wicked have perished (chap. xx):
"5. The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the
hypocrite but for a moment."
"7. Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have
seen him shall say, Where is be?"
16. He shall suck the _poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay
him_."
How?
"23. When he is about to fill his belly, _God shall cast the fury of
his wrath upon him_, and shall RAIN IT UPON him, while he is eating.
"24. He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall
strike him through.
{p. 298}
"25. It is drawn and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering
sword" (the comet?) "cometh out of his gall: _terrors are upon him_.
"26. _All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not
blown shall consume him_. . . .
"27. The heavens _shall reveal his iniquity;_ and _the earth shall
rise up against him_.
"28. The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall
_flow away_ in the day of his wrath."
What does all this mean? While the rich man, (necessarily a wicked
man,) is eating his dinner, God shall rain upon him a consuming fire,
a fire not blown by man; he shall be pierced by the arrows of God,
the earth shall quake under his feet, the heavens shall blaze forth
his iniquity; the darkness shall be hid, shall disappear, in the
glare of the conflagration; and his substance shall flow away in the
floods of God's wrath.
Job answers him in powerful language, maintaining from past
experience his position that the wicked ones do not suffer in this
life any more than the virtuous (chap. xxi):
"Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon
them. Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and
casteth not her calf. They send forth their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance. They spend their days in wealth, and _in a
moment go down to the grave_. Therefore they say unto God, Depart
from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways."
And here we seem to have a description (chap. xvi, Douay ver.) of
Job's contact with the comet:
"9. A false speaker riseth up against my face, contradicting me."
That is, Job had always proclaimed the goodness of God, and here
comes something altogether evil.
{p. 299}
"10. He hath gathered together his fury against me; and threatening
me he hath _gnashed with his teeth upon me:_ my enemy hath beheld me
_with terrible_ eyes."
"14. He has compassed me _round about with his lances_, he hath
wounded my loins, he hath not spared, he hath poured out my bowels on
the earth.
"15. He hath torn me with _wound upon wound_, he hath rushed in upon
me _like a giant_."
"20. For behold _my witness is in heaven_, and he that knoweth my
conscience is on high."
It is impossible to understand this as referring to a skin-disease,
or even to the contradictions of Job's companions, Zophar, Bildad,
etc.
Something rose up against Job that comes upon him with fury, gnashes
his teeth on him, glares at him with terrible eyes, surrounds him
with lances, wounds him in every part, and rushes upon him like a
giant; and the witness of the truth of Job's statement is there in
the heavens.
Eliphaz returns to the charge. He rebukes Job and charges him with
many sins and oppressions (chap. xxii):
"10. Therefore snares are around about thee, and _sudden fear
troubleth thee;_
"11. _Or darkness, that thou canst not see; and abundance of waters
cover thee_."
"13. And thou sayest, How doth God know? Can he judge _through the
dark cloud?_
"14. _Thick clouds are a covering to him_, that he seeth not and he
walketh in the circuit of heaven.
15. Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?
"16. Which were cut down out of time, _whose foundation was overflown
with a flood?_"
"20. Whereas our substance is not cut down, but _the remnant of them
the fire consumeth_."
"24. He shall give for earth _flint_, and for flint _torrents of
gold_." (Douay ver.)
{p. 300}
What is the meaning of all this? And why this association of the
flint-stones, referred to in so many legends; and the gold believed
to have fallen from heaven in torrents, is it not all wonderful and
inexplicable upon any other theory than that which I suggest?
"30. He shall deliver _the island of the innocent_: and it is
delivered by the pureness of thine "(Job's) "hands."
What does this mean? Where was "the island of the innocent"? What was
the way which the wicked, who did not live on "the island of the
innocent," had trodden, but which was swept away in the flood as the
bridge Bifrost was destroyed, in the Gothic legends, by the forces of
Muspelheim?
And Job replies again (chap. xxiii):
"16. For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me:
"17. _Because I was not cut off before the darkness_, neither hath he
covered the darkness from my face."
That is to say, why did I not die before this great calamity fell on
the earth, and before I saw it?
Job continues (chap. xxvi):
"5. Dead things are formed from _under the waters_, and the
inhabitants thereof.
"6. _Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering_.
The commentators tell us that the words, "dead things are formed
under the waters," mean literally, "the souls of the dead tremble
from under the waters."
