The preceding books of scripture are, for the most part, plain and easy narratives, which he that runs may read and understand: but in the five poetical books, on which we are now entering, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon’s song, are many things hard to be understood. These therefore require a more close application of mind, which yet the treasures they contain will abundantly recompence. The former books were mostly historical: these are doctrinal and devotional. And they are wrote in verse, according to the ancient rules of versifying, tho’ not in rhythm, nor according to the rules of latter tongues. Job is a kind of heroic poem; the book of Psalms a collection of sacred odes, Solomon’s song, a Divine pastoral. They are all poetical, yet serious and full of majesty. They have a poetic force and flame, without poetic fury, move the affections, without corrupting the imagination; and while they gratify the ear, improve the mind, and profit the more by pleasing. We have here much of God, his infinite pefections, and his government both of the world, and of the church. And we have much of Christ, who is the spring, and soul, and center of revealed religion. Here is what may enlighten our understandings, and acquaint us with the deep things of God. And this divine light may bring into the soul a divine fire, which will kindle and inflame devout affections, on which wings we may soar upwards, until we enter into the holiest. We are certain that the book of Job is a true history. That there was such a man as Job, undeniably appears, from his being mentioned by the prophet, together with Noah and Daniel, Ezekiel 14:14, and the narrative we have of his prosperity and piety, his strange afflictions and exemplary patience, the substance of his conferences with his friends, and God’s discourse with him out of the whirlwind, with his return to a prosperous condition, are no doubt exactly true. We are sure also this book is very ancient, probably of equal date with the book of Genesis itself. It is likely, Job was of the posterity of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, whose first-born was Uz, and in whose family religion was kept up, as appears Genesis 31:53, where God is called not only the God of Abraham, but the God of Nahor. He lived before sacrifices were confined to one altar, before the general apostacy of the nations, and while God was known by the name of God Almighty, more than by the name of Jehovah: for he is called Shaddai, the Almighty, above thirty times in this book. And that he lived before (probably very little before) the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, we may gather from hence, that there is no allusion at all to that grand event throughout the whole book.
In this noble poem we have, 1. A monument of primitive theology; 2. A specimen of Gentile piety: for Job was not of the promised seed, no Israelite, no proselyte: 3. An exposition of the book of providence, and a clear solution of man difficult passages therein: 4. A great example of patience and close adherence to God in the deepest calamities: and 5. An illustrious type of Christ, emptied and humbled, in order to his greater glory. In this book we have, an account of Job’s sufferings, chap. 1, 2, Not without a mixture of human frailty, chap. 3. A dispute between him and his three friends, chap. 4-31. The interposal of Elihu, and of God himself, chap. 32-41. The end of all in Job’s prosperity, chap. 42.
Adam Clarke
Preface to the Book of Job
CLA_JOB.PDF, source PDF p. 3
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 24: “thus, psalm 33:9, הוא אמר ויהי hu amar vaiyehi, ‘he”. paragraph 125: “each instance equally appropriate: ישׂישׂ יהוה yasis yehovah—cwcm awh”. paragraph 359: “inscription to this psalm, תפלה משה איש האלהים tephillah mosheh ish haelohim”. paragraph 397: “will not repent, qdxyklm אתה כהן לעולם על דברתי atah cohen leolam al”. source PDF page 9: “thus, Psalm 33:9 ויהי אמר הוא hu amar vaiyehi ‘He”. source PDF page 12: “each instance equally appropriate: יהוה ישׂישׂ yasis Yehovah משׂושׂ הוא”. source PDF page 21: “inscription to this Psalm, האלהים איש משה תפלה tephillah Mosheh ish haelohim”. source PDF page 27: “will not repent דברתי על לעולם כהן אתה atah cohen leolam al”. Compared with CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 3, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 9, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 12, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 21, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 27. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: an automated comparison of surrounding English text located possible corresponding passages in OCR from separately digitized printed volumes. The linked scan pages are research locators; their images have not been collated for this note's flagged readings. OCR agreement does not verify Greek or Hebrew letters, diacritics, word order, or table layout. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain. CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 3; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 9; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 12; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 21; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 27; Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified).
PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF JOB
THIS is the most singular book in the whole of the Sacred Code: though written by the same inspiration, and in reference to the same end, the salvation of men, it is so different from every other book of the Bible, that it seems to possess nothing in common with them, for even the language, in its construction, is dissimilar from that in the Law, the Prophets, and the historical books. But on all hands it is accounted a work that contains “the purest morality, the sublimest philosophy, the simplest ritual, and the most majestic creed.” Except the two first chapters and the ten last verses, which are merely prose, all the rest of the book is poetic; and is every where reducible to the hemistich form, in which all the other poetic books of the Bible are written: it is therefore properly called a POEM; but whether it belongs to the dramatic or epic species has not been decided by learned men. To try it by those rules which have been derived from Aristotle, and are still applied to ascertain compositions in these departments of poetry, is, in my opinion, as absurd as it is ridiculous. Who ever made a poem on these rules? And is there a poem in the universe worth reading that is strictly conformable to these rules? Not one. The rules, it is true, were deduced from compositions of this description:—and although they may be very useful, in assisting poets to methodize their compositions, and to keep the different parts distinct; yet they have often acted as a species of critical trammels, and have cramped genius. Genuine poetry is like a mountain flood: it pours down, resistless, bursts all bounds, scoops out its own channel, carries woods and rocks before it, and spreads itself abroad, both deep and wide, over all the plain. Such, indeed, is the poetry which the reader will meet with in this singular and astonishing book. As to Aristotle himself, although he was a keen-eyed plodder of nature, and a prodigy for his time; yet if we may judge from his poetics, he had a soul as incapable of feeling the true genie createur, as Racine terms the spirit of poetry, as he was, by his physics, metaphysics, and analogies, of discovering the true system of the universe.
As to the book of Job, it is most evidently a poem, and a poem of the highest order; dealing in subjects the most grand and sublime; using imagery the most chaste and appropriate; described by language the most happy and energetic; conveying instruction, both in Divine and human things, the most ennobling and useful; abounding in precepts the most pure and exalted, which are enforced by arguments the most strong and conclusive, and illustrated by examples the most natural and striking. All these points will appear in the strongest light to every attentive reader of the book; and to such its great end will be answered: they will learn from it, that God has way every where: that the wicked, though bearing rule for a time, can never be ultimately prosperous and happy; and that the righteous, though oppressed with sufferings and calamities, can never be forgotten by Him in whose hands are his saints, and with whom their lives are precious; that in this world neither are the wicked ultimately punished, nor the righteous ultimately rewarded; that God’s judgments are a great deep, and his ways past finding out; but the issues of all are to the glory of his wisdom and grace, and to the eternal happiness of those who trust in him. This is the grand design of the book, and this design will be strikingly evident to the simplest and most unlettered reader, whose heart is right with God, and who is seeking instruction, in order that he may glorify his Maker, by receiving and by doing good.
Notwithstanding all this, there is not a book in Scripture on the subject of which more difficulties have been started. None, says Calmet, has furnished more subjects of doubt and embarrassment; and none has afforded less information for the solution of those doubts. On this subject the great questions which have been agitated refer, principally, 1. To the person of Job. 2. To his existence. 3. To the time in which he lived. 4. To his country. 5. To his stock or kindred. 6. To his religion. 7. To the author of the book. 8. To its truth. 9. To its authenticity; and, 10. To the time and occasion on which it was written.
With respect to the first and second, several writers of eminent note have denied the personality of Job; according to them, no such person ever existed; he is merely fabulous, and is like the Il penseroso, or sorrowful man of Milton; sorrow, distress, affliction, and persecution personified, as the name imports. According to them, he is a mere ideal being, created by the genius of the poet; clothed with such attributes, and placed in such circumstances, as gave the poet scope and materials for his work. Thirdly, as to the time in which those place him who receive this as a true history, there is great variety. According to some, he flourished in the patriarchal age; some make him contemporary with Moses; that he was in the captivity in Egypt, and that he lived at the time of the exodus. Some place him in the time of the Israelitish judges; others in the days of David; others, in those of Solomon; and others, in the time of the Babylonish captivity, having been teacher of a school at Tiberias in Palestine, and, with the rest of his countrymen, carried away into Babylon; and that he lived under Ahasuerus and Esther. Fourthly, as to his country: some make him an Arab; others, an Egyptian; others, a Syrian; some an Israelite; and some, an Idumean. Fifthly, as to his origin: some derive him from Nachor, and others from Esau, and make him the fifth in descent from Abraham. Sixthly, as to his religion: some suppose it to have been Sabæism; others, that it was patriarchal; and others, that he was bred up in the Jewish faith. Seventhly, as to the author of the work, learned men are greatly divided: some suppose the author to have been Elihu; others, Job; others, Job and his friends; others, Moses; some, Solomon; others, Isaiah; and others, Ezra, or some unknown Jew, posterior to the captivity. Eighthly, as to the book: some maintain that it is a history of fact, given by one best qualified to record it; and others, that it is an instructive fiction—facts, persons, dialogues and all, being supposititious; given, however, by the inspiration of God, in a sort of parabolic form, like those employed in the Gospel; and similar to that of the rich man and Lazarus. Ninthly, as to its authenticity: while some, and those not well qualified to judge, have asserted it to be a mere human production, of no Divine authority; others have clearly shown that the book itself, whatever questions may arise concerning the person, author, time, place, &c., was ever received by the Jewish Church and people as authentic, genuine, and divinely inspired; and incorporated, with the highest propriety, among the most instructive, sublime, and excellent portions of Divine revelation. Tenthly, as to the occasion on which it was written, there are considerable differences of opinion: some will have it to be written for the consolation of the Hebrews in their peregrinations through the wilderness; and others, for the comfort and encouragement of the Israelites in the Babylonish captivity: these state that Job represents Nehemiah, and that his three professed friends, but real enemies, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, represent Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian! and that the whole book should be understood and interpreted on this ground; and that, with a little allowance for poetic colouring, all its parts perfectly harmonize, thus understood; showing, in a word, that into whatsoever troubles or persecutions God may permit his people to be brought, yet he will sustain them in the fire, bring them safely through it, and discomfit all their enemies: and that whatsoever is true on this great scale, is true also on that which is more contracted; as he will equally support, defend, and finally render conqueror, every individual that trusts in him.
I shall not trouble my readers with the arguments which have been used by learned men, pro and con, relative to the particulars already mentioned: were I to do this, I must transcribe a vast mass of matter, which, though it might display great learning in the authors, would most certainly afford little edification to the great bulk of my readers. My own opinion on those points they may naturally wish to know; and to that opinion they have a right: it is such as I dare avow, and such as I feel no disposition to conceal. I believe Job to have been a real person, and his history to be a statement of facts.
As the preface to this book (I mean the first chapter) states him to have lived in the land of Uz, or Uts, I believe, with Mr. Good and several other learned men, this place to have been “situated in Arabia Petræa, on the south-western coast of the lake Asphaltites, in a line between Egypt and Philistia, surrounded with Kedar, Teman, and Midian; all of which were districts of Arabia Petræa; situated in Idumea, the land of Edom or Esau; and comprising so large a part of it, that Idumea and Ausitis, or the land of Uz, and the land of Edom, were convertible terms, and equally employed to import the same region: thus, Lamentations 4:21: ‘Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz.”’ See Mr. Good’s Introductory Dissertation; who proceeds to observe: “Nothing is clearer than that all the persons introduced into this poem were Idumeans, dwelling in Idumea; or, in other words, Edomite Arabs. These characters are, Job himself, dwelling in the land of Uz; Eliphaz of Teman, a district of as much repute as Uz, and (upon the joint testimony of Jeremiah 49:7, 20; Ezekiel 25:13; Amos 1:11, 12, and Obadiah 1:8, 9) a part, and a principal part, of Idumea; Bildad of Shuah, always mentioned in conjunction with Sheba and Dedan, all of them being uniformly placed in the vicinity of Idumea; Zophar of Naamah, a city whose name imports pleasantness, which is also stated, in Joshua 15:21, 41, to have been situated in Idumea, and to have lain in a southern direction towards its coast, or the shores of the Red Sea; and Elihu of Buz, which as the name of a place occurs but once in sacred writ, but is there (Jeremiah 25:22, 23) mentioned in conjunction with Teman and Dedan; and hence necessarily, like themselves, a border city upon Ausitis, Uz, or Idumea. It had a number of names: it was at first called Horitis, from the Horim or Horites, who appear to have first settled there. Among the descendants of these, the most distinguished was Seir; and from him the land was known by the name of the Land of Seir. This chief had a numerous family, and among the most signalized of his grandsons was Uz, or Uts; and from him, and not from Uz the son of Nahor, it seems to have been called Ausitis, or the Land of Uz. The family of Hor, Seir, or Uz, were at length dispossessed of the entire region by Esau, or Edom; who strengthened himself by his marriage with one of the daughters of Ishmael; and the conquered territory was denominated Idumea, or the land of Edom.” I think this is conclusive as to the country of Job and his friends. See Mr. Good as above.
The man and his country being thus ascertained, the time in which he lived is the point next to be considered.
I feel all the difficulties of the various chronologies of learned men: all that has been offered on the subject is only opinion or probable conjecture; and, while I differ from many respectable authors, I dare not say that I have more to strengthen my opinion than they have to support theirs. I do not believe that he lived under the patriarchal dispensation; nor in any time previous to the giving of the Law, or to the death of Moses. I have examined the opposite arguments, and they have brought no conviction to my mind. That he lived after the giving of the Law appears to me very probable, from what I consider frequent references to the Mosaic institutions occurring in the book, and which I shall notice in their respective places. I know it has been asserted there are no such references; and I am astonished at the assertion: the reader will judge whether a plain case is made out where the supposed references occur. An obstinate adherence to a preconceived system is like prejudice; it has neither eyes nor ears.
With this question, that relative to the author of the book is nearly connected. Were we to suppose that Job himself, or Elihu, or Job and his friends, wrote the work, the question would at once be answered that regards the time; but all positive evidence on this point is wanting: and while other suppositions have certain arguments to support them, the above claimants who are supported only by critical conjecture, must stand where they are for want of evidence. The opinions that appear the most probable, and have plausible arguments to support them, are the following:
1. Moses was the author of this book, as many portions of it harmonize with his acknowledged writings. 2. Solomon is the most likely author, as many of the sentiments contained in it are precisely the same with those in the Proverbs; and they are delivered often in nearly the same words. 3. The book was written by some Jew, in or soon after the time of the Babylonish captivity.
1. That Moses was the author has been the opinion of most learned men; and none has set the arguments in support of this opinion in so strong a light as Mr. Mason Good, in his Introductory Dissertation to his translation and notes on this book. Mr. G. is a gentleman of great knowledge, great learning, and correct thinking; and whatever he says or writes is entitled to respect. If he have data, his deductions are most generally consecutive and solid. He contends, “that the writer of this poem must in his style have been equally master of the simple and of the sublime; that he must have been minutely and elaborately acquainted with Astronomy, Natural History, and the general science of his age; that he must have been a Hebrew by birth and native language, and an Arabian by long residence and local study; and, finally, that he must have flourished and composed the work before the exodus.” And he thinks that “every one of these features is consummated in Moses, and in Moses alone; and that the whole of them give us his complete lineaments and portraiture. Instructed in all the learning of Egypt, it appears little doubtful that he composed it during some part of his forty years’ residence with the hospitable Jethro, in that district of Idumea which was named Midian.” In addition to these external proofs of identity, Mr. Good thinks, “a little attention will disclose to us an internal proof, of peculiar force, in the close and striking similarity of diction and idiom which exists between the book of Job and those pieces of poetry which Moses is usually admitted to have composed. This point he proceeds to examine; and thinks that the following examples may make some progress toward settling the question, by exhibiting a very singular proof of general parallelism. “The order of creation, as detailed in the first chapter of Genesis, is precisely similar to that described in Job 38:1-20, the general arrangement that occupied the first day;—the formation of the clouds, which employed the second;—the separation of the sea, which took up a part of the third;—and the establishment of the luminaries in the skies, which characterized the fourth.
“In this general description, as given in Genesis, the vapour in the clouds, and the fluid in the sea, are equally denominated waters: thus, Genesis 1:5-7, ‘And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.’
He driveth together the waters into His thick clouds;
And the cloud is not rent under them.—
He setteth a bow on the face of the waters,
Till the consummation of light and of darkness.
“These are, perhaps, the only instances in the Bible in which the cloudy vapours are denominated waters, before they become concentrated into rain; and they offer an identity of thought, which strongly suggests an identity of person. The following is another very striking peculiarity of the same kind, occurring in the same description, and is perhaps still more in point. The combined simplicity and sublimity of Genesis 1:3, ‘And God said, Be light! and light was,’ has been felt and praised by critics of every age, Pagan and Mohammedan, as well as Jewish and Christian; and has by all of them been regarded as a characteristic feature in the Mosaic style. In the poem before us we have the following proof of identity of manner, Job 37:6:—
Behold! He saith to the snow, Be!
On earth then falleth it.
To the rain—and it falleth;—
The rains of his might.
“This can hardly be regarded as an allusion, but as an instance of identity of manner. In the psalmist we have an allusion: and it occurs thus, Psalm 33:9, הוא אמר ויהי hu amar vaiyehi, ‘He spake, and it existed;’ and I copy it that the reader may see the difference. The eulogy of Longinus upon the passage in Genesis is a eulogy also upon that in Job; and the Koran, in verbally copying the psalmist, has bestowed an equal panegyric upon all of them:—
[Arabic]
DIXIT, ‘ESTO;’ ET FUIT.—He said, BE THOU; and it WAS.
“With reference to the description of the creation, in the book of Genesis, I shall only farther observe, that the same simplicity of style, adapted to so lofty a subject, characteristically distinguishes the writer of the book of Job, who commonly employs a diction peculiarly magnificent, as though trusting to the subject to support itself, without the feeble aid of rhetorical ornaments. Of this the description of the tribunal of the Almighty, given in the first and second chapters of the ensuing poem, is a striking example, as indeed I have already remarked; and that of the midnight apparition in the fourth chapter is no less so.
“The following instances are of a more general nature, and lead, upon a broader principle, to the same conclusion:—
Ch. Ver. JOB Ch. Ver. EXODUS
13 24 Wherefore accountest thou
me thine enemy?
15 7 Thou sentest forth thy
wrath, Consuming them as
stubble.
4 9 By the blast of God they
perish; And by the breath
of His nostrils they are
consumed.
8 And with the blast of thy
nostrils The waters were
gathered together.
15 24 Distress and anguish
dismay him; They
overwhelm him as a king
ready for battle.
10 Thou didst blow with thy
wind: The sea covered
them.
20 26 Terrors shall be upon
him— Every horror
treasured up in reserve for
him. A fire unblown shall
consume him.
16 Terror and dread shall fall
upon them: By the might
of thine arm they shall be
still as a stone.
JOB DEUTERONOMY
27 The heavens shall disclose
his iniquity, And the earth
shall rise up against him.
28 22 And Jehovah shall smite
thee with a consumption;
And with a fever, and with
an inflammation,
18 15 Brimstone shall be rained
down upon his dwelling.
And with an extreme
burning
16 Below shall his root be
burnt up, And above shall
his branch be cut off.
23 And the heaven over thy
head shall be brass And
the earth under thee, iron.
12 17 Counsellors he leadeth
captive, And judges he
maketh distracted.
24 And Jehovah shall make
the rain of thy land
powder and dust; From
heaven shall it come down
upon thee, Until thou be
destroyed.
24 He bewildereth the
judgment of the leaders of
the people of a land, And
causeth them to wander in
a pathless desert:
28 Jehovah shall smite thee
with destruction, And
blindness, and
astonishment of heart..
7 25 They grope about in
darkness, even without a
glimpse; Yea, he maketh
them to reel like the
drunkard.
28 29 And thou shalt grope at
noonday, As the blind
gropeth in darkness: And
thou shalt not prosper in
thy ways: And thou shalt
only be oppressed. And
consumed continually
8 17 His roots shall be
entangled in a rock; With
a bed of stones shall he
grapple
18 Utterly shall it drink him
up from his place; Yea, it
shall renounce him, and
say, “I never knew thee.”
63 And it shall come to pass,
As Jehovah exulted over
you, To do you good, and
to multiply you, So will
Jehovah exult over you, To
destroy you, and reduce
you to naught.
19 Behold the Eternal
exulting in his course;
Even over his dust shall
rise up another.
“In this specimen of comparison it is peculiarly worthy of remark, that not only the same train of ideas is found to recur, but in many instances the same words, where others might have been employed, and perhaps have answered as well; the whole obviously resulting from the habit of thinking upon subjects in the same manner, and by means of the same terms which is common to every one, and which distinguishes original identity from intentional imitation. I will only advert to one instance: the use of the very powerful, but not very common verb cc sis, ‘to exult,’ exulto, glorior, gauriaw, which occurs in the last verse of both the above passages, and is in each instance equally appropriate: ישׂישׂ יהוה yasis Yehovah—cwcm awh hu mesos, [Arabic]
“The same term is again employed, Job 39:21, to express the spirited prancing of the high mettled war-horse.
“The above passage from Job 8:19 has not been generally understood, and has been given erroneously in the translations.” Mr. Good, in his notes, p. 101-103, enters at large into a defense of his version of this passage. Ch Ver Job Ch. Ver. Deuteronomy
8 8 For examine, I beseech
thee, the past age; Yea, gird
thyself to the study of its
forefathers;
32 7 Reflect on the days of old;
Contemplate the times of
ages beyond ages; Inquire
of thy father, and he will
show thee;
10 Shall not they instruct thee,
counsel thee, And swell
forth the sayings of their
wisdom?
Thine elders, and they will
instruct thee.
20 17 He shall not behold the
branches of the river,
Brooks of honey and
butter.—
13 He gave him to suck honey
out of the rock, And oil
out of the flinty rock,
29 6 When my path flowed with
butter, And the rock poured
out for me rivers of oil.
14 Butter of kine, and milk of
sheep.
15 27 Though his face be
enveloped with fatness, And
heaped up with fatness on
his loins.
15 But Jeshurun waxed fat,
and kicked: Thou art
waxen fat, thou art grown
thick; Thou art enveloped
with fatness.
6 4 The arrows of the Almighty
are within me; Their poison
drinketh up my spirit: The
terrors of God set
themselves in array against
me;.
23 I will heap mischiefs upon
them, I will spend my
arrows upon them.
16 13 His arrows fly around me;
He pierceth my reins
without mercy
42 I will make mine arrows
drunk with blood.
“The fine pathetic elegy of the ninetieth psalm has been usually ascribed to Moses; and Dathe imagines it was written by him a little before his death. “Kennicott and Geddes have some doubt upon this point, chiefly because the ultimate period assigned in it to the life of man is fourscore years; while Moses was at his death a hundred and twenty years old, yet ‘his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated;’ Deuteronomy 34:7. “The following comparison will, perhaps, have a tendency to confirm the general opinion, by rendering it probable that its author and the author of the Book of Job were the same person.
Ch. Ver. JOB Ch. Ver. PSALM
14 2 He springeth up as a flower,
and is cut down;
90 5 They are like the
passing grass of the
morning;
Yea, he fleeth as a shadow,
and endureth not.
6 In the morning it
springeth up and
groweth: In the evening
it is cut down and
withereth.
3 And dost thou cast thine eyes
upon such a one? And
wouldst thou bring me into
judgment with thyself?
7 For we are consumed by
thine anger, And by thy
wrath are we troubled.
16 Yet now art thou numbering
my steps; Thou overlookest
nothing of my sins:—
8 Thou hast set our
iniquities before thee:
Our secret sins in the
light of thy countenance.
18 And for ever, as the
crumbling mountain
dissolveth, And the rock
mouldereth away from his
place,
9 Behold, all our days are
passed away in thy
wrath, We spend our
years as a tale that is
told.
19 So consumest thou the hope
of man,
10 Their strength is labour
and sorrow; It is soon
cut off, and we flee
away.
Thou harassest him
continually till he perish
12 So teach us to number
our days That we may
apply our hearts unto
wisdom.,
7 21 Why wilt thou not turn away
from my transgression, And
let my calamity pass by?
14 O satisfy us early with
thy mercy, That we may
rejoice and be glad all
our days
11 14 If the iniquity of thy hand
thou put away, And let not
wickedness dwell in thy
tabernacles,
15 Make us glad according
to the days of our
affliction, To the years
we have seen evil:
16 Lo! then shalt thou forget
affliction;As waters passed
by shalt thou remember it:
Let thy wonders be
shown unto thy servants
And thy glory unto their
children;
17 And brighter shall the time
be than noontide; Thou shalt
shine forth, thou shalt grow
vigorous, like the day-spring.
And let the beauty of
Jehovah, our God, be
upon us, And establish
thou the work of our
hands
“The strictly and decidedly acknowledged productions of Moses are but few; and in the above examples I have taken a specimen from by far the greater number. It is, indeed, not a little astonishing that, being so few, they should offer a resemblance in so many points.
“There may at times be some difficulty in determining between the similarity of style and diction resulting from established habit, and that produced by intentional imitation; yet, in the former case, it will commonly, if I mistake not, be found looser, but more general; in the latter, stricter, but more confined to particular words or idioms; the whole of the features not having been equally caught, while those which have been laid hold of are given more minutely than in the case of habit. The manner runs carelessly through every part, and is perpetually striking us unawares; the copy walks after it with measured but unequal pace, and is restless in courting our attention. The specimens of resemblance now produced are obviously of the former kind: both sides have an equal claim to originality, and seem very powerfully to establish a unity of authorship.” Thus far Mr. Good; who has, on his own side of the question, most certainly exhausted the subject. The case he has made out is a strong one: we shall next examine whether a stronger cannot be made out in behalf of Solomon, as the second candidate for the authorship of this most excellent book.
2. That this book was the work of Solomon was the opinion of some early Christian writers, among whom was Gregory Nazianzen; and of several moderns, among whom were Spanheim and Hardouin. The latter has gone so far as to place the death of Job in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of David; and he supposes that Solomon wrote the work in question, about the second or third year of his reign. On this last opinion no stress whatever should be placed.
As the argument for Moses has been supported by supposed parallelisms between his acknowledged works and the Book of Job, so has that which attributes the latter to Solomon. That Solomon, from his vast learning and wisdom, was capable of such a work, none can deny. His knowledge in astronomy, natural history, politics, theology, languages, and the general science of his age, must have given him at least equal qualifications to those possessed by Moses. And if he was the author of the Book of Canticles, which most men believe, he had certainly a poetic mind, equal, if not superior, to all the writers who had existed previously to his time. The Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes are almost universally attributed to him: now, in the Book of Job, there are a multitude of sentiments, sentences, terms, and modes of speech, which are almost peculiar to Solomon, as will appear from the whole books.
