THE WISDOM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
JOB AND SOLOMON
OR
THE WISDOM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
BY THE
REV. T. K. CHEYNE, M.A., D.D.
ORIEL PROFESSOR OF INTERPRETATION AT OXFORD
CANON OF ROCHESTER
NEW YORK
THOMAS WHITTAKER
2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE
1887
THE VERY REVEREND
GEORGE GRANVILLE BRADLEY, D.D.
DEAN OF WESTMINSTER
IN HIGH APPRECIATION OF HIS LONG-PROVED INTEREST IN EXEGESIS
AND OF HIS HAPPILY CONCEIVED LECTURES ON ECCLESIASTES
PREFACE.
The present work is a fragmentary realisation of a plan which has been
maturing in my mind for many years. Exegesis and criticism are equally
necessary for the full enjoyment of the treasures of the Old Testament,
and just as no commentary is complete which does not explain the actual
position of critical controversies, so no introduction to the criticism
of a book is trustworthy which does not repose, and show the reader that
it reposes, on the basis of a thorough exegesis. In this volume I do not
pretend to have approached the ideal of such students’ manuals as I have
described; I have not been sufficiently sure of my public to treat the
subject on the scale which I should have liked, and such personal
drawbacks as repeated changes of residence, frequent absence from large
libraries, and within the last two years a serious eye-trouble, have
hindered me in the prosecution of my work. Other tasks now claim my
restored strength, and I can no longer withhold my volume from those
lovers of the sacred literature who in some degree share the point of
view from which I have written.
The Books of Job and Ecclesiastes are treated somewhat more in detail
than those of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. The latter have a special
interest of their own, but to bring this into full view, more excursions
into pure philology would have been necessary than I judged it expedient
to allow myself. I had intended to make up for this omission so far as
Proverbs is concerned at the end of the volume, but have been
interrupted in doing so. Perhaps, however, even in the Appendix such
detailed treatment of special points might have repelled some readers,
and I hope that the Appendix is on the whole not unreadable. The
enlarged notes on Proverbs in the forthcoming new edition of Messrs.
Eyre and Spottiswoode’s Variorum Bible may enable the student to do for
himself what I have not done. As for Ecclesiasticus, the light which
Prof. Bickell’s and Dr. Edersheim’s researches are sure to throw on the
text may enable me some day to recast the section on this book; at
present, I only offer this as an illustrative sequel to the section on
Proverbs. It should be added that the canonicity of Ecclesiasticus is
handled in conjunction with that of Ecclesiastes at the close of the
part on the latter book.
The interest of Job and Ecclesiastes is of a far deeper and more varied
kind. Even from a critical point of view, the study of these books is
most refreshing after the incessant and exciting battles of
Pentateuch-criticism. But as monuments of the spiritual struggles of a
past which is not wholly dead, they have been to me, as doubtless to
many others, sources of pure delight. If I appreciate Job more highly
than Ecclesiastes, it is not from any want of living sympathy with the
philosophic doubter, but because the enjoyment even of Scriptures is
dependent on moods and impulses. De Sanctis has pointed out (_Storia
della letteratura italiana_, i. 80) how the story of Job became the
favourite theme of the early Italian moralists, and everyone knows how
the great Latin doctors (Gregory the Great, Bede, Aquinas, Albertus
Magnus) delighted to comment on this wonderful book. In our own day,
from perfectly intelligible causes, Ecclesiastes has too much drawn off
the attention of the educated world, but there are signs that the
character-drama of Job will soon reassert its old fascinating power.
In conclusion, will earnest students, whether academical or not, grant
me two requests? The first is, that they will meet me with confidence,
and gather any grains of truth they can, even where they cannot yield
full assent. The problems of Hebrew literature are complex; herein
partly lies their fascination; herein also is a call for mutual
tolerance on the part of all who approach them. There is nothing to
regret in this complexity; in searching for the solution of these
problems, we gain an ever fresh insight into facts and ideas which will
never lose their significance. My second request is, that the Appendix,
which, short as it is, contains something for different classes of
readers, may not be neglected as _only an Appendix_.
I would add that the ‘much-desired aid’ in the critical use of the
Septuagint referred to on p. 114 has already to a large extent been
given by Gustav Bickell’s essay (see p. 296), which I have now been able
to examine. His early treatise (1862) is at length happily supplemented
and corrected. We shall know still more when P. Ciasca has completed the
publication of the fragments of the Sahidic version. It is clear however
that each omission in the pre-Hexaplar Septuagint text (represented by
this version) must be judged upon its own merits, nor can I estimate the
value of the text of the Septuagint quite as highly as some critics.
It is hoped that the present work may be followed by a volume on the
Psalms, the Lamentations, and the Song of Songs.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION 1
_THE BOOK OF JOB._
I. JOB’S CALAMITY; THE OPENING OF THE DIALOGUES (Chaps. i.-xiv.) 11
II. THE SECOND CYCLE OF SPEECHES (Chaps. xv.-xxi.) 30
III. THE THIRD CYCLE OF SPEECHES (Chaps. xxii.-xxxi.) 37
IV. THE SPEECHES OF ELIHU (Chaps. xxxii.-xxxvii.) 42
V. THE SPEECHES OF JEHOVAH (Chaps. xxxviii.-xlii. 6) 48
VI. THE EPILOGUE AND ITS MEANING 58
VII. THE TRADITIONAL BASIS AND THE PURPOSE OF JOB 60
VIII. DATE AND PLACE OF COMPOSITION 71
IX. ARGUMENT FROM THE USE OF MYTHOLOGY 76
X. ARGUMENT FROM THE DOCTRINE OF ANGELS 79
XI. ARGUMENT FROM PARALLEL PASSAGES 83
XII. ON THE DISPUTED PASSAGES IN THE DIALOGUE PORTION, ESPECIALLY THE
SPEECHES OF ELIHU 90
XIII. IS JOB A HEBRÆO-ARABIC POEM? 96
XIV. THE BOOK FROM A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW 102
XV. THE BOOK FROM A GENERAL AND WESTERN POINT OF VIEW 106
_Note_ on Job and the Modern Poets 112
_Note_ on the Text of Job 112
_Aids to the Student_ 115
_THE BOOK OF PROVERBS._
I. HEBREW WISDOM, ITS NATURE, SCOPE, AND IMPORTANCE 117
II. THE FORM AND ORIGIN OF THE PROVERBS 125
III. THE FIRST COLLECTION AND ITS APPENDICES 130
IV. THE SECOND COLLECTION AND ITS APPENDICES 142
V. THE PRAISE OF WISDOM 156
VI. SUPPLEMENTARY ON QUESTIONS OF DATE AND ORIGIN 165
VII. THE TEXT OF PROVERBS 173
_Note_ on Prov. xxx. 31 175
VIII. THE RELIGIOUS VALUE OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS 176
_Aids to the Student_ 178
_THE WISDOM OF JESUS THE SON OF SIRACH._
I. THE WISE MAN TURNED SCRIBE. SIRACH’S MORAL TEACHING 179
II. SIRACH’S TEACHING (_continued_). HIS PLACE IN THE MOVEMENT OF
THOUGHT 188
_Aids to the Student_ (see also _Appendix_) 198
_THE BOOK OF KOHELETH; OR, ECCLESIASTES._
I. THE WISE MAN TURNED AUTHOR AND PHILOSOPHER 199
II. ‘TRUTH AND FICTION’ IN AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 207
III. MORE MORALISING, INTERRUPTED BY PROVERBIAL MAXIMS 213
IV. FACTS OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE 218
V. THE WISE MAN’S PARTING COUNSELS 222
VI. KOHELETH’S ‘PORTRAIT OF OLD AGE;’ THE EPILOGUE, ITS NATURE AND
ORIGIN 229
VII. ECCLESIASTES AND ITS CRITICS (FROM A PHILOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW)
236
VIII. ECCLESIASTES AND ITS CRITICS (FROM A LITERARY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
POINT OF VIEW) 242
IX. ECCLESIASTES FROM A MORAL AND RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW 248
X. DATE AND PLACE OF COMPOSITION 255
XI. DOES KOHELETH CONTAIN GREEK WORDS OR IDEAS? 260
XII. TEXTUAL PROBLEMS OF KOHELETH 273
XIII. THE CANONICITY OF ECCLESIASTES AND ECCLESIASTICUS 279
_Aids to the Student_ 285
APPENDIX (_see_ Special Table of Contents) 287
INDEX 303
INTRODUCTION.