In all lands the home of the dead was, as I have shown elsewhere,[1]
beyond the waters: and just as we have seen in Ovid that Phaëton's
conflagration burst open the earth
[1. "Atlantis," 359, 421, etc.]
{p. 301}
and disturbed the inhabitants of Tartarus; and in Hesiod's narrative
that the ghosts trembled around Pluto in his dread dominion; so here
hell is laid bare by the great catastrophe, and the souls of the dead
in the drowned Flood-land, beneath the waters, tremble.
Surely, all these legends are fragments of one and the same great
story.
"7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the
earth upon nothing.
"8. _He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is
not rent under them_."
The clouds do not break with this unparalleled load of moisture.
"9. _He holdeth back the face of his throne_, and _spreadeth his
cloud upon it_.
"10. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, _until the day and
night come to an end_.
"11. The pillars of heaven _tremble_, and are astonished at his
reproof.
"12. He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he
smiteth through the proud." ("By his wisdom _he has struck the proud_
one."--Douay ver.)
"13. By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens his hand hath
_formed the crooked serpent_." ("His artful hand brought forth the
winding serpent."--Douay ver.)
What is the meaning of all this? The dead under the waters tremble;
hell is naked, in the blazing heat, and destruction is uncovered; the
north, the cold, descends on the world; the waters are bound up in
thick clouds; the face of God's throne, the sun, is bidden by the
clouds spread upon it; darkness has come, day and night are all one;
the earth trembles; he has lighted up the heavens with the fiery
comet, shaped like a crooked serpent, but he has struck him as Indra
struck Vritra.
How else can these words be interpreted? When
{p. 302}
otherwise did the day and night come to an end? What is the crooked
serpent?
Job continues, (chap. xxviii,) and speaks in an enigmatical way, v.
3, of "the _stones_ of darkness, and the shadow of death."
114. The flood breaketh out from the inhabitants; even the waters
forgotten of the foot: _they are dried up_, they are gone away from
men.
"5. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned
up _as it were fire_."
Maurer and Gesenius translate verse 4 in a way wonderfully in accord
with my theory: "The flood breaketh out from the inhabitants," they
render, "a shaft, (or gulley-like pit,) is broken open far from the
inhabitant, the dweller on the surface of the earth."[1] This is
doubtless the pit in which Job was bidden, the narrow-mouthed,
bottomless cave, referred to hereafter. And the words, "forgotten of
the foot," confirm this view, for the high authorities, just cited,
tell us that these words mean literally, "unsupported by the foot
THEY HANG BY ROPES IN DESCENDING; they are dried up; they are gone
away from men."[2]
Here we have, probably, a picture of Job and his companions
descending by ropes into some great cavern, "dried up" by the heat,
seeking refuge, far from the habitations of men, in some "deep shaft
or gulley-like pit."
And the words, "they are gone away from men," Maurer and Gesenius
translate, "far from men they move with uncertain steps--they
_stagger_." They are stumbling through the darkness, hurrying to a
place of refuge, precisely as narrated in the Central American
legends.
[1. Fausset's "Commentaries," vol. iii, p. 66.
2. Ibid.]
{p. 303}
This is according to the King James version, but the Douay version
gives it as follows:
"3. He hath set _a time for darkness_, and the _end of all things he
considereth_; the stone also that is _in the dark_, and the shadow of
death.
"4. The flood _divideth from the people that are on their journey,
those whom the foot of the needy man hath forgotten, and those who
cannot be come at_.
5. The land out of which bread grew in its place, _hath been
overturned with fire_."
That is to say, God has considered whether he would not make an end
of all things: he has set a time for darkness; in the dark are the
stones; the flood separates the people; those who are escaping are
divided by it from those who were forgotten, or who are on the other
side of the flood, where they can not be come at. But the land where
formerly bread grew, the land of the agricultural people, the
civilized land, the plain of Ida where grew the apples, the plain of
Vigrid where the great battle took place, _that has been overturned
by fire_.
And this land the next verse tells us:
"6. The stones of it are the place of sapphires, and the clods of it"
(King James, "dust") "are gold."
We are again reminded of those legends of America and Europe where
gold and jewels fell from heaven among the stones. We are reminded of
the dragon-guarded hoards of the ancient myths.