In both we find the most exalted eulogium of wisdom. See Job 28:12; Proverbs 8:11, &c. Job says, “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, that is understanding;” Job 28:28. Solomon says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction;” Proverbs 1:7.
Job speaks of the state of the dead nearly in the same terms as Solomon: compare Job 21:33; 12:22; 36:5, with Proverbs 9:18. Job says, Job 26:6, “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.” Solomon says, Proverbs 15:11, “Hell and destruction are before the Lord; how much more the hearts of the children of men?” Job says, “Man drinketh iniquity like water;” Job 15:16. And Elihu charges him with “drinking up scorning like water;” Job 34:7. The same image occurs in Solomon, Proverbs 26:6: “He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool drinketh damage.”
In Job 15:34 it is said, “Fire shall consume the tabernacle of bribery.” The same turn of thought occurs Proverbs 15:27: “He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.” Both speak of weighing the spirits or winds. See Job 28:25; Proverbs 16:2 But to me the parallelism in these cases is not evident, as both the reason of the saying, and some of the terms in the original, are different. Job tells his friends, “If they would hold their peace, it would be their wisdom;” Job 13:5. Solomon has the same sentiment in nearly the same words, Proverbs 17:28: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”
Solomon represents the rephaim or giants as in hell, or the great deep; Proverbs 2:18; 9:18; 7:27. The like sentiment is in Job 26:5. See the Hebrew.
In Job 27:16, 17, it is said that “If the wicked heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay; the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver.” The like sentiment is found, Proverbs 28:8: “He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather for him that will pity the poor.” Solomon says, Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall:” and, “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty; and before honour is humility;” Proverbs 18:12: and, “A man’s pride shall bring him low; but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.” The same sentiment is expressed in Job 22:29: “When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is a lifting up; and he shall save the humble person.” Both speak nearly in the same way concerning the creation of the earth and the sea. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?— Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued from the womb?” Job 38:4-8. This seems a reference to the flood. In Proverbs 8:22-29 Wisdom says: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way—when as yet he had not made the earth—when he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth.” These are precisely the same kind of conceptions, and nearly the same phraseology.
In Job 20:7 it is said, “The wicked shall perish for ever, like his own DUNG.” And in Proverbs 10:7 it is said, “The name of the wicked shall ROT.”
It would not be difficult to enlarge this list of correspondences by a collation of passages in Job and in Proverbs; but most of them will occur to the attentive reader. There is, however, another class of evidence that appears still more forcible, viz.: There are several term used frequently in the Book of Job and in the books of Solomon which are almost peculiar to those books, and which argue an identity of authorship. The noun hyvt tushiyah, which may signify essence, substance, reality, completeness, occurs in Job and Proverbs. See Job 5:12; 6:13; 11:6; 12:16; 26:3, and Job 30:22; Proverbs 2:7; 3:21; 8:14, and Proverbs 18:1. And it occurs only twice, as far as I can recollect, in all the Bible besides; viz., Isaiah 28:29, and Micah 6:9. The word hwh havvah, used in the sense of misfortune, ruinous downfall, calamity, occurs Job 6:2, 30; 30:13, and in Proverbs 10:3; 11:6; 17:4; 19:13. It occurs nowhere else, except once in Ezekiel 7:26, once in Micah 7:3, and a few times in the Psalms, Psalm 5:9; 52:2, 7; 55:12; 91:3; 94:20; 37:12; 62:3.
The word twlbjt tachbuloth, wise counsels, occurs only in Job 37:12, and in Proverbs 1:5; 11:14; 12:5; 20:18; 24:6; and nowhere else in the Bible in this form. And htp potheh, the silly one, simpleton, fool, is used precisely in the same sense in Job 5:2; Proverbs 19:7, and in various other parts of the same book. The word אבדון, abaddon, destruction, Job 26:6; 28:22; 31:12, connected sometimes with lwav sheol, hell, or the grave; and twm maveth, death, occurs as above, and in Proverbs 15:11; 27:20.
Calmet, who refers to several of the above places, adds: It would be easy to collect a great number of similar parallel passages; but it must make a forcible impression in favour of this opinion when we observe in Job and Proverbs the same principles, the same sentiments, the same terms, and some that are found only in Job and Solomon. We may add farther, the beauty of the style, the sublimity of the thoughts, the dignity of the matter, the form and order in which the materials of this writer are laid down, the vast erudition and astonishing fecundity of genius, all of which perfectly characterize Solomon.
Besides the above, we find many forms of expression in this book which prove that its author had a knowledge of the law of God, and many which show that he was acquainted with the Psalms of David, and a few very like what we find in the writings of the prophets. I shall insert a few more:— Job 15:27: Because he
The remarkable sentiment that “God, as Sovereign of the world, does treat the righteous and the wicked, independently of their respective merits, with a similar lot in this life, and that like events often happen to both,” is maintained in the Book of Job and the Ecclesiastes of Solomon. Job 9:22-24: “He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where and who is he?” Job 10:15: “If I be wicked, wo unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head.” Job 9:15: “Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer; I would make supplication to my Judge.” Job 12:6: “The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.” Job 21:7-9: “Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea are mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.”
Similar sentiments, with a great similarity of expression, are found in the following passages from Solomon. Ecclesiastes 6:8: “For what hath the wise more than the fool?” Ecclesiastes 8:14: “There be just men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked. Again, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous.” Ecclesiastes 9:2: “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not. As is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.” Ecclesiastes 7:15: “There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness; and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.”
I may conclude this with the words of a learned translator of the book of Job, and apply in reference to Solomon what he applies to Moses: “The specimens of resemblance now produced have an equal claim to originality, and seem very powerfully to establish a unity of authorship.” I think the argument much stronger in favour of Solomon as its author than of Moses: and while even here I hesitate, I must enter my protest against the conclusions drawn by others; and especially those who profess to show where David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, &c., have copied and borrowed from Job! Some of them, in all probability, never saw the book; and those who did had an inspiration, dignity, manner, and power of their own, that rendered it quite unnecessary to borrow from him. Such plagiarism would appear, in common cases, neither requisite nor graceful. I have a high opinion of the book of Job, but God forbid that I should ever bring it on a level with the compositions of the sweet singer of Israel, the inimitable threnodies of Jeremiah, or the ultra-sublime effusions of the evangelical prophet. Let each keep his place, and let God be acknowledged as the inspirer of all.
Thus, by exactly the same process, we come to different conclusions; for the evidence is now as strong that Job lived posterior to the days of Moses; that he was acquainted with the Law and the Prophets; that either he took much from the Psalms and Proverbs, or that David and Solomon borrowed much from him; or that Solomon, the son of David, wrote the history; as it is that he lived in the days of Moses.
For my own part, I think the later date by far the most probable; and although I think the arguments that go to prove Solomon to be the author are weightier than those so skilfully brought forth by learned men in behalf of Moses, yet I think if possible that it was the work of neither, but rather of some learned Idumean, well acquainted with the Jewish religion and writers; and I still hold the opinion which I formed more than thirty years ago, when I read over this book in the Septuagint, and afterwards in the Hebrew, that it is most probable the work was originally composed in Arabic, and afterwards translated into Hebrew by a person who either had not the same command of the Hebrew as he had of the Arabic, or else purposely affected the Arabic idiom, retaining many Arabic words and Arabisms; either because he could not find appropriate expressions in the Hebrew, or because he wished to adorn and enrich the one language by borrowing copiously from the other. The Hebrew of the book of Job differs as much from the pure Hebrew of Moses and the early prophets, as the Persian of Ferdoosy differs from that of Saady. Both these were Persian poets; the former wrote in the simplicity and purity of his elegant native language, adopting very few Arabic words; while the latter labours to introduce them at every turn, and has thus produced a language neither Persian nor Arabic. And so prevalent is this custom become with all Persian writers, both in prose and verse, that the pure Persian becomes daily more and more corrupted, insomuch that there is reason to fear that in process of time it will be swallowed up in the language of the conquerors of that country, in which it was formerly esteemed the most polished language of Asia. Such influence has the language of a conqueror on the country he has subdued; witness our own, where a paltry French phraseology, the remnant of one of the evils brought upon us by our Norman conqueror and tyrant, has greatly weakened the strong current of our mother tongue; so that, however amalgamated, filed, and polished by eminent authors, we only speak a very tolerable jargon, enriched, as we foolishly term it, by the spoils of other tongues. The best specimen of our ancient language exists in the Lord’s prayer, which is pure English, or what is called Anglo-Saxon, with the exception of three frenchified words, trespasses, temptation, and deliver.
But to return to the book of Job. The collections of Mr. Good, Dr. Magee, and others, if they do not prove that Moses was the author of the book, prove that the author was well acquainted with the Mosaic writings; and prove that he was also acquainted with the ninetieth Psalm; and this last circumstance will go far to prove that he lived after the days of David, for we have no evidence whatever that the ninetieth Psalm was published previously to the collection and publication of the Psalms now generally termed the Psalms of David, though many of them were written by other hands, and not a few even after the Babylonish captivity. And, as to the inscription to this Psalm, תפלה משה איש האלהים tephillah Mosheh ish haelohim, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God;” 1. We know not that Moses the Jewish lawgiver is meant: it might be another person of the same name. 2. And even in that case it does not positively state that this Moses was the author of it. 3. The inscriptions to the Psalms are of dubious, and many of them of no authority: some of them evidently misplaced; and others either bearing no relation to the matter of the Psalms to which they are prefixed, or evidently contradictory to that matter. Hence our translators have considered these inscriptions as of no authority; and have not admitted them, in any case, into the body of their respective Psalms. The parallelism, therefore, drawn from this Psalm, will not help much to prove that Moses was the author of the book of Job; but it will go far to prove, as will be seen in other cases, that the author of this book was acquainted with the book of Psalms, as several of the preceding collections testify; and that there is a probability that he had read the prophets that lived and wrote in the time, and after the time, of the Babylonish captivity, which appears to me the only thing that shakes the argument in favour of Solomon; unless we take the converse of the question, and say that Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, all knew and borrowed from the book of Job. But this supposition will, in its turn, be shaken by the consideration that there are several things in the book of Job which evidently refer to the law as already given, and to some of the principal occurrences in the Israelitish history, if such references can be made out. These considerations have led me to think it probable that the book was written after the captivity by some unknown but highly eminent and inspired man. We may wonder, indeed, that the author of such an eminent work has not been handed down to posterity; and that the question should be left at the discretion of the whole limbus of conjecture; but we find, not only several books in the Bible, but also other works of minor importance and a later date, similarly circumstanced. We have no certain evidence of the author of the books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, or Esther; we can, in reference to them, make probable conjectures, but this is all. Even in the New Testament the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is still unknown; though a pretty general tradition, and strong internal evidence, give it to St. Paul; yet this point is not so proved as to exclude all doubt. The finest poems of heathen antiquity, the Iliad and Odyssey, cannot be certainly traced to their author. Of the person called Homer, to whom they have been attributed, no one knows any thing. He is still, for aught we know, a fabulous person; and the relations concerning him are entitled to little more credit than is due to the Life of Æsop by Planudes. Seven different cities have claimed the honour of being his birth-place. They are expressed in the following distich:—
Nor have these claims ever been adjusted. Some have gone so far as to attribute the work to Solomon, king of Israel, composed after his defection from the true religion to idolatry! that the word Homer, JOmhrov Homeros, is merely Hebrew, אמרים omerim, with a Greek termination, signifying the sayings or discourses, from rma amar, he spoke; the whole work being little more than the dialogues or conversations of the eminent characters of which it is composed. Even the battles of Homer are full of parleys; and the principal information conveyed by the poem is through the conversation of the respective chiefs.
The Makamaton, or assemblies, of the celebrated Arabic author Hariri, show us how conversations were anciently carried on among the Arabs, and even in the same country in which the plan of the poem of Job is laid; and were we closely to compare the sex concessus of that author, published by Schultens, we might find many analogies between them and the turn of conversation in the book of Job. But the uncertainty relative to the author detracts nothing from the merit and excellency of the poem. As it is the most singular, so it is the best, as a whole, in the Hebrew canon. It exhibits a full view of the opinions of the eastern sages on the most important points; not only their religion and system of morals are frequently introduced, but also their philosophy, astronomy, natural history, mineralogy, and arts and sciences in general; as well those that were ornamental, as those which ministered to the comforts and necessities of life. And on a careful examination, we shall probably find that several arts, which are supposed to be the discoveries of the moderns, were not unknown to those who lived in a very remote antiquity, and whom it is fashionable to consider as unlettered and uncultivated barbarians. As the person, family, time, and descendants of Job are so very uncertain, I shall not trouble my readers with the many genealogical tables which have been constructed by chronologists and commentators; yet it might be considered a defect were I not to notice what is inserted at the end of the Greek and Arabic Versions relative to this point; to which I shall add Dr. Kennicott’s Tables, and the substance of a letter which contains some curious particulars.
“And he (Job) dwelt in the land of Ausitis, in the confines of Idumea and Arabia; and his former name was Jobab. And he took to wife Arabissa, and begat a son whose name was Ennon. And his (Jobab’s) father’s name was Zarith, one of the sons of the children of Esau; and his mother’s name was Bosora; and thus he was the fifth from Abraham.”
“And these are the kings who reigned in Edom; which region he also governed; the first was Balak, the son of Beor, the name of whose city was Dennaba. And after Balak reigned Jobab, who is also called Job. And after him Assom, the governor of the country of the Temanites. After him Adad, the son of Basad, who cut off Madian in the plain of Moab; and the name of his city was Gethaim.”
“The friends who came to visit him were Eliphaz, son of Sophan, of the children of Esau, king of the Temanites. Baldad, the son of Amnon, of Chobar, tyrant of the Sauchites. Sophar, king of the Minaites. Thaiman, son of Eliphaz, governor of the Idumeans.”
“This is translated from the Syriac copy. He dwelt in the land of Ausitis, on the borders of the Euphrates; and his former name was Jobab; and his father was Zareth, who came from the east.” This is verbatim from the Codex Alexandrinus.
The Arabic is not so circumstantial, but is the same in substance. “And Job dwelt in the land of Auz, between the boundaries of Edom and Arabia; and he was at first called Jobab. And he married a strange woman, and to her was born a son called Anun. But Job was the son of Zara, a descendant of the children of Esau; his mother’s name was Basra, and he was the sixth from Abraham. Of the kings who reigned in Edom, the first who reigned over that land was Balak, the son of Beor, and the name of his city was Danaba. And after him Jobab, the same who is called Job. And after Job, he (Assom) who was prince of the land of Teman. And after him (Adad) the son of Barak, he who slew and put to flight Madian, in the plains of Moab; and the name of his city was Jatham. And of the friends of Job who visited him was Eliphaz, the son of Esau, king of the Temanites.” Dr. Kennicott says, When Job lived seems deducible from his being contemporary with Eliphaz, the Temanite, thus:—
ABRAHAM
1 ISAAC 1
2 Esau. Jacob. 2
3 Eliphaz. Levi. 3
4 Teman. Kohath. 4
5 Eliphaz the Temanite. Amram-Job. 5
Moses.
The late Miss Mary Freeman Shepherd, well known for her strong masculine genius, and knowledge of various languages, sent me the following genealogy and remarks, which she thought would clearly ascertain the time of Job. I faithfully transcribe them from her letter to me, a short time before her death.
“Shem, two years after the flood, begat Arphaxad and Uz, and also Aram — 2
Arphaxad begat Salah at — 35
Salah begat Eber at — 30
Eber begat Peleg at — 34
Peleg, in whose time the earth was divided, begat Reu at — 30 Reu begat Serug at — 32
Serug begat Nahor at — 30
Nahor begat Terah at — 29
Terah begat Abraham at — 70
Abraham begat Ishmael at eighty-six, Israel at — 100
Isaac married at forty, soon after, probably at forty-three, Esau and Jacob born — 43
Jacob married at forty, had Reuben his first-born, and Levi born of Leah, by the time he was forty-four — 44
Levi begat Kohath, suppose at — 40
Kohath begat Amram, suppose at — 40
Amram begat Moses, suppose at — 40
Total After the deluge — 599
“Shem was the father of Aram, who gave his name to the Aramites, i.e., the Syrians; and he was the father of Uz, who gave his name to the land of Uz, in which JOB dwelt, not was born, for the text says, There was a man in the land of Uz, called Job.
“In Genesis 46:13, one of the sons of Issachar is named Job. In the genealogies of Numbers 26:24, and in 1 Chronicles 7:1, he is called Jashub. It is remarkable that there is no mention in Chronicles of the sons of Jashub, or of any of the sons of Issachar, among the thousands of Israel, sons of Tola, where, might not Job be called Jashub? Mitzraim, i.e., Egypt, was a son of Ham; Uz and Aram, sons of Shem; Ishmael by Hagar, and Midian by Keturah, both sons to Abram. How well does this account for the nearness of the languages of these people, being scions from the same mother tongue!
“Ishmael, the father of the tribes of Arabia; Arabic was, therefore, not their mother tongue. The roots of these languages germinated from the Hebrew roots, and so a new language sprang up, afterwards formed according to grammatic rules, and enriched as arts and sciences, and cultivated genius, added new inventions. Things new and unknown before gave rise to new words or names. Nouns, and the action, operation, and effects of arts and sciences, produced verbs or roots. Thus the Arabic become so copious and rich, and has roots not in the pure original Hebrew. All this considered, might not Moses have written the book of Job, as parts of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel were written, after the captivity, in a mixed language, in order that it might be the better understood by those for whom it was written; those of the people who, being left in Jerusalem, had retained their native Hebrew; and those who had, by long residence in Babylon, corrupted and mingled it with the Chaldaic, which is a dialect of the Hebrew, like the modern language of Italy when compared with that of ancient Rome, or our modern Latin when compared with that of the Augustan age. “By the influence of climate upon the organs of speech, the different avocations, usages, diet, turn of mind, and genius of men, the dialects which all streamed from one language, and pronounced in one and the same speech, confounded, (not annihilated, troubled, but not dried up,) no new language then created, yet so confounded in utterance that they understood not one another’s speech. The operation was upon the ear of the heart, as in the day of pentecost: one man spoke, and all, though of different tongues, understood; the ear suggested the various sounds to the tongue, and from thence the varied pronunciations of one and the same language often makes it misunderstood.
“Shem, who lived five hundred and two years after the deluge, being still alive, and in the three hundred and ninety-third year of his life, when Abram was born, therefore the Jewish tradition that Shem was the Melchisedek, (my righteous king of Salem,) an epithet, or title of honour and respect, not a proper name, and, as the head and father of his race, Abraham paid tithes to him; this seems to me well founded, and the idea confirmed by these remarkable words, Psalm 110:4, Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, qdx-yklm אתה כהן לעולם על דברתי atah cohen leolam al dibrathi malki-tsedek. As if he had said, Thou, my only-begotten Son, first-born of many brethren; not according to the substituted priesthood of the sons of Levi, who, after the sin of the golden calf, stood up in lieu of all the first-born of Israel, invested with their forfeited rights of primogeniture of king and priest; the Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, (change,) Thou art a priest for ever after the (my order of Melchisedek, my own original primitive) order of primogeniture; even as Shem the man of name, the Shem that stands the first and foremost of the sons of Noah. The righteous prince and priest of the most high God meets his descendant Abraham after the slaughter of the kings, with refreshments; blessed him as the head and father of his race, and as such, he receives from Abraham the tithe of all the spoil.
“How beautifully does Paul of Tarsus, writing to the Hebrews, point through Melchisedek,—Shem, the head and father of their race, invested in all the original rights of primogeniture, priest of the most high God, blessing Abraham as such, as Levi even had existence, and as such receiving tithe from Abraham, and in him from Levi yet in the loins of his forefathers, when Moses on this great and solemn occasion records simply this: Melchisedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, sine genealogia; his pedigree not mentioned, but standing, as Adam in St. Luke’s genealogy, without father and without mother, Adam of God, Luke 3:38;—how beautifully, I say, doth St. Paul point through Melchisedek to Jehoshua our great High Priest and King, whose eternal generation who shall declare! Hammashiach, the Lord’s Anointed, Priest, and King, after the order of Melchisedek, only begotten first-born Son! The Levitical priesthood that arose from the sin of the golden calf and the forfeited rights of the first-born, in whose stead stood the sons of Levi, (the reward of their zeal for God, on that sad occasion.) This right of primogeniture, as the streams of Jordan at the presence of God, conversus est retrorsum, to its fountain head; and Judah was his sanctuary, Psalm 114:2. Reuben forfeited by incest his excellence; Simeon and Levi, the right in priority of birth, theirs; and Judah, he to whom his brethren should bow down as their head. From the time of Abraham, who married a sister of Haran, prince of the tribe of Judah, to the time of Jesus, the tribes of Levi and Judah intermarried: thus was incorporated the source and streams in one. And the very names of all the sons of the tribes of Israel lost in one, that of Jehudah, from which they call themselves Jehudim.
“The shebit, tribe, not sceptre, the rod or ensign of the chief of a tribe. ‘The tribe, genealogy, shall not recede from Jehudah until Shiloh come;’ for whose genealogy they subsist. Ten, by the schism of Jeroboam, may be carried away beyond the river, and heard of no more; but Jehudah, Levi, and Benjamin, shall be tribes; and their registers shall be clear and unbroken until the temple and city and all the registers of genealogy are destroyed. The people are one; one people worshipping one God. ‘I have prayed,’ said Jehoshua Mashiach, ‘that ye might be one in me, as I and my Father are one.’
“Ham, the son of Noah, begat Cush, and Cush begat Nimrod, and Saba, and others. Nimrod began a monarchy, and founded Babel. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh. Nimrod was therefore contemporary with Peleg. Compare Genesis 2:8, 9, with Genesis 9:10-25.
“Thus, in about two hundred and ten or twenty years after the deluge, by the confusion of tongues, was the earth divided; as its inhabitants, dispersing no doubt in families together formed themselves into nations, people, and tribes and kindreds, and from thence into tongues. “From the knowledge I have of the Hebrew, I have caught a glance of the genius, spirit, and tone of the general march of the oriental tongues, and even of the expression of their character. To me the book of Job seems to have much of the Chaldee, both in words and idiom, and much of the sublimity and spirit of the writings of Moses. His grand descriptions of the Most High, his wondrous works, his power, wisdom, justice, and truth, all speak the historian of Genesis, the legislator of Israel, the unconsumed fire of the burning bush, the loud thunders of Sinai, and the shinings of the light of God. That pointed exactness and conciseness of narration that distinguish Moses, are also conspicuous in the book of Job. If Moses did indeed write this book, he wrote it for the nations, as well as for Israel; and took, as the best vehicle of a general conveyance, a language most generally understood. At this day, for the facilitating of intercourse in the Levant, Mediterranean, Archipelago, &c., there is a language called Linsua Franca, the language of the Franks. To Israel Moses conveyed the pure language of their fathers; but rather than the nations should be famished for bread, or die for thirst, he put manna in their coarse earthen vessels, and wine in their wooden cups.
“You see, my dear sir, how strong is female obstinacy; I struggle and contend for the body of Moses. I admire Moses; I admire Job. God, by the prophet Ezekiel and the apostle St. James, ascertains the history of Job to be a fact, not a fiction. And thus inspiration sustains its inspiration. “Will you, dear sir, think it worth while to collect and put together these scattered scraps, as little pegs to better shelves, which you must furbish, smooth, and point;—too hard a work for Mary the aged? Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God: and in him see all truth.”—M. F. S. Miss Shepherd is a strong auxiliary to Mr. Good; still I remain unconvinced. My readers must choose for themselves.
The history of Job, but strangely disguised, is well known among the Asiatics. He is called by the Arabic and Persian historians [Persian] Ayoub, which is exactly the same as the Hebrew bwya Ayoub, which Europeans have strangely metamorphosed into Job. In the Tareekh Muntekheb his genealogy is given thus: Ayoub the son of Anosh, the son of Razakh, the son of Ais, (Esau,) the son of Isaac. He was a prophet, and was afflicted by a grievous malady three years, or according to others, seven years; at the end of which, when eighty years of age, he was restored to perfect health, and had a son named Bash ben Ayoub. Other writers say he had five sons, with whom he made war on a brutal people called Dsul Kefel, whom he exterminated because they refused to receive the knowledge of the true God, whom he preached to them. Khondemir, who entitles him Job the patient, gives us his history in the following manner:—
“Job, by his father’s side, was descended from Esau, and by his mother from Lot. Abou Giaffer al Tabary relates that God sent him to preach to the inhabitants of Thaniah, a people who dwelt between Remla and Damascus; but three persons only received the truth. Nevertheless, as he was very zealous in the service of God, he rewarded his faith and obedience by heaping riches upon him, and giving him a numerous family. This excited the envy of the devil, who, presenting himself before God, accused Job as one who was selfish in his devotion; and, were it not for the temporal blessings which he received from his Maker, he would not worship even once in the day. God having given Satan permission to spoil Job of his goods, and deprive him of his children, he gave the same proofs of his piety, worshipping God as before, and patiently bearing his great losses. Satan, enraged to be thus baffled, presented himself once more before God, and asserted that Job continued thus faithful because he knew that God would reward his constancy with an equal or even greater portion of earthly blessings: but if he would afflict his body by some grievous disease, he would soon abandon his service, and be at the end of his patience. In order fully to show the piety of this exemplary man, God permitted Satan to afflict his body as he pleased, with the exception of his eyes, his ears, and his tongue. The devil, having received this permission, blew up the nostrils of Job such a pestilential heat as immediately turned his whole mass of blood into corruption, so that his whole body became one ulcer, the smell of which was so offensive that his greatest intimates could not approach him; and he was obliged to be carried out of the city, and laid in a distant place entirely by himself. Notwithstanding, Job continued both his patience and piety. His wife, Rosina, never forsook him, but continued daily to bring him the necessaries of life. Satan observing this, stole from her the provision she had made for her husband; and when reduced to the lowest ebb, he appeared to her under the form of an old bald woman, and told her, that if she would give her the two tresses of hair that hung down on her neck, she would provide her daily with what was necessary for her husband’s support. This offer appearing so very advantageous in behalf of her afflicted husband, she accepted the offer, and gave the two tresses to the old woman.
“Satan, overjoyed at the success of his plots, went to Job, told him that his wife had been caught in the act of adultery, and that her tresses had been cut off, and here was the proof of the fact. Job, seeing this, and finding his wife without her tresses, not supposing that he was deceived by the devil, lost his patience, and bound himself by an oath, that if he should ever recover his health he would inflict on her the most exemplary punishment. Satan, supposing he had now gained his end, transformed himself into an angel of light, and went throughout the country as a messenger of God, informing the people that Job, who was counted a prophet, had fallen from his piety and brought the wrath of God upon him; that they should no more listen to his preaching, but banish him from among them, lest the curse of God should fall on the whole country.