HOW IS OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM RELATED TO CHRISTIANITY?
The point of view represented in this volume is still so little
recognised and represented in England and America that the author
ventures to prefix a short paper delivered as an address at the Church
Congress held at Reading in October 1883. It is proverbially more
difficult to write a thin book than a thick one, and the labour involved
in preparing this twenty minutes’ paper, with its large outlook and
sedulously under-stated claims, was such as he would not willingly
undertake again for a like purpose. The subject was not an ephemeral one
and the attitude of the Churches towards it has not materially altered
within the last three years. The present volume is pervaded by the
spirit which breathes, as the author trusts, in every line of this
paper. It relates, indeed, only to a small section of the Old Testament,
but no part of that ‘library’ (as mediæval writers so well named it) can
be studied in complete severance from the rest. And if a high aim is
held forward in one of the opening sentences to the Church of which the
writer is a son, those who are connected with the other historic
communions will easily understand the bitter-sweet feeling of hope
against hope with which those lines were penned.
* * * * *
‘My own conviction,’ said the late Dr. Pusey, ‘has long been that the
hope of the Church of England is in mutual tolerance.’[1] That truly
great man was not thinking of the new school of Old Testament critics,
and yet if the Anglican Church is ever to renovate her theology and to
become in any real sense undeniably the Church of the future, she cannot
afford to be careless or intolerant of attempts to modernise our methods
of criticism and exegesis. It would no doubt be simpler to content
ourselves with that criticism and exegesis, and consequently with that
theology, which have been fairly adequate to the wants of the past; but
are we sure that Jesus Christ would not now lead us a few steps further
on towards ‘all the truth,’ and that one of His preparatory disciplines
may not be a method of Biblical criticism which is less tender to the
traditions of the scribes, and more in harmony with the renovating
process which is going on in all other regions of thought? Why, indeed,
should there not be a providence even in the phases of Old Testament
criticism, so that where some can see merely the shiftings of arbitrary
opinion more enlightened eyes may discern a veritable progress, leading
at once to fresh views of history, and to necessary reforms in our
theology, making this theology simpler and stronger, deeper and more
truly Catholic, by making it more Biblical?
Some one, however, may ask, Does not modern criticism actually claim to
have refuted the fundamental facts of Bible history? But which _are_
these fundamental facts? Bishop Thirlwall, twenty years ago, told his
clergy ‘that a great part of the events related in the Old Testament has
no more apparent connection with our religion than those of Greek and
Roman history.’ Put these events for a moment on one side, and how much
more conspicuous does that great elementary fact become which stands up
as a rock in Israel’s history—namely, that a holy God, for the good of
the world, chose out this people, isolating it more and more completely
for educational purposes from its heathen neighbours, and interposing at
various times to teach, to chastise, and to deliver it! It is not
necessary to prove that all such recorded interpositions are in the
strictest sense historical; it is enough if the tradition or the record
of some that are so did survive the great literary as well as political
catastrophe of the Babylonian captivity. And I have yet to learn that
the Exodus, the destruction of Sennacherib’s army, the restoration of
the Jews to their own land, and the unique phenomenon of spiritual
prophecy, are called in question even by the most advanced school of
Biblical criticism. One fact, indeed, there is, regarded by some of us
as fundamental, which these advanced critics do maintain to be
disproved, and that is the giving of the Levitical Law by Moses, or if
not by Moses, by persons in the pre-Exile period who had prophetic
sanction for giving it. Supposing the theory of Kuenen and Wellhausen to
be correct, it will no doubt appear to some minds (1) that the
inspiration of the Levitical Law is at any rate weakened in quality
thereby, (2) that a glaring inconsistency is introduced into the Divine
teaching of Israel, which becomes anti-sacrificial at one time, and
sacrificial at another, and (3) that room is given for the supposition
that the Levitical system itself was an injurious though politic
condescension to popular tastes, and consequently (as Lagarde ventures
to hold) that St. Paul, by his doctrine of the Atonement, ruined, so far
as he could, the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But I only mention these possible inferences in order to point out how
unfair they are. (1) The inspiration (to retain an often misused but
indispensable term) of the Levitical Law is only weakened in any bad
sense if it be maintained that the law, whenever the main part of it was
promulgated, failed to receive the sanction of God’s prophetic
interpreters, and that it was not, in the time of Ezra, the only
effectual instrument for preserving the deposit of spiritual religion.
(2) With regard to the inconsistency (assuming the new hypothesis)
between the two periods of the Divine teaching of Israel, the feeling of
a devout, though advanced critic would be that he was not a fit judge of
the providential plan. Inconsistent conclusions on one great subject
(that of forgiveness of sins) might in fact be drawn from the language
of our Lord Himself at different periods of His ministry, though the
parallel may not be altogether complete, since our Lord never used
directly anti-sacrificial language. And it might be urged on the side of
Kuenen, that neither would the early prophets have used such language—at
any rate in the literary version of their discourses if they had
foreseen the canonical character which this would assume, and the
immense importance of a sacrificial system in the post-Exile period. (3)
The theory that the law involves an injurious condescension is by no
means compulsory upon advocates of the new hypothesis. Concessions to
popular taste have, indeed, as we know but too well, often almost
extinguished the native spirit of a religion; but the fact that some at
least of the most spiritual psalms are acknowledged to be post-Exile
ought to make us all, critics and non-critics alike, slow to draw too
sharp a distinction between the legal and the evangelical. That the law
was misused by some, and in course of time became spiritually almost
obsolete, would not justify us in depreciating it, even if we thought
that the lesser and not the greater Moses, the scribe and not the
prophet, was mainly responsible for its promulgation. Finally, the rash
statement of Lagarde has been virtually answered by the reference of
another radical critic (Keim) to the well-attested words of Christ at
the institution of the Eucharist (Matt. xxvi. 28).