The Douay version says:
"9. He" (God) "has stretched out his hand to the _flint_, he hath
_overturned mountains from the roots_."
What is the meaning Of FLINT here? And why this recurrence of the
word flint, so common in the Central American legends and religions?
And when did God in
{p. 304}
the natural order of things overturn mountains by the roots?
And Job (chap. xxx, Douay version) describes the condition of the
multitude who had at first mocked him, and the description recalls
vividly the Central American pictures of the poor starving wanderers
who followed the Drift Age:
"3. Barren with want and hunger, who gnawed in the wilderness,
_disfigured with calamity_ and misery.
4. And they ate grass, and _barks of trees_, and the _root of
junipers was their food_.
"5. Who snatched up these things out of the valleys, and _when they
had found any of them, they ran to them with a cry_.
"6. They dwelt in the _desert places of torrents_, and _in caves of
the earth_, or UPON THE GRAVEL."
Is not all this wonderful?
In the King James version, verse 3 reads:
3. For want and famine they were solitary, fleeing into the
wilderness, in former time, desolate and waste."
The commentators say that the words, "in former time, desolate and
waste," mean literally, "_the yesternight of desolation and waste_."
Job is describing the condition of the people immediately following
the catastrophe, not in some remote past.
And again Job says (Douay version, chap. xxx):
"12. . . . My calamities forthwith arose; they have overthrown my
feet, and have overwhelmed me with their paths as with waves. . . .
"14. They have rushed in upon me as when a wall is broken, and a gate
opened, and have rolled themselves down to my miseries. . . ."
Maurer translates, "as when a wall is broken," "with a shout like the
_crash of falling masonry_."
{p. 305}
29. I was the brother of _dragons_ and companion of ostriches.
"30. My _skin is become black_ upon me, and my bones are dried up
with the _heat_."
We are reminded of Ovid's statement that the conflagration of Phaëton
caused the skin of the Africans to turn black.
In chapter xxxiv, (King James's version,) we read:
"14. If he" (God) "set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself
his spirit and his breath;
"15. _All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto
dust_."
And in chapter xxxvi, (verses 15, 16, Douay,) we see that Job was
shut up in something like a cavern:
"15. He shall deliver the poor out of his distress, and shall open
his ear in affliction.
"16. Therefore he shall _set thee at large out of the narrow mouth,
and which hath no foundation under it_; and the rest of thy table
shall be full of fatness."
That is to say, in the day when he delivers the poor out of their
misery, he will bring thee forth from the place where thou hast been
"hiding," (see chap. xiii, 20,) from that narrow-mouthed, bottomless
cavern; and instead of starving, as you have been, your table, during
the rest of your life, "shall be full of fatness."
"27. He" (God) "lifteth up the drops of rain and poureth out showers
like floods.
"28. Which flow from the clouds which _cover all from above_."
The commentators tell us that this expression, "which cover all from
above," means literally, "the bottom of the sea is laid bare"; and
they confess their inability to understand it. But is it not the same
story told by Ovid of the bottom of the Mediterranean having been
rendered
{p. 306}
a bed of dry sand by Phaëton's conflagration; and does it not remind
us of the Central American legend of the starving people migrating in
search of the sun, through rocky places where the sea had been
separated to allow them to pass?
And the King James version continues
"32. _With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to
shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt_.
"33. _The noise thereof_ sheweth concerning it, the cattle also
concerning the vapor."
This last line shows how greatly the original text has been garbled;
what have the cattle to do with it? Unless, indeed, here, as in the
other myths, the cows signify the clouds. The meaning of the rest is
plain: God draws up the water, sends it down as rain, which covers
all things; the clouds gather before the sun and hide its light; and
the vapor restores the cows, the clouds; and all this is accompanied
by great disturbances and noise.
And the next chapter (xxxvii) continues the description:
"2. Hear ye attentively the terror of his" (the comet's) "voice, and
the sound that cometh out of his mouth.
"3. He beholdeth under all the heavens," (he is seen under all the
heavens?) "and his _light is upon the ends of the earth_.
"4. After it a NOISE SHALL ROAR, he shall thunder with the voice of
his majesty, and shall not be found out when his voice shall be
heard."
The King James version says, "And he will not stay them when his
voice is heard."
"5. God shall _thunder wonderfully_ with his voice, he that doth
great and unsearchable things."