“Job, coming to understand how the matter stood, had recourse to God by faith and prayer, and said these remarkable words, which are found in the KORAN: ‘Distress closes me in on every side: but thou, O Lord, art more merciful than all those who can feel compassion.’ On this all his pains and sufferings immediately ceased; for Gabriel, the faithful servant of the Most High, descended from heaven, took Job by the hand, and lifting him up from the place where he lay, stamped on the ground with his foot, and immediately a spring of water rose up from the earth, out of which Job having drunk, and washed his body, he was instantly cleansed of all his ulcers, and restored to perfect health.
“God, having thus restored him, greatly multiplied his goods, so that the rain and the snow which fell around his dwelling were precious; and his riches became so abundant, as if showers of gold had descended upon him.”
This is the sum of the account given by the oriental historians, who, forsaking the truth of the sacred history, have blended the story with their own fables. The great facts are however the same in the main; and we find that with them the personality, temptation, and deliverance of Job, are matters of serious credibility. Abul Faragius says that the trial of Job happened in the twenty-fifth year of Nahor, son of Serug; thus making him prior to Abraham. He calls him [Arabic] Ayoub assadeek, Job the righteous. See Abul Faragius, Ebn Batric, D’Herbelot, &c. Commentators have considered this book as being divided into distinct parts. Mr. Good, who considers it a regular Hebrew epic, divides it into six parts or books, which he considers to be its natural division, and unquestionably intended by the author. These six parts are, an opening or exordium, containing the introductory history or decree concerning Job; three distinct series of arguments, in each of which the speakers are regularly allowed their respective turns; the summing up of the controversy; and the close of the catastrophe, consisting of the suffering hero’s grand and glorious acquittal, and restoration to prosperity and happiness.
PART I.—The TEMPTATION of Job decreed
Which contains.—1. A brief narrative of Job. 2. The tribunal of the Almighty. 3. His remarks to Satan concerning Job’s fidelity. 4. Satan’s reply. 5. The Almighty consents to his temptation. 6. Return of the celestial tribunal. 7. The fidelity of Job proved and declared. 8. Satan insinuates that he would not have proved true had the attack been made on his person. 9. The Almighty consents to a second trial. 10. The trial made. 11. Job’s utter misery. 12. The visit of his three friends to condole with him. Chap. 1. and 2.
PART II.—First Series of Controversy
1. Exclamation of Job on his miserable condition. 2. Speech of Eliphaz, accusing him of want of firmness, and suspecting his integrity, on account of the affliction with which he is visited. 3. Job’s reply, reproaching his friends with cruelty; bewailing the disappointment he had felt in them; calling for death as the termination of his miseries; then longing for life, expostulating with the Almighty, and supplicating his forgiveness. 4. Bildad resumes the argument of Eliphaz with great severity; openly accuses Job of hypocrisy; and exhorts him to repentance, in order that he may avoid utter ruin. 5. Job in reply longs to plead his cause before God, but is overwhelmed at his majesty. 6. He again desponds, and calls for death as the only refuge from his sorrows. 7. Zophar continues the argument on the side of his companions; condemns Job acrimoniously for still daring to assert his innocence; and once more exhorts him to repentance, as the only means of obtaining a restoration to the favour of the Almighty. 8. Job is stimulated to a still severer reply. 9. Accuses his companions of declaiming on the part of God, with the base hope of propitiating him. 10. Boldly demands his trial at the tribunal of the Almighty; and, realizing the tribunal before him, commences his pleading, in an address variegated on every side by opposite feelings: fear, triumph, humiliation, expostulation, despondency. Chap. iii.-xiv.
PART III.—Second Series of Controversy
1. Eliphaz commences the discussion in his regular turn; accuses Job of vehemence and vanity; asserts that no man is innocent; and that his own conduct sufficiently proves himself not to be so. 2. Job replies; and complains bitterly of the unjust reproaches heaped upon him; and accuses his companions of holding him up to public derision. 3. He pathetically bemoans his lot; and looks forward to the grave with glimmering, through despair, of a resurrection from its ruins. 4. Bildad perseveres in his former argument of Job’s certain wickedness, from his signal sufferings; and, in a string of lofty traditions, points out the constant attendance of misery upon wickedness. 5. Job rises superior to this attack; appeals to the piety and generosity of his friends; asserts the Almighty to have afflicted him for purposes altogether unknown; and then soars to a full and triumphant hope of a future resurrection, and vindication of his innocence. 6. Zophar repeats the former charge; and Job replies, by directly controverting his argument, and proving, from a variety of examples, that in the present world the wicked are chiefly prosperous, and the just for the most part subject to affliction. Chap. xv.-xii.
PART IV.—Third Series of Controversy
1. Eliphaz, in direct opposition to Job’s last remarks, contends that certain and utter ruin is the uniform lot of the wicked; and adduces the instances of the deluge, and of Sodom and the other cities of the plain. 2. Job supports his position by fresh and still more forcible examples. Though he admits that, in the mystery of Providence, prosperity and adversity are often equally the lot of both the righteous and the wicked; yet he denies that this ought to be held as an argument in favour of the last, whose prosperity is in the utmost degree precarious, and who in calamity are wholly destitute of hope and consolation. 3. Bildad replies in a string of lofty but general apophthegms, tending to prove that Job cannot be without sin, since no man is so in the sight of God. 4. Job rejoins with indignation; takes a general survey of his life, in the different capacities of a magistrate, a husband, and a master; and challenges his companions to point out a single act of injustice he had committed. Chap. 22.-31.
PART V.—The Summing up of the Controversy
1. Zophar, who ought to have concluded the last series, having declined to prosecute the debate any farther, the general argument is summed up by Elihu, who has not hitherto spoken, though present from the first. 2. He condemns the subject matter of the opponents of Job, as altogether irrelevant; accuses Job himself, not of suffering for any past impiety, but of speaking irreverently during the controversy. 3. He contests several of Job’s positions; asserts that afflictions are often sent by the Almighty for the wisest and most merciful purposes; and that, in every instance, our duty is submission. 4. He closes with describing the Creator as supreme and uncontrollable; and as creating, upholding, and regulating all nature according to his own will and pleasure; incomprehensibly and mysteriously yet ever wisely and benevolently. Chap. 32.-37.
PART VI.—The Acquittal and Restoration of Job
1. The Almighty appears to pronounce judgment; speaks to Job in a sublime and magnificent address out of a whirlwind. 2. Job humbles himself before God, and is accepted. 3. His friends are severely reproved for their conduct during the controversy, a sacrifice is demanded of them, and Job is appointed their intercessor. 4. He prays for his friends, and his prayer is accepted. 5. He is restored to his former state of prosperity, and his substance in every instance doubled. Chap. 38.-42.
On this plan Mr. Good has constructed his learned translation and excellent observations on this book.
The following Synopsis or general view of this book is very intelligible and may serve as an index to the work:—
I. The Historical Exordium, written in prose.—Chap. 1., 2. II. The threefold Series of Controversy written in poetry.—Chap. 3.-42:1-6.
III. The issue of Job’s trial; restoration to health and prosperity in prose.—Chap. 42:7-17.
1. Job’s Disputation with his three friends who came to visit him is a threefold series, chap. 3.:-16.; including Job’s speech in which he curses the day of his birth, chap. 3.: this gives rise to the
FIRST Series of Controversy, comprehended in chap. 4.:-14.
1. With ELIPHAZ, chap. 4:-7.
a. The Speech of Eliphaz, chap. 4., 5.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 6., 7.
2. With BILDAD, chap. 8.:-10.
a. The Speech of Bildad, chap. 8.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 9., 10.
3. With ZOPHAR, chap. 11.-14.
a. The Speech of Zophar, chap. 11.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 12.-14.
SECOND Series of Controversy, included in chap. 15.-21.
1. With ELIPHAZ, chap. 15., 17.
a. The Speech of Eliphaz, chap. 15.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 16., 17.
2. With BILDAD, chap. 18., 19.
a. The Speech of Bildad, chap. 18.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 19.
3. With ZOPHAR, chap. 20., 21.
a. Zophar’s Speech, chap. 20.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 21.
THIRD Series of Controversy, included in chap. 22.-31.
1. With ELIPHAZ, chap. 22.-24.
a. The Speech of Eliphaz, chap. 22.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 13., 24.
2. With BILDAD, chap. 25.-31.
a. The Speech of Bildad, chap. 25.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 26.,-31.
ELIHU’S judgment concerning the Controversy, delivered at four different intervals,vpausing for Job’s answer, chap. 32.-37.
a. Elihu’s first Speech, chap. 32., 33.
b. Elihu’s second Speech, chap. 34.
c. Elihu’s third Speech, chap. 35.
d. Elihu’s fourth Speech, chap. 36., 37.
The ALMIGHTY appears, speaks out of a whirlwind, and determines the Controversy, chap. 38.-41.
a. The first Speech of the Almighty, chap. 38., 39.
b. The second Speech of the Almighty, chap. 40., 41.
c. The Answer and humiliation of Job, chap. 42:1-6.
Historical Narration concerning the restoration of Job to health and great worldly prosperity; with the account of his age and death, chap. 42:7-17. Some have contended that the whole of this book is written in verse; but I can see no rule or method by which the two first chapters, and the ten last verses of chap. xlii. can be reduced to poetry or poetic arrangement. They are merely narrative; and are utterly destitute of that dignity and pathos everywhere evident in this poem, and in every part of the Hebrew hemistich poetry wherever it occurs. I could almost suppose these places the work of another hand; a Preface and a Conclusion written by some person who was well acquainted with the fact of Job’s temptation, and who found such additions necessary to cast light upon the poem. But they are most probably the work of the same hand. There are, in different parts of the body of the poem, sentences in prose, which are the headings to the different speeches. This is frequent among the Arabic and Persian poets. Such headings are generally in rubric, and should here stand by themselves. THE BOOK OF JOB
As the time in which Job lived is so very uncertain, (see the preface, and the observations at the end of the notes on the first chapter,) {Job 1:22} the date found in our common English Bibles, which is upon the supposition that Moses wrote the book while among the Midianites, about one thousand five hundred and twenty years before the commencement of the Christian era, is inserted in the margin, not because it is the most probable, but because it is the most generally received.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL3.PDF, source PDF p. 115
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 6: “by the name of אל שדי, eel shaddai, god almighty”. source PDF page 116: “by the name of שדי אל Eel Shaddai, God Almighty,”. Compared with BEN_VOL3.PDF PDF p. 115, BEN_VOL3.PDF PDF p. 116. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: the available separately digitized printed volumes were searched, but the corresponding passage was not securely located. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain; this search provides no basis for reconstructing or silently normalizing them. BEN_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 115; BEN_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 116.
THE BOOK OF JOB.*
* Moses is thought to have written the book of Job,
while among the Midianites, before Christ, cir. 1520.
ARGUMENT.
THE preceding books of Scripture are, for the most part, plain and easy narratives, which he that runs may read and understand; but in the five poetical books, on which we are now entering, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon’s Song, are many things hard to be understood. These, therefore, require a more close application of mind, which yet the treasures they contain will abundantly recompense. The former books were mostly historical; these are doctrinal and devotional. And they are written in verse, according to the ancient rules of versifying, though not in rhyme, nor according to the rules of latter tongues. But though they are poetical, yet they are serious, and full of majesty. They have a poetic force and flame, without poetic fury; move the affections, without corrupting the imagination; and, while they gratify the ear, improve the mind, and profit the more by pleasing. In them we have much of God, his infinite perfections, and his government both of the world and of the church. And we have much of Christ, who is the spring, and soul, and centre of revealed religion. Here is what may enlighten our understandings, and acquaint us with the deep things of God. And this divine light may bring into our souls a divine fire, which will kindle and inflame devout affections; on which wings we may soar upward, until we enter into the holiest. In the book of Job, in particular, which comes first under our consideration, we find the most sublime disquisitions on God’s moral government, his wonderful and unlimited greatness, his indisputable sovereignty over all beings, and his incomprehensible wisdom; together with a most illustrious pattern of solid and fixed piety, and entire resignation to the divine will. So that, whether we consider the importance and dignity of the subjects, the magnificent and profound sentiments, the beauty of the language, or the amiable picture of virtuous manners which it sets forth, we shall find it worthy of our most attentive study, and greatest veneration for its high excellence. It is thought by many learned men to be the most ancient book of the Scriptures, and it really bears all the genuine marks of the most remote antiquity, both in the composition and style; and this may account for its being so difficult to be understood. Although most of the accounts which have been given of the author of this book, and the exact time when it was written, are but conjectures, unsupported by any authority; yet there seems very sufficient ground to determine, that the foundation of it is laid in matters of fact; namely, That, in very ancient times, there was a rich and powerful person named Job; that he was remarkable for his integrity, piety, and unshaken confidence in God; that he was, by very great, unexpected, and sudden calamities, reduced to a state of great distress; that this circumstance gave occasion to a discussion and contest between him and some of his friends, men of great wisdom and piety, whether severe afflictions ever happen to truly good men? and, if they do, whether they do not come by way of punishment, and as a mark of God’s displeasure? — that Job bore his afflictions with uncommon patience and resignation to the will of God; and, lastly, that he was afterward advanced to a greater degree of prosperity than he had enjoyed in the former part of his life. These, we say, appear undoubtedly to have been facts, and on them the whole book is built. That there was such a man as Job, is evident from his being mentioned by Ezekiel 14:14, and ranked with Noah and Daniel, as a man famous for piety above most others. And the Apostle James 5:10, says, Take the prophets for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Ye have heard of the patience of Job. And, unquestionably, the narrative which we here have of his prosperity and piety, of his strange affliction and exemplary patience, with the substance of his conferences with his friends, God’s discourse with him out of the whirlwind, and his return to a prosperous condition, are all exactly true.
We are sure, also, that this book is very ancient, probably of equal date with the book of Genesis itself. It is likely Job was of the posterity of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, whose firstborn was Uz, and in whose family religion was kept up, as appears Genesis 31:53, where God is called, not only the God of Abraham, but the God of Nahor. He evidently lived before sacrifices were confined to one altar, before the general apostacy of the nations, and while God was known by the name of אל שדי, Eel Shaddai, God Almighty, more than by the name of יהוה, Jehovah; for he is called Shaddai, the Almighty, above thirty times in this book. And that he lived before the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, we may gather from hence, that there is no allusion at all to that grand event in any part of the book; as well as from his great longevity; there being no instance, after that time, of any person’s living, as it appears he did, to near the age of two hundred years.
We have said that this book is poetical. We may call it a kind of dramatic or heroic poem, though by no means a complete drama. The first two chapters are a kind of prologue, containing the argument, which is not in verse, but in a narrative or historical style, as being a relation of matters of fact; but the interlocutory parts of the work are evidently in metre, in the original Hebrew, as is agreed by most learned men. In this noble poem we have, 1. A monument of primitive theology, teaching us that, considering the corruption, ignorance, and weakness of human nature, on the one hand, and the infinite wisdom, the unspeakable greatness, and unspotted holiness of God, on the other, mankind should renounce all confidence in their own righteousness and strength, and put their whole trust in the mercy and grace of God, and submit themselves to him with the greatest humility and reverence. This is evidently the principal design of the poem. It contains, however, 2. A specimen of Gentile piety, for Job was not of the promised seed, not an Israelite, nor a proselyte to the religion of the Israelites. 3. We have here an exposition of the book of Providence, and a clear solution of many difficult passages therein. 4. A great example of close adherence to God in the deepest calamities; and, 5. An illustrious type of Christ, emptied and humbled, in order to his exaltation and greater glory. But “the principal benefit,” says Bishop Patrick, “which I hope pious souls, especially the afflicted, will reap by this book, is, to be persuaded thereby that all things are ordered and disposed by Almighty God; without whose command or permission neither good angels, nor the devil, nor men, nor any other creature, can do any thing. And that, as his power is infinite, so is his wisdom and goodness, which is able to bring good out of evil. And, therefore, we ought not to complain of him in any condition, as if he neglected us, or dealt hardly with us; but rather cheerfully submit ourselves to his blessed will; which never doth any thing without reason, though we cannot always comprehend it. To that issue, God himself, at last, brings all the dispute between Job and his friends; representing his works, throughout the world, to be so wonderful and unaccountable, that it is fit for us to acknowledge our ignorance, but never to accuse his providence. If we cannot see the cause why he sends any affliction, or continues it long upon us; instead of murmuring and complaining in such a case, this book effectually teaches us to resign ourselves absolutely to him; silently to adore and reverence the unsearchable depth of his wise counsels; contentedly to bear what he inflicts upon us; still to assert his righteousness in the midst of the calamities which befall the good, and in the most prosperous successes of the wicked; and steadfastly to believe, that all, at last, shall turn to our advantage, if, like his servant Job, we persevere in faith, and hope, and patience.” Taking a general view of the chapters of this book, we observe, An account of Job’s sufferings, chap. 1., 2.; not without a mixture of human frailty, chap. 3.; a dispute between him and his three friends, chap. 4.-31.; the interposal of Elihu, and of God himself, chap. 32.-41.; the end of all, in Job’s posterity, chap. 42.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The Book of Job.
SUT_VOL2.PDF, source PDF p. 321
THE BOOK OF JOB.
This book of Job is a real history, and not composed as an example of patience under severe afflictions; for God himself has repeatedly called him by name. Ezekiel 14. To which the name of his country, and the number of his children are superadded, and all the consoling circumstances of his restoration. The book is written in the ancient style of flowing easy poetry, with accent, and numbers; but that was designed to embellish the history, as in the Iliad of Homer, and the Æneid of Virgil. The history therefore holds its rank, as the first of all canonical books, to which the ancients have given the palm of elegance in composition. Whether Job was descended from Esau, as some suppose, from Genesis 36:13; or from Nahor, as Huz was his country, Genesis 22:21, is much disputed. He lived early after the flood, as appears from his age, which was one hundred and forty years after his affliction. The objects of the book are, “1. To assert and explain the doctrine of a particular providence; to answer the objections which arise from the afflictions of good men; to urge submission to God’s dispensations, and to await without murmuring, the issue of every temptation. 2. To display the glory of God in his adorable perfections, his absolute sovereignty, inflexible justice, unsearchable wisdom, irresistible power, and infinite goodness: to exalt him as the Creator, Governor, and Judge of all; and to lay every mouth in the dust in silence before him. 3. To present us with an illustrious type of our Divine Saviour, first suffering, then exalted; sunk under the depths of adversity, then rising to the pinnacle of glory.” The style, eloquence, and general character of the conversations are highly finished. The author, whether Job or another, lived early; for a later author would not have kept clear of all phrases and customs peculiar to his own times. Origen ascribes this work to Moses while in the land of Midian. He transcribed it from some ancient copy. It can scarcely be doubted that Job himself was the author of the work, for the sublime apostrophes are such as really came from the heart. See Job 16:18. 19:23-27.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction
WHD_CO06.PDF, source PDF p. 4
JOB
INTRODUCTION
To the Book of Job a foremost position is assigned in the Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures; its claims to a like place in the realm of mind are quite universally recognised. It enters the Hebrew Canon with the face of an alien; its voice, however, is the voice of the sons of God. Born outside of the Israelitish fold, it is clad in the garb of a nomade; but its language is true Archaic Hebrew. Its thoughts, experiences, and trials, are representative in their character, and in a greater or less degree have been the common heritage of our race. In a significant sense, it is the experience-book of humanity. No one can read its pages without deep feelings of sympathy, for each one brings to their perusal a kindred experience. The author of the poem, however, no more truly dwells apart upon the mount of song, unapproached by the most gifted geniuses of earth, than does, in like manner, its hero, apart in the valley of humiliation, a sufferer from temptations and discipline which unite to make him from among the Old Testament saints the most conspicuous herald and type of his divine and suffering Master. The hero of the work, and the work itself, answer one to the other in the character of uniqueness, and justify Hitzig in calling Job “a great creation.” Its sublime conceptions and massive thoughts form a precious urn at which genius, in every age, has lighted its fires. Carlyle thus acknowledges these obligations: “A noble book! all men’s book! Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of manhood; so soft and great as the summer midnight, as the world with its suns and stars. There is nothing written, I think, of equal literary merit.” The Problem and Purport of the Work.
The Book may be regarded as a Theodicy — a vindication of the moral government of God in its relations to men. It treats of evil concretely, and sets before us its unfolding through the experience of a man conspicuous for piety. Its key-note is the question, Wherefore is evil? a question which is among the first to perplex, and the last to leave, the mind. Many stalwart minds have subsequently striven for its further solution — among whom the most eminent is Leibnitz, with his theory of Optimism — but have signally failed. The question stands where it stood at the close of this, the first and most elaborate of ancient theodicies. The idea of the work is simple and godlike; it is, to speak to man through man’s experiences, making a human life the text — the greatest conceivable sufferings of a righteous being the lesson-leaf, from which shall be elucidated the deeper principles of the divine government. The consideration of the afflictions of the righteous carries with it the possibly more impenetrable mystery — the prosperity of the wicked. This mystery comes out in bold relief in the discussion before us; for the spectacle of a prostrate Job constantly suggests its contrary — that of the triumphant sinner. The author of the work looks boldly into both of these excrescences of evil — the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked — and shows that they are consistent with a regime of righteousness, wisdom, and love. Extreme suffering, exasperated by unsympathetic bitterness of debate, goads the hero of our book to the utterances of passionate doubt, defiant summons of God to judgment, and aspersions upon the divine goodness, which Hengstenberg does not scruple to call blasphemies for which little justification can be offered. The trial lays bare a human heart as nowhere else in the Scriptures. With a like shudder to that with which Dante looked down into depths his own imagination had evoked, do we look into these real seething fires of passion and doubt. At last they burn themselves out, and disclose Job penitent in the ashes, bewailing the vileness and weakness of his nature, and exhibiting the noblest traits of incorruptible integrity. We rejoice in the issue of the trial, for it forever relieves human nature from the aspersion cast upon it by the foe of man, that man serves his God solely as a hireling.
There underlies the discussion an ancient theory of rewards and punishments which antedates the days of Moses, and was common to the ancient world, and, therefore, should hardly have been christened the Mosaic theory: moreover, the book is confessedly written outside of Israel, and there does not appear upon its pages any undisputed reference to Mosaic law (Thorah) or Mosaic institutions. The refutation of this theory of retributive justice, Hirtzel, Umbreit, De Wette, and Renan conceive to be the chief object of the book. On the contrary, the treatment of this topic is but as a side issue, and is not a polemic against any supposed principle of Mosaism. All the speakers agree in the fact that wickedness is punished and virtue rewarded in this world. This furnishes an adequate basis for the dogma of a future adjustment of life’s ills, and, resolutely kept before the mind of Job, (Job 19:25-27,) eminently contributes to the restoration of complete faith in God. From the moment of the sublime inscription upon the everlasting rock, the heaving fires begin to subside. Throughout the remainder of the debate the chiseled words of undying faith are ever before the eye, like the flag of a beleagured fortress. They occasion little remark on the part of the co-disputants, because they could be reached only by the demolition of outlying fortifications. (See note on Job 20:4.) Equally one-sided and unsatisfying is the view of Schlottman, Hengstenberg, Canon Cook, and A.B. Davidson, who regard the main object of the work to be the test of human virtue by subjecting it to the most fiery temptations; as well as the theory of Stuhlmann, Hupfeld, Merx, and Rodman, that the book is designed to rebuke all disposition to arraign the purposes and dealings of Providence, and to teach unconditional submission to the divine will. The more gratifying and sublime view of Ewald, that the work proposes the solution of life’s ills through the disclosure of immortal life, and the certainty, that spirit is eternal, magnifies a secondary consideration into a primary object. To teach these, or doctrines kindred to these as seen in the views of others, is not the chief aim of the book; they are embraced within, and germane to, the broader view accepted and defended by Bunsen (God in History, 1:182) and Hitzig, (Einleitung, xxiii,) that the book is essentially a theodicy; but not unfolded, as the latter would maintain, “from the standpoint of the Hebraic religion, on whose outer limits Koheleth plants himself.” On the contrary, the Book of Job springs from the heart of the patriarchal religion, which for ages was the only true religion of the world. In common with an Abraham and a Melchisedek, Job was a Gentile, whose soul had been moulded within no narrow limits of Sinai or its local institutions. His awful strugglings with doubt, his wavering but finally triumphant faith in Deity, his solemn appeals to the Godhead for vindication and relief, the forecasting of his soul for an incarnation of a Divine Helper and a future filling out of the present life, belong to man as man, and have in them a universality of need and hope out of which sprang the priesthood whose insignia he bore — an “order,” a “similitude,” after which finally “ariseth another Priest,” the one Great High Priest of our race. (Hebrews 5:6; 7:15.) The Book of Job, more than any other book of the Hebrew Scriptures, is a gospel, and, of all those Scriptures, most strikingly anticipates the mission and teaching of Christ. Under the increased light of modern exegesis it shines more brightly than ever before with precious evangelical doctrinal. Its twofold culmination in the sublime inscription of faith and hope, (Job 19:25-27,) and in “the heart-power of God” as the infinite solvent of life’s ills, (Job 36:5,) furnishes a twofold vinculum, binding the promise of the Garden with its fulfilment on the Cross. “The highest and immovable resting-point of Job’s faith is that of the Gospel, although without that full recognition of God’s eternal love for man which the Gospel brings. Philosophically, it is the ground taken by the German philosophers from Leibnitz to Hegel, though without their dialectic formularization.” — BUNSEN, ibid., 1:185. Fundamental truths which, after the lapse of ages, Christ “brought into light,” (φωτισυς, 2 Timothy 1:10,) are here in embryo. This book is an expansion of the primeval promise; its pages contain the essential features of the revelation first given to man.
The Historical Reality of the Book.
An extreme view has been held by some of the ablest commentators, (Maimonides, Rosenmuller, Hengstenberg, Merx,) that the book has no historic basis. They assign the entire work to the sphere of the imagination, to which belong the parables and the allegories of the Bible. Of such an estimate of Job, it has been observed by Ewald, (pp. 15, 16,) with whom Dillmann agrees, that “the invention of a history from the very commencement, the production from the poet’s own brain of a person who is yet said to be historical, is a thing so forced and so remote that it is altogether foreign to the early period of every nation, so that it first takes shape gradually in the latest centuries of an ancient history, and has never come fully and prominently forward till recent times.” Against the allegorical hypothesis it may be also urged, that it does not accord with the subsequent scriptural recognitions of Job in Ezekiel 14:14, 20; James 5:11, in the latter of which it is impossible that an imaginary being should have been set forth by the Spirit as an example of patience; that it is inconsistent with the work itself, for its substratum has the ring which belongs to the real; and that it is alien not only to the age in which such an allegory must have been written, but to any of the periods to which it has been assigned.