I have spoken thus much on the assumption that the hypothesis of Kuenen
and Wellhausen may be true. That it will ever become universally
prevalent is improbable—the truth may turn out to lie between the two
extremes—but that it will go on for some time gaining ground among the
younger generation of scholars is, I think, almost certain. No one who
has once studied this or any other Old Testament controversy from the
inside and with a full view of the evidence can doubt that the
traditional accounts of many of the disputed books rest on a very weak
basis, and those who crave for definite solutions, and cannot bear to
live in twilight, will naturally hail such clear-cut hypotheses as those
of Kuenen and Wellhausen, and credit them with an undue finality. Let us
be patient with these too sanguine critics, and not think them bad
Churchmen, as long as they abstain from drawing those dangerous and
unnecessary inferences of which I have spoken. It is the want of an
equally intelligent interest which makes the Old Testament a dead letter
to so many highly orthodox theologians. If the advanced critics succeed
in awakening such an interest more generally, it will be no slight
compensation for that ‘unsettlement of views’ which is so often the
temporary consequence of reading their books.
One large part, however, of Kuenen and Wellhausen’s critical system is
not peculiar to them, but accepted by the great majority of professed
Old Testament critics. It is this part which has perhaps a still
stronger claim to be considered in its relation to Christian truth,
because there is every appearance that it will, in course of time,
become traditional among those who have given up the still current
traditions of the synagogue. I refer (1) to the analysis of the
Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua into several documents, (2) to the
view that many of the laws contained in the Pentateuch arose gradually,
according to the needs of the people, and that Ezra, or at least
contemporaries of Ezra, took a leading part in the revision and
completion of the law book, and (3) to the dating of the original
documents or compilations at various periods, mostly long subsequent to
the time of Moses. Time forbids me to enter into the grounds for the
confident assertion that if either exegesis or the Church’s
representation of religious truth is to make any decided progress, the
results of the literary analysis of the Pentateuch must be accepted as
facts, and that theologians must in future recognise at least three
different sections, and as many different conceptions of Israel’s
religious development, within the Pentateuch, just as they have long
recognised at least three different types of teaching in the Old
Testament as a whole. On the question as to the date of these sections,
and as to the Mosaic origin of any considerable part of them, the
opinions of special scholars within the Church will, for a long time
yet, be more or less divided. There is, I know, a belief growing up
among us, that Assyrian and Egyptian discoveries are altogether
favourable to the ordinary English view of the dates of the historical
books, including the Pentateuch. May I be pardoned for expressing the
slowly formed conviction that apologists in England (and be it observed
that I do not quarrel with the conception of apologetic theology)
frequently indulge in general statements as to the bearings of recent
discoveries, which are only half true? The opponents of whom they are
thinking are long since dead; it is wasting time to fight with the
delusions of a past age. No one now thinks the Bible an invention of
priestcraft; that which historical critics doubt is the admissibility of
any unqualified assertion of the strict historicalness of all the
details of all its component parts. This doubt is not removed by recent
archæological discoveries, the critical bearings of which are sometimes
what neither of the critical schools desired or expected. I refer
especially to the bearings of Assyrian discoveries on the date of what
are commonly called the Jehovistic narratives in the first nine chapters
of Genesis. I will not pursue this subject further, and merely add that
we must not too hastily assume that the supplement hypothesis is
altogether antiquated.
The results of the anticipated revolution in our way of looking at the
Pentateuch strike me as fourfold. (1) Historically. The low religious
position of most of the pre-Exile Israelites will be seen to be not the
result of a deliberate rebellion against the law of Jehovah, the
Levitical laws being at any rate virtually non-existent. By this I mean,
that even if any large part of those laws go back to the age of Moses
they were never thoroughly put in force, and soon passed out of sight.
Otherwise how can we account for this, among other facts, that
Deuteronomy, or the main part of it, is known in the reign of Josiah as
‘_the_ law of Moses’? We shall also, perhaps, get a deeper insight into
the Divine purpose in raising up that colossal personage who, though
‘slow of speech,’ was so mighty in deed: I mean Moses—and shall realise
those words of a writer specially sanctioned by my own university:
‘Should we have an accurate idea of the purpose of God in raising up
Moses, if we said, He did it that He might communicate a revelation?
Would not this be completely to misunderstand the principal end of the
mission of Moses, which was the establishment of the theocracy, and in
so far as God revealed through him the revelation was but as means to
this higher end?’[2]
(2) We shall, perhaps, discriminate more between the parts of the Old
Testament, some of which will be chiefly valuable to us as bringing into
view the gradualness of Israel’s education, and as giving that fulness
to our conceptions of Biblical truths which can only be got by knowing
the history of their outward forms; others will have only that interest
which attaches even to the minutest and obscurest details of the history
of much-honoured friends or relatives; others, lastly, will rise, in
virtue of their intrinsic majesty, to a position scarcely inferior to
that of the finest parts of the New Testament itself.
(3) As a result of what has thus been gained, our idea of inspiration
will become broader, deeper, and more true to facts.
(4) We shall have to consider our future attitude towards that
Kenotic[3] view of the person of Christ which has been accepted in some
form by such great exegetical theologians as Hofmann, Oehler, and
Delitzsch. Although the Logos, by the very nature of the conception,
must be omniscient, the incarnate Logos, we are told, pointed His
disciples to a future time, in which they should do greater works than
He Himself, and should open the doors to fresh departments of truth. The
critical problems of the Old Testament did not then require to be
settled by Him, because they had not yet come into existence. Had they
emerged into view in our Lord’s time, they would have given as great a
shock to devout Jews as they have done to devout Christians; and our
Master would, no doubt, have given them a solution fully adequate to the
wants of believers. In that case, a reference to some direction of the
law as of Mosaic origin would, in the mouth of Christ, have been
decisive; and the Church would, no doubt, have been guided to make some
distinct definition of her doctrine on the subject.
Thus in the very midst of the driest critical researches we can feel
that, if we have duly fostered the sense of Divine things, we are on the
road to further disclosures of religious as well as historical truth.
The day of negative criticism is past, and the day of a cheap ridicule
of all critical analysis of ancient texts is, we may hope, nearly past
also. In faith and love the critics whose lot I would fain share are at
one with many of those who suspect and perhaps ridicule them: in the
aspirations of hope their aim is higher. Gladly would I now pass on to a
survey of the religious bearings of the critical study of the poetical
and prophetical books, which, through differences of race, age, and
above all spiritual atmosphere, we find, upon the whole, so much more
attractive and congenial than the Levitical legislation. Let me, at
least, throw out a few hints. Great as is the division of opinion on
points of detail, so much appears to be generally accepted that the
number of prophets whose works have partly come down to us is larger
than used to be supposed. The analysis of the texts may not be as nearly
perfect as that of the Pentateuch, but there is no doubt among those of
the younger critics whose voices count (and with the pupils of Delitzsch
the case is the same as with those of Ewald) that several of the
prophetical books are made up of the works of different writers, and I
even notice a tendency among highly orthodox critics to go beyond Ewald
himself and analyse the Book of Daniel into portions of different dates.
The result is important, and not for literary history alone. It gives us
a much firmer hold on the great principle that a prophet’s horizon is
that of his own time; that he prophesied, as has been well said, into
the future, but not directly to the future. This will, I believe, in no
wise affect essential Christian truth, but will obviously modify our
exegesis of certain Scripture proofs of Christian doctrine, and is
perhaps not without a bearing on the two grave theological subjects
referred to already.