Here, probably, are more allusions to the awful noises made by the
comet as it entered our atmosphere, referred to by Hesiod, the
Russian legends, etc.
{p. 307}
"6. _He commandeth the snow to go down upon the earth_, and _the
winter rain_ and the shower of his strength "--("the _great rain of
his strength_," says the King James version).
"7. He sealeth up the hand of every man."
This means, says one commentator, that "he confines men within doors"
by these great rains. Instead of houses we infer it to mean "the
caves of the earth," already spoken of, (chap. xxx, v. 6,) and this
is rendered more evident by the next verse:
"8. And _the beast shall go into his covert_ and shall _abide in his
den_.
"9. Out of the inner parts" (meaning the south, say the commentators
and the King James version) "_shall tempest come_, and _cold out of
the north_.
"10. When God bloweth, there cometh _frost_, and _again the waters
are poured forth abundantly_."
The King James version continues:
"11. Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud."
That is to say, the cloud is gradually dissipated by dropping its
moisture in snow and rain.
"12. And it is turned round about by his counsels that they may do
whatsoever be commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth.
"13. He causeth it to come, whether for _correction_, or for his
land, or for mercy."
There can be no mistaking all this. It refers to no ordinary events.
The statement is continuous. God, we are told, will call Job out from
his narrow-mouthed cave, and once more give him plenty of food. There
has been a great tribulation. The sun has sucked up the seas, they
have fallen in great floods; the thick clouds have covered the face
of the sun; great noises prevail; there is a great light, and after
it a roaring noise; the snow
{p. 308}
falls on the earth, with winter rains, (cold rains,) and great rains;
men climb down ropes into deep shafts or pits; they are sealed up,
and beasts are driven to their dens and stay there: there are great
cold and frost, and more floods; then the continual rains dissipate
the clouds.
"19. Teach us what we shall say unto him; for we can not order our
speech _by reason of darkness_.
"20. Shall it be told him that I speak? If a man speak, surely _he
shall be swallowed up?_"
And then God talks to Job, (chap. xxxviii,) and tells him "to gird up
his loins like a man and answer him." He says:
"8. Who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as issuing
out of the womb?
119. When I made a _cloud the garment thereof_, and wrapped it in
_mists_ as in swaddling-bands,
"10. I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors." . . .
"22. Hast thou entered into _the storehouses of the snow_, or hast
thou beheld the treasures of the _hail?_" . . .
"29. Out of whose womb came the _ice_? and the _frost_ from heaven,
who hath gendered it?
"30. The waters are hardened like a _stone_, and _the surface of the
deep is frozen_."
What has this Arabian poem to do with so many allusions to clouds,
rain, ice, snow, hail, frost, and _frozen oceans_?
"36. Who hath put wisdom in the inward part? Or who hath given
understanding to the heart? "
Umbreit says that this word "heart" means literally "a shining
phenomenon--a meteor." Who hath given understanding to the comet to
do this work?
"38. When was _the dust poured on the earth_, and the _clods hardened
together_?"
{p. 309}
One version makes this read:
"Poured itself into a mass by the rain, like molten metal."
And another translates it--
"_Is caked into a mass by heat, like molten metal_, BEFORE THE RAIN
FALLS."
This is precisely in accordance with my theory that the "till" or
"hard-pan," next the earth, was caked and baked by the heat into its
present pottery-like and impenetrable condition, long before the work
of cooling and condensation set loose the floods to rearrange and
form secondary Drift out of the upper portion of the _débris_.
But again I ask, when in the natural order of events was dust poured
on the earth and hardened into clods, like molten metal?
And in this book of Job I think we have a description of the
veritable comets that struck the earth, in the Drift Age, transmitted
even from the generations that beheld them blazing in the sky, in the
words of those who looked upon the awful sight.
In the Norse legends we read of three destructive objects which
appeared in the heavens one of these was shaped like a serpent; it
was called "the Midgard-serpent"; then there was "the Fenris wolf";
and, lastly, "the dog Garm." In Hesiod we read, also, of three
monsters: first, Echidna, "a serpent huge and terrible and vast";
second, Chimæra, a lion-like creature; and, thirdly, Typhœus,
worst of all, a fierce, fiery dragon. And in Job, in like manner, we
have three mighty objects alluded to or described: first the
"winding" or "twisting" serpent with which God has "adorned the
heavens"; then "behemoth," monstrous enough to "drink up rivers,"
"the chief of the ways of God"; and lastly,
{p. 310}
and most terrible of all, "leviathan"; the name meaning, the twisting
animal, gathering itself into folds."