The theory now generally accepted by critics, (with the exception, however, of such scholars as Schultens, Dr. Lee, Carey, Bishop Wordsworth, Dr. A. Clarke, Tayler Lewis, etc., who maintain the reality of the whole work,) and almost unanimously by recent German
commentators, is, that the work unites the historical and the ideal. By these it is regarded as a splendid creation of genius resting upon a foundation of fact. The real and the ideal are so fused together that it is difficult (impossible, say some) to distinguish the one from the other. “The history is not all fact,” says Davidson, “much of it is poetry; the poetry is not allegory, much of it is fact.” — FAIRBAIRN’S Bib. Dictionary, 1:919. The modern theory, if we may rely upon Keil, (Introd. to Old Testament, 1. 485, 486,) holds the book to be “an old legend wrought up and sustained throughout with poetic freedom;” and this is the opinion, he says, “of all recent critics and expositors.” Both the theories under consideration certainly belong to comparatively modern times; for Jewish rabbins, the fathers of the Church, together with the older theologians, held to the strict historical character of the work.
Of the various reasons given for this modern theory we shall be able to consider only the more important: —
1. The artistic and unnatural part assigned to Satan. — With respect to this, it may be sufficient here to reply, that a close examination of the historical accounts of the temptation of Eve, which took place through the serpent, and that, too, in the garden of Eden, will disclose features of striking resemblance to the Satanology of Job. See Excursus I, II, and p. 289.
2. The mechanical look of the round and sacred numbers of the prose portions of the work. — It may be rejoined that round numbers are commonly, indeed almost invariably, used in the Scriptures. Compare 2 Chronicles 35:7-9; 1 Chronicles 5:21; Numbers 31:32-34, etc. In the first two citations we have multiples similar to those in Job; for instance, exactly ten times as many sheep as bullocks, five times as many sheep as camels, and twenty-five times as many camels as asses, etc. The sacred numbers appear frequently in the statistics of the Bible. Job’s 7,000 sheep and seven sons may be paralleled with the 7,000 who did not bow the knee to Baal, (1 Kings 19:18;) the 7,000 who conquered the Syrians, (1 Kings 20:15;) and the 7,000 carried captive to Babylon, (2 Kings 24:16.) Comp. 1 Chronicles 12:25; 18:4; 19:18, etc. For the use of 3,000, see Judges 15:11; 1 Samuel 13:2; 25:2, etc.; and 1 Kings 4:32, in which mention is made of 3,000 proverbs, which were spoken by Solomon. That the employment of the sacred numbers does not imply artificial structure may be further illustrated in the account of the deluge. Clean beasts were taken into the ark by sevens, the fowls of the air also by sevens; the pause before the deluge began lasted seven days; the ark rested in the seventh month, and Noah stayed seven days before he sent forth the dove a second time. Three sons with their three wives were saved in the ark; the human race was. saved by fours. (Concerning the seven days of mourning with Job, see note on Job 2:13.)
3. The highly artistic structure of the book. — “The book,” it is urged, “falls into three divisions, namely: the prologue, the discourses, and the epilogue. The prologue and epilogue, again, contain each three principal points; and the discourses fall into three divisions — those of Job and his three friends, those of Elihu, and those of Jehovah. The dialogues consist of three courses, and each course consists of thrice two speeches. Finally, in the discourses of Elihu, and in those of Jehovah, we can again distinguish three principal parts.” — KOSTER, Hiob., p. 5. Courtesy — the laws of which nowhere in the world are more perfect than in the East — would require that an opportunity should be given to each of the three speakers, in their order, to make reply to Job. In the plausible analysis just given no estimate is taken of the two “heavenly cabinets;” the four messengers of misfortune; the six temptations, (thus Delitzsch;) the one lamentation; the one monologue; the four speeches of Elihu; the two replies of Job to Deity; and the one divine address to Eliphaz and his friends. Moreover, for the completion of the third triad Job and his three friends are constructed into one, and in the fourth no account is taken of the failure of Zophar.
4. The argument we are considering presents a more serious phase in the profound thought of the poem, with its highly poetical mode of expression. Such speeches as those of Job and his friends do not belong to debate, though among giant minds. No chance gathering anywhere in the world could have brought together four such minds as these must have been who communed with stricken Job. The parallelisms, the supposed strophic arrangements, the dramatic evolution of a plan which embraces, not only the thought, but the actors themselves, the perfection of skill all the speakers display in the structure and adornment of their discourses, to say nothing of the exquisite dove-tailing of one speech with another, are beyond the power of any extempore address. Such is the purport of this, the most important of the arguments, to which we have endeavoured to give its fullest force. It is to be borne in mind that the Oriental mind is highly poetical. It associates directly and constantly with nature, which with the Oriental never loses its freshness and life. From habitual observation and reflection the mind becomes stored with images and compacted thought. For the preservation of such thought in the form of apothegms, or even of long poems, as in the Wolfian theory of the Iliad, memory takes the place of books. The Oriental has always been master of the art of improvisation; the Arabs — as Schultens, a competent judge, affirms — have a wonderful facility for extemporaneous effusions in verse. Dr. Kitto, who cites in illustration the Romance of Antar, remarks: “Nothing is more remarkable among the Semitic nations of Western Asia, even at this day, than the readiness of their resources, the prevalence of the poetical imagination and form of expression, and the facility with which the nature of this group of languages allows all high and animated discourse to fall into rhythmical forms of expression; while the language, even of common life and thought, is replete with poetical sentiments and ideas.” See further, KITTO’S Daily Bib. Illus., in loc.
Then, too, there may have been a considerable interval of time between the addresses. From evidences in the work itself, the interview extended through a long period. (See note on chap. 42:10.) Seven days of silence preceded its commencement. There are indications which lead some to the opinion that at times the debate was suspended. (See note on xxiii, 2.) With the Oriental, time is of comparatively little moment, even at the present day; of much less value was it when life was measured by the century. These visitors, being men of rank, were masters of their time. It would not be extravagant to suppose that the intervals spoken of may have been devoted to the consideration and preparation of the reply. Admit so simple a theory as this, and a mountainous difficulty is much lessened, if not removed.
In reply it may be further remarked —
1. That all theories concerning the book are fraught with embarrassments. — Quite as serious difficulties may be pressed upon those who deny, as upon those who affirm, the strictly historical character of the book. This is evident from the confusion of view among the critics of our age as to where they will drive the ploughshare through the work, separating the real from the ideal. No two agree upon the breadth of historical basis, or upon the invention of the so-called poet or poets, whose task it was to reinvest with life the traditions of the past.
2. That the portions supposed to have been invented are introduced with credentials of truth similar to those which mark the portions generally admitted to be real. — Of the former the theophany is foremost in significance. No greater strength of asseverance belongs to the opening declaration, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job,” than to the declaration, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.” No indication is given that Jehovah’s address to Job is a mere chimera of some unknown poet’s brain; no indication that while Job may have uttered the sublime language of resignation in the prologue, (Job 1:21,) that God did not utter the most wondrous challenge ever given to man, (Job 40:7-14.) The epilogue is generally assumed to be true history. What greater reason is there for regarding as true Job’s answer, “I know that thou canst do every thing,” (Job 42:2,) than his response in the midst of Jehovah’s addresses, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee?” (Job 40:4.) To introduce Jehovah as a speaker in an imaginary colloquy, and to put language into his mouth which he never uttered, is not only without parallel in the Scriptures, but would have shocked a true Hebrew, and been sufficient to exclude the work from the canon. See page 281.
3. That the fusion theory makes requisitions which are hardly in keeping with the general theory of a divine revelation. — It confessedly makes of the author what may be called a trimmer. The most recent German writers virtually acknowledge this. The circumstances of the history are assumed to have taken place some eight, ten, or twelve centuries before the book called Job was written. The task the author takes upon himself is, to make the work conform to the life, customs, and manners of such a remote period; from within Israel to write outside of Israel; himself breathing the spirit of Judaism, to prevent the intrusion of its spirit, its laws, and its institutions. He must avoid all historical events of the intervening centuries, guard against anachronisms, of which even so skilful a writer as Sir Walter Scott was guilty when he also planted the scene of his work in a distant age. To such an extent was this spirit of watchfulness carried, that, according to Ewald, (page 57,) the word Jehovah was eschewed in the debate. In the wide range of illustrations, drawn from nature and art, there is not one which has not been subjected to a strict ordeal. German commentators dwell upon the exquisite skill with which the poet has discharged his task. (Dillmann, xxi, xxii; Zschokke, xvi; Zockler, page 234.) Canon Cook justly observes, (Speaker’s Com., p. 9,) “It should be borne in mind that no ancient writer ever succeeded in reproducing the manners of a past age, or in avoiding allusion to those of his own; this is true even of the Greek dramatists, and, indeed, of writers of every country and age before the eighteenth century. The attempt was not even made. To use M. Renan’s words, ‘antiquity had not an idea of what we call local colouring.’” Renan plants himself against the German idea, and denies that “at a remote epoch a Hebrew should have entertained the singular idea of composing a patriarchal poem, and displayed such perfection in the design that his work does not strike a single discordant note, nor in a single place betray the artificial system which has presided over its composition.” — Etude, etc., xviii, 19.
4. That the arguments which have been considered fail, in that they ignore or deny for the Book of Job a possible substratum of the miraculous. — They are really akin to the reasoning of Hengstenberg, (KITTO, Cyc., 2:608:) “God’s speaking out of the clouds would be a miracle, without an object corresponding to its magnitude, and having a merely personal reference, while all the other miracles of the Old Testament are in connexion with the theocratical government, and occur in the midst, and for the benefit of, the people of God.” This citation loses its force when once it is admitted that one Gentile, (Job,) as well as another Gentile, (Abraham, Genesis 12:1,) might be visited with a message of mercy, and that God might address the one upon the clearing up of a storm, or from out of the whirlwind even, as properly as the other through “a horror of great darkness.” Genesis 15:12. The fact that the book is in the canon gives it the same rights, immunities, and laws with the rest of the Bible. The same general principles are to be employed in its interpretation. Certainly, there is nothing more questionable in the exact doubling of the sheep, camels, oxen, and she-asses, than in the feeding of a multitude with “seven loaves and the fishes,” and the final taking up of exactly seven baskets full. If the latter is accounted for on the ground that it was miraculous, why may not the former? If the historical reality of the work is affected by the exact correspondence in the former case, why not in the latter in the reproduction of the sacred number, seven? As worthy an occasion exists for the miraculous in the doubling of Job’s possessions as in the multiplying of the bread. (See note on Job 42:12.) No less enlarged lessons of faith, hope, and charity may be gathered from the piety of Job, outside of “the theocratical government,” “for the benefit of the people of God,” than from the miraculous calling of Abraham into “connexion with the theocratical government.”
The leading features of the book of Job find a parallel in early Bible history: its doctrine of Satanology in that of the garden; the trial of Job in that of Abraham; and the theophany in those made to the patriarchs, and even that to an Egyptian king, Abimelech. The author of the following work holds the book of Job to be strictly historical. The great debate, he conceives, took place as described; its arguments and illustrations were substantially as they have been transmitted to us; but whether in poetical form may still be an open question. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the author of the Book of Job may have listened to the discussion, and been assisted in its transcription by the same eternal Spirit who in after ages brought to the remembrance of the evangelists the words of Christ. John 14:26.
The Name and Residence of Job, and the Age in which he Lived. (For name, see page 14; for residence, see page 13.) The time in which Job lived. — Most critics of the present age unite in ascribing to Job a very remote antiquity. According to the greater number (Lowth, Umbreit, Zockler, Lee, Carey, etc.) he lived, or is represented as living, in patriarchal times; others (as Wordsworth,) make him a contemporary of Moses. Some few assign him to the age of Solomon, and some, even to the times of Ezra. That Job lived in patriarchal times, at least prior to the age of Moses, may be argued in general from the resemblance of the customs and manners portrayed in the book to those appearing in Genesis. Also the names, the lineage, and the countries of all the personages mentioned in the work link themselves with the times of the patriarchs. (See notes on Job 1:1; 2:11; and 32:2.) Great length of life is assumed to be characteristic of the Jobean period. (Job 15:10; note on Job 42:16.) Job’s riches, like those of Abraham, lay in his flocks and herds, and were in other respects similar. (See note Job 1:3.) The sacrifices consisted of burnt offerings, which the head of the family offered rather than an official priest: (see notes on Job 1:5, and Job 42:8:) the musical instruments, and even the money mentioned, are the same as those of the patriarchal age: (see notes Job 21:12, and Job 42:11:) the mode of writing and sculpture spoken of are, unquestionably, pre-Mosaic: (note, Job 19:23:) and the idolatry incidentally alluded to is the most ancient of idolatries, and yet at that time seems to have been an innovation, since it was liable to punishment. (Note on Job 31:26, 27.) Without further specification of particulars, a very remote period may be argued from the admission of the book into the canon. Reasoning from a human standpoint, this could hardly have taken place unless Job had lived prior to the law. The rigid exclusiveness of the Mosaical dispensation would not have brooked the idea that after its establishment any human being could attain to the piety of Job outside of the Mosaic fold. The Jew would need no enlightenment to see that a co-existing religion, capable of producing such fruit, rich and ripe with the divine approval, practically questioned the necessity of liturgical religion, nay, the very being of Mosaism itself. And just as readily would he admit that a religion which produced an Abraham and a Melchisedek might culminate in a Job. See CAREY, Commentary on Job, p. 16.
The Time when the Book of Job was Written.
The eras fixed upon by leading scholars for the production of the Book of Job, are (1) the Babylonish exile; (2) the Assyrian invasion; (3) the Davidic-Solomonic age — the so-called Augustan age of Hebrew literature; (4) the Mosaic; and (5) the Patriarchal. To the first of these periods, (about 588 B.C.,) notwithstanding it has the strong endorsement of Gesenius, Umbreit, and De Wette, it may be objected that the book is cited by Bible writers who lived anterior to the period of captivity; that the works of that age are marked by a class of Chaldaisms from which Job is free; and stamped by “a rigid Mosaism, and an exalted devotion and patriotism,” (Renan,) which would be incompatible with a book like that of Job. In the language of Eichhorn, “Let him who is fit for such researches only read a writing tainted with Aramaisms, and next the Book of Job; they will be found as diverging as east and west.” But so little is so late a period as this worthy of serious consideration, that Renan affirms that there is not now a single Hebraist who does not place the composition of the work at least a hundred years before the Captivity. (Etude, 37.)
Ewald, Merx, and Hitzig, find in the catastrophe which befell Israel (720 B.C.) the calamitous soil out of which sprang Job, a national work for the consolation of stricken Israel. Renan makes the author a contemporary of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, towards 770 B.C. The strongest arguments for this period (that of the Assyrian invasion) are also made use of in favour of the Solomonic era of authorship, an era preferred by Schlottmann, Keil, Delitzsch, and Davidson. They are substantially twofold — the points of coincidence between Job and the writers of their respective periods, and its philosophico character. With one class of critics a late period is assigned for the author because he borrows his thoughts from preceding or contemporary writers; with another class of critics an earlier period is found because later writers borrowed from him. Wondrous criticism to accomplish such diverse results!
The book, also, is claimed to be a production of the Israelitish Hhokmah — a school of thought which reached its maturity in the times of Solomon. The argument assumes that the thought, or the chief current of thought of a scriptural work — at least of Job — must have its well-spring in the age in which it was written. In other words, the prevalent school of thought determines the bard and his work. Magnificent tributes to Wisdom, (Hhokmah,) peculiar eschatological ideas or words, are found, for instance, in the Proverbs, and a deep melancholic view of thought characterizes, say, the Ecclesiastes, (Koheleth,) or his times, and the conclusion is drawn that any other works with like characteristics must take their rise out of the same soil. The theory of inspiration which underlies this and kindred reasoning can be compounded in no other proportion than as a minimum of the divine and a maximum of the human. The argument, when reduced to its essence, practically denies the inspiration of the work. Job is vastly in advance of any age before Christ to which it can be assigned. Jewish literature has nothing to compare with it. No age of literature, as such, was equal to its production. For aught that can be shown, the patriarchal age carried within itself no less potency for such a work than the Solomonic. And yet the objection is urged, that so massive and mature a work does not comport with the dawn of a people’s civilization. On the contrary, in solitary grandeur Homer and Dante arise respectively out of the twilight of Grecian and Italian civilization, and bear witness that the dawn also is the natal hour of genius. Unquestionably, civilizations had flourished and decayed before Job came upon the scene. The citations he makes from lost literatures do no discredit to his work. And if so it indeed be that genius needs stimulus, it is plain it was not wanting to Job.
This leads us to remark that stronger reasons than for any subsequent period, we think, can be adduced for the pre-Mosaic origin of the Book of Job, (Stuhlmann, Bertholdt, Eichhorn,) or at least for its production prior to the giving of the law; thus J.D. Michaelis, Ebrard, Stier, Cowles, and Canon Cook, of whom all but the last regard Moses as its author. For this statement we assign the following reasons: —
1. The knowledge of religious subjects displayed in the Book of Job is in perfect accord with that of the earliest records of the Bible. The views it takes of God, of man, the doctrine of retribution, the Messiah, and even of Satan himself, together with eschatology in general, breathe the spirit of the patriarchal rather than that of any other period of the Israelitish history. The leading facts of Genesis, such as the fall, (xxxi, 33,) the deluge, (xxii, 16,) and the doom of Sodom, (Job 18:15-21,) are alluded to, while no allusion is made to patent facts in the same line of illustration transpiring after the giving of the law. As will appear in the progress of this work, the early ages were radiant with religious light. The modern and trivial objection that the Book of Job sheds too much light on religious subjects to have been written before Moses, is now scouted by proofs which tomb and temple, parchment rolls and clay tablets, long lost libraries and the mouldering ruins of the past, hold forth to the astonished gaze of the present age.
2. More remarkable, and as yet otherwise unaccounted for, is the fact that Mosaism and its institutions are nowhere referred to in the work. The criticism of the age admits its authorship by a Hebrew. The linguistic argument makes this undeniable. An ordinary view of the case would pronounce the writing of a lengthy treatise on a religious subject by a Jew of the ancient school, which should nowhere display a trace of Judaism, a moral impossibility. It may be questioned whether even Lord Beaconsfield could write a political novel without somewhere disclosing his Jewish extraction. See page 8.
3. The linguistic features of the poem identify it with the earlier rather than with the later periods of the Hebrew language. These features are twofold — its Arabisms and its Aramaisms. In respect to these, the argument lies in a nutshell — the Arabisms do point to a comparatively early time; the Aramaisms may indicate a late period for the writing of the work. The Hebrew language is pre-eminently distinguished for its fixedness. So competent a judge as Julius Furst remarks: “As a whole it (the Hebrew language) shows so great stability and unchangeableness — such a stamp of uniformity — that after the period of antiquity no essential modification of it, such as is found in the Indo-European languages, can be recognised.” So marked is this uniformity, that Movers went so far as to maintain that a single hand retouched almost all the writings of the Hebrew canon, in order to reduce them to a uniform language. (Cited by Renan, Hist. des Langues Semitiques, p. 111.) Such considerations lead critics who would assign the work to a later age, to depreciate the argument based upon its language. But the veriest tyro cannot fail to be impressed by the numerous archaisms of expression, and the many words which appear exclusively in Job. The key to their proper interpretation was unquestionably found by Schultens in the Arabic language. They yield solely to a solution which assumes that the work was written at a period when the separation of the Hebraic and Arabic dialects was taking place. The Arabic, richest of the Semitic dialects, has preserved the words which the poorer Hebrew dialect sloughed off in the course of the ages.
The Aramaisms alluded to are words of outside origin, supposed to be from the Chaldee and Syriac languages. The appearance of these in Job, upon the hypothesis even of its great antiquity, is no more than might have been expected from the considerations that all these dialects had probably one common origin; that intertribal association was no less intimate in ancient than in subsequent times; and that similar Aramaisms are found in the song of Deborah and in the Pentateuch. Aramaisms appear for the most part in the poetical portions of the Scriptures, and were evidently employed for purposes of ornament and strength. The class appearing in Job and the Pentateuch differ essentially from later Aramaisms, when the Chaldee and Syriac languages became degenerate and corrupt, and “thereby prove the antiquity and originality of the Book of Job.” (See Havernick, “Introduction to Old Testament,” pp. 176, 177.)
4. The style of Job is that of the most ancient fragments of poetry — concise, rugged, and abrupt. Its main feature is its parallelism of members, or its thought-rhythm, an expressive term given by continental writers. Ewald calls it “the echo of the whole sense, where the same sense, which has been poured forth as a complete proposition in the first member, mounts up again in the second in order to exhaust itself more thoroughly.” This, he says, makes “the most powerful and beautiful concord.” With variations of form, parallelism of members is common to all Hebrew poetry. The objection that the book of Job could not spring from a patriarchal or pre-Mosaic age because of its poetical structure may be met by an examination of the oldest song extant — the song of Lamech, Genesis 4:23. This will show a structure no less artistic and elaborate than that of Job. Herder (Hebrew Poetry, 1:264,) points out a similar parallelism of members, and even a designed assonance. The first four lines end in the same way, in Yodh resting in Hhirik, and thus make a semi-rhyme. Even admit the strophic arrangement of Job — concerning the extent and even the existence of which critics are still divided, but which is adopted in the ensuing analysis of Job for convenience’ sake — and you have a style in no respect more artificial than that of Lamech, whose antiquity even the iconoclast Ewald admits to be very great. As respects the authorship of the work, the most considerable claimants are Job himself, (who of all, unquestionably possessed the greatest capabilities,) Elihu, Moses, Heman the Ezrahite, Solomon or some one of his court, and Hezekiah. Hebrew traditions attribute it to Moses. Hirtzel and Hitzig agree in thinking that its author must have been a Hebrew and have lived in Egypt. The doubts which embarrass the question of the time of the writing of the poem are such as to render unprofitable any prolonged consideration of the more difficult question concerning its author. The Integrity of the Book.
The critical spirit of the present age has chosen four portions of the book for its assaults. The less weight is to be accorded to these assaults because of the fact that the most critical minds of the skeptical class antagonize one the other to such an extent that their criticisms prove mutually destructive. It is alleged that the prose portions have been added subsequently to the production of the main part of the work, the so-called “poetical kernel.” Objections are also made against other portions, to wit: the passage in Job 27:11-23, on the ground that Job contravenes his own views, (see p. 172;) as well as against the discourses of Elihu and the Behemoth section, both of which, criticism urges, are unworthy of the master spirit which produced Job. (See Excursus vi, pp. 196-198, and Excursus viii, pp. 280, 281.) But, as will he readily remarked, objectors against Job proceed upon the hypothesis that the book, as a whole, is artificial, a theory which has already been sufficiently considered. These objections have been so often refuted (see especially Hahn’s Hiob, pp. 10-22) that we shall content ourselves with remarking that the removal of either of these larger portions would prove a palpable mutilation. Take, for instance, from the work its prologue and epilogue, and there remains, to use the figure of Delitzsch, the trunk of a statue, evidential indeed of thought, nay of genius, but without head or feet.
Exegetical Works.
The following are the editions of the most important of the commentaries referred to: —
Carey, C.P. The Book of Job. London, 1858.
Clarke, Dr. Adam. (New edition.) New York, 1844.
Conant, Dr. T.J. The Book of Job. New York, 1856.
Cook, Canon F.C., in the Speaker’s Commentary. New York, 1874. Davidson, A.B. Commentary on the Book of Job. Vol. I. Edinburgh, 1862. Delitzsch, F. Bible Commentary on the Book of Job. Two vols. Edinburgh, 1866.
Dillmann, Aug. Hiob. Leipzig, 1869.
Ewald, Heinrich. Das Buch Ijob. Gottingen, 1854.
Good, John Mason, M.D., F.R.S. Book of Job. London, 1812. Hahn, H.A. Commentar uber das Buch Hiob. Berlin, 1850.
Hengstenberg, C.W. Das Buch Hiob. Erster Theil. Berlin, 1870. Zweiter Theil. Leipzig, 1875.
Hirtzel, Ludwig. Hiob. Durchgesehen von Olshausen. Leipzig, 1852. Hitzig, Ferdinand. Das Buch Hiob. Leipzig, 1874.
Lewis, Dr. Tayler, in Lange’s Commentary. Dr. Philip Schaff, Editor. New York, 1874.
Noyes, Dr. G.R. New Translation of Book of Job. Boston, 1861. Renan, Ernst. Le Livre de Job. Paris, 1864.
Scott, Thomas. Book of Job, in English Verse. London, 1773. Schultens, Albert. Liber Jobi. Two volumes. Lugd. Bat. 1737. Zockler, Otto, in Lange’s Commentary. Dr. Philip Schaff, Editor. New York, 1874.
Umbreit, F.W.C. Book of Job. Two volumes. Edinburgh, 1836. Wordsworth, Bishop Christopher. Book of Job. London, 1867. The commentaries of Barnes, Wemyss, Dr. Samuel Lee, Drusius, Samuel Wesley, Chappelow, Corderus, Peters, Grotius, Stickel, Zachokke, (Roman Catholic Commentary, 1875,) Andrea, Dachsel, Eichhorn, Heiligstedt in Maurer, and Spanheim, as well as others, have also been more or less consulted.
John Wesley
Notes on the Book of Job.
WES_OTN2.PDF, source PDF p. 486
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
The preceding books of scripture are, for the most part, plain and easy narratives, which he that runs may read and understand: but in the five poetical books, on which we are now entering, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon’s song, are many things hard to be understood. These therefore require a more close application of mind, which yet the treasures they contain will abundantly recompence. The former books were mostly historical: these are doctrinal and devotional. And they are wrote in verse, according to the ancient rules of versifying, tho’ not in rhythm, nor according to the rules of latter tongues. Job is a kind of heroic poem; the book of Psalms a collection of sacred odes, Solomon’s song, a Divine pastoral. They are all poetical, yet serious and full of majesty. They have a poetic force and flame, without poetic fury, move the affections, without corrupting the imagination; and while they gratify the ear, improve the mind, and profit the more by pleasing. We have here much of God, his infinite pefections, and his government both of the world, and of the church. And we have much of Christ, who is the spring, and soul, and center of revealed religion. Here is what may enlighten our understandings, and acquaint us with the deep things of God. And this divine light may bring into the soul a divine fire, which will kindle and inflame devout affections, on which wings we may soar upwards, until we enter into the holiest. We are certain that the book of Job is a true history. That there was such a man as Job, undeniably appears, from his being mentioned by the prophet, together with Noah and Daniel, Ezekiel 14:14, and the narrative we have of his prosperity and piety, his strange afflictions and exemplary patience, the substance of his conferences with his friends, and God’s discourse with him out of the whirlwind, with his return to a prosperous condition, are no doubt exactly true. We are sure also this book is very ancient, probably of equal date with the book of Genesis itself. It is likely, Job was of the posterity of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, whose first-born was Uz, and in whose family religion was kept up, as appears Genesis 31:53, where God is called not only the God of Abraham, but the God of Nahor. He lived before sacrifices were confined to one altar, before the general apostacy of the nations, and while God was known by the name of God Almighty, more than by the name of Jehovah: for he is called Shaddai, the Almighty, above thirty times in this book. And that he lived before (probably very little before) the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, we may gather from hence, that there is no allusion at all to that grand event throughout the whole book.