Bear with me if, once again in conclusion, I appeal to the Church at
large on behalf of those who would fain modernise our criticism and
exegesis with a view to a not less distinctively Christian but more
progressive Church theology. The age of œcumenical councils may have
passed; but if criticism, exegesis, and philosophy are only cultivated
in a fearless and reverent spirit, and if the Church at large troubles
itself a little more to understand the workers and their work, an
approximation to agreement on great religious questions may hereafter be
attained. What the informal decisions of the general Christian
consciousness will be, it would be impertinent to conjecture. It is St.
John’s ‘all truth’ after which we aspire—‘all the truth’ concerning God,
the individual soul, and human society, into which the labours of
generations, encouraged by the guiding star, shall by degrees introduce
us. But one thing is too clear to be mistaken—viz. that exegesis must
decide first of all what essential Christian truth is before a devout
philosophy can interpret, expand, and apply it, and Old Testament
exegesis, at any rate, cannot be long separated from its natural ally,
the higher criticism. A provisional separation may no doubt be
necessary, but the ultimate aim of successive generations of students
must be a faithful exegesis, enlightened by a seven-times tested
criticism.
Footnote 1:
‘Toleranz sollte eigentlich nur eine vorübergehende Gesinnung sein;
sie muss zur Anerkennung führen.’—_Goethe._
Footnote 2:
See essay on ‘Miracles’ in _Christian Remembrancer_ (list of works
recommended to theological honour-students in Oxford).
Footnote 3:
The self-humiliation of Christ is described (need I remark?) by St.
Paul as a κένωσις (Phil. ii. 7). How far this κένωσις extended is a
theological problem which in the sixteenth century, and again in our
own, has exercised devout thinkers. For the modern form of the Kenotic
view or doctrine the English reader will naturally go to Dorner’s
_History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ_, vol. iii., in
Clark’s _Library_. Dorner’s opposition to this view is a weighty but
not, of course, a decisive fact. We must be loyal to the facts of
Christ’s humanity reported in the Gospels. The question as to the
extent of the κένωσις is an open one.
THE BOOK OF JOB.
CHAPTER I.
JOB’S CALAMITY; THE OPENING OF THE DIALOGUES.
(CHAPS. I.-XIV.)
The Book of Job is not the earliest monument of Hebrew ‘wisdom,’ but for
various reasons will be treated first in order. The perusal of some of
the pages introductory to Proverbs will enable the student to fill out
what is here given. The Hebrew ‘wisdom’ is a product as peculiar as the
dialectic of Plato, and not less worthy of admiration; and the author of
_Job_ is its greatest master. To him are due those great thoughts on a
perennial problem, which may be supplemented but can never be
superseded, and which, as M. Renan truly says, cause so profound an
emotion in their first naïve expression. His wisdom is that of intuition
rather than of strict reasoning, but it is as truly based upon the facts
of experience as any of our Western philosophies. He did not indeed
reach his high position unaided by predecessors. The author of the noble
‘Praise of Wisdom’ in Prov. i.-ix. taught him much and kindled his
ambition. Nor was he in all probability without the stimulus of
fellow-thinkers and fellow-poets. The student ought from the outset to
be aware of the existence of discussions as to the unity of the
book—discussions which have led to one assured and to several probable
results—though he ought not to adopt any critical results before he has
thoroughly studied the poem itself. The student should also know that
the supposed authors of the (as I must believe) inserted passages belong
to the same circle as the writer of the main part of the book, and are
therefore not to be accused of having made ‘interpolations.’ I need not
here distinguish between passages added by the author himself as
afterthoughts (or perhaps _paralipomena_ inserted by disciples from his
literary remains) and compositions of later poets added to give the poem
greater didactic completeness. A passage which does not fall into the
plan of the poem is to all intents and purposes the work of another
poet. The philosophic Goethe of the second part of _Faust_ is not the
passion-tossed Goethe of the first.
All the writers who may be concerned in the production of our book are,
however, well worthy of reverent study; they were not only inspired by
the Spirit of Israel’s holy religion, but in their various styles true
poets. In some degree we may apply to _Job_ the lines of Schiller on the
_Iliad_ with its different fathers but one only mother—Nature. In fact,
Nature, in aspects chiefly familiar, but not therefore less interesting,
was an open book to these poets, and ‘Look in thine heart and write’ was
their secret as well as Spenser’s for vigorous and effective expression.
I now proceed to give in plain prose the pith and substance of this
great poem, which more than any other Old Testament book needs to be
brought near to the mind of a Western student. I would entitle it THE
BOOK OF THE TRIAL OF THE RIGHTEOUS MAN, AND OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF GOD.
In its present form the Book of Job consists of five parts—
1. The Prologue, written in prose (ch. i.-ii.), the body of the work in
the Hebrew being written in at any rate an approach to metre;[4]
2. The Colloquies between Job and his three friends (ch. iii.-xxxi.);
3. The Discourses of Elihu (ch. xxxii.-xxxvii.);
4. Jehovah’s Reply to Job (ch. xxxviii.-xlii. 6);
5. The Epilogue, in prose (ch. xlii. 7-17).
There are some differences in the arrangement which will presently be
followed, but these will justify themselves in the course of our study.
Let us first of all examine the Prologue, which will bear to be viewed
by itself as a striking specimen of Hebrew narrative. The idyllic
manners of a patriarchal age are delineated with sympathy—no difficult
task to one who knew the early Hebrew traditions—and still more
admirable are the very testing scenes from the supernatural world.
It may perhaps seem strange that this should be only a prose poem, but
the truth is that narrative poetry was entirely alien to the Hebrew
genius, which refused to tolerate the bonds of protracted and continuous
versification. Like that other great hero of parallelistic verse Balaam,
Job is a non-Israelite; and in this the unknown author shows a fine
tact, for he is thus absolved from the embarrassing necessity of
referring to the Law, and so complicating the moral problem under
consideration. Job, however, though an Arabian sheich[5] (as one may
loosely call him), was a worshipper of Jehovah, who declares before the
assembled ‘sons of the Elohim’ that ‘there is none like Job in the
earth,’ &c. (i. 8). Job’s virtue is rewarded by an outward prosperity
like that of the patriarchs in Genesis: he was a great Eastern Emeer,
and had not only a large family but great possessions. His scrupulous
piety, which takes precautions even against heart-sins, is exemplified
to us by the atoning sacrifice which he offers as head of his family at
some annual feast (i. 4, 5). Then in ver. 6 the scene is abruptly
changed from earth to heaven. The spirit of the narrative is not devoid
of a delightful humour. In the midst of the ‘sons of the
Elohim’—supernatural, Titanic beings, who had once been at strife with
Jehovah (if we may illustrate by xxi. 22, xxv. 2), but who now at stated
times paid Him their enforced homage—stood one who had not quite lost
his original pleasure in working evil, and who was now employed by his
Master as a kind of moral and religious censor of the human race. This
malicious spirit—‘the Satan’ or adversary, as he is called—had just
returned from a tour of inspection in the world, and Jehovah, who is
represented under the disguise of an earthly monarch, boldly and
imprudently draws his attention to the meritorious Job. The Satan
refuses to give human nature credit for pure goodness, and sarcastically
remarks, ‘Does Job serve God for nothing?’ (i. 9.) Jehovah therefore
allows His minister to put Job’s piety to as severe a test as possible
short of taking his life. One after another Job’s flocks, his servants,
and his children are destroyed. His wife, however, by a touch of quiet
humour, is spared; she seems to be recognised by the Satan as an
unconscious ally (ii. 9). The piety of Job stands the trial; he is
deeply moved, but maintains his self-control, and the scene closes with
a devout ascription of blessing to Jehovah alike for giving and for
recalling His gifts.
