DATE AND PLACE OF COMPOSITION.
We have seen (Chap. VII.) that the unity of authorship of the Book of
Job is not beyond dispute, but we shall not at present assume the
results of analysis. Let us endeavour to treat of the date and place of
composition on the hypothesis that the book is a whole as it stands (on
the Elihu-portion however, comp. Chap. XII.) It is at any rate probable
that the greater part of it at least proceeds from the same period. Can
that period be the patriarchal? The author has sometimes received credit
for his faithful picture of this early age. This is at any rate
plausible. For instance, he avoids the use of the sacred name Jehovah,
revealed to Moses according to Ex. vi. 3. Then, too, the great age
ascribed to Job in the Epilogue (xlii. 16) agrees with the notices of
the patriarchs. The uncoined piece of silver (Heb. _kesita_) which each
kinsman of Job gave him after his recovery (xlii. II), is only mentioned
again in Gen. xxxiii. 19 (Josh. xxiv. 32). The musical instruments
referred to in xxi. 12, xxx. 31, are also mentioned in Gen. iv. 21,
xxxi. 27. There is no protest against idolatry either in the Book of
Job[88] or in Genesis. Job himself offers sacrifices to the one true
God, like the patriarchs, and the kind of sacrifice offered is the
burnt-offering (i. 5, xlii. 8), there is no mention of guilt-or
sin-offerings. The settled life of Job, too, as described in the
Prologue is not inconsistent with the story of Jacob’s life in the vale
of Shechem,[89] though in reality the author probably described it from
his observation of settled life in Arabia. But none of these allusions
required any special gift of historical imagination. The tone of the few
descriptive passages in the Colloquies, and of the reflections
throughout, is that of an age long subsequent to the patriarchal. The
very idea of wise men meeting together to discuss deep problems (as in
the later Arabic _maqāmāt_, compared by Bertholdt and others) is an
anachronism in a ‘patriarchal’ narrative, and (like the religious
position of the speeches in general) irresistibly suggests the
post-Solomonic period. The Job of the Colloquies is a travelled citizen
of the world at an advanced period of history; indeed, he now and then
seems expressly to admit this (xxiv. 12, xxix. 7). It is therefore
needless to discuss the theory which assigns the book to the Mosaic or
pre-Mosaic age,—a theory which is a relic of the cold, literal,
unsympathetic method of the critics of the last two centuries. A few
scholars of eminence, feeling this, placed the poem in the Solomonic
period, a view which is in itself plausible, if we consider the
pronounced secular turn of the great king, and his recorded taste for
eastern parabolistic ‘wisdom,’ but which falls with the cognate theory
of the authorship of Proverbs. A more advanced stage of society than
that of the period referred to, and a greater maturity of the national
intellect, are presupposed on every page of the poem. The tone of the
book—I refer especially to the Colloquies—suggests a time when the
nationalism of the older periods had, in general, ceased to satisfy
reflecting minds. The doubters, whom Job and his friends represent, have
been so staggered in their belief in Israel’s loving God, that they
decline to use His revealed name:—[90] once or twice only does it slip
in (xii. 9; cf. xxviii. 28), as if to show that the poet himself has
fought his way to a reconciling faith. As is clear from the cognate
psalms xxxvii., xlix., lxxiii., the patriarchal theory of prosperity and
adversity had been found wanting. Doubts had arisen, most painful in
their intensity, from observing the disproportion between character and
fortune—doubts which might indeed insinuate themselves at any time, but
acquire an abnormal force in a declining community (ix. 24, xii. 4-6,
23, and especially chap. xxi.) Some had even ventured on positive
doctrinal heresy. In opposition to these, Eliphaz professes his adhesion
to the tradition of the fathers, in whose time religion was untainted by
alien influence (xv. 17-19). It is merely an incidental remark of
Eliphaz, but it points to a date subsequent to the appearance of Assyria
on the horizon of Palestine. For it was the growing influence of that
power, which, for good and for evil, modified the character of
Israelitish religion both in its higher and in its lower forms.
Precise historical allusions are almost entirely wanting. We may,
however, infer with certainty that the book was written subsequently to
the ‘deportation’ of Israel, or of Judah, or at the very least of some
neighbouring people (xii. 17-19; comp. xv. 19[91]). For the uprooting of
whole peoples from their original homes was peculiar to the Assyrian
policy.[92] But which of these forced expatriations is intended?—We are
not _compelled_ to think of the Babylonian Exile by the reference to the
Chaldæans in the Prologue. The Chaldæans might have been known to a
well-informed Hebrew writer ever since the ninth century B.C., at which
time they became predominant in the southern provinces on the lower
Euphrates: we find Isaiah, speaking of the ‘land of Chaldæa’ (Isa.
xxiii. 13) in the eighth century. Still I own that the description of
the Chaldæans as _robbers_ does appear to me most easily explained by
supposing a covert allusion to the invasions of Nebuchadnezzar.[93] The
Assyrians are indeed once called ‘treacherous dealers’ by Isaiah
(xxxiii. 1), but the Babylonians impressed the Hebrew writers by their
rapacity far more than the Assyrians. The ‘unrighteous’ of the Psalms
are, when foreigners are spoken of, not the Assyrians, but either the
Babylonians or still later oppressors (e.g. Ps. cxxv. 3); and the
description of the Babylonians in the first chapter of Habakkuk strongly
reminds us of those complaints of Job, ‘The earth is given over into the
hand of the unrighteous’ (ix. 24), and ‘The robbers’ tents are in peace,
and they that provoke God are secure, they who carry (their) god in
their hand’ (xii. 6; comp. Hab. i. 11, 16).