In this noble poem we have, 1. A monument of primitive theology; 2. A specimen of Gentile piety: for Job was not of the promised seed, no Israelite, no proselyte: 3. An exposition of the book of providence, and a clear solution of man difficult passages therein: 4. A great example of patience and close adherence to God in the deepest calamities: and 5. An illustrious type of Christ, emptied and humbled, in order to his greater glory. In this book we have, an account of Job’s sufferings, chap. 1, 2, Not without a mixture of human frailty, chap. 3. A dispute between him and his three friends, chap. 4-31. The interposal of Elihu, and of God himself, chap. 32-41. The end of all in Job’s prosperity, chap. 42.
Adam Clarke
Preface to the Book of Job
CLA_JOB.PDF, source PDF p. 3
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 24: “thus, psalm 33:9, הוא אמר ויהי hu amar vaiyehi, ‘he”. paragraph 125: “each instance equally appropriate: ישׂישׂ יהוה yasis yehovah—cwcm awh”. paragraph 359: “inscription to this psalm, תפלה משה איש האלהים tephillah mosheh ish haelohim”. paragraph 397: “will not repent, qdxyklm אתה כהן לעולם על דברתי atah cohen leolam al”. source PDF page 9: “thus, Psalm 33:9 ויהי אמר הוא hu amar vaiyehi ‘He”. source PDF page 12: “each instance equally appropriate: יהוה ישׂישׂ yasis Yehovah משׂושׂ הוא”. source PDF page 21: “inscription to this Psalm, האלהים איש משה תפלה tephillah Mosheh ish haelohim”. source PDF page 27: “will not repent דברתי על לעולם כהן אתה atah cohen leolam al”. Compared with CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 3, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 9, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 12, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 21, CLA_JOB.PDF PDF p. 27. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: an automated comparison of surrounding English text located possible corresponding passages in OCR from separately digitized printed volumes. The linked scan pages are research locators; their images have not been collated for this note's flagged readings. OCR agreement does not verify Greek or Hebrew letters, diacritics, word order, or table layout. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain. CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 3; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 9; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 12; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 21; CLA_JOB.PDF, PDF page 27; Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified).
PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF JOB
THIS is the most singular book in the whole of the Sacred Code: though written by the same inspiration, and in reference to the same end, the salvation of men, it is so different from every other book of the Bible, that it seems to possess nothing in common with them, for even the language, in its construction, is dissimilar from that in the Law, the Prophets, and the historical books. But on all hands it is accounted a work that contains “the purest morality, the sublimest philosophy, the simplest ritual, and the most majestic creed.” Except the two first chapters and the ten last verses, which are merely prose, all the rest of the book is poetic; and is every where reducible to the hemistich form, in which all the other poetic books of the Bible are written: it is therefore properly called a POEM; but whether it belongs to the dramatic or epic species has not been decided by learned men. To try it by those rules which have been derived from Aristotle, and are still applied to ascertain compositions in these departments of poetry, is, in my opinion, as absurd as it is ridiculous. Who ever made a poem on these rules? And is there a poem in the universe worth reading that is strictly conformable to these rules? Not one. The rules, it is true, were deduced from compositions of this description:—and although they may be very useful, in assisting poets to methodize their compositions, and to keep the different parts distinct; yet they have often acted as a species of critical trammels, and have cramped genius. Genuine poetry is like a mountain flood: it pours down, resistless, bursts all bounds, scoops out its own channel, carries woods and rocks before it, and spreads itself abroad, both deep and wide, over all the plain. Such, indeed, is the poetry which the reader will meet with in this singular and astonishing book. As to Aristotle himself, although he was a keen-eyed plodder of nature, and a prodigy for his time; yet if we may judge from his poetics, he had a soul as incapable of feeling the true genie createur, as Racine terms the spirit of poetry, as he was, by his physics, metaphysics, and analogies, of discovering the true system of the universe.
As to the book of Job, it is most evidently a poem, and a poem of the highest order; dealing in subjects the most grand and sublime; using imagery the most chaste and appropriate; described by language the most happy and energetic; conveying instruction, both in Divine and human things, the most ennobling and useful; abounding in precepts the most pure and exalted, which are enforced by arguments the most strong and conclusive, and illustrated by examples the most natural and striking. All these points will appear in the strongest light to every attentive reader of the book; and to such its great end will be answered: they will learn from it, that God has way every where: that the wicked, though bearing rule for a time, can never be ultimately prosperous and happy; and that the righteous, though oppressed with sufferings and calamities, can never be forgotten by Him in whose hands are his saints, and with whom their lives are precious; that in this world neither are the wicked ultimately punished, nor the righteous ultimately rewarded; that God’s judgments are a great deep, and his ways past finding out; but the issues of all are to the glory of his wisdom and grace, and to the eternal happiness of those who trust in him. This is the grand design of the book, and this design will be strikingly evident to the simplest and most unlettered reader, whose heart is right with God, and who is seeking instruction, in order that he may glorify his Maker, by receiving and by doing good.
Notwithstanding all this, there is not a book in Scripture on the subject of which more difficulties have been started. None, says Calmet, has furnished more subjects of doubt and embarrassment; and none has afforded less information for the solution of those doubts. On this subject the great questions which have been agitated refer, principally, 1. To the person of Job. 2. To his existence. 3. To the time in which he lived. 4. To his country. 5. To his stock or kindred. 6. To his religion. 7. To the author of the book. 8. To its truth. 9. To its authenticity; and, 10. To the time and occasion on which it was written.
With respect to the first and second, several writers of eminent note have denied the personality of Job; according to them, no such person ever existed; he is merely fabulous, and is like the Il penseroso, or sorrowful man of Milton; sorrow, distress, affliction, and persecution personified, as the name imports. According to them, he is a mere ideal being, created by the genius of the poet; clothed with such attributes, and placed in such circumstances, as gave the poet scope and materials for his work. Thirdly, as to the time in which those place him who receive this as a true history, there is great variety. According to some, he flourished in the patriarchal age; some make him contemporary with Moses; that he was in the captivity in Egypt, and that he lived at the time of the exodus. Some place him in the time of the Israelitish judges; others in the days of David; others, in those of Solomon; and others, in the time of the Babylonish captivity, having been teacher of a school at Tiberias in Palestine, and, with the rest of his countrymen, carried away into Babylon; and that he lived under Ahasuerus and Esther. Fourthly, as to his country: some make him an Arab; others, an Egyptian; others, a Syrian; some an Israelite; and some, an Idumean. Fifthly, as to his origin: some derive him from Nachor, and others from Esau, and make him the fifth in descent from Abraham. Sixthly, as to his religion: some suppose it to have been Sabæism; others, that it was patriarchal; and others, that he was bred up in the Jewish faith. Seventhly, as to the author of the work, learned men are greatly divided: some suppose the author to have been Elihu; others, Job; others, Job and his friends; others, Moses; some, Solomon; others, Isaiah; and others, Ezra, or some unknown Jew, posterior to the captivity. Eighthly, as to the book: some maintain that it is a history of fact, given by one best qualified to record it; and others, that it is an instructive fiction—facts, persons, dialogues and all, being supposititious; given, however, by the inspiration of God, in a sort of parabolic form, like those employed in the Gospel; and similar to that of the rich man and Lazarus. Ninthly, as to its authenticity: while some, and those not well qualified to judge, have asserted it to be a mere human production, of no Divine authority; others have clearly shown that the book itself, whatever questions may arise concerning the person, author, time, place, &c., was ever received by the Jewish Church and people as authentic, genuine, and divinely inspired; and incorporated, with the highest propriety, among the most instructive, sublime, and excellent portions of Divine revelation. Tenthly, as to the occasion on which it was written, there are considerable differences of opinion: some will have it to be written for the consolation of the Hebrews in their peregrinations through the wilderness; and others, for the comfort and encouragement of the Israelites in the Babylonish captivity: these state that Job represents Nehemiah, and that his three professed friends, but real enemies, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, represent Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian! and that the whole book should be understood and interpreted on this ground; and that, with a little allowance for poetic colouring, all its parts perfectly harmonize, thus understood; showing, in a word, that into whatsoever troubles or persecutions God may permit his people to be brought, yet he will sustain them in the fire, bring them safely through it, and discomfit all their enemies: and that whatsoever is true on this great scale, is true also on that which is more contracted; as he will equally support, defend, and finally render conqueror, every individual that trusts in him.
I shall not trouble my readers with the arguments which have been used by learned men, pro and con, relative to the particulars already mentioned: were I to do this, I must transcribe a vast mass of matter, which, though it might display great learning in the authors, would most certainly afford little edification to the great bulk of my readers. My own opinion on those points they may naturally wish to know; and to that opinion they have a right: it is such as I dare avow, and such as I feel no disposition to conceal. I believe Job to have been a real person, and his history to be a statement of facts.
As the preface to this book (I mean the first chapter) states him to have lived in the land of Uz, or Uts, I believe, with Mr. Good and several other learned men, this place to have been “situated in Arabia Petræa, on the south-western coast of the lake Asphaltites, in a line between Egypt and Philistia, surrounded with Kedar, Teman, and Midian; all of which were districts of Arabia Petræa; situated in Idumea, the land of Edom or Esau; and comprising so large a part of it, that Idumea and Ausitis, or the land of Uz, and the land of Edom, were convertible terms, and equally employed to import the same region: thus, Lamentations 4:21: ‘Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz.”’ See Mr. Good’s Introductory Dissertation; who proceeds to observe: “Nothing is clearer than that all the persons introduced into this poem were Idumeans, dwelling in Idumea; or, in other words, Edomite Arabs. These characters are, Job himself, dwelling in the land of Uz; Eliphaz of Teman, a district of as much repute as Uz, and (upon the joint testimony of Jeremiah 49:7, 20; Ezekiel 25:13; Amos 1:11, 12, and Obadiah 1:8, 9) a part, and a principal part, of Idumea; Bildad of Shuah, always mentioned in conjunction with Sheba and Dedan, all of them being uniformly placed in the vicinity of Idumea; Zophar of Naamah, a city whose name imports pleasantness, which is also stated, in Joshua 15:21, 41, to have been situated in Idumea, and to have lain in a southern direction towards its coast, or the shores of the Red Sea; and Elihu of Buz, which as the name of a place occurs but once in sacred writ, but is there (Jeremiah 25:22, 23) mentioned in conjunction with Teman and Dedan; and hence necessarily, like themselves, a border city upon Ausitis, Uz, or Idumea. It had a number of names: it was at first called Horitis, from the Horim or Horites, who appear to have first settled there. Among the descendants of these, the most distinguished was Seir; and from him the land was known by the name of the Land of Seir. This chief had a numerous family, and among the most signalized of his grandsons was Uz, or Uts; and from him, and not from Uz the son of Nahor, it seems to have been called Ausitis, or the Land of Uz. The family of Hor, Seir, or Uz, were at length dispossessed of the entire region by Esau, or Edom; who strengthened himself by his marriage with one of the daughters of Ishmael; and the conquered territory was denominated Idumea, or the land of Edom.” I think this is conclusive as to the country of Job and his friends. See Mr. Good as above.
The man and his country being thus ascertained, the time in which he lived is the point next to be considered.
I feel all the difficulties of the various chronologies of learned men: all that has been offered on the subject is only opinion or probable conjecture; and, while I differ from many respectable authors, I dare not say that I have more to strengthen my opinion than they have to support theirs. I do not believe that he lived under the patriarchal dispensation; nor in any time previous to the giving of the Law, or to the death of Moses. I have examined the opposite arguments, and they have brought no conviction to my mind. That he lived after the giving of the Law appears to me very probable, from what I consider frequent references to the Mosaic institutions occurring in the book, and which I shall notice in their respective places. I know it has been asserted there are no such references; and I am astonished at the assertion: the reader will judge whether a plain case is made out where the supposed references occur. An obstinate adherence to a preconceived system is like prejudice; it has neither eyes nor ears.
With this question, that relative to the author of the book is nearly connected. Were we to suppose that Job himself, or Elihu, or Job and his friends, wrote the work, the question would at once be answered that regards the time; but all positive evidence on this point is wanting: and while other suppositions have certain arguments to support them, the above claimants who are supported only by critical conjecture, must stand where they are for want of evidence. The opinions that appear the most probable, and have plausible arguments to support them, are the following:
1. Moses was the author of this book, as many portions of it harmonize with his acknowledged writings. 2. Solomon is the most likely author, as many of the sentiments contained in it are precisely the same with those in the Proverbs; and they are delivered often in nearly the same words. 3. The book was written by some Jew, in or soon after the time of the Babylonish captivity.
1. That Moses was the author has been the opinion of most learned men; and none has set the arguments in support of this opinion in so strong a light as Mr. Mason Good, in his Introductory Dissertation to his translation and notes on this book. Mr. G. is a gentleman of great knowledge, great learning, and correct thinking; and whatever he says or writes is entitled to respect. If he have data, his deductions are most generally consecutive and solid. He contends, “that the writer of this poem must in his style have been equally master of the simple and of the sublime; that he must have been minutely and elaborately acquainted with Astronomy, Natural History, and the general science of his age; that he must have been a Hebrew by birth and native language, and an Arabian by long residence and local study; and, finally, that he must have flourished and composed the work before the exodus.” And he thinks that “every one of these features is consummated in Moses, and in Moses alone; and that the whole of them give us his complete lineaments and portraiture. Instructed in all the learning of Egypt, it appears little doubtful that he composed it during some part of his forty years’ residence with the hospitable Jethro, in that district of Idumea which was named Midian.” In addition to these external proofs of identity, Mr. Good thinks, “a little attention will disclose to us an internal proof, of peculiar force, in the close and striking similarity of diction and idiom which exists between the book of Job and those pieces of poetry which Moses is usually admitted to have composed. This point he proceeds to examine; and thinks that the following examples may make some progress toward settling the question, by exhibiting a very singular proof of general parallelism. “The order of creation, as detailed in the first chapter of Genesis, is precisely similar to that described in Job 38:1-20, the general arrangement that occupied the first day;—the formation of the clouds, which employed the second;—the separation of the sea, which took up a part of the third;—and the establishment of the luminaries in the skies, which characterized the fourth.
“In this general description, as given in Genesis, the vapour in the clouds, and the fluid in the sea, are equally denominated waters: thus, Genesis 1:5-7, ‘And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.’
“Let us compare this passage with Job 26:8-10:—
He driveth together the waters into His thick clouds;
And the cloud is not rent under them.—
He setteth a bow on the face of the waters,
Till the consummation of light and of darkness.
“These are, perhaps, the only instances in the Bible in which the cloudy vapours are denominated waters, before they become concentrated into rain; and they offer an identity of thought, which strongly suggests an identity of person. The following is another very striking peculiarity of the same kind, occurring in the same description, and is perhaps still more in point. The combined simplicity and sublimity of Genesis 1:3, ‘And God said, Be light! and light was,’ has been felt and praised by critics of every age, Pagan and Mohammedan, as well as Jewish and Christian; and has by all of them been regarded as a characteristic feature in the Mosaic style. In the poem before us we have the following proof of identity of manner, Job 37:6:—
Behold! He saith to the snow, Be!
On earth then falleth it.
To the rain—and it falleth;—
The rains of his might.
“This can hardly be regarded as an allusion, but as an instance of identity of manner. In the psalmist we have an allusion: and it occurs thus, Psalm 33:9, הוא אמר ויהי hu amar vaiyehi, ‘He spake, and it existed;’ and I copy it that the reader may see the difference. The eulogy of Longinus upon the passage in Genesis is a eulogy also upon that in Job; and the Koran, in verbally copying the psalmist, has bestowed an equal panegyric upon all of them:—
[Arabic]
DIXIT, ‘ESTO;’ ET FUIT.—He said, BE THOU; and it WAS.
“With reference to the description of the creation, in the book of Genesis, I shall only farther observe, that the same simplicity of style, adapted to so lofty a subject, characteristically distinguishes the writer of the book of Job, who commonly employs a diction peculiarly magnificent, as though trusting to the subject to support itself, without the feeble aid of rhetorical ornaments. Of this the description of the tribunal of the Almighty, given in the first and second chapters of the ensuing poem, is a striking example, as indeed I have already remarked; and that of the midnight apparition in the fourth chapter is no less so.
“The following instances are of a more general nature, and lead, upon a broader principle, to the same conclusion:—
Ch. Ver. JOB Ch. Ver. EXODUS
13 24 Wherefore accountest thou
me thine enemy?
15 7 Thou sentest forth thy
wrath, Consuming them as
stubble.
4 9 By the blast of God they
perish; And by the breath
of His nostrils they are
consumed.
8 And with the blast of thy
nostrils The waters were
gathered together.
15 24 Distress and anguish
dismay him; They
overwhelm him as a king
ready for battle.
10 Thou didst blow with thy
wind: The sea covered
them.
20 26 Terrors shall be upon
him— Every horror
treasured up in reserve for
him. A fire unblown shall
consume him.
16 Terror and dread shall fall
upon them: By the might
of thine arm they shall be
still as a stone.
JOB DEUTERONOMY
27 The heavens shall disclose
his iniquity, And the earth
shall rise up against him.
28 22 And Jehovah shall smite
thee with a consumption;
And with a fever, and with
an inflammation,
18 15 Brimstone shall be rained
down upon his dwelling.
And with an extreme
burning
16 Below shall his root be
burnt up, And above shall
his branch be cut off.
23 And the heaven over thy
head shall be brass And
the earth under thee, iron.
12 17 Counsellors he leadeth
captive, And judges he
maketh distracted.
24 And Jehovah shall make
the rain of thy land
powder and dust; From
heaven shall it come down
upon thee, Until thou be
destroyed.
24 He bewildereth the
judgment of the leaders of
the people of a land, And
causeth them to wander in
a pathless desert:
28 Jehovah shall smite thee
with destruction, And
blindness, and
astonishment of heart..
7 25 They grope about in
darkness, even without a
glimpse; Yea, he maketh
them to reel like the
drunkard.
28 29 And thou shalt grope at
noonday, As the blind
gropeth in darkness: And
thou shalt not prosper in
thy ways: And thou shalt
only be oppressed. And
consumed continually
8 17 His roots shall be
entangled in a rock; With
a bed of stones shall he
grapple
18 Utterly shall it drink him
up from his place; Yea, it
shall renounce him, and
say, “I never knew thee.”
63 And it shall come to pass,
As Jehovah exulted over
you, To do you good, and
to multiply you, So will
Jehovah exult over you, To
destroy you, and reduce
you to naught.
19 Behold the Eternal
exulting in his course;
Even over his dust shall
rise up another.
“In this specimen of comparison it is peculiarly worthy of remark, that not only the same train of ideas is found to recur, but in many instances the same words, where others might have been employed, and perhaps have answered as well; the whole obviously resulting from the habit of thinking upon subjects in the same manner, and by means of the same terms which is common to every one, and which distinguishes original identity from intentional imitation. I will only advert to one instance: the use of the very powerful, but not very common verb cc sis, ‘to exult,’ exulto, glorior, gauriaw, which occurs in the last verse of both the above passages, and is in each instance equally appropriate: ישׂישׂ יהוה yasis Yehovah—cwcm awh hu mesos, [Arabic]
“The same term is again employed, Job 39:21, to express the spirited prancing of the high mettled war-horse.
“The above passage from Job 8:19 has not been generally understood, and has been given erroneously in the translations.” Mr. Good, in his notes, p. 101-103, enters at large into a defense of his version of this passage. Ch Ver Job Ch. Ver. Deuteronomy
8 8 For examine, I beseech
thee, the past age; Yea, gird
thyself to the study of its
forefathers;
32 7 Reflect on the days of old;
Contemplate the times of
ages beyond ages; Inquire
of thy father, and he will
show thee;
10 Shall not they instruct thee,
counsel thee, And swell
forth the sayings of their
wisdom?
Thine elders, and they will
instruct thee.
20 17 He shall not behold the
branches of the river,
Brooks of honey and
butter.—
13 He gave him to suck honey
out of the rock, And oil
out of the flinty rock,
29 6 When my path flowed with
butter, And the rock poured
out for me rivers of oil.
14 Butter of kine, and milk of
sheep.
15 27 Though his face be
enveloped with fatness, And
heaped up with fatness on
his loins.
15 But Jeshurun waxed fat,
and kicked: Thou art
waxen fat, thou art grown
thick; Thou art enveloped
with fatness.
6 4 The arrows of the Almighty
are within me; Their poison
drinketh up my spirit: The
terrors of God set
themselves in array against
me;.
23 I will heap mischiefs upon
them, I will spend my
arrows upon them.
16 13 His arrows fly around me;
He pierceth my reins
without mercy
42 I will make mine arrows
drunk with blood.
“The fine pathetic elegy of the ninetieth psalm has been usually ascribed to Moses; and Dathe imagines it was written by him a little before his death. “Kennicott and Geddes have some doubt upon this point, chiefly because the ultimate period assigned in it to the life of man is fourscore years; while Moses was at his death a hundred and twenty years old, yet ‘his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated;’ Deuteronomy 34:7. “The following comparison will, perhaps, have a tendency to confirm the general opinion, by rendering it probable that its author and the author of the Book of Job were the same person.
Ch. Ver. JOB Ch. Ver. PSALM
14 2 He springeth up as a flower,
and is cut down;
90 5 They are like the
passing grass of the
morning;
Yea, he fleeth as a shadow,
and endureth not.
6 In the morning it
springeth up and
groweth: In the evening
it is cut down and
withereth.
3 And dost thou cast thine eyes
upon such a one? And
wouldst thou bring me into
judgment with thyself?
7 For we are consumed by
thine anger, And by thy
wrath are we troubled.
16 Yet now art thou numbering
my steps; Thou overlookest
nothing of my sins:—
8 Thou hast set our
iniquities before thee:
Our secret sins in the
light of thy countenance.
18 And for ever, as the
crumbling mountain
dissolveth, And the rock
mouldereth away from his
place,
9 Behold, all our days are
passed away in thy
wrath, We spend our
years as a tale that is
told.
19 So consumest thou the hope
of man,
10 Their strength is labour
and sorrow; It is soon
cut off, and we flee
away.
Thou harassest him
continually till he perish
12 So teach us to number
our days That we may
apply our hearts unto
wisdom.,
7 21 Why wilt thou not turn away
from my transgression, And
let my calamity pass by?
14 O satisfy us early with
thy mercy, That we may
rejoice and be glad all
our days
11 14 If the iniquity of thy hand
thou put away, And let not
wickedness dwell in thy
tabernacles,
15 Make us glad according
to the days of our
affliction, To the years
we have seen evil:
16 Lo! then shalt thou forget
affliction;As waters passed
by shalt thou remember it:
Let thy wonders be
shown unto thy servants
And thy glory unto their
children;
17 And brighter shall the time
be than noontide; Thou shalt
shine forth, thou shalt grow
vigorous, like the day-spring.
And let the beauty of
Jehovah, our God, be
upon us, And establish
thou the work of our
hands
“The strictly and decidedly acknowledged productions of Moses are but few; and in the above examples I have taken a specimen from by far the greater number. It is, indeed, not a little astonishing that, being so few, they should offer a resemblance in so many points.
“There may at times be some difficulty in determining between the similarity of style and diction resulting from established habit, and that produced by intentional imitation; yet, in the former case, it will commonly, if I mistake not, be found looser, but more general; in the latter, stricter, but more confined to particular words or idioms; the whole of the features not having been equally caught, while those which have been laid hold of are given more minutely than in the case of habit. The manner runs carelessly through every part, and is perpetually striking us unawares; the copy walks after it with measured but unequal pace, and is restless in courting our attention. The specimens of resemblance now produced are obviously of the former kind: both sides have an equal claim to originality, and seem very powerfully to establish a unity of authorship.” Thus far Mr. Good; who has, on his own side of the question, most certainly exhausted the subject. The case he has made out is a strong one: we shall next examine whether a stronger cannot be made out in behalf of Solomon, as the second candidate for the authorship of this most excellent book.
2. That this book was the work of Solomon was the opinion of some early Christian writers, among whom was Gregory Nazianzen; and of several moderns, among whom were Spanheim and Hardouin. The latter has gone so far as to place the death of Job in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of David; and he supposes that Solomon wrote the work in question, about the second or third year of his reign. On this last opinion no stress whatever should be placed.
As the argument for Moses has been supported by supposed parallelisms between his acknowledged works and the Book of Job, so has that which attributes the latter to Solomon. That Solomon, from his vast learning and wisdom, was capable of such a work, none can deny. His knowledge in astronomy, natural history, politics, theology, languages, and the general science of his age, must have given him at least equal qualifications to those possessed by Moses. And if he was the author of the Book of Canticles, which most men believe, he had certainly a poetic mind, equal, if not superior, to all the writers who had existed previously to his time. The Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes are almost universally attributed to him: now, in the Book of Job, there are a multitude of sentiments, sentences, terms, and modes of speech, which are almost peculiar to Solomon, as will appear from the whole books.
In both we find the most exalted eulogium of wisdom. See Job 28:12; Proverbs 8:11, &c. Job says, “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, that is understanding;” Job 28:28. Solomon says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction;” Proverbs 1:7.
Job speaks of the state of the dead nearly in the same terms as Solomon: compare Job 21:33; 12:22; 36:5, with Proverbs 9:18. Job says, Job 26:6, “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.” Solomon says, Proverbs 15:11, “Hell and destruction are before the Lord; how much more the hearts of the children of men?” Job says, “Man drinketh iniquity like water;” Job 15:16. And Elihu charges him with “drinking up scorning like water;” Job 34:7. The same image occurs in Solomon, Proverbs 26:6: “He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool drinketh damage.”
In Job 15:34 it is said, “Fire shall consume the tabernacle of bribery.” The same turn of thought occurs Proverbs 15:27: “He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.” Both speak of weighing the spirits or winds. See Job 28:25; Proverbs 16:2 But to me the parallelism in these cases is not evident, as both the reason of the saying, and some of the terms in the original, are different. Job tells his friends, “If they would hold their peace, it would be their wisdom;” Job 13:5. Solomon has the same sentiment in nearly the same words, Proverbs 17:28: “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”
Solomon represents the rephaim or giants as in hell, or the great deep; Proverbs 2:18; 9:18; 7:27. The like sentiment is in Job 26:5. See the Hebrew.