Before passing on the reader should notice that, according to the poet,
the ultimate reason why these sufferings of Job were permitted by the
Most High was that Job might set an example of a piety independent of
favouring outward circumstances. The poet reveals this to us in the
Prologue, that we may not ourselves be staggered in our faith, nor cast
down by sympathy with such an unique sufferer; for after the eulogy
passed upon Job in the celestial court we cannot doubt that he will
stand the test, even if disturbed for a time.
A second time the same high court is held. The first experiment of the
Adversary has failed, and this magnified earthly monarch, the Jehovah of
the story, begins to suspect that he has allowed a good man to be
plagued with no sufficient motive. Admiringly he exclaims, pointing to
Job, ‘And still he holds fast his integrity, so that thou didst incite
me against him to annihilate him without cause’ (ii. 3). Another
sarcastic word from the Adversary (‘Touch his bone and his flesh, and
then see....’), and once more he receives permission to try Job. The
affliction this time is elephantiasis, the most loathsome and dangerous
form of leprosy. But Job’s piety stands fast. He sits down on the heap
of burnt dung and ashes at the entrance of the village, such as those
where lepers are still wont to congregate, and meets the despairing
counsel of his wife (comp. Tobit’s wife, Tob. ii. 14) to renounce a God
from whom nothing more is to be hoped but death with a calm and pious
rebuke. So baseless was the malicious suggestion of the Satan! Meantime
many months pass away (vii. 3), and no friend appears to condole with
him. Travelling is slow in the East, and Job’s three friends[6] were
Emeers like himself (the Sept. makes them kings), and their residences
would be at some distance from each other. At last they come, but they
cannot recognise Job’s features, distorted by disease (as Isa. lii. 14).
Overpowered with surprise and grief, they sit down with him for seven
days and seven nights (comp. Ezek. iii. 15). Up to this point no fault
can be found with his friends.
I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
(_Othello_, act i, scene 3.)
It was their deep, unspoken sympathy which encouraged him to vent his
sorrow in a flood of unpurified emotion (chap. iii.) The very next thing
recorded of Job is that he ‘opened his mouth and cursed his day’ (i.e.
his birthday; see ver. 3). This may at least be the poet’s meaning,
though it is also possible that the prologue and the body of the poem
are not homogeneous. Not to mention other reasons at present, the tone
of Job’s speech in chap. iii. (the chapter read by Swift on his
birthday) is entirely different from the stedfast resignation of his
reply to his wife, which, as Prof. Davidson has said, ‘reveals still
greater deeps in Job’s reverent piety’ than the benediction at the end
of chap. i., the latter being called forth not by the infliction of
positive evil, but merely by the withdrawal of unguaranteed favours.
How strangely vivid were the sensations of the race to which the author
of Job belonged! How great to him must have been the pleasures of
existence, and how great the pains! Nothing to him was merely
subjectively true: his feelings were infallible, and that which seemed
to be was. Time, for instance, had an objective reality: the days of the
year had a kind of life of their own (comp. Ps. xix. 2) and paid
annually recurring visits to mankind. Hence Job, like Jeremiah (Jer. xx.
14-18), in the violence of his passion[7] can wish to retaliate on the
instrument of his misery by ‘cursing his day.’
Perish the day wherein I was born,
and the night which said, A man has been conceived.
(iii. 3; comp. 6);
i.e. let my birthday become a blank in the calendar. Or, if this be too
much and the anniversary, so sad to me, must come round, then let
magicians cast their spell[8] upon it and make it an unlucky day (such
as the Babylonians had in abundance).
Let them curse it that curse days,
that are skilful to rouse the leviathan (iii. 8);
i.e. the cloud dragon (vii. 12, xxvi. 13, Isaiah li. 9, Jer. li. 34),
the enemy of the sun (an allusion to a widely spread solar myth). So
fare it with the day which might, by hindering Job’s birth, have ‘hid
sorrow from his eyes!’ Even if he must be born, why could he not have
died at once and escaped his ill fortune in the quiet phantom world
(iii. 13-19)? Alas! this melancholy dream does but aggravate Job’s
mental agony. He broods on the horror of his situation, and even makes a
shy allusion to God as the author of his woe—
Wherefore gives he light to the miserable,
and life to the bitter in soul? (iii. 20.)
And now Job’s friends are shaken out of their composure. They have been
meditating on Job’s calamity, which is so difficult to reconcile with
their previous high opinion of him; for they are the representatives of
orthodoxy, of the orthodoxy which received the high sanction of the
Deuteronomic _Tōra_, and which connected obedience and prosperity,
disobedience and adversity. Still it is not a stiff, extreme orthodoxy
which the three friends maintain: calamity, as Eliphaz represents their
opinion (v. 17; comp. 27), is not always a punishment, but sometimes a
discipline. The question therefore has forced itself upon them, Has the
calamity which has befallen our friend a judicial or a disciplinary,
educational purpose? At first they may have leaned to the latter
alternative; but Job’s violent outburst, so unbecoming in a devout man,
too clearly pointed in the other direction, and already they are
beginning to lose their first hopeful view of his case. One after
another they debate the question with Job (Eliphaz as the depositary of
a revelation, Bildad as the advocate of tradition, Zophar as the man of
common sense)—the question of the cause and meaning of his sufferings,
which means further, since Job is not merely an individual but a
type,[9] the question of the vast mass of evil in the world. This main
part of the work falls into three cycles of dialogue (ch. iv.-xiv., ch.
xv.-xxi., ch. xxii.-xxxi.) In each there are three pairs of speeches,
belonging respectively to Eliphaz and Job, Bildad and Job, Zophar and
Job. Eliphaz opens the debate as being the oldest (xv. 10) and the most
experienced of Job’s friends. There is much to admire in his speech; if
he could only have adopted the tone of a sympathising friend and not of
a lecturer—
Behold, this have we searched out; so it is;
hear thou it, and know it for thyself (v. 27)—
he might have been useful to the sufferer. At the very beginning he
strikes a wrong key-note, expressing surprise at his friend’s utter loss
of self-control (_vattibbāhēl_, ver. 4), and couching it in such a form
that one would really suppose Job to have broken down at the first taste
of trouble. The view of the speaker seems to be that, since Job is
really a pious man (for Eliphaz does not as yet presume to doubt this),
he ought to feel sure that his trouble would not proceed beyond a
certain point. ‘Bethink thee now,’ says Eliphaz, ‘who ever _perished_,
being innocent?’ (iv. 7.) Some amount of trouble even a good man may
fairly expect; though far from ‘ploughing iniquity,’ he is too weak not
to fall into sins of error, and all sin involves suffering; or, as
Eliphaz puts it concisely—
Man is born to trouble,
as the sparks fly upward (v. 7).
Assuming without any reason that Job would question this, Eliphaz
enforces the moral imperfection of human nature by an appeal to
revelation—not, of course, to Moses and the prophets, but to a vision
like those of the patriarchs in Genesis. Of the circumstances of the
revelation a most graphic account is given.
