The book of Job; Essays, and a metrical paraphrase...

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Intboductoey Note 11

I. The Book of Job 15

II. Authorship And Age Of The Book

Under this head we are met at once by the uniform Jewish tradition that Moses wrote " Job ; " and, since it contains no allusion to the exodus, that he wrote it before the exodus. The argument in favor of this view is succinctly and forcibly stated by Conant in his " Introduction to the Revised Version of Job." But there are two considerations which counterbalance all that can be said on that side. The first is that the composition of such a work presupposes an audience for it, and therefore a sort of current in the thought of the age running toward such subjects. The tone of this book is not that of the Egyptian captivity, but rather of a period subsequent to David. The second, and to my mind conclusive, consideration is that the doctrines of the book are clearly post-Mosaic. If we are to believe that Moses wrote it, then we must believe that he held these views as an esoteric philosophy, and omitted from the religion which he gave to his peopie the truths which had been revealed to him in the desert. The book itself must have been suppressed until long after his day. The ignorant Israelites could not have been trained under the discipline of the Law, if they had had at the same time the fiery, cynical, half -skeptical, and enigmatical commentary which the Book of Job furnishes. There is nothing abnormal or contrary to the conception of an inspired revelation in the development of truth by wider views and deeper analysis through successive sacred writers. But it is repulsive to conceive of an inspired teacher as first gaining the wider view, and then deliberately hiding it, to utter the truth in cruder and more partial forms.

Again, the proximity of Moses in time and place to the scene of this story, though urged in support of his authorship, is rather an argument to the contrary. For if, as we have seen, the book is poetry, based on a few historical facts, it is far more likely to have been written when the facts themselves had become a legend rather than a familiar history. Moses makes no mention of Job in his history of the patriarchal ages.

Some of these considerations are equally conclusive against any Hebrew authorship of this book before the exodus. We are therefore driven to suppose either that it was written by a foreigner, and subsequently translated into Hebrew, or that it was written by a Hebrew of a later period, who intentionally avoided all Jewish peculiarities, ignoring Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the history of the children of Israel.

The first of these suppositions would be a very convenient solution of several difficulties. But it is exposed to three serious objections. The style of the book is pronounced by all the best critics to be in form and spirit that of an original creation ; there is no scrap of tradition to countenance the notion of its foreign origin ; and its conception of God and His relations to the world is so deeply and characteristically Hebrew, that it is difficult to conceive of its birth in any other literature. On this point, further remarks will be made, in a subsequent chapter.

We are thus shut up to the conclusion that the Book of Job was written by a Hebrew, who, having placed the scene and characters of his drama before the dawn of the Jewish national history, avoided, in obedience to the rules of his art, the anachronism of introducing allusions to that history. The deeper motive of thus rendering more freely and widely applicable to human life the discussion of the great problem of Providence, may be supposed to have actuated him in this choice of characters. The opinions and practices of his own age could be criticised with greater force through the fictitious speeches of personages long passed away. A close study of the book leads us to suspect that this is really what it does ; and there is nothing in the literary device thus supposed to be employed which is either uncommon among profane, or unworthy of sacred, writers.

It is not practicable to fix closely the date of the composition. Without citing in detail the arguments advanced at different periods by scholars, we may say that, on the whole, it appears probable that it was before the captivity, and after the reign of David. Several lines of inquiry converge toward the period favored by Ewald, the early part of the seventh century b. c, or a somewhat earlier date, perhaps 750 b. c. These investigations consist chiefly of a minute study of the passages in the Book of Job which seem to be quoted jor adapted from other Scriptural books, and vice versa. It is, of course, not always easy to decide which is the original, and which the secondary, use of the figure or expression common to two

THE BOOK OF JOB. 2i

books, 1 nor can it be safely assumed as certain that the similarity indicates any connection. This kind of reasoning is acknowledged to require much critical insight as well as learning, and to acquire force only when many corroborative instances have been accumulated.

There is in the present case another criterion — namely, the analysis of the doctrines of the book, and the determination of their place in the series of progressive revelation. This inquiry will occupy another chapter, and will be found to furnish a strong corroboration of the view above indicated as to the age of the drama.

The person of the author is absolutely unknown. The various conjectures which have been put forth (apart from that which names Moses, on the authority of tradition) are entirely without basis.