In Job 27:16, 17, it is said that “If the wicked heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay; the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver.” The like sentiment is found, Proverbs 28:8: “He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather for him that will pity the poor.” Solomon says, Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall:” and, “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty; and before honour is humility;” Proverbs 18:12: and, “A man’s pride shall bring him low; but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.” The same sentiment is expressed in Job 22:29: “When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is a lifting up; and he shall save the humble person.” Both speak nearly in the same way concerning the creation of the earth and the sea. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?— Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued from the womb?” Job 38:4-8. This seems a reference to the flood. In Proverbs 8:22-29 Wisdom says: “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way—when as yet he had not made the earth—when he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth.” These are precisely the same kind of conceptions, and nearly the same phraseology.
In Job 20:7 it is said, “The wicked shall perish for ever, like his own DUNG.” And in Proverbs 10:7 it is said, “The name of the wicked shall ROT.”
It would not be difficult to enlarge this list of correspondences by a collation of passages in Job and in Proverbs; but most of them will occur to the attentive reader. There is, however, another class of evidence that appears still more forcible, viz.: There are several term used frequently in the Book of Job and in the books of Solomon which are almost peculiar to those books, and which argue an identity of authorship. The noun hyvt tushiyah, which may signify essence, substance, reality, completeness, occurs in Job and Proverbs. See Job 5:12; 6:13; 11:6; 12:16; 26:3, and Job 30:22; Proverbs 2:7; 3:21; 8:14, and Proverbs 18:1. And it occurs only twice, as far as I can recollect, in all the Bible besides; viz., Isaiah 28:29, and Micah 6:9. The word hwh havvah, used in the sense of misfortune, ruinous downfall, calamity, occurs Job 6:2, 30; 30:13, and in Proverbs 10:3; 11:6; 17:4; 19:13. It occurs nowhere else, except once in Ezekiel 7:26, once in Micah 7:3, and a few times in the Psalms, Psalm 5:9; 52:2, 7; 55:12; 91:3; 94:20; 37:12; 62:3.
The word twlbjt tachbuloth, wise counsels, occurs only in Job 37:12, and in Proverbs 1:5; 11:14; 12:5; 20:18; 24:6; and nowhere else in the Bible in this form. And htp potheh, the silly one, simpleton, fool, is used precisely in the same sense in Job 5:2; Proverbs 19:7, and in various other parts of the same book. The word אבדון, abaddon, destruction, Job 26:6; 28:22; 31:12, connected sometimes with lwav sheol, hell, or the grave; and twm maveth, death, occurs as above, and in Proverbs 15:11; 27:20.
Calmet, who refers to several of the above places, adds: It would be easy to collect a great number of similar parallel passages; but it must make a forcible impression in favour of this opinion when we observe in Job and Proverbs the same principles, the same sentiments, the same terms, and some that are found only in Job and Solomon. We may add farther, the beauty of the style, the sublimity of the thoughts, the dignity of the matter, the form and order in which the materials of this writer are laid down, the vast erudition and astonishing fecundity of genius, all of which perfectly characterize Solomon.
Besides the above, we find many forms of expression in this book which prove that its author had a knowledge of the law of God, and many which show that he was acquainted with the Psalms of David, and a few very like what we find in the writings of the prophets. I shall insert a few more:— Job 15:27: Because he
covereth his face with fatness.
Psalm 17:10: They are inclosed
in their own fat.
Psalm 73:7: Their eyes stand out
with fatness.
Job 34:14: If he set his heart
upon man, he shall gather unto
himself his spirit and his breath.
Psalm 104:29: Thou hidest thy
face, and they are troubled: thou
takest away their breath; they die,
and return to their dust.
Job 21:9: Their houses are
safe from fear; neither is the rod
of God upon them.
Psalm 73:5: They are not in
trouble as other men; neither are they
plagued like other men.
Job 21:10: Their bull
gendereth, and faileth not; their
cow calveth, and casteth not her
calf.
Psalm 144:13, 14: Let our sheep
bring forth thousands;-and our oxen
be strong to labour.
Job 21:18: They (the wicked)
are as stubble before the wind; and
as chaff that the storm carrieth
away.
Psalm 1:4: The ungodly are like
the chaff which the wind driveth
away.
Job 22:19: The righteous see
it, and are glad; and the innocent
laugh them to scorn.
Psalm 58:10: The righteous
shall rejoice when he seeth the
vengeance; he shall wash his feet in
the blood of the wicked.
Job 38:41: Who provideth for
the raven his food? when his
young ones cry unto God.
Psalm 147:9: He giveth to the
beast his food; and to the young
ravens which cry.
Job 12:21: He poureth
contempt upon princes, and
weakeneth the strength of the
mighty.
Psalm 107:40: He poureth
contempt upon princes, and causeth
them to wander in the wilderness.
Job 3:3: Let the day perish in
which I was born; and the night in
which it was said, There is
Jeremiah 15:10: Wo is me, my
mother, that thou hast borne me, a
man of strife.
man-child conceived. See also
Job 10:18.
Jeremiah 20:14, 15: Cursed be
the day wherein I was born-let not
the day wherein my mother bare me
be blessed.
Job 21:7: Wherefore do the
wicked live, become old, and are
mighty in power?
Jeremiah 12:1, 2: Wherefore
doth the way of the wicked prosper?
they grow; yea, they bring forth fruit.
Job 28:12: But where shall
wisdom be found, and where is the
place of understanding?
Job 28:13: Man knoweth not
the price thereof; neither is it
found in the land of the living.
Collate these verses with Baruch
3:14, 15, 29, and see Proverbs 1:20 Proverbs
1:20-23; 2:2-7; Proverbs 3:13 Proverbs
3:13-18; 4:5-9; Proverbs 8:10 Proverbs
8:10-35.
The remarkable sentiment that “God, as Sovereign of the world, does treat the righteous and the wicked, independently of their respective merits, with a similar lot in this life, and that like events often happen to both,” is maintained in the Book of Job and the Ecclesiastes of Solomon. Job 9:22-24: “He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked. If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where and who is he?” Job 10:15: “If I be wicked, wo unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head.” Job 9:15: “Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer; I would make supplication to my Judge.” Job 12:6: “The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.” Job 21:7-9: “Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea are mighty in power? Their seed is established in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.”
Similar sentiments, with a great similarity of expression, are found in the following passages from Solomon. Ecclesiastes 6:8: “For what hath the wise more than the fool?” Ecclesiastes 8:14: “There be just men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked. Again, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous.” Ecclesiastes 9:2: “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not. As is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.” Ecclesiastes 7:15: “There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness; and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.”
I may conclude this with the words of a learned translator of the book of Job, and apply in reference to Solomon what he applies to Moses: “The specimens of resemblance now produced have an equal claim to originality, and seem very powerfully to establish a unity of authorship.” I think the argument much stronger in favour of Solomon as its author than of Moses: and while even here I hesitate, I must enter my protest against the conclusions drawn by others; and especially those who profess to show where David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, &c., have copied and borrowed from Job! Some of them, in all probability, never saw the book; and those who did had an inspiration, dignity, manner, and power of their own, that rendered it quite unnecessary to borrow from him. Such plagiarism would appear, in common cases, neither requisite nor graceful. I have a high opinion of the book of Job, but God forbid that I should ever bring it on a level with the compositions of the sweet singer of Israel, the inimitable threnodies of Jeremiah, or the ultra-sublime effusions of the evangelical prophet. Let each keep his place, and let God be acknowledged as the inspirer of all.
Thus, by exactly the same process, we come to different conclusions; for the evidence is now as strong that Job lived posterior to the days of Moses; that he was acquainted with the Law and the Prophets; that either he took much from the Psalms and Proverbs, or that David and Solomon borrowed much from him; or that Solomon, the son of David, wrote the history; as it is that he lived in the days of Moses.
For my own part, I think the later date by far the most probable; and although I think the arguments that go to prove Solomon to be the author are weightier than those so skilfully brought forth by learned men in behalf of Moses, yet I think if possible that it was the work of neither, but rather of some learned Idumean, well acquainted with the Jewish religion and writers; and I still hold the opinion which I formed more than thirty years ago, when I read over this book in the Septuagint, and afterwards in the Hebrew, that it is most probable the work was originally composed in Arabic, and afterwards translated into Hebrew by a person who either had not the same command of the Hebrew as he had of the Arabic, or else purposely affected the Arabic idiom, retaining many Arabic words and Arabisms; either because he could not find appropriate expressions in the Hebrew, or because he wished to adorn and enrich the one language by borrowing copiously from the other. The Hebrew of the book of Job differs as much from the pure Hebrew of Moses and the early prophets, as the Persian of Ferdoosy differs from that of Saady. Both these were Persian poets; the former wrote in the simplicity and purity of his elegant native language, adopting very few Arabic words; while the latter labours to introduce them at every turn, and has thus produced a language neither Persian nor Arabic. And so prevalent is this custom become with all Persian writers, both in prose and verse, that the pure Persian becomes daily more and more corrupted, insomuch that there is reason to fear that in process of time it will be swallowed up in the language of the conquerors of that country, in which it was formerly esteemed the most polished language of Asia. Such influence has the language of a conqueror on the country he has subdued; witness our own, where a paltry French phraseology, the remnant of one of the evils brought upon us by our Norman conqueror and tyrant, has greatly weakened the strong current of our mother tongue; so that, however amalgamated, filed, and polished by eminent authors, we only speak a very tolerable jargon, enriched, as we foolishly term it, by the spoils of other tongues. The best specimen of our ancient language exists in the Lord’s prayer, which is pure English, or what is called Anglo-Saxon, with the exception of three frenchified words, trespasses, temptation, and deliver.
But to return to the book of Job. The collections of Mr. Good, Dr. Magee, and others, if they do not prove that Moses was the author of the book, prove that the author was well acquainted with the Mosaic writings; and prove that he was also acquainted with the ninetieth Psalm; and this last circumstance will go far to prove that he lived after the days of David, for we have no evidence whatever that the ninetieth Psalm was published previously to the collection and publication of the Psalms now generally termed the Psalms of David, though many of them were written by other hands, and not a few even after the Babylonish captivity. And, as to the inscription to this Psalm, תפלה משה איש האלהים tephillah Mosheh ish haelohim, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God;” 1. We know not that Moses the Jewish lawgiver is meant: it might be another person of the same name. 2. And even in that case it does not positively state that this Moses was the author of it. 3. The inscriptions to the Psalms are of dubious, and many of them of no authority: some of them evidently misplaced; and others either bearing no relation to the matter of the Psalms to which they are prefixed, or evidently contradictory to that matter. Hence our translators have considered these inscriptions as of no authority; and have not admitted them, in any case, into the body of their respective Psalms. The parallelism, therefore, drawn from this Psalm, will not help much to prove that Moses was the author of the book of Job; but it will go far to prove, as will be seen in other cases, that the author of this book was acquainted with the book of Psalms, as several of the preceding collections testify; and that there is a probability that he had read the prophets that lived and wrote in the time, and after the time, of the Babylonish captivity, which appears to me the only thing that shakes the argument in favour of Solomon; unless we take the converse of the question, and say that Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, all knew and borrowed from the book of Job. But this supposition will, in its turn, be shaken by the consideration that there are several things in the book of Job which evidently refer to the law as already given, and to some of the principal occurrences in the Israelitish history, if such references can be made out. These considerations have led me to think it probable that the book was written after the captivity by some unknown but highly eminent and inspired man. We may wonder, indeed, that the author of such an eminent work has not been handed down to posterity; and that the question should be left at the discretion of the whole limbus of conjecture; but we find, not only several books in the Bible, but also other works of minor importance and a later date, similarly circumstanced. We have no certain evidence of the author of the books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, or Esther; we can, in reference to them, make probable conjectures, but this is all. Even in the New Testament the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is still unknown; though a pretty general tradition, and strong internal evidence, give it to St. Paul; yet this point is not so proved as to exclude all doubt. The finest poems of heathen antiquity, the Iliad and Odyssey, cannot be certainly traced to their author. Of the person called Homer, to whom they have been attributed, no one knows any thing. He is still, for aught we know, a fabulous person; and the relations concerning him are entitled to little more credit than is due to the Life of Æsop by Planudes. Seven different cities have claimed the honour of being his birth-place. They are expressed in the following distich:—
JEpta poleiv dierizousi peri rizav JOmhrou,
Smurna, JRodov, Kolafon, Salamiv, Ciov, Argov, Aqhnai.
Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ,
Orbis de Patria certat, HOMERE, tua.
Nor have these claims ever been adjusted. Some have gone so far as to attribute the work to Solomon, king of Israel, composed after his defection from the true religion to idolatry! that the word Homer, JOmhrov Homeros, is merely Hebrew, אמרים omerim, with a Greek termination, signifying the sayings or discourses, from rma amar, he spoke; the whole work being little more than the dialogues or conversations of the eminent characters of which it is composed. Even the battles of Homer are full of parleys; and the principal information conveyed by the poem is through the conversation of the respective chiefs.
The Makamaton, or assemblies, of the celebrated Arabic author Hariri, show us how conversations were anciently carried on among the Arabs, and even in the same country in which the plan of the poem of Job is laid; and were we closely to compare the sex concessus of that author, published by Schultens, we might find many analogies between them and the turn of conversation in the book of Job. But the uncertainty relative to the author detracts nothing from the merit and excellency of the poem. As it is the most singular, so it is the best, as a whole, in the Hebrew canon. It exhibits a full view of the opinions of the eastern sages on the most important points; not only their religion and system of morals are frequently introduced, but also their philosophy, astronomy, natural history, mineralogy, and arts and sciences in general; as well those that were ornamental, as those which ministered to the comforts and necessities of life. And on a careful examination, we shall probably find that several arts, which are supposed to be the discoveries of the moderns, were not unknown to those who lived in a very remote antiquity, and whom it is fashionable to consider as unlettered and uncultivated barbarians. As the person, family, time, and descendants of Job are so very uncertain, I shall not trouble my readers with the many genealogical tables which have been constructed by chronologists and commentators; yet it might be considered a defect were I not to notice what is inserted at the end of the Greek and Arabic Versions relative to this point; to which I shall add Dr. Kennicott’s Tables, and the substance of a letter which contains some curious particulars.
“And he (Job) dwelt in the land of Ausitis, in the confines of Idumea and Arabia; and his former name was Jobab. And he took to wife Arabissa, and begat a son whose name was Ennon. And his (Jobab’s) father’s name was Zarith, one of the sons of the children of Esau; and his mother’s name was Bosora; and thus he was the fifth from Abraham.”
“And these are the kings who reigned in Edom; which region he also governed; the first was Balak, the son of Beor, the name of whose city was Dennaba. And after Balak reigned Jobab, who is also called Job. And after him Assom, the governor of the country of the Temanites. After him Adad, the son of Basad, who cut off Madian in the plain of Moab; and the name of his city was Gethaim.”
“The friends who came to visit him were Eliphaz, son of Sophan, of the children of Esau, king of the Temanites. Baldad, the son of Amnon, of Chobar, tyrant of the Sauchites. Sophar, king of the Minaites. Thaiman, son of Eliphaz, governor of the Idumeans.”
“This is translated from the Syriac copy. He dwelt in the land of Ausitis, on the borders of the Euphrates; and his former name was Jobab; and his father was Zareth, who came from the east.” This is verbatim from the Codex Alexandrinus.
The Arabic is not so circumstantial, but is the same in substance. “And Job dwelt in the land of Auz, between the boundaries of Edom and Arabia; and he was at first called Jobab. And he married a strange woman, and to her was born a son called Anun. But Job was the son of Zara, a descendant of the children of Esau; his mother’s name was Basra, and he was the sixth from Abraham. Of the kings who reigned in Edom, the first who reigned over that land was Balak, the son of Beor, and the name of his city was Danaba. And after him Jobab, the same who is called Job. And after Job, he (Assom) who was prince of the land of Teman. And after him (Adad) the son of Barak, he who slew and put to flight Madian, in the plains of Moab; and the name of his city was Jatham. And of the friends of Job who visited him was Eliphaz, the son of Esau, king of the Temanites.” Dr. Kennicott says, When Job lived seems deducible from his being contemporary with Eliphaz, the Temanite, thus:—
ABRAHAM
1 ISAAC 1
2 Esau. Jacob. 2
3 Eliphaz. Levi. 3
4 Teman. Kohath. 4
5 Eliphaz the Temanite. Amram-Job. 5
Moses.
The late Miss Mary Freeman Shepherd, well known for her strong masculine genius, and knowledge of various languages, sent me the following genealogy and remarks, which she thought would clearly ascertain the time of Job. I faithfully transcribe them from her letter to me, a short time before her death.
“Shem, two years after the flood, begat Arphaxad and Uz, and also Aram — 2
Arphaxad begat Salah at — 35
Salah begat Eber at — 30
Eber begat Peleg at — 34
Peleg, in whose time the earth was divided, begat Reu at — 30 Reu begat Serug at — 32
Serug begat Nahor at — 30
Nahor begat Terah at — 29
Terah begat Abraham at — 70
Abraham begat Ishmael at eighty-six, Israel at — 100
Isaac married at forty, soon after, probably at forty-three, Esau and Jacob born — 43
Jacob married at forty, had Reuben his first-born, and Levi born of Leah, by the time he was forty-four — 44
Levi begat Kohath, suppose at — 40
Kohath begat Amram, suppose at — 40
Amram begat Moses, suppose at — 40
Total After the deluge — 599
“Shem was the father of Aram, who gave his name to the Aramites, i.e., the Syrians; and he was the father of Uz, who gave his name to the land of Uz, in which JOB dwelt, not was born, for the text says, There was a man in the land of Uz, called Job.
“In Genesis 46:13, one of the sons of Issachar is named Job. In the genealogies of Numbers 26:24, and in 1 Chronicles 7:1, he is called Jashub. It is remarkable that there is no mention in Chronicles of the sons of Jashub, or of any of the sons of Issachar, among the thousands of Israel, sons of Tola, where, might not Job be called Jashub? Mitzraim, i.e., Egypt, was a son of Ham; Uz and Aram, sons of Shem; Ishmael by Hagar, and Midian by Keturah, both sons to Abram. How well does this account for the nearness of the languages of these people, being scions from the same mother tongue!
“Ishmael, the father of the tribes of Arabia; Arabic was, therefore, not their mother tongue. The roots of these languages germinated from the Hebrew roots, and so a new language sprang up, afterwards formed according to grammatic rules, and enriched as arts and sciences, and cultivated genius, added new inventions. Things new and unknown before gave rise to new words or names. Nouns, and the action, operation, and effects of arts and sciences, produced verbs or roots. Thus the Arabic become so copious and rich, and has roots not in the pure original Hebrew. All this considered, might not Moses have written the book of Job, as parts of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel were written, after the captivity, in a mixed language, in order that it might be the better understood by those for whom it was written; those of the people who, being left in Jerusalem, had retained their native Hebrew; and those who had, by long residence in Babylon, corrupted and mingled it with the Chaldaic, which is a dialect of the Hebrew, like the modern language of Italy when compared with that of ancient Rome, or our modern Latin when compared with that of the Augustan age. “By the influence of climate upon the organs of speech, the different avocations, usages, diet, turn of mind, and genius of men, the dialects which all streamed from one language, and pronounced in one and the same speech, confounded, (not annihilated, troubled, but not dried up,) no new language then created, yet so confounded in utterance that they understood not one another’s speech. The operation was upon the ear of the heart, as in the day of pentecost: one man spoke, and all, though of different tongues, understood; the ear suggested the various sounds to the tongue, and from thence the varied pronunciations of one and the same language often makes it misunderstood.
“Shem, who lived five hundred and two years after the deluge, being still alive, and in the three hundred and ninety-third year of his life, when Abram was born, therefore the Jewish tradition that Shem was the Melchisedek, (my righteous king of Salem,) an epithet, or title of honour and respect, not a proper name, and, as the head and father of his race, Abraham paid tithes to him; this seems to me well founded, and the idea confirmed by these remarkable words, Psalm 110:4, Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, qdx-yklm אתה כהן לעולם על דברתי atah cohen leolam al dibrathi malki-tsedek. As if he had said, Thou, my only-begotten Son, first-born of many brethren; not according to the substituted priesthood of the sons of Levi, who, after the sin of the golden calf, stood up in lieu of all the first-born of Israel, invested with their forfeited rights of primogeniture of king and priest; the Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, (change,) Thou art a priest for ever after the (my order of Melchisedek, my own original primitive) order of primogeniture; even as Shem the man of name, the Shem that stands the first and foremost of the sons of Noah. The righteous prince and priest of the most high God meets his descendant Abraham after the slaughter of the kings, with refreshments; blessed him as the head and father of his race, and as such, he receives from Abraham the tithe of all the spoil.
“How beautifully does Paul of Tarsus, writing to the Hebrews, point through Melchisedek,—Shem, the head and father of their race, invested in all the original rights of primogeniture, priest of the most high God, blessing Abraham as such, as Levi even had existence, and as such receiving tithe from Abraham, and in him from Levi yet in the loins of his forefathers, when Moses on this great and solemn occasion records simply this: Melchisedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, sine genealogia; his pedigree not mentioned, but standing, as Adam in St. Luke’s genealogy, without father and without mother, Adam of God, Luke 3:38;—how beautifully, I say, doth St. Paul point through Melchisedek to Jehoshua our great High Priest and King, whose eternal generation who shall declare! Hammashiach, the Lord’s Anointed, Priest, and King, after the order of Melchisedek, only begotten first-born Son! The Levitical priesthood that arose from the sin of the golden calf and the forfeited rights of the first-born, in whose stead stood the sons of Levi, (the reward of their zeal for God, on that sad occasion.) This right of primogeniture, as the streams of Jordan at the presence of God, conversus est retrorsum, to its fountain head; and Judah was his sanctuary, Psalm 114:2. Reuben forfeited by incest his excellence; Simeon and Levi, the right in priority of birth, theirs; and Judah, he to whom his brethren should bow down as their head. From the time of Abraham, who married a sister of Haran, prince of the tribe of Judah, to the time of Jesus, the tribes of Levi and Judah intermarried: thus was incorporated the source and streams in one. And the very names of all the sons of the tribes of Israel lost in one, that of Jehudah, from which they call themselves Jehudim.
“The shebit, tribe, not sceptre, the rod or ensign of the chief of a tribe. ‘The tribe, genealogy, shall not recede from Jehudah until Shiloh come;’ for whose genealogy they subsist. Ten, by the schism of Jeroboam, may be carried away beyond the river, and heard of no more; but Jehudah, Levi, and Benjamin, shall be tribes; and their registers shall be clear and unbroken until the temple and city and all the registers of genealogy are destroyed. The people are one; one people worshipping one God. ‘I have prayed,’ said Jehoshua Mashiach, ‘that ye might be one in me, as I and my Father are one.’
“Ham, the son of Noah, begat Cush, and Cush begat Nimrod, and Saba, and others. Nimrod began a monarchy, and founded Babel. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh. Nimrod was therefore contemporary with Peleg. Compare Genesis 2:8, 9, with Genesis 9:10-25.
“Thus, in about two hundred and ten or twenty years after the deluge, by the confusion of tongues, was the earth divided; as its inhabitants, dispersing no doubt in families together formed themselves into nations, people, and tribes and kindreds, and from thence into tongues. “From the knowledge I have of the Hebrew, I have caught a glance of the genius, spirit, and tone of the general march of the oriental tongues, and even of the expression of their character. To me the book of Job seems to have much of the Chaldee, both in words and idiom, and much of the sublimity and spirit of the writings of Moses. His grand descriptions of the Most High, his wondrous works, his power, wisdom, justice, and truth, all speak the historian of Genesis, the legislator of Israel, the unconsumed fire of the burning bush, the loud thunders of Sinai, and the shinings of the light of God. That pointed exactness and conciseness of narration that distinguish Moses, are also conspicuous in the book of Job. If Moses did indeed write this book, he wrote it for the nations, as well as for Israel; and took, as the best vehicle of a general conveyance, a language most generally understood. At this day, for the facilitating of intercourse in the Levant, Mediterranean, Archipelago, &c., there is a language called Linsua Franca, the language of the Franks. To Israel Moses conveyed the pure language of their fathers; but rather than the nations should be famished for bread, or die for thirst, he put manna in their coarse earthen vessels, and wine in their wooden cups.
“You see, my dear sir, how strong is female obstinacy; I struggle and contend for the body of Moses. I admire Moses; I admire Job. God, by the prophet Ezekiel and the apostle St. James, ascertains the history of Job to be a fact, not a fiction. And thus inspiration sustains its inspiration. “Will you, dear sir, think it worth while to collect and put together these scattered scraps, as little pegs to better shelves, which you must furbish, smooth, and point;—too hard a work for Mary the aged? Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God: and in him see all truth.”—M. F. S. Miss Shepherd is a strong auxiliary to Mr. Good; still I remain unconvinced. My readers must choose for themselves.
The history of Job, but strangely disguised, is well known among the Asiatics. He is called by the Arabic and Persian historians [Persian] Ayoub, which is exactly the same as the Hebrew bwya Ayoub, which Europeans have strangely metamorphosed into Job. In the Tareekh Muntekheb his genealogy is given thus: Ayoub the son of Anosh, the son of Razakh, the son of Ais, (Esau,) the son of Isaac. He was a prophet, and was afflicted by a grievous malady three years, or according to others, seven years; at the end of which, when eighty years of age, he was restored to perfect health, and had a son named Bash ben Ayoub. Other writers say he had five sons, with whom he made war on a brutal people called Dsul Kefel, whom he exterminated because they refused to receive the knowledge of the true God, whom he preached to them. Khondemir, who entitles him Job the patient, gives us his history in the following manner:—
“Job, by his father’s side, was descended from Esau, and by his mother from Lot. Abou Giaffer al Tabary relates that God sent him to preach to the inhabitants of Thaniah, a people who dwelt between Remla and Damascus; but three persons only received the truth. Nevertheless, as he was very zealous in the service of God, he rewarded his faith and obedience by heaping riches upon him, and giving him a numerous family. This excited the envy of the devil, who, presenting himself before God, accused Job as one who was selfish in his devotion; and, were it not for the temporal blessings which he received from his Maker, he would not worship even once in the day. God having given Satan permission to spoil Job of his goods, and deprive him of his children, he gave the same proofs of his piety, worshipping God as before, and patiently bearing his great losses. Satan, enraged to be thus baffled, presented himself once more before God, and asserted that Job continued thus faithful because he knew that God would reward his constancy with an equal or even greater portion of earthly blessings: but if he would afflict his body by some grievous disease, he would soon abandon his service, and be at the end of his patience. In order fully to show the piety of this exemplary man, God permitted Satan to afflict his body as he pleased, with the exception of his eyes, his ears, and his tongue. The devil, having received this permission, blew up the nostrils of Job such a pestilential heat as immediately turned his whole mass of blood into corruption, so that his whole body became one ulcer, the smell of which was so offensive that his greatest intimates could not approach him; and he was obliged to be carried out of the city, and laid in a distant place entirely by himself. Notwithstanding, Job continued both his patience and piety. His wife, Rosina, never forsook him, but continued daily to bring him the necessaries of life. Satan observing this, stole from her the provision she had made for her husband; and when reduced to the lowest ebb, he appeared to her under the form of an old bald woman, and told her, that if she would give her the two tresses of hair that hung down on her neck, she would provide her daily with what was necessary for her husband’s support. This offer appearing so very advantageous in behalf of her afflicted husband, she accepted the offer, and gave the two tresses to the old woman.