And to myself came an oracle stealthily,
and mine ear received the whisper thereof,
in the play of thought from nightly visions,
when deep sleep falls upon men,
a shudder came upon me and a trembling,
and made all my bones to shudder,
when (see!) a wind sweeps before me,
the hairs of my body bristle up:
it stands, but I cannot discern it,
I gaze, but there is no form,
before mine eyes (is) ...
and I hear a murmuring voice.[10]
‘Can human kind be righteous before God?
can man be pure before his Maker?
Behold, he trusts not his own servants,
and imputes error to his angels[11]’. (iv. 12-18).
There is no such weird passage in the rest of the Old Testament. It did
not escape the attention of Milton, whose description of death alludes
to it.
If shape it could be called that shape had none,
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed.
(_Par. Lost_, ii. 266.)
A single phrase (‘a murmuring voice,’ ver. 16) is borrowed from the
theophany of Elijah (1 Kings xix. 12), but the strokes which paint the
scene, and which Milton and Blake between them have more than
reproduced, are all his own. The supernatural terror, the wind
betokening a spiritual visitor, the straining eyes which can discern no
form, the whispering voice always associated with oracles[12]—each of
these awful experiences we seem to share. Eliphaz himself recalls his
impressions so vividly that he involuntarily uses the present tense in
describing them.
But why should Eliphaz imagine that because Job had not had a revelation
of this kind he is therefore ignorant of the truth? He actually
confounds the complaints wrung from Job by his unparalleled mental and
bodily sufferings with the ‘impatience’ of the ‘foolish man’ and the
‘passion’ of the ‘silly’ one, and warns him against the fate which
within his own experience befell one such rebellious murmurer against
God—an irrelevant remark, unless he has already begun to suspect Job of
impiety. Then, as if he feels that he has gone too far, he addresses Job
in a more hopeful spirit, and tells him what he would do in his place,
viz. turn trustfully to God, whose operations are so unsearchable, but
so benevolent. Let Job regard his present affliction as a chastening and
he may look forward to even more abundant blessings than he has yet
enjoyed.
In these concluding verses Eliphaz certainly does his best to be
sympathetic, but the result shows how utterly he has failed. He has
neither convinced Job’s reason nor calmed the violence of his emotion.
It is now Job’s turn to reply. He is not, indeed, in a mood to answer
Eliphaz point by point. Passing over the ungenerous reference to the
fate of the rebellious, which he can hardly believe to be seriously
meant, Job first of all justifies the despair which has so astonished
Eliphaz.[13] Since the latter is so cool and so critical, let him weigh
Job’s calamity as well as his words, and see if the extravagance of the
latter is not excusable. Are these arrow wounds the fruit of
chastisement? Does the Divine love disguise itself as terror? The good
man is never allowed to perish, you say; but how much longer can a body
of flesh hold out? Why should I not even desire death? God may be my
enemy, but I have given Him no cause. And now, if He would be my friend,
the only favour I crave is that He would shorten my agony.
Then should (this) still be my comfort
(I would leap amidst unsparing pain),
that I have not denied the words of the Holy One (vi. 10).
Job’s demeanour is thus fully accounted for; it is that of his friends
which is unnatural and disappointing.
My brethren have been treacherous as a winter stream,
as the bed of winter streams which pass away:
(once) they were turbid with ice,
and the snow, as it fell, hid itself in them;
but now that they feel the glow they vanish,
when it is hot they disappear from their place.
Caravans bend their course;
they go up into the desert and perish.
The caravans of Tema looked;
the companies of Sheba hoped for them;[14]
they were abashed because they had been confident;
when they came thither they were ashamed (vi. 15-20).
And was it a hard thing that Job asked of his friends? No; merely
sympathy. And not only have they withheld this; Eliphaz has even
insinuated that Job was an open sinner. Surely neither honesty nor
wisdom is shown in such captious criticism of Job’s expressions.
How forcible is honest language,
and how cogent is the censure of a wise man!
Think ye to censure words,
and the passionate speech of one who is desperate? (vi. 25, 26.)
With an assertion of his innocence, and a renewed challenge to disprove
it, this, the easiest part of Job’s first reply, concludes.
And now, having secured his right to complain, Job freely avails himself
of his melancholy privilege. A ‘desperate’ man cares not to choose his
words, though the reverence which never ceased to exist deep down in
Job’s nature prompts him to excuse his delirious words by a reference to
his bitter anguish (vii. 11). Another excuse which he might have given
lies on the very surface of the poem, which is coloured throughout by
the poet’s deep sympathy with human misery in general. Job in fact is
not merely an individual, but a representative of mankind; and when he
asks himself at the beginning of chap. vii.—
Has not frail man a warfare [hard service] upon earth,
and are not his days like the days of a hireling?—
it is not merely one of the countless thoughts which are like foam
bubbles, but the expression of a serious interest, which raises Job far,
very far above the patriarchal prince of the legend in the Prologue. It
is the very exaggeration of this interest which alone explains why the
thought of his fellow-sufferers not only brings no comfort[15] to Job,
but fails even to calm his excitement.
Am I the sea (he says) or the sea monster,
that thou settest a watch over me? (vii. 12.)
It is an allusion to a myth, based on the continual ‘war in heaven’
between light and darkness, which we have in these lines. Job asks if he
is the leviathan (iii. 8) of that upper ocean above which dwells the
invisible God (ix. 8, Ps. civ. 3). He describes Jehovah as being jealous
(comp. Gen. iii. 4, 5, 22) and thinking it of importance to subdue Job’s
wild nature, lest he should thwart the Divine purposes. But here, again,
Job rises above himself; the sorrows of all innocent sufferers are as
present to him as his own; nay, more, he bears them as a part of his
own; he represents mankind with God. In a bitter parody of Ps. viii. 5
he exclaims—
What is frail man that Thou treatest him as a great one
and settest Thy mind upon him;
that Thou scrutinisest him every morning,
and art every moment testing him? (vii. 17, 18.)
It is only now and then that Job expresses this feeling of sympathetic
union with the human race. Generally his secret thought (or that of his
poet) translates itself into a self-consciousness which seems morbidly
extravagant on any other view of the poem. The descriptions of his
physical pains, however, are true to the facts of the disease called
elephantiasis, from which he may be supposed to have suffered. His cry
for death is justified by his condition—‘death rather than (these) my
pains’[16] (vii. 15). He has no respite from his agony; ‘nights of
misery,’ he says, ‘have been allotted to me’ (vii. 3), probably because
his pains were more severe in the night (xxx. 17). How can it be worth
while, he asks, thus to persecute him? Even if Eliphaz be right, and Job
has been a sinner, yet how can this affect the Most High?
(Even) if I have sinned, what do I unto thee,
O thou watcher of men? (vii. 20.)
What bitter irony again! He admits a vigilance in God, but only the
vigilance of ‘espionage’ (xiii. 27, xiv. 16), not that of friendly
guardianship; God only aims at procuring a long catalogue of punishable
sins. Why not forgive those sins and relieve Himself from a troublesome
task? Soon it will be too late: a pathetic touch revealing a latent
belief in God’s mercy which no calamity could destroy.
Thus to the blurred vision of the agonised sufferer the moral God whom
he used to worship has been transformed into an unreasoning, unpitying
Force. Bildad is shocked at this. ‘Can God pervert judgment’? (viii. 3.)