As to the genuineness and unity of the book, as we possess it, there are some differences of opinion. The prologue, the speech of Elihu, a part of the address of Jehovah (xl. 15 to xli. 26), and the epilogue are pronounced, some by one eminent scholar and some by another, to be additions by a later hand. All are defended, however, with equal ability, by scholars of equal candor. The conclusion to which I have been led by repeated

1 As a specimen of this argument, I quote (condensing and translating) the following from Ewald's " Buch Ijob " (2. Auflage, 1854, p. 64) : " Of the Psalms of the third period, some refer very distinctly to this book; as also Zech. i. 10, 11, iii. 1, 2, and vi. 5, presuppose as long known the descriptions in the first chapters of Job. The term warfare in Is. xl. 2 is from Job vii. 1, or of the same period. Ezek. xiv. 14, 20 mentions Job, because the book had made that hero again famous. In Jeremiah, and still more in Lamentations, are many echoes. Compare Jer. xx. 14-18, xv. 18, xvii. 1, xlix. 19, with Job iii. 3-26, vi. 15 et seq., xix. 24, ix. 19, and Lam. i. 12, 13, ii. 4, iii. 4, *7, 9, 12, etc., with numerous similar passages in Job. On the other hand, the phrase in Job ix. 8 is probably from the earlier and simpler Amos iv. 13," etc.

study of the debate is that the speech of Elihu is quite probably an interpolation, but that the rest are genuine. 1 This question, however, will not affect the view to be taken of the object and teachings of the book. The conclusions to which we shall be led are substantially the same, whether the speech of Elihu was originally an integral part of the composition, or was, as some suggest, subsequently added by the author himself, or was, as others assert, inserted by a later hand. In any case, whatever Elihu says that the other characters have not said before him bears the relation of an afterthought to the debate. The theory that Elihu is neither answered by Job nor reproved by the Almighty, because he had put forward the true solution of the problem under discussion, and had done it in a proper spirit, will not bear examination. 2

a For able defences, see Conant's " Introduction," already cited, and Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," art. " Job." As to the speech of Elihu, the argument of Ewald is partly reproduced by Mr. J. A. Froude (" Short Studies on Great Subjects — The Book of Job "). It is not, however, the philological argument (which Conant forcibly answers), but the literary one, and particularly (1) the silence of the book as to Elihu; (2) the reply of the Almighty to Job, ignoring Elihu ; (3) the different style and the weakness, when candidly considered, of Elihu's speech as a whole; and (4) the completeness and greater strength of the poem without it, which seem to me to incline the balance against it.

2 Not only such passages as xxxiv. 5-9, 36, 37, xxxv. 15, 16, and xxxvi. 5-21, but the whole spirit of the speech, shows that Elihu regards Job in the same light as do the three friends, that of an unrepentant sinner and hypocrite ; and it would be difficult to point out what they have said of God that is "not right," which Elihu does not say or imply. He does indeed suggest the merciful purpose of affliction to lead man to repentance ; but the greater difficulty, which Job has so eloquently stated, concerning the prosperity of the wicked, he does not meet at all, except by an impotent denial that they are prospered — a return to the ground on which the three friends had been ignominiously defeated by

III. The Book Of Job As A Historical Picture

A historical picture may be a picture painted in the period, and perhaps by an eye-witness of the scene, which it commemorates ; or it may be merely the attempt of a skillful and scholarly artist to depict a period and a scene with which his learning and his fancy, not his personal experience, have made him acquainted. In like manner, history itself may be either contemporaneous, such as is furnished by the newspapers, or retrospective and secondary, based on contemporaneous documents. The Book of Job, considered as a historical picture, belongs to the second class. It was not written in the age which it describes. It is a picture of that' age drawn by a scholar and artist who never saw it, and centuries after it had passed away. Its hints of manners, laws, and beliefs are not the unconscious self -betrayals of nature ; they are the skillful touches of art. While this fact diminishes, on the one hand, the historical authority of the book, it enhances, on the other hand, its literary excellence. In a few instances, possibly, the author has been betrayed into anachronisms. The allusions to the captivities of nations,

an appeal to facts too notorious to be contradicted. To call this arrogant but insufficient reply so complete that, in the conception of the author, Job could not refute it, and the Almighty must needs approve it by silence, is to underrate the poet's grasp of his subject, and destroy the real teaching of the book, which is, plainly enough, that the problem of Providence is, by reason of the greatness of God and the littleness of man, in its nature insoluble, and that the current theories on the subject were then, as they are now, inadequate. See, for further discussion of this, the following chapters.