God, speaking to Job, and reminding him of the weakness and
littleness of man, says (chap. xl, v. 20):
"Canst thou draw out the leviathan with a book, or canst thou tie his
tongue with a cord? "
The commentators differ widely as to the meaning of this word
"leviathan." Some, as I have shown, think it means the same thing as
the crooked or "winding" serpent (_vulg_.) spoken of in chapter xxvi,
v. 13, where, speaking of God, it is said:
"His spirit hath adorned the heavens, and his artful hand brought
forth the winding serpent."
Or, as the King James version has it:
"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed
the crooked serpent."
By this serpent some of the commentators understand "a constellation,
the devil, the leviathan." In the Septuagint he is called "the
apostate dragon."
The Lord sarcastically asks Job:
"21. Canst thou put a ring in his nose, or bore through his jaw with
a buckle?
"22. Will he make many supplications to thee, or speak soft words to
thee?
"23. Will he make a covenant with thee, and wilt thou take him to be
a servant for ever?
"24. Shalt thou play with him as with a bird, or tie him up for thy
handmaids?
"25. Shall friends" (Septuagint, "the nations") cut him in pieces,
shall merchants" (Septuagint, "the generation of the
Phœnicians") "divide him?" . . (chap. xli, v. 1. Douay version.)
"I will not stir him up, like one that is cruel; for who can resist
my" (his?) "countenance," or, "who shall stand against me" (him?)
"and live?" . . .
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"4. Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can go into the
midst of his mouth?
"5. Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round
about.
"6. His body is like _molten shields_, shut close up, the scales
pressing upon one another.
"7. One is joined to another, and not so much as any air can come
between them.
"8. They stick one to another, and they hold one another fast, and
shall not be separated.
"9. His sneezing is like the _shining of fire_, and his eyes like the
eyelids of the morning." (Syriac, "His look is brilliant." Arabic,
"The apples of his eyes are fiery, and his eyes are like the
brightness of the morning.")
10. _Out of his mouth go forth lamps, like torches of lighted fire_."
Compare these "sneezings" or "neesings" of the King James version,
and these "lamps like torches of lighted lire," with the appearance
of Donati's great comet in 1858:
"On the 16th of September two diverging streams of light shot out
from the nucleus across the coma, and, having separated to about the
extent of its diameter, they turned back abruptly and streamed out in
the tail. _Luminous substance_ could be distinctly seen _rushing out
from the nucleus_, and then flowing back into the tail. M. Rosa
described the streams of light as resembling _long hair brushed
upward from the forehead_, and then allowed to fall back on each side
of the head."[1]
"11. _Out of his nostrils goeth forth smoke_, like that of a pot
heated and boiling." (King James's version has it, "as out of a
seething pot or caldron.")
"12. His breath _kindleth coals, and a flame cometh forth out of his
mouth_.
"13. In his neck strength shall dwell, and want goeth before his
face." (Septuagint, "_Destruction runs before him_.")
[1. "Edinburgh Review," October, 1874, p. 208.]
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"14. The members of his flesh cleave one to another; he shall send
lightnings against him, and they shall not be carried to another
place." (Sym., "His flesh being cast for him as in a foundry,"
(molten,) "is immovable.")
"15. His heart shall be as hard as a stone, and as firm as a smith's
anvil." (Septuagint, "He hath stood immovable as an anvil.")
"16. When he shall raise him up, _the angels shall fear_, and being
affrighted shall purify themselves."
Could such language properly be applied, even by the wildest stretch
of poetic fancy, to a whale or a crocodile, or any other monster of
the deep? What earthly creature could terrify the angels in heaven?
What earthly creature has ever breathed fire?
"17. When a sword shall lay at him, it shall not be able to hold, nor
a spear, nor a breast-plate.
"18. For he shall esteem iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.
"19. The archer shall not put him to flight, the stones of the sling
are to him like stubble.
"20. As stubble will he esteem the hammer, and he will laugh him to
scorn who shaketh the spear."