In his short speech he reaffirms the doctrine of proportionate
retribution, and exhorts Job to ‘seek earnestly unto God’ (viii. 5),
thus clearly implying that Job is being punished for his sins.[17]
Instead of basing his doctrine on revelation, Bildad supports the side
of it relative to the wicked by an appeal to the common consent of
mankind previously to the present generation (viii. 8, 9). This common
consent, this traditional wisdom, is embodied in proverbial ‘dark
sayings,’ as, for instance—
Can the papyrus grow up without marsh?
can the Nile reed shoot up without water?
While yet in its verdure, uncut,
it withers before any grass.
So fares it with all that forget God,
and the hope of the impious shall perish (viii. 11-13).
It is interesting to see at how early a date the argument in favour of
Theism was rested to some extent on tradition. ‘We are of yesterday, and
know nothing,’ says Bildad, ‘because our days on earth are a shadow’
(viii. 9), whereas the wisdom of the past is centuries old, and has a
stability to which Job’s novelties (or, for this is the poet’s meaning,
those of the new sceptical school of the Exile) cannot pretend. But Job
at least is better than his theories, so Eliphaz and Bildad are still
charitable enough to believe, and the closing words of the speech of
Bildad clear up any possible doubt with regard to his opinion of erring
but still whole-hearted[18] (‘perfect’) Job.
Those that hate thee shalt be clothed with shame,
and the tent of the wicked shall be no more (viii. 22).
But Job has much to say in reply. He ironically admits the truth of the
saying, ‘How can man be righteous with God?’ but the sense in which he
applies the words is very different from that given to them by his
friends. Of course God is righteous (‘righteousness’ in Semitic
languages sometimes means ‘victory’), because He is so mighty that no
one, however innocent, could plead successfully before Him. This thought
suggests a noble description of the stupendous displays of God’s might
in nature (ix. 5-10). The verse with which it closes is adopted from
Eliphaz, in whose first speech to Job it forms the text of a quiet
picture of God’s everyday miracles of benevolence to man (v. 9). Where
Eliphaz sees power, wisdom, and love, Job can see only a force which is
terrible in proportion to its wisdom. The predominant quality in this
idol of Job’s imagination is not love, but anger—capricious, inexorable
anger, which long ago ‘the helpers of Rahab’ (another name for the storm
dragon, which fought against the sun) experienced to their cost (ix. 13;
comp. xxvi. 12). Job himself is in collision with this force; and how
should he venture to defend himself? The tortures he endured would force
from him an avowal of untruths (ix. 20). If only God were a man, or if
there were an umpire whose authority would be recognised on both sides,
how gladly would Job submit his case to adjudication! But, alas! God
stands over against him with His rod (ix. 32-34). Bildad had said, ‘God
will not cast away a perfect man’ (viii. 20). But Job’s experience is,
‘He destroys the perfect and the wicked’ (ix. 22). Thus Job has many
fellow-sufferers, and one good effect of his trial is that it has opened
his eyes to the religious bearings of facts which he had long known but
not before now seriously pondered.
At last a milder spirit comes upon the sufferer. He has been in the
habit of communion with God, and cannot bear to be condemned without
knowing the cause (x. 2). How, he enquires, can God have the heart to
torture that which has cost Him so much thought (comp. Isa. lxv. 8, 9)?
A man is not a common potter’s vessel, but framed with elaborate skill.
Thy hands fashioned and prepared me;
afterwards dost thou turn[19] and destroy me?
Remember now that as clay thou didst prepare me,
and dost thou turn me into dust again?
Life and favour dost thou grant me,
and thine oversight guarded my spirit (x. 8, 9, 12).
God appeared to be kind then; but, since God sees the end from the
beginning, it is too clear that He must have done all this simply in
order to mature a perfect human sacrifice to His own cruel self-will.
Job’s milder spirit has evidently fled. He repeats his wish that he had
never lived (x. 18, 19), and only craves a few brighter moments before
he departs to the land of darkness (x. 20-22).
It was not likely that Zophar would be more capable of rightly advising
Job than his elders. Having had no experience to soften him, he pours
out a flood of crude dogmatic commonplaces, and in the complaints wrung
from a troubled spirit can see nothing but ‘a multitude of words’ (xi.
2). Yet he only just misses making an important contribution to the
settlement of the problem. He has caught a glimpse of a supernatural
wisdom, to which the secrets of all hearts are open:—
But oh that God [Eloah] would speak,
and open his lips against thee.
and show thee the secrets of wisdom,
for wondrous are they in perfection![20]
Canst thou find the depths of God [Eloah]?
canst thou reach to the end of Shaddai?
Heights of heaven! what canst thou do?
deeper than Sheól! what canst thou know? (xi. 5-8.)
If Zophar had worked out this idea impartially, he might have given to
the discussion a fresh and more profitable turn. He is so taken up with
the traditional orthodoxy, however, that he has no room for a deeper
view of the problem. His inference is that, in virtue of His perfect
knowledge, God can detect sin where man sees none, though that cruellest
touch of all with which the Massoretic text[21] burdens the reputation
of Zophar is not supported by the more accurate text of the Septuagint,
and we should read xi. 6 thus:
and thou shouldest know that God [Eloah] gives unto thee
thy deserts[22] for thine iniquity.
But indeed a special revelation ought not to be necessary for Job. His
trouble, proceeding as it does from one no less wise than irresistible
(xi. 10, 11), ought to dispel his dream of innocence; as Zophar
generalises, when God’s judgments are abroad—
(Even) an empty head wins understanding,
and a wild ass’s colt is new-born as a man (xi. 12).
We may pass over the brilliant description of prosperity consequent on a
true repentance with which the chapter concludes. It fell quite unheeded
on the ears of Job, who was more stung by the irritating speech of
Zophar than by those of Eliphaz and Bildad.
The taunt conveyed indirectly by Zophar in xi. 12 is exposed in all its
futility in the reply of Job. Zophar himself, however, he disdains to
argue with; there is the same intolerable assumption of superiority in
the speeches of all the three, and this he assails with potent sarcasm.
No doubt ye are mankind,
and with you shall wisdom die.
I too have understanding like you,
and who knows not the like of this? (xii. 2, 3.)
In what respect, pray, is he inferior to his friends? Has Eliphaz
enjoyed a specially unique revelation? Job has had a still better
opportunity of learning spiritual truth in communion of the heart with
God (xii. 4). Is Bildad an unwearied collector of the wisdom of
antiquity? Job too admits the value of tradition, though he will not
receive it unproved (xii. 11, 12). In declamation, too, Job can vie with
the arrogant Zophar; Job’s description of the omnipotence of God forms
the counterpart of Zophar’s description of His omniscience. But of what
account are generalities in face of such a problem as Job’s? The
question of questions is not, Has God all power and all wisdom, but,
Does He use them for moral ends? The three friends refuse to look facts
in the face; the _righteous_ God (we must understand the words, _if
there be one_) will surely chastise them for insincerity and
partisanship (xiii. 10).
And now Job refuses to waste any more words on his opponents.
But as for me, to Shaddai would I speak,
I crave to reason with God;
But ye—are plasterers of lies,
patchers of that which is worthless.
Your commonplaces are proverbs of ashes;
your bulwarks are bulwarks of clay (xiii. 3, 4, 12).