“Satan, overjoyed at the success of his plots, went to Job, told him that his wife had been caught in the act of adultery, and that her tresses had been cut off, and here was the proof of the fact. Job, seeing this, and finding his wife without her tresses, not supposing that he was deceived by the devil, lost his patience, and bound himself by an oath, that if he should ever recover his health he would inflict on her the most exemplary punishment. Satan, supposing he had now gained his end, transformed himself into an angel of light, and went throughout the country as a messenger of God, informing the people that Job, who was counted a prophet, had fallen from his piety and brought the wrath of God upon him; that they should no more listen to his preaching, but banish him from among them, lest the curse of God should fall on the whole country.
“Job, coming to understand how the matter stood, had recourse to God by faith and prayer, and said these remarkable words, which are found in the KORAN: ‘Distress closes me in on every side: but thou, O Lord, art more merciful than all those who can feel compassion.’ On this all his pains and sufferings immediately ceased; for Gabriel, the faithful servant of the Most High, descended from heaven, took Job by the hand, and lifting him up from the place where he lay, stamped on the ground with his foot, and immediately a spring of water rose up from the earth, out of which Job having drunk, and washed his body, he was instantly cleansed of all his ulcers, and restored to perfect health.
“God, having thus restored him, greatly multiplied his goods, so that the rain and the snow which fell around his dwelling were precious; and his riches became so abundant, as if showers of gold had descended upon him.”
This is the sum of the account given by the oriental historians, who, forsaking the truth of the sacred history, have blended the story with their own fables. The great facts are however the same in the main; and we find that with them the personality, temptation, and deliverance of Job, are matters of serious credibility. Abul Faragius says that the trial of Job happened in the twenty-fifth year of Nahor, son of Serug; thus making him prior to Abraham. He calls him [Arabic] Ayoub assadeek, Job the righteous. See Abul Faragius, Ebn Batric, D’Herbelot, &c. Commentators have considered this book as being divided into distinct parts. Mr. Good, who considers it a regular Hebrew epic, divides it into six parts or books, which he considers to be its natural division, and unquestionably intended by the author. These six parts are, an opening or exordium, containing the introductory history or decree concerning Job; three distinct series of arguments, in each of which the speakers are regularly allowed their respective turns; the summing up of the controversy; and the close of the catastrophe, consisting of the suffering hero’s grand and glorious acquittal, and restoration to prosperity and happiness.
PART I.—The TEMPTATION of Job decreed
Which contains.—1. A brief narrative of Job. 2. The tribunal of the Almighty. 3. His remarks to Satan concerning Job’s fidelity. 4. Satan’s reply. 5. The Almighty consents to his temptation. 6. Return of the celestial tribunal. 7. The fidelity of Job proved and declared. 8. Satan insinuates that he would not have proved true had the attack been made on his person. 9. The Almighty consents to a second trial. 10. The trial made. 11. Job’s utter misery. 12. The visit of his three friends to condole with him. Chap. 1. and 2.
PART II.—First Series of Controversy
1. Exclamation of Job on his miserable condition. 2. Speech of Eliphaz, accusing him of want of firmness, and suspecting his integrity, on account of the affliction with which he is visited. 3. Job’s reply, reproaching his friends with cruelty; bewailing the disappointment he had felt in them; calling for death as the termination of his miseries; then longing for life, expostulating with the Almighty, and supplicating his forgiveness. 4. Bildad resumes the argument of Eliphaz with great severity; openly accuses Job of hypocrisy; and exhorts him to repentance, in order that he may avoid utter ruin. 5. Job in reply longs to plead his cause before God, but is overwhelmed at his majesty. 6. He again desponds, and calls for death as the only refuge from his sorrows. 7. Zophar continues the argument on the side of his companions; condemns Job acrimoniously for still daring to assert his innocence; and once more exhorts him to repentance, as the only means of obtaining a restoration to the favour of the Almighty. 8. Job is stimulated to a still severer reply. 9. Accuses his companions of declaiming on the part of God, with the base hope of propitiating him. 10. Boldly demands his trial at the tribunal of the Almighty; and, realizing the tribunal before him, commences his pleading, in an address variegated on every side by opposite feelings: fear, triumph, humiliation, expostulation, despondency. Chap. iii.-xiv.
PART III.—Second Series of Controversy
1. Eliphaz commences the discussion in his regular turn; accuses Job of vehemence and vanity; asserts that no man is innocent; and that his own conduct sufficiently proves himself not to be so. 2. Job replies; and complains bitterly of the unjust reproaches heaped upon him; and accuses his companions of holding him up to public derision. 3. He pathetically bemoans his lot; and looks forward to the grave with glimmering, through despair, of a resurrection from its ruins. 4. Bildad perseveres in his former argument of Job’s certain wickedness, from his signal sufferings; and, in a string of lofty traditions, points out the constant attendance of misery upon wickedness. 5. Job rises superior to this attack; appeals to the piety and generosity of his friends; asserts the Almighty to have afflicted him for purposes altogether unknown; and then soars to a full and triumphant hope of a future resurrection, and vindication of his innocence. 6. Zophar repeats the former charge; and Job replies, by directly controverting his argument, and proving, from a variety of examples, that in the present world the wicked are chiefly prosperous, and the just for the most part subject to affliction. Chap. xv.-xii.
PART IV.—Third Series of Controversy
1. Eliphaz, in direct opposition to Job’s last remarks, contends that certain and utter ruin is the uniform lot of the wicked; and adduces the instances of the deluge, and of Sodom and the other cities of the plain. 2. Job supports his position by fresh and still more forcible examples. Though he admits that, in the mystery of Providence, prosperity and adversity are often equally the lot of both the righteous and the wicked; yet he denies that this ought to be held as an argument in favour of the last, whose prosperity is in the utmost degree precarious, and who in calamity are wholly destitute of hope and consolation. 3. Bildad replies in a string of lofty but general apophthegms, tending to prove that Job cannot be without sin, since no man is so in the sight of God. 4. Job rejoins with indignation; takes a general survey of his life, in the different capacities of a magistrate, a husband, and a master; and challenges his companions to point out a single act of injustice he had committed. Chap. 22.-31.
PART V.—The Summing up of the Controversy
1. Zophar, who ought to have concluded the last series, having declined to prosecute the debate any farther, the general argument is summed up by Elihu, who has not hitherto spoken, though present from the first. 2. He condemns the subject matter of the opponents of Job, as altogether irrelevant; accuses Job himself, not of suffering for any past impiety, but of speaking irreverently during the controversy. 3. He contests several of Job’s positions; asserts that afflictions are often sent by the Almighty for the wisest and most merciful purposes; and that, in every instance, our duty is submission. 4. He closes with describing the Creator as supreme and uncontrollable; and as creating, upholding, and regulating all nature according to his own will and pleasure; incomprehensibly and mysteriously yet ever wisely and benevolently. Chap. 32.-37.
PART VI.—The Acquittal and Restoration of Job
1. The Almighty appears to pronounce judgment; speaks to Job in a sublime and magnificent address out of a whirlwind. 2. Job humbles himself before God, and is accepted. 3. His friends are severely reproved for their conduct during the controversy, a sacrifice is demanded of them, and Job is appointed their intercessor. 4. He prays for his friends, and his prayer is accepted. 5. He is restored to his former state of prosperity, and his substance in every instance doubled. Chap. 38.-42.
On this plan Mr. Good has constructed his learned translation and excellent observations on this book.
The following Synopsis or general view of this book is very intelligible and may serve as an index to the work:—
I. The Historical Exordium, written in prose.—Chap. 1., 2. II. The threefold Series of Controversy written in poetry.—Chap. 3.-42:1-6.
III. The issue of Job’s trial; restoration to health and prosperity in prose.—Chap. 42:7-17.
1. Job’s Disputation with his three friends who came to visit him is a threefold series, chap. 3.:-16.; including Job’s speech in which he curses the day of his birth, chap. 3.: this gives rise to the
FIRST Series of Controversy, comprehended in chap. 4.:-14.
1. With ELIPHAZ, chap. 4:-7.
a. The Speech of Eliphaz, chap. 4., 5.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 6., 7.
2. With BILDAD, chap. 8.:-10.
a. The Speech of Bildad, chap. 8.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 9., 10.
3. With ZOPHAR, chap. 11.-14.
a. The Speech of Zophar, chap. 11.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 12.-14.
SECOND Series of Controversy, included in chap. 15.-21.
1. With ELIPHAZ, chap. 15., 17.
a. The Speech of Eliphaz, chap. 15.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 16., 17.
2. With BILDAD, chap. 18., 19.
a. The Speech of Bildad, chap. 18.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 19.
3. With ZOPHAR, chap. 20., 21.
a. Zophar’s Speech, chap. 20.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 21.
THIRD Series of Controversy, included in chap. 22.-31.
1. With ELIPHAZ, chap. 22.-24.
a. The Speech of Eliphaz, chap. 22.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 13., 24.
2. With BILDAD, chap. 25.-31.
a. The Speech of Bildad, chap. 25.
b. The Answer of Job, chap. 26.,-31.
ELIHU’S judgment concerning the Controversy, delivered at four different intervals,vpausing for Job’s answer, chap. 32.-37.
a. Elihu’s first Speech, chap. 32., 33.
b. Elihu’s second Speech, chap. 34.
c. Elihu’s third Speech, chap. 35.
d. Elihu’s fourth Speech, chap. 36., 37.
The ALMIGHTY appears, speaks out of a whirlwind, and determines the Controversy, chap. 38.-41.
a. The first Speech of the Almighty, chap. 38., 39.
b. The second Speech of the Almighty, chap. 40., 41.
c. The Answer and humiliation of Job, chap. 42:1-6.
Historical Narration concerning the restoration of Job to health and great worldly prosperity; with the account of his age and death, chap. 42:7-17. Some have contended that the whole of this book is written in verse; but I can see no rule or method by which the two first chapters, and the ten last verses of chap. xlii. can be reduced to poetry or poetic arrangement. They are merely narrative; and are utterly destitute of that dignity and pathos everywhere evident in this poem, and in every part of the Hebrew hemistich poetry wherever it occurs. I could almost suppose these places the work of another hand; a Preface and a Conclusion written by some person who was well acquainted with the fact of Job’s temptation, and who found such additions necessary to cast light upon the poem. But they are most probably the work of the same hand. There are, in different parts of the body of the poem, sentences in prose, which are the headings to the different speeches. This is frequent among the Arabic and Persian poets. Such headings are generally in rubric, and should here stand by themselves. THE BOOK OF JOB
As the time in which Job lived is so very uncertain, (see the preface, and the observations at the end of the notes on the first chapter,) {Job 1:22} the date found in our common English Bibles, which is upon the supposition that Moses wrote the book while among the Midianites, about one thousand five hundred and twenty years before the commencement of the Christian era, is inserted in the margin, not because it is the most probable, but because it is the most generally received.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL3.PDF, source PDF p. 115
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 6: “by the name of אל שדי, eel shaddai, god almighty”. source PDF page 116: “by the name of שדי אל Eel Shaddai, God Almighty,”. Compared with BEN_VOL3.PDF PDF p. 115, BEN_VOL3.PDF PDF p. 116. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: the available separately digitized printed volumes were searched, but the corresponding passage was not securely located. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain; this search provides no basis for reconstructing or silently normalizing them. BEN_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 115; BEN_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 116.
THE BOOK OF JOB.*
* Moses is thought to have written the book of Job,
while among the Midianites, before Christ, cir. 1520.
ARGUMENT.
THE preceding books of Scripture are, for the most part, plain and easy narratives, which he that runs may read and understand; but in the five poetical books, on which we are now entering, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon’s Song, are many things hard to be understood. These, therefore, require a more close application of mind, which yet the treasures they contain will abundantly recompense. The former books were mostly historical; these are doctrinal and devotional. And they are written in verse, according to the ancient rules of versifying, though not in rhyme, nor according to the rules of latter tongues. But though they are poetical, yet they are serious, and full of majesty. They have a poetic force and flame, without poetic fury; move the affections, without corrupting the imagination; and, while they gratify the ear, improve the mind, and profit the more by pleasing. In them we have much of God, his infinite perfections, and his government both of the world and of the church. And we have much of Christ, who is the spring, and soul, and centre of revealed religion. Here is what may enlighten our understandings, and acquaint us with the deep things of God. And this divine light may bring into our souls a divine fire, which will kindle and inflame devout affections; on which wings we may soar upward, until we enter into the holiest. In the book of Job, in particular, which comes first under our consideration, we find the most sublime disquisitions on God’s moral government, his wonderful and unlimited greatness, his indisputable sovereignty over all beings, and his incomprehensible wisdom; together with a most illustrious pattern of solid and fixed piety, and entire resignation to the divine will. So that, whether we consider the importance and dignity of the subjects, the magnificent and profound sentiments, the beauty of the language, or the amiable picture of virtuous manners which it sets forth, we shall find it worthy of our most attentive study, and greatest veneration for its high excellence. It is thought by many learned men to be the most ancient book of the Scriptures, and it really bears all the genuine marks of the most remote antiquity, both in the composition and style; and this may account for its being so difficult to be understood. Although most of the accounts which have been given of the author of this book, and the exact time when it was written, are but conjectures, unsupported by any authority; yet there seems very sufficient ground to determine, that the foundation of it is laid in matters of fact; namely, That, in very ancient times, there was a rich and powerful person named Job; that he was remarkable for his integrity, piety, and unshaken confidence in God; that he was, by very great, unexpected, and sudden calamities, reduced to a state of great distress; that this circumstance gave occasion to a discussion and contest between him and some of his friends, men of great wisdom and piety, whether severe afflictions ever happen to truly good men? and, if they do, whether they do not come by way of punishment, and as a mark of God’s displeasure? — that Job bore his afflictions with uncommon patience and resignation to the will of God; and, lastly, that he was afterward advanced to a greater degree of prosperity than he had enjoyed in the former part of his life. These, we say, appear undoubtedly to have been facts, and on them the whole book is built. That there was such a man as Job, is evident from his being mentioned by Ezekiel 14:14, and ranked with Noah and Daniel, as a man famous for piety above most others. And the Apostle James 5:10, says, Take the prophets for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Ye have heard of the patience of Job. And, unquestionably, the narrative which we here have of his prosperity and piety, of his strange affliction and exemplary patience, with the substance of his conferences with his friends, God’s discourse with him out of the whirlwind, and his return to a prosperous condition, are all exactly true.
We are sure, also, that this book is very ancient, probably of equal date with the book of Genesis itself. It is likely Job was of the posterity of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, whose firstborn was Uz, and in whose family religion was kept up, as appears Genesis 31:53, where God is called, not only the God of Abraham, but the God of Nahor. He evidently lived before sacrifices were confined to one altar, before the general apostacy of the nations, and while God was known by the name of אל שדי, Eel Shaddai, God Almighty, more than by the name of יהוה, Jehovah; for he is called Shaddai, the Almighty, above thirty times in this book. And that he lived before the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt, we may gather from hence, that there is no allusion at all to that grand event in any part of the book; as well as from his great longevity; there being no instance, after that time, of any person’s living, as it appears he did, to near the age of two hundred years.
We have said that this book is poetical. We may call it a kind of dramatic or heroic poem, though by no means a complete drama. The first two chapters are a kind of prologue, containing the argument, which is not in verse, but in a narrative or historical style, as being a relation of matters of fact; but the interlocutory parts of the work are evidently in metre, in the original Hebrew, as is agreed by most learned men. In this noble poem we have, 1. A monument of primitive theology, teaching us that, considering the corruption, ignorance, and weakness of human nature, on the one hand, and the infinite wisdom, the unspeakable greatness, and unspotted holiness of God, on the other, mankind should renounce all confidence in their own righteousness and strength, and put their whole trust in the mercy and grace of God, and submit themselves to him with the greatest humility and reverence. This is evidently the principal design of the poem. It contains, however, 2. A specimen of Gentile piety, for Job was not of the promised seed, not an Israelite, nor a proselyte to the religion of the Israelites. 3. We have here an exposition of the book of Providence, and a clear solution of many difficult passages therein. 4. A great example of close adherence to God in the deepest calamities; and, 5. An illustrious type of Christ, emptied and humbled, in order to his exaltation and greater glory. But “the principal benefit,” says Bishop Patrick, “which I hope pious souls, especially the afflicted, will reap by this book, is, to be persuaded thereby that all things are ordered and disposed by Almighty God; without whose command or permission neither good angels, nor the devil, nor men, nor any other creature, can do any thing. And that, as his power is infinite, so is his wisdom and goodness, which is able to bring good out of evil. And, therefore, we ought not to complain of him in any condition, as if he neglected us, or dealt hardly with us; but rather cheerfully submit ourselves to his blessed will; which never doth any thing without reason, though we cannot always comprehend it. To that issue, God himself, at last, brings all the dispute between Job and his friends; representing his works, throughout the world, to be so wonderful and unaccountable, that it is fit for us to acknowledge our ignorance, but never to accuse his providence. If we cannot see the cause why he sends any affliction, or continues it long upon us; instead of murmuring and complaining in such a case, this book effectually teaches us to resign ourselves absolutely to him; silently to adore and reverence the unsearchable depth of his wise counsels; contentedly to bear what he inflicts upon us; still to assert his righteousness in the midst of the calamities which befall the good, and in the most prosperous successes of the wicked; and steadfastly to believe, that all, at last, shall turn to our advantage, if, like his servant Job, we persevere in faith, and hope, and patience.” Taking a general view of the chapters of this book, we observe, An account of Job’s sufferings, chap. 1., 2.; not without a mixture of human frailty, chap. 3.; a dispute between him and his three friends, chap. 4.-31.; the interposal of Elihu, and of God himself, chap. 32.-41.; the end of all, in Job’s posterity, chap. 42.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The Book of Job.
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THE BOOK OF JOB.
This book of Job is a real history, and not composed as an example of patience under severe afflictions; for God himself has repeatedly called him by name. Ezekiel 14. To which the name of his country, and the number of his children are superadded, and all the consoling circumstances of his restoration. The book is written in the ancient style of flowing easy poetry, with accent, and numbers; but that was designed to embellish the history, as in the Iliad of Homer, and the Æneid of Virgil. The history therefore holds its rank, as the first of all canonical books, to which the ancients have given the palm of elegance in composition. Whether Job was descended from Esau, as some suppose, from Genesis 36:13; or from Nahor, as Huz was his country, Genesis 22:21, is much disputed. He lived early after the flood, as appears from his age, which was one hundred and forty years after his affliction. The objects of the book are, “1. To assert and explain the doctrine of a particular providence; to answer the objections which arise from the afflictions of good men; to urge submission to God’s dispensations, and to await without murmuring, the issue of every temptation. 2. To display the glory of God in his adorable perfections, his absolute sovereignty, inflexible justice, unsearchable wisdom, irresistible power, and infinite goodness: to exalt him as the Creator, Governor, and Judge of all; and to lay every mouth in the dust in silence before him. 3. To present us with an illustrious type of our Divine Saviour, first suffering, then exalted; sunk under the depths of adversity, then rising to the pinnacle of glory.” The style, eloquence, and general character of the conversations are highly finished. The author, whether Job or another, lived early; for a later author would not have kept clear of all phrases and customs peculiar to his own times. Origen ascribes this work to Moses while in the land of Midian. He transcribed it from some ancient copy. It can scarcely be doubted that Job himself was the author of the work, for the sublime apostrophes are such as really came from the heart. See Job 16:18. 19:23-27.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction
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JOB
INTRODUCTION
To the Book of Job a foremost position is assigned in the Septuagint Version of the Hebrew Scriptures; its claims to a like place in the realm of mind are quite universally recognised. It enters the Hebrew Canon with the face of an alien; its voice, however, is the voice of the sons of God. Born outside of the Israelitish fold, it is clad in the garb of a nomade; but its language is true Archaic Hebrew. Its thoughts, experiences, and trials, are representative in their character, and in a greater or less degree have been the common heritage of our race. In a significant sense, it is the experience-book of humanity. No one can read its pages without deep feelings of sympathy, for each one brings to their perusal a kindred experience. The author of the poem, however, no more truly dwells apart upon the mount of song, unapproached by the most gifted geniuses of earth, than does, in like manner, its hero, apart in the valley of humiliation, a sufferer from temptations and discipline which unite to make him from among the Old Testament saints the most conspicuous herald and type of his divine and suffering Master. The hero of the work, and the work itself, answer one to the other in the character of uniqueness, and justify Hitzig in calling Job “a great creation.” Its sublime conceptions and massive thoughts form a precious urn at which genius, in every age, has lighted its fires. Carlyle thus acknowledges these obligations: “A noble book! all men’s book! Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of manhood; so soft and great as the summer midnight, as the world with its suns and stars. There is nothing written, I think, of equal literary merit.” The Problem and Purport of the Work.
The Book may be regarded as a Theodicy — a vindication of the moral government of God in its relations to men. It treats of evil concretely, and sets before us its unfolding through the experience of a man conspicuous for piety. Its key-note is the question, Wherefore is evil? a question which is among the first to perplex, and the last to leave, the mind. Many stalwart minds have subsequently striven for its further solution — among whom the most eminent is Leibnitz, with his theory of Optimism — but have signally failed. The question stands where it stood at the close of this, the first and most elaborate of ancient theodicies. The idea of the work is simple and godlike; it is, to speak to man through man’s experiences, making a human life the text — the greatest conceivable sufferings of a righteous being the lesson-leaf, from which shall be elucidated the deeper principles of the divine government. The consideration of the afflictions of the righteous carries with it the possibly more impenetrable mystery — the prosperity of the wicked. This mystery comes out in bold relief in the discussion before us; for the spectacle of a prostrate Job constantly suggests its contrary — that of the triumphant sinner. The author of the work looks boldly into both of these excrescences of evil — the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked — and shows that they are consistent with a regime of righteousness, wisdom, and love. Extreme suffering, exasperated by unsympathetic bitterness of debate, goads the hero of our book to the utterances of passionate doubt, defiant summons of God to judgment, and aspersions upon the divine goodness, which Hengstenberg does not scruple to call blasphemies for which little justification can be offered. The trial lays bare a human heart as nowhere else in the Scriptures. With a like shudder to that with which Dante looked down into depths his own imagination had evoked, do we look into these real seething fires of passion and doubt. At last they burn themselves out, and disclose Job penitent in the ashes, bewailing the vileness and weakness of his nature, and exhibiting the noblest traits of incorruptible integrity. We rejoice in the issue of the trial, for it forever relieves human nature from the aspersion cast upon it by the foe of man, that man serves his God solely as a hireling.
There underlies the discussion an ancient theory of rewards and punishments which antedates the days of Moses, and was common to the ancient world, and, therefore, should hardly have been christened the Mosaic theory: moreover, the book is confessedly written outside of Israel, and there does not appear upon its pages any undisputed reference to Mosaic law (Thorah) or Mosaic institutions. The refutation of this theory of retributive justice, Hirtzel, Umbreit, De Wette, and Renan conceive to be the chief object of the book. On the contrary, the treatment of this topic is but as a side issue, and is not a polemic against any supposed principle of Mosaism. All the speakers agree in the fact that wickedness is punished and virtue rewarded in this world. This furnishes an adequate basis for the dogma of a future adjustment of life’s ills, and, resolutely kept before the mind of Job, (Job 19:25-27,) eminently contributes to the restoration of complete faith in God. From the moment of the sublime inscription upon the everlasting rock, the heaving fires begin to subside. Throughout the remainder of the debate the chiseled words of undying faith are ever before the eye, like the flag of a beleagured fortress. They occasion little remark on the part of the co-disputants, because they could be reached only by the demolition of outlying fortifications. (See note on Job 20:4.) Equally one-sided and unsatisfying is the view of Schlottman, Hengstenberg, Canon Cook, and A.B. Davidson, who regard the main object of the work to be the test of human virtue by subjecting it to the most fiery temptations; as well as the theory of Stuhlmann, Hupfeld, Merx, and Rodman, that the book is designed to rebuke all disposition to arraign the purposes and dealings of Providence, and to teach unconditional submission to the divine will. The more gratifying and sublime view of Ewald, that the work proposes the solution of life’s ills through the disclosure of immortal life, and the certainty, that spirit is eternal, magnifies a secondary consideration into a primary object. To teach these, or doctrines kindred to these as seen in the views of others, is not the chief aim of the book; they are embraced within, and germane to, the broader view accepted and defended by Bunsen (God in History, 1:182) and Hitzig, (Einleitung, xxiii,) that the book is essentially a theodicy; but not unfolded, as the latter would maintain, “from the standpoint of the Hebraic religion, on whose outer limits Koheleth plants himself.” On the contrary, the Book of Job springs from the heart of the patriarchal religion, which for ages was the only true religion of the world. In common with an Abraham and a Melchisedek, Job was a Gentile, whose soul had been moulded within no narrow limits of Sinai or its local institutions. His awful strugglings with doubt, his wavering but finally triumphant faith in Deity, his solemn appeals to the Godhead for vindication and relief, the forecasting of his soul for an incarnation of a Divine Helper and a future filling out of the present life, belong to man as man, and have in them a universality of need and hope out of which sprang the priesthood whose insignia he bore — an “order,” a “similitude,” after which finally “ariseth another Priest,” the one Great High Priest of our race. (Hebrews 5:6; 7:15.) The Book of Job, more than any other book of the Hebrew Scriptures, is a gospel, and, of all those Scriptures, most strikingly anticipates the mission and teaching of Christ. Under the increased light of modern exegesis it shines more brightly than ever before with precious evangelical doctrinal. Its twofold culmination in the sublime inscription of faith and hope, (Job 19:25-27,) and in “the heart-power of God” as the infinite solvent of life’s ills, (Job 36:5,) furnishes a twofold vinculum, binding the promise of the Garden with its fulfilment on the Cross. “The highest and immovable resting-point of Job’s faith is that of the Gospel, although without that full recognition of God’s eternal love for man which the Gospel brings. Philosophically, it is the ground taken by the German philosophers from Leibnitz to Hegel, though without their dialectic formularization.” — BUNSEN, ibid., 1:185. Fundamental truths which, after the lapse of ages, Christ “brought into light,” (φωτισυς, 2 Timothy 1:10,) are here in embryo. This book is an expansion of the primeval promise; its pages contain the essential features of the revelation first given to man.