We are reminded of the great gods of Asgard, who stood forth and
fought the monster with sword and spear and hammer, and who fell dead
before him; and of the American legends, where the demi-gods in vain
hurled their darts and arrows at him, and fell pierced by the
rebounding weapons.
"21. _The beams of the sun shall be under him_," (in the King James
version it is, "SHARP STONES _are under him_"--the gravel, the
falling _débris_,) "and _he shall strew gold under him like mire_."
(The King James version says, "_he spreadeth sharp-pointed things
upon the mire_.")
To what whale or crocodile can these words be applied? When did they
ever shed gold or stones? And
{p. 313}
in this, again, we have more references to gold falling from heaven:
"22. He shall make the deep sea to boil like a pot, and shall make it
as when ointments boil." (The Septuagint says, "He deems the sea as a
vase of ointment, and the Tartarus of the abyss like a prisoner.")
"23. _A path shall shine after him_; he shall esteem the deep as
growing old." (The King James version says, "One would think the deep
to be hoary.")
1124. _There is no power upon earth that can be compared with him_,
who was made to fear no one.
"25. He beholdeth every _high thing_; he is king over all the
children of pride." (Chaldaic, "of all the sons of the mountains.")
Now, when we take this description, with all that has preceded it, it
seems to me beyond question that this was one of the crooked serpents
with which God had adorned the heavens: this was the monster with
blazing bead, casting out jets of light, breathing volumes of smoke,
molten, shining, brilliant, irresistible, against whom men hurled
their weapons in vain; for destruction went before him: he cast down
stones and pointed things upon the mire, the clay; the sea boils with
his excessive heat; he threatens heaven itself; the angels tremble,
and he beholds all high places. This is he whose rain of fire killed
Job's sheep and shepherds; whose chaotic winds killed Job's children;
whose wrath fell upon and consumed the rich men at their tables; who
made the habitations of kings "desolate places"; who spared only in
part "the island of the innocent," where the remnant of humanity,
descending by ropes, hid themselves in deep, narrow-mouthed caves in
the mountains. This is he who dried up the rivers and absorbed or
evaporated a great part of the water of the ocean, to subsequently
cast it down in great floods of snow and rain, to cover the north
with ice;
{p. 314}
while the darkened world rolled on for a long night of blackness
underneath its dense canopy of clouds.
If this be not the true interpretation of Job, who, let me ask, can
explain all these allusions to harmonize with the established order
of nature? And if this interpretation be the true one, then have we
indeed penetrated back through all the ages, through mighty lapses of
time, until, on the plain of some most ancient civilized land, we
listen, perchance, at some temple-door, to this grand justification
of the ways of God to man; this religious drama, this poetical
sermon, wrought out of the traditions of the people and priests,
touching the greatest calamity which ever tried the hearts and tested
the faith of man.
And if this interpretation be true, with how much reverential care
should we consider these ancient records embraced in the Bible!
The scientist picks up a fragment of stone--the fool would fling it
away with a laugh,--but the philosopher sees in it the genesis of a
world; from it he can piece out the detailed history of ages; he
finds in it, perchance, a fossil of the oldest organism, the first
traces of that awful leap from matter to spirit, from dead earth to
endless life; that marvel of marvels, that miracle of all miracles,
by which dust and water and air live, breathe, think, reason, and
cast their thoughts abroad through time and space and eternity.
And so, stumbling through these texts, falling over mistranslations
and misconceptions, pushing aside the accumulated dust of centuried
errors, we lay our hands upon a fossil that lived and breathed when
time was new: we are carried back to ages not only before the flood,
but to ages that were old when the flood came upon the earth.
Here Job lives once more: the fossil breathes and palpitates;-hidden
from the fire of heaven, deep in his cavern;
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covered with burns and bruises from the falling _débris_ of the
comet, surrounded by his trembling fellow-refugees, while chaos rules
without and hope has fled the earth, we hear Job, bold, defiant,
unshrinking, pouring forth the protest of the human heart against the
cruelty of nature; appealing from God's awful deed to the sense of
God's eternal justice.
We go out and look at the gravel-heap--worn, rounded, ancient, but
silent,--the stones lie before us. They have no voice. We turn to
this volume, and here is their voice, here is their story; here we
have the very thoughts men thought-men like ourselves, but sorely
tried--when that gravel was falling upon a desolated world.
And all this buried, unrecognized, in the sacred book of a race and a
religion.
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