He forms a new project, but shudders as he does so, for he feels sure of
provoking God thereby to deadly anger. Be it so; a man who has borne
till he can bear no longer can even welcome death.
Behold, let him slay me; I can wait [be patient] no longer;[23]
still I will defend my ways to his face (xiii. 15).
It is the sublimest of all affirmations of the rights of conscience. Job
is confident of the success of his plea: ‘This also (guarantees) victory
to me, that an impious man cannot come before him’ (xiii. 16) with such
a good conscience. Thus virtue has an intrinsic value for Job, superior
to that of prosperity or even life: moral victory would more than
compensate for physical failure. He indulges the thought that God may
personally take part in the argument (xiii. 20-22), and in anticipation
of this he sums up the chief points of his intended speech (xiii.
23-xiv. 22), such as, ‘How many[24] are my sins,’ and ‘Why chase dry
stubble?’ (xiii. 23, 25). Sad complaints of the melancholy lot of
mankind follow, reminding us again that Job, like Dante in his
pilgrimage, is not only an individual but a representative.
Man that is born of woman,
short-lived and full of unrest,
comes up as a flower and fades,
flies as a shadow and continues not.
And upon such an one keepest thou thine eye open,
and me dost thou bring into judgment with thee! (xiv. 1-3.)
Hard enough is the natural fate of man; why make it harder by
exceptional severity? An early reader misunderstood this, and thought to
strengthen Job’s appeal by a reference (in ver. 4) to one of the
commonplaces of Eliphaz (iv. 17-21). But ver. 5 shows that the idea
which fills the mind of Job is the shortness of human life.[25] A tree,
when cut down according to the rules still current in Syria,[26]
displays a marvellous vitality; but man is only like the falling leaves
of a tree (xiii. 25), or (the figure preferred here) like the canals of
Egypt when the dykes and reservoirs are not properly kept up (xiv. 11;
comp. Isaiah xix. 5, 6). If it were God’s will to ‘hide’ Job in dark
Sheól for a time, and then to recall him to the light, how gladly would
he ‘wait’ there, like a soldier on guard (comp. vii. 1), till his
‘relief’ came (xiv. 14)!—a fascinating thought, on which, baseless
though he considers it, Job cannot forbear to dwell. And the beauty of
the passage is that the happiness of restoration to conscious life
consists for Job in the renewal of loving communion between himself and
his God (xiv. 15). Alas! the dim light of Sheól darkens the glorious
vision and sends Job back into despair.
Footnote 4:
Jerome already saw this. He represents the Book of Job as composed
mainly in hexameters with a dactylic and spondaic movement (_Præf. in
Job_). Does he mean double trimeters?
Footnote 5:
Where is the ‘Uz’ spoken of in Job i. 1? The ‘land of _Uzza_’ seems to
have been not far from the Orontes (Shalmaneser’s Obelisk; see Friedr.
Delitzsch’s _Paradies_, p. 259). Tradition places the home of Job in
the fertile volcanic region called the Haurân (see the very full
excursus in Delitzsch’s _Job_). But the ‘land of Uz’ _might_ be
farther south, nearer to Edom, in connection with which it is
mentioned, Lam. iv. 21, Gen. xxxvi. 28 (comp. ver. 21). This is
supported by the curious note appended to the Book of Job in the
Septuagint. It is true that Uz is called a son of Aram (Gen. x. 23),
but ‘Uz’ may have had several branches, or the use of Aramaic may have
extended far beyond the limits of Aram proper.
Footnote 6:
Of the three friends Eliphaz comes from the Edomitish district of
Teman, so famous for its wisdom; Bildad from the land of Shuah (‘Suhu’
lay, according to the inscriptions, between the mouths of the Belich
and the Khabur, confluents of the Euphrates); Zophar from Naamah, some
unknown district east of the Jordan. How well these notes of place
agree with the Aramaic colouring of the book!
Footnote 7:
Bishop Lowth (_Prælect._ xxxiii.) admires the dramatic tact with which
the poet makes Job err at first merely by the exaggeration of his
complaints, thus inviting censure, which in turn leads to bold
misstatements on Job’s part.
Footnote 8:
For a late Egyptian incantation of this class see Ancessi, _Job et le
Rédempteur_, pp. 240-1; for the dragon myth itself see Cheyne’s note
in the _Prophecies of Isaiah_ (on Isa. xxvii. 1) and in the _Pulpit
Comm. on Jeremiah_ (on Jer. li. 34).
Footnote 9:
See Chap. VII. (end of Section 2).
Footnote 10:
The translation follows Bickell’s text. The correction in line 2 of
ver. 16 is from the Septuagint; the transposition in line 4 is
suggested by 1 Kings xix. 12.
Footnote 11:
So xv. 15. M. Lenormant compares Gen. vi. 1-4 (an incomplete
fragment). See above on the ‘sons of the Elohim’ of the prologue, and
comp. Chap. X.
Footnote 12:
Compare the Hebrew _ne’ūm_ in a common prophetic formula.
Footnote 13:
The following lines develope what Job may be supposed to have had in
his mind.
Footnote 14:
Thomson has finely but inaccurately paraphrased this, changing the
localities:—
‘In Cairo’s crowded streets
The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.’
(_Summer_, 980-2; of the caravan which perished in the storm.)
Footnote 15:
Contrast the touchingly natural expressions of an Arabian poet,
translated by Rückert (_Hamâsa_, ii. 315):—
‘Gieng es nicht wie mir vil andern,
Würd’ ich’s nicht ertragen;
Doch wo ich nur will, gibt Antwort
Klage meinen Klagen.’
The same sentiment is expressed more than once again; comp. Buddha’s
apologue of the mustard seed.
Footnote 16:
So Merx and Bickell. Text, ‘my bones.’
Footnote 17:
Bildad more than implies that the fate which overtook Job’s children
was the punishment of iniquity (viii. 4). Wonderful harshness!
Footnote 18:
See viii. 20. Bildad agrees with the statement in the prologue (i. 1).
Footnote 19:
Following Sept., with Merx and Bickell.
Footnote 20:
Comp. Isa. xxviii. 29 (Heb.) By a slight error of the ear the copyist
whom our Hebrew Bibles follow put a Yōd for an Alef. Hence the
Massoretic critics pronounce _kiflayim_ ‘twofold,’ instead of
_kif’lāim_ ‘like wonders:’ following this text, Davidson renders,
‘that it is double in (true) understanding.’
Footnote 21:
Literally ‘... that God brings into forgetfulness for thee some of thy
guilt.’
Footnote 22:
Following Sept., with Bickell. Comp. the Hebrew of Job xxxiii. 27.
Footnote 23:
This rendering is based on the reading of the Hebrew margin. The
Hebrew text has, ‘Behold, should he slay me, for him would I wait,’
implying an expectation of a Divine interposition in Job’s favour
after his death. But this idea is against the connection; besides
which the restrictive particle ‘only’ (nearly = still) agrees better
with the other reading and rendering. ‘Wait’ means ‘wait for a change
for the better,’ as in vi. 11, which occurs in a similar context.
Footnote 24:
He admits that he is not without sins (comp. ver. 26).
Footnote 25:
Comp. the well-known lamentation of Moschus (iii. 106-111).
Footnote 26:
See the notices from Wetzstein in Delitzsch.