The Historical Reality of the Book.
An extreme view has been held by some of the ablest commentators, (Maimonides, Rosenmuller, Hengstenberg, Merx,) that the book has no historic basis. They assign the entire work to the sphere of the imagination, to which belong the parables and the allegories of the Bible. Of such an estimate of Job, it has been observed by Ewald, (pp. 15, 16,) with whom Dillmann agrees, that “the invention of a history from the very commencement, the production from the poet’s own brain of a person who is yet said to be historical, is a thing so forced and so remote that it is altogether foreign to the early period of every nation, so that it first takes shape gradually in the latest centuries of an ancient history, and has never come fully and prominently forward till recent times.” Against the allegorical hypothesis it may be also urged, that it does not accord with the subsequent scriptural recognitions of Job in Ezekiel 14:14, 20; James 5:11, in the latter of which it is impossible that an imaginary being should have been set forth by the Spirit as an example of patience; that it is inconsistent with the work itself, for its substratum has the ring which belongs to the real; and that it is alien not only to the age in which such an allegory must have been written, but to any of the periods to which it has been assigned.
The theory now generally accepted by critics, (with the exception, however, of such scholars as Schultens, Dr. Lee, Carey, Bishop Wordsworth, Dr. A. Clarke, Tayler Lewis, etc., who maintain the reality of the whole work,) and almost unanimously by recent German
commentators, is, that the work unites the historical and the ideal. By these it is regarded as a splendid creation of genius resting upon a foundation of fact. The real and the ideal are so fused together that it is difficult (impossible, say some) to distinguish the one from the other. “The history is not all fact,” says Davidson, “much of it is poetry; the poetry is not allegory, much of it is fact.” — FAIRBAIRN’S Bib. Dictionary, 1:919. The modern theory, if we may rely upon Keil, (Introd. to Old Testament, 1. 485, 486,) holds the book to be “an old legend wrought up and sustained throughout with poetic freedom;” and this is the opinion, he says, “of all recent critics and expositors.” Both the theories under consideration certainly belong to comparatively modern times; for Jewish rabbins, the fathers of the Church, together with the older theologians, held to the strict historical character of the work.
Of the various reasons given for this modern theory we shall be able to consider only the more important: —
1. The artistic and unnatural part assigned to Satan. — With respect to this, it may be sufficient here to reply, that a close examination of the historical accounts of the temptation of Eve, which took place through the serpent, and that, too, in the garden of Eden, will disclose features of striking resemblance to the Satanology of Job. See Excursus I, II, and p. 289.
2. The mechanical look of the round and sacred numbers of the prose portions of the work. — It may be rejoined that round numbers are commonly, indeed almost invariably, used in the Scriptures. Compare 2 Chronicles 35:7-9; 1 Chronicles 5:21; Numbers 31:32-34, etc. In the first two citations we have multiples similar to those in Job; for instance, exactly ten times as many sheep as bullocks, five times as many sheep as camels, and twenty-five times as many camels as asses, etc. The sacred numbers appear frequently in the statistics of the Bible. Job’s 7,000 sheep and seven sons may be paralleled with the 7,000 who did not bow the knee to Baal, (1 Kings 19:18;) the 7,000 who conquered the Syrians, (1 Kings 20:15;) and the 7,000 carried captive to Babylon, (2 Kings 24:16.) Comp. 1 Chronicles 12:25; 18:4; 19:18, etc. For the use of 3,000, see Judges 15:11; 1 Samuel 13:2; 25:2, etc.; and 1 Kings 4:32, in which mention is made of 3,000 proverbs, which were spoken by Solomon. That the employment of the sacred numbers does not imply artificial structure may be further illustrated in the account of the deluge. Clean beasts were taken into the ark by sevens, the fowls of the air also by sevens; the pause before the deluge began lasted seven days; the ark rested in the seventh month, and Noah stayed seven days before he sent forth the dove a second time. Three sons with their three wives were saved in the ark; the human race was. saved by fours. (Concerning the seven days of mourning with Job, see note on Job 2:13.)
3. The highly artistic structure of the book. — “The book,” it is urged, “falls into three divisions, namely: the prologue, the discourses, and the epilogue. The prologue and epilogue, again, contain each three principal points; and the discourses fall into three divisions — those of Job and his three friends, those of Elihu, and those of Jehovah. The dialogues consist of three courses, and each course consists of thrice two speeches. Finally, in the discourses of Elihu, and in those of Jehovah, we can again distinguish three principal parts.” — KOSTER, Hiob., p. 5. Courtesy — the laws of which nowhere in the world are more perfect than in the East — would require that an opportunity should be given to each of the three speakers, in their order, to make reply to Job. In the plausible analysis just given no estimate is taken of the two “heavenly cabinets;” the four messengers of misfortune; the six temptations, (thus Delitzsch;) the one lamentation; the one monologue; the four speeches of Elihu; the two replies of Job to Deity; and the one divine address to Eliphaz and his friends. Moreover, for the completion of the third triad Job and his three friends are constructed into one, and in the fourth no account is taken of the failure of Zophar.
4. The argument we are considering presents a more serious phase in the profound thought of the poem, with its highly poetical mode of expression. Such speeches as those of Job and his friends do not belong to debate, though among giant minds. No chance gathering anywhere in the world could have brought together four such minds as these must have been who communed with stricken Job. The parallelisms, the supposed strophic arrangements, the dramatic evolution of a plan which embraces, not only the thought, but the actors themselves, the perfection of skill all the speakers display in the structure and adornment of their discourses, to say nothing of the exquisite dove-tailing of one speech with another, are beyond the power of any extempore address. Such is the purport of this, the most important of the arguments, to which we have endeavoured to give its fullest force. It is to be borne in mind that the Oriental mind is highly poetical. It associates directly and constantly with nature, which with the Oriental never loses its freshness and life. From habitual observation and reflection the mind becomes stored with images and compacted thought. For the preservation of such thought in the form of apothegms, or even of long poems, as in the Wolfian theory of the Iliad, memory takes the place of books. The Oriental has always been master of the art of improvisation; the Arabs — as Schultens, a competent judge, affirms — have a wonderful facility for extemporaneous effusions in verse. Dr. Kitto, who cites in illustration the Romance of Antar, remarks: “Nothing is more remarkable among the Semitic nations of Western Asia, even at this day, than the readiness of their resources, the prevalence of the poetical imagination and form of expression, and the facility with which the nature of this group of languages allows all high and animated discourse to fall into rhythmical forms of expression; while the language, even of common life and thought, is replete with poetical sentiments and ideas.” See further, KITTO’S Daily Bib. Illus., in loc.
Then, too, there may have been a considerable interval of time between the addresses. From evidences in the work itself, the interview extended through a long period. (See note on chap. 42:10.) Seven days of silence preceded its commencement. There are indications which lead some to the opinion that at times the debate was suspended. (See note on xxiii, 2.) With the Oriental, time is of comparatively little moment, even at the present day; of much less value was it when life was measured by the century. These visitors, being men of rank, were masters of their time. It would not be extravagant to suppose that the intervals spoken of may have been devoted to the consideration and preparation of the reply. Admit so simple a theory as this, and a mountainous difficulty is much lessened, if not removed.
In reply it may be further remarked —
1. That all theories concerning the book are fraught with embarrassments. — Quite as serious difficulties may be pressed upon those who deny, as upon those who affirm, the strictly historical character of the book. This is evident from the confusion of view among the critics of our age as to where they will drive the ploughshare through the work, separating the real from the ideal. No two agree upon the breadth of historical basis, or upon the invention of the so-called poet or poets, whose task it was to reinvest with life the traditions of the past.
2. That the portions supposed to have been invented are introduced with credentials of truth similar to those which mark the portions generally admitted to be real. — Of the former the theophany is foremost in significance. No greater strength of asseverance belongs to the opening declaration, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job,” than to the declaration, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.” No indication is given that Jehovah’s address to Job is a mere chimera of some unknown poet’s brain; no indication that while Job may have uttered the sublime language of resignation in the prologue, (Job 1:21,) that God did not utter the most wondrous challenge ever given to man, (Job 40:7-14.) The epilogue is generally assumed to be true history. What greater reason is there for regarding as true Job’s answer, “I know that thou canst do every thing,” (Job 42:2,) than his response in the midst of Jehovah’s addresses, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee?” (Job 40:4.) To introduce Jehovah as a speaker in an imaginary colloquy, and to put language into his mouth which he never uttered, is not only without parallel in the Scriptures, but would have shocked a true Hebrew, and been sufficient to exclude the work from the canon. See page 281.
3. That the fusion theory makes requisitions which are hardly in keeping with the general theory of a divine revelation. — It confessedly makes of the author what may be called a trimmer. The most recent German writers virtually acknowledge this. The circumstances of the history are assumed to have taken place some eight, ten, or twelve centuries before the book called Job was written. The task the author takes upon himself is, to make the work conform to the life, customs, and manners of such a remote period; from within Israel to write outside of Israel; himself breathing the spirit of Judaism, to prevent the intrusion of its spirit, its laws, and its institutions. He must avoid all historical events of the intervening centuries, guard against anachronisms, of which even so skilful a writer as Sir Walter Scott was guilty when he also planted the scene of his work in a distant age. To such an extent was this spirit of watchfulness carried, that, according to Ewald, (page 57,) the word Jehovah was eschewed in the debate. In the wide range of illustrations, drawn from nature and art, there is not one which has not been subjected to a strict ordeal. German commentators dwell upon the exquisite skill with which the poet has discharged his task. (Dillmann, xxi, xxii; Zschokke, xvi; Zockler, page 234.) Canon Cook justly observes, (Speaker’s Com., p. 9,) “It should be borne in mind that no ancient writer ever succeeded in reproducing the manners of a past age, or in avoiding allusion to those of his own; this is true even of the Greek dramatists, and, indeed, of writers of every country and age before the eighteenth century. The attempt was not even made. To use M. Renan’s words, ‘antiquity had not an idea of what we call local colouring.’” Renan plants himself against the German idea, and denies that “at a remote epoch a Hebrew should have entertained the singular idea of composing a patriarchal poem, and displayed such perfection in the design that his work does not strike a single discordant note, nor in a single place betray the artificial system which has presided over its composition.” — Etude, etc., xviii, 19.
4. That the arguments which have been considered fail, in that they ignore or deny for the Book of Job a possible substratum of the miraculous. — They are really akin to the reasoning of Hengstenberg, (KITTO, Cyc., 2:608:) “God’s speaking out of the clouds would be a miracle, without an object corresponding to its magnitude, and having a merely personal reference, while all the other miracles of the Old Testament are in connexion with the theocratical government, and occur in the midst, and for the benefit of, the people of God.” This citation loses its force when once it is admitted that one Gentile, (Job,) as well as another Gentile, (Abraham, Genesis 12:1,) might be visited with a message of mercy, and that God might address the one upon the clearing up of a storm, or from out of the whirlwind even, as properly as the other through “a horror of great darkness.” Genesis 15:12. The fact that the book is in the canon gives it the same rights, immunities, and laws with the rest of the Bible. The same general principles are to be employed in its interpretation. Certainly, there is nothing more questionable in the exact doubling of the sheep, camels, oxen, and she-asses, than in the feeding of a multitude with “seven loaves and the fishes,” and the final taking up of exactly seven baskets full. If the latter is accounted for on the ground that it was miraculous, why may not the former? If the historical reality of the work is affected by the exact correspondence in the former case, why not in the latter in the reproduction of the sacred number, seven? As worthy an occasion exists for the miraculous in the doubling of Job’s possessions as in the multiplying of the bread. (See note on Job 42:12.) No less enlarged lessons of faith, hope, and charity may be gathered from the piety of Job, outside of “the theocratical government,” “for the benefit of the people of God,” than from the miraculous calling of Abraham into “connexion with the theocratical government.”
The leading features of the book of Job find a parallel in early Bible history: its doctrine of Satanology in that of the garden; the trial of Job in that of Abraham; and the theophany in those made to the patriarchs, and even that to an Egyptian king, Abimelech. The author of the following work holds the book of Job to be strictly historical. The great debate, he conceives, took place as described; its arguments and illustrations were substantially as they have been transmitted to us; but whether in poetical form may still be an open question. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the author of the Book of Job may have listened to the discussion, and been assisted in its transcription by the same eternal Spirit who in after ages brought to the remembrance of the evangelists the words of Christ. John 14:26.
The Name and Residence of Job, and the Age in which he Lived. (For name, see page 14; for residence, see page 13.) The time in which Job lived. — Most critics of the present age unite in ascribing to Job a very remote antiquity. According to the greater number (Lowth, Umbreit, Zockler, Lee, Carey, etc.) he lived, or is represented as living, in patriarchal times; others (as Wordsworth,) make him a contemporary of Moses. Some few assign him to the age of Solomon, and some, even to the times of Ezra. That Job lived in patriarchal times, at least prior to the age of Moses, may be argued in general from the resemblance of the customs and manners portrayed in the book to those appearing in Genesis. Also the names, the lineage, and the countries of all the personages mentioned in the work link themselves with the times of the patriarchs. (See notes on Job 1:1; 2:11; and 32:2.) Great length of life is assumed to be characteristic of the Jobean period. (Job 15:10; note on Job 42:16.) Job’s riches, like those of Abraham, lay in his flocks and herds, and were in other respects similar. (See note Job 1:3.) The sacrifices consisted of burnt offerings, which the head of the family offered rather than an official priest: (see notes on Job 1:5, and Job 42:8:) the musical instruments, and even the money mentioned, are the same as those of the patriarchal age: (see notes Job 21:12, and Job 42:11:) the mode of writing and sculpture spoken of are, unquestionably, pre-Mosaic: (note, Job 19:23:) and the idolatry incidentally alluded to is the most ancient of idolatries, and yet at that time seems to have been an innovation, since it was liable to punishment. (Note on Job 31:26, 27.) Without further specification of particulars, a very remote period may be argued from the admission of the book into the canon. Reasoning from a human standpoint, this could hardly have taken place unless Job had lived prior to the law. The rigid exclusiveness of the Mosaical dispensation would not have brooked the idea that after its establishment any human being could attain to the piety of Job outside of the Mosaic fold. The Jew would need no enlightenment to see that a co-existing religion, capable of producing such fruit, rich and ripe with the divine approval, practically questioned the necessity of liturgical religion, nay, the very being of Mosaism itself. And just as readily would he admit that a religion which produced an Abraham and a Melchisedek might culminate in a Job. See CAREY, Commentary on Job, p. 16.
The Time when the Book of Job was Written.
The eras fixed upon by leading scholars for the production of the Book of Job, are (1) the Babylonish exile; (2) the Assyrian invasion; (3) the Davidic-Solomonic age — the so-called Augustan age of Hebrew literature; (4) the Mosaic; and (5) the Patriarchal. To the first of these periods, (about 588 B.C.,) notwithstanding it has the strong endorsement of Gesenius, Umbreit, and De Wette, it may be objected that the book is cited by Bible writers who lived anterior to the period of captivity; that the works of that age are marked by a class of Chaldaisms from which Job is free; and stamped by “a rigid Mosaism, and an exalted devotion and patriotism,” (Renan,) which would be incompatible with a book like that of Job. In the language of Eichhorn, “Let him who is fit for such researches only read a writing tainted with Aramaisms, and next the Book of Job; they will be found as diverging as east and west.” But so little is so late a period as this worthy of serious consideration, that Renan affirms that there is not now a single Hebraist who does not place the composition of the work at least a hundred years before the Captivity. (Etude, 37.)
Ewald, Merx, and Hitzig, find in the catastrophe which befell Israel (720 B.C.) the calamitous soil out of which sprang Job, a national work for the consolation of stricken Israel. Renan makes the author a contemporary of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, towards 770 B.C. The strongest arguments for this period (that of the Assyrian invasion) are also made use of in favour of the Solomonic era of authorship, an era preferred by Schlottmann, Keil, Delitzsch, and Davidson. They are substantially twofold — the points of coincidence between Job and the writers of their respective periods, and its philosophico character. With one class of critics a late period is assigned for the author because he borrows his thoughts from preceding or contemporary writers; with another class of critics an earlier period is found because later writers borrowed from him. Wondrous criticism to accomplish such diverse results!
The book, also, is claimed to be a production of the Israelitish Hhokmah — a school of thought which reached its maturity in the times of Solomon. The argument assumes that the thought, or the chief current of thought of a scriptural work — at least of Job — must have its well-spring in the age in which it was written. In other words, the prevalent school of thought determines the bard and his work. Magnificent tributes to Wisdom, (Hhokmah,) peculiar eschatological ideas or words, are found, for instance, in the Proverbs, and a deep melancholic view of thought characterizes, say, the Ecclesiastes, (Koheleth,) or his times, and the conclusion is drawn that any other works with like characteristics must take their rise out of the same soil. The theory of inspiration which underlies this and kindred reasoning can be compounded in no other proportion than as a minimum of the divine and a maximum of the human. The argument, when reduced to its essence, practically denies the inspiration of the work. Job is vastly in advance of any age before Christ to which it can be assigned. Jewish literature has nothing to compare with it. No age of literature, as such, was equal to its production. For aught that can be shown, the patriarchal age carried within itself no less potency for such a work than the Solomonic. And yet the objection is urged, that so massive and mature a work does not comport with the dawn of a people’s civilization. On the contrary, in solitary grandeur Homer and Dante arise respectively out of the twilight of Grecian and Italian civilization, and bear witness that the dawn also is the natal hour of genius. Unquestionably, civilizations had flourished and decayed before Job came upon the scene. The citations he makes from lost literatures do no discredit to his work. And if so it indeed be that genius needs stimulus, it is plain it was not wanting to Job.
This leads us to remark that stronger reasons than for any subsequent period, we think, can be adduced for the pre-Mosaic origin of the Book of Job, (Stuhlmann, Bertholdt, Eichhorn,) or at least for its production prior to the giving of the law; thus J.D. Michaelis, Ebrard, Stier, Cowles, and Canon Cook, of whom all but the last regard Moses as its author. For this statement we assign the following reasons: —
1. The knowledge of religious subjects displayed in the Book of Job is in perfect accord with that of the earliest records of the Bible. The views it takes of God, of man, the doctrine of retribution, the Messiah, and even of Satan himself, together with eschatology in general, breathe the spirit of the patriarchal rather than that of any other period of the Israelitish history. The leading facts of Genesis, such as the fall, (xxxi, 33,) the deluge, (xxii, 16,) and the doom of Sodom, (Job 18:15-21,) are alluded to, while no allusion is made to patent facts in the same line of illustration transpiring after the giving of the law. As will appear in the progress of this work, the early ages were radiant with religious light. The modern and trivial objection that the Book of Job sheds too much light on religious subjects to have been written before Moses, is now scouted by proofs which tomb and temple, parchment rolls and clay tablets, long lost libraries and the mouldering ruins of the past, hold forth to the astonished gaze of the present age.
2. More remarkable, and as yet otherwise unaccounted for, is the fact that Mosaism and its institutions are nowhere referred to in the work. The criticism of the age admits its authorship by a Hebrew. The linguistic argument makes this undeniable. An ordinary view of the case would pronounce the writing of a lengthy treatise on a religious subject by a Jew of the ancient school, which should nowhere display a trace of Judaism, a moral impossibility. It may be questioned whether even Lord Beaconsfield could write a political novel without somewhere disclosing his Jewish extraction. See page 8.
3. The linguistic features of the poem identify it with the earlier rather than with the later periods of the Hebrew language. These features are twofold — its Arabisms and its Aramaisms. In respect to these, the argument lies in a nutshell — the Arabisms do point to a comparatively early time; the Aramaisms may indicate a late period for the writing of the work. The Hebrew language is pre-eminently distinguished for its fixedness. So competent a judge as Julius Furst remarks: “As a whole it (the Hebrew language) shows so great stability and unchangeableness — such a stamp of uniformity — that after the period of antiquity no essential modification of it, such as is found in the Indo-European languages, can be recognised.” So marked is this uniformity, that Movers went so far as to maintain that a single hand retouched almost all the writings of the Hebrew canon, in order to reduce them to a uniform language. (Cited by Renan, Hist. des Langues Semitiques, p. 111.) Such considerations lead critics who would assign the work to a later age, to depreciate the argument based upon its language. But the veriest tyro cannot fail to be impressed by the numerous archaisms of expression, and the many words which appear exclusively in Job. The key to their proper interpretation was unquestionably found by Schultens in the Arabic language. They yield solely to a solution which assumes that the work was written at a period when the separation of the Hebraic and Arabic dialects was taking place. The Arabic, richest of the Semitic dialects, has preserved the words which the poorer Hebrew dialect sloughed off in the course of the ages.
The Aramaisms alluded to are words of outside origin, supposed to be from the Chaldee and Syriac languages. The appearance of these in Job, upon the hypothesis even of its great antiquity, is no more than might have been expected from the considerations that all these dialects had probably one common origin; that intertribal association was no less intimate in ancient than in subsequent times; and that similar Aramaisms are found in the song of Deborah and in the Pentateuch. Aramaisms appear for the most part in the poetical portions of the Scriptures, and were evidently employed for purposes of ornament and strength. The class appearing in Job and the Pentateuch differ essentially from later Aramaisms, when the Chaldee and Syriac languages became degenerate and corrupt, and “thereby prove the antiquity and originality of the Book of Job.” (See Havernick, “Introduction to Old Testament,” pp. 176, 177.)
4. The style of Job is that of the most ancient fragments of poetry — concise, rugged, and abrupt. Its main feature is its parallelism of members, or its thought-rhythm, an expressive term given by continental writers. Ewald calls it “the echo of the whole sense, where the same sense, which has been poured forth as a complete proposition in the first member, mounts up again in the second in order to exhaust itself more thoroughly.” This, he says, makes “the most powerful and beautiful concord.” With variations of form, parallelism of members is common to all Hebrew poetry. The objection that the book of Job could not spring from a patriarchal or pre-Mosaic age because of its poetical structure may be met by an examination of the oldest song extant — the song of Lamech, Genesis 4:23. This will show a structure no less artistic and elaborate than that of Job. Herder (Hebrew Poetry, 1:264,) points out a similar parallelism of members, and even a designed assonance. The first four lines end in the same way, in Yodh resting in Hhirik, and thus make a semi-rhyme. Even admit the strophic arrangement of Job — concerning the extent and even the existence of which critics are still divided, but which is adopted in the ensuing analysis of Job for convenience’ sake — and you have a style in no respect more artificial than that of Lamech, whose antiquity even the iconoclast Ewald admits to be very great. As respects the authorship of the work, the most considerable claimants are Job himself, (who of all, unquestionably possessed the greatest capabilities,) Elihu, Moses, Heman the Ezrahite, Solomon or some one of his court, and Hezekiah. Hebrew traditions attribute it to Moses. Hirtzel and Hitzig agree in thinking that its author must have been a Hebrew and have lived in Egypt. The doubts which embarrass the question of the time of the writing of the poem are such as to render unprofitable any prolonged consideration of the more difficult question concerning its author. The Integrity of the Book.
The critical spirit of the present age has chosen four portions of the book for its assaults. The less weight is to be accorded to these assaults because of the fact that the most critical minds of the skeptical class antagonize one the other to such an extent that their criticisms prove mutually destructive. It is alleged that the prose portions have been added subsequently to the production of the main part of the work, the so-called “poetical kernel.” Objections are also made against other portions, to wit: the passage in Job 27:11-23, on the ground that Job contravenes his own views, (see p. 172;) as well as against the discourses of Elihu and the Behemoth section, both of which, criticism urges, are unworthy of the master spirit which produced Job. (See Excursus vi, pp. 196-198, and Excursus viii, pp. 280, 281.) But, as will he readily remarked, objectors against Job proceed upon the hypothesis that the book, as a whole, is artificial, a theory which has already been sufficiently considered. These objections have been so often refuted (see especially Hahn’s Hiob, pp. 10-22) that we shall content ourselves with remarking that the removal of either of these larger portions would prove a palpable mutilation. Take, for instance, from the work its prologue and epilogue, and there remains, to use the figure of Delitzsch, the trunk of a statue, evidential indeed of thought, nay of genius, but without head or feet.
Exegetical Works.
The following are the editions of the most important of the commentaries referred to: —
Carey, C.P. The Book of Job. London, 1858.
Clarke, Dr. Adam. (New edition.) New York, 1844.
Conant, Dr. T.J. The Book of Job. New York, 1856.
Cook, Canon F.C., in the Speaker’s Commentary. New York, 1874. Davidson, A.B. Commentary on the Book of Job. Vol. I. Edinburgh, 1862. Delitzsch, F. Bible Commentary on the Book of Job. Two vols. Edinburgh, 1866.
Dillmann, Aug. Hiob. Leipzig, 1869.
Ewald, Heinrich. Das Buch Ijob. Gottingen, 1854.
Good, John Mason, M.D., F.R.S. Book of Job. London, 1812. Hahn, H.A. Commentar uber das Buch Hiob. Berlin, 1850.
Hengstenberg, C.W. Das Buch Hiob. Erster Theil. Berlin, 1870. Zweiter Theil. Leipzig, 1875.
Hirtzel, Ludwig. Hiob. Durchgesehen von Olshausen. Leipzig, 1852. Hitzig, Ferdinand. Das Buch Hiob. Leipzig, 1874.
Lewis, Dr. Tayler, in Lange’s Commentary. Dr. Philip Schaff, Editor. New York, 1874.
Noyes, Dr. G.R. New Translation of Book of Job. Boston, 1861. Renan, Ernst. Le Livre de Job. Paris, 1864.
Scott, Thomas. Book of Job, in English Verse. London, 1773. Schultens, Albert. Liber Jobi. Two volumes. Lugd. Bat. 1737. Zockler, Otto, in Lange’s Commentary. Dr. Philip Schaff, Editor. New York, 1874.
Umbreit, F.W.C. Book of Job. Two volumes. Edinburgh, 1836. Wordsworth, Bishop Christopher. Book of Job. London, 1867. The commentaries of Barnes, Wemyss, Dr. Samuel Lee, Drusius, Samuel Wesley, Chappelow, Corderus, Peters, Grotius, Stickel, Zachokke, (Roman Catholic Commentary, 1875,) Andrea, Dachsel, Eichhorn, Heiligstedt in Maurer, and Spanheim, as well as others, have also been more or less consulted.