The view here propounded might be supported by an argument from
linguistic data (see Chap. XIII.) which would lead us into details out
of place here. It is that of Umbreit, Knobel, Grätz, and (though he does
not exclude the possibility of a later date) the sober and thorough
Gesenius. Long after the present writer’s results were first committed
to paper, he had the rare satisfaction of finding them advocated, so far
as the date is concerned, in a commentary by a scholar of our own who
has the best right to speak (A. B. Davidson, Introduction to _The Book
of Job_, 1884). On the other hand, Stickel, Ewald, Magnus, Bleek, Renan
(1860), Kuenen (1865), Hitzig, Reuss, Dillmann, Merx, prefer to place
our poem in the period between Isaiah and Jeremiah, and this seems to me
the earliest date from which the composition and significance of the
book can be at all rightly understood. Reasons enough for this statement
of opinion will suggest themselves to those who have followed me
hitherto; let me now only add that the pure monotheism of the Book makes
an earlier date, on historical principles, hardly conceivable.[94] A
later date than the Exile-period is not, I admit, inconceivable (see
Vatke, _Die biblische Theologie_, i. 563 &c.), and is now supported by
Kuenen.[95] If there were an allusion to the doctrine of the
Resurrection, in xix. 26, or if the portraiture of Job were (as Kuenen
thinks it is) partly modelled on the Second Isaiah’s description of the
Servant of Jehovah, I should in fact be driven to accept this view. I
have stated above that I cannot find the Resurrection in _Job_, and in
_Isaiah_, ii. 267 that the priority of _Job_ seems to me to be made out.
I need not combat Clericus and Warburton, who ascribe the authorship of
_Job_ to Ezra. For Jeremiah (Bateson Wright) or the author of
Lamentations (i.e. Baruch, according to Bunsen) something might perhaps
be said, but—Ezra!
As to the place of composition. Hitzig and Hirzel think of Egypt on
account of the numerous allusions to Egypt in the book; and so Ewald
with regard to xl. 15-xli. 34. ‘Die ganze Umgebung ist egyptisch,’ says
Hitzig with some exaggeration.[96] More might be said in favour of the
theory which places the author in a region where Arabic and Aramaic
might both be heard. Stickel, holding the pre-Exile origin of the book,
supposed it to have come from the far south-east of Palestine. Nowhere
better than in the hill-country of the South could the poet study simple
domestic relations, and also make excursions into N. Arabia. He thus
accounts[97] for the points of contact between the Book of Job and the
prophecy of Amos of Tekoa (see below, Chap. XI.), which include even
some phonetic peculiarities (the softening of the gutturals and the
interchange of sibilants). To me, the whole question seems well-nigh an
idle one. The author (or, if you will, the authors) had travelled much
in various lands, and the book is the result. The place where is of far
less importance than the time when it was composed.
Footnote 88:
The absence of such a protest is characteristic of the
Wisdom-literature in general. The reference to star-worship in Job
xxxi. 26 suggests a date subsequent to the origination of the title
‘Jehovah (God) of Hosts.’ See appendix to Isa. i. in my commentary.
Footnote 89:
Mr. Tomkins compares Job’s mode of life with that of Abram before his
departure from Kharran (_Studies on the Times of Abraham_, 1878, p.
61).
Footnote 90:
I cannot go quite so far as Lagarde, who argues from the use of
‘Eloah’ (instead of ‘Elohim’ and ‘Jehovah’) that the doubters have
cast off belief in all the supposed various manifestations of divinity
in the world, and merely retain a comfortless belief in τὸ θεῖον.
‘Numen quoddam esse non negant, sed’ &c. _Psalterium Hieronymi_, pp.
155-6 (‘Corollarium’).
Footnote 91:
Job xv. 19 certainly implies the siege and capture of Jerusalem by
some foreign foe. Comp. Joel iii. (Heb. iv.) 17.
Footnote 92:
Dr. Barth quotes Am. i. 6, ii. 1-3, ix. 11, 15 in proof that
‘deportation’ also took place in the ‘pre-Assyrian’ time. But, in
fact, Amos is not ‘pre-Assyrian.’
Footnote 93:
It is no sufficient objection that the ravages of the Chaldæans in Job
are on a small scale, nor yet that side by side with them are
mentioned the Sabeans, surely not those of S. Arabia (Noldeke), but
those of N. Arabia (Delitzsch), detachments of whom might have
encamped on the borders of Edom. Comp. Wetzstein in Delitzsch’s _Iob_,
ed. 2, p. 596 &c.
Footnote 94:
I write this with deference to the contrary opinion of Delitzsch, who
is, however, too prejudiced against late dates, and biassed by his
belief in the authenticity of the Song of Hezekiah. If the Book of Job
be pre-Hezekian, it is of course natural to throw it back to the age
of Solomon.
Footnote 95:
_Theologisch Tijdschrift_, 1873, p. 538.
Footnote 96:
_Das Buch Hiob_ (1874), p. xlix.
Footnote 97:
_Das Buch Hiob_ (1842), p. 276.