for instance, seem to be more appropriate to the age of the writer than that of his subject ; and the speculative tone of the discussions concerning Providence is in a certain sense not like the patriarchal period. But the latter is an allowable poetic license. On the other hand, there are ample proofs of the skill and consistency with which he has adhered to the type he had chosen. Writing in an age of commerce, and making frequent allusion to the sea, he does not once mention ships, because ships were not in keeping with the patriarchal times of which he was writing. Holding himself a clear belief in the existence of Satan and his personal hostility to good men, he does not put into the mouth of any of his characters a hint of this doctrine, presumably of later origin than their time. Not unacquainted, if we suppose him to have read the Scriptures of his own people, with the idea of suicide as an escape from suffering or dishonor, he nevertheless represents his hero as enduring the utmost pangs without a thought of it, and finally rewards him with that prolonged life, far beyond the longest lives of the times of Ezekiel or Jeremiah, which constituted in the estimate of the patriarchs the seal of the favor of God. Above all, he rigidly excludes from this drama all references to the national history of the Jews. Adam is mentioned by name, 1 and the flood is probably alluded to in a single passage ; 2 but here the historical references stop, except so far as the names of men and places remind us of patriarchal worthies. From such evidences as these, we are justified in concluding that this unknown author undertook to give to his discussion of a great religious question the setting of a period not his own, and to keep his poetic genius, therefore, within the self -prescribed limits of historical accuracy. It is worth our while to spend a few moments in reconstructing, from the rich material before us, the conception which existed in the poet's mind while he wrote.

Idumsea on the south, Judaea on the west, Bashan on the north, and Arabia on the east, inclose the scene of this history — a land of fertile fields, alternating with wide stock-ranges and pastures, and bounded by mountains and deserts. The climate is that of a dry inland plateau ; * the sun blazes hot by day, 2 but the nights are cool, 3 and through the clear atmosphere the moon and stars shine with peculiar brightness. 4 Ice and snow lie on the mountains in the winter, and, thawing in the spring, fill the ravines with turbid torrents, 6 which flow out into the desert and lose themselves, or in the heat of summer dry up and disappear. The rainy season proper, which occurs in the autumn, is followed by a few irregular spring showers, called the latter rains, 6 on which the fate of the growing crops chiefly depends. But in the dry season also storms are not unknown. Thunder and lightning, 7 great cloudbursts with deluges of sudden rain, and whirlwinds, 8 form suddenly in the sky, or come sweeping on the stormy east wind ; 9 and sometimes the simoom from the south invades the pastures and overwhelms the flocks. 10 The scarred mountain-sides bear witness in their rocky canons of the force of carving torrents," which have scattered the debris far over the plain.

Water is the source and sign of all prosperity in such a land ; 12 without its supply, either by rain or in streams, the dreaded drouth 13 destroys all. Only the mountain

pastures, haunted by the wild goats and asses, are comparatively exempt from such visitations. The failure of the harvest or the destruction of the herds, whether by such climatic vicissitudes or by the ruthless hand of war, brings famine, 1 and upon famine follows pestilence. 2 Sometimes ice, snow, and hail afflict the valleys, 3 causing distress and loss. Either through legends or by personal observation, the terrors of volcanoes 4 and earthquakes 6 are not unknown. The regular floods of the Nile, 6 like the inhabitants of its waters, or the unknown stars which shine in southern zones, or the great, mysterious, stormy Mediterranean and Indian seas, 7 are known only by hearsay to the dwellers in this inland realm.

Of animals, there are a few species employed by man, and many others running wild. Thousands of sheep (guarded by dogs), goats, camels, oxen, and asses constitute the chief wealth of the richest proprietors ; 8 the horse is apparently not well known, except as a terrible animal, rushing with the chariot into battle, 9 or as used in hunting by some of the desert tribes. 10 The onager or wild ass, 11 the deer, and the chamois 12 roam the hills ; the lion and the jackal haunt the jungle or hunt on the sandy plain. 13 The wild ox 14 (perhaps the buffalo, or perhaps a more imposing . and untamable animal) is occasionally seen ; and still stranger beasts, such as the unwieldy hippopotamus, 16 the fierce crocodile, 16 and the swift ostrich, 17 are known through travelers. Perhaps the last even inhabits some portions of the land of Uz. 18

The hawk l and the vulture a find their food in the decaying carcasses of the lion's prey, or the bodies of animals dead from age or accident ; while the eagle sits in his mountain eyrie, and watches for his chance to swoop and slay. 3 Other birds too are known, and some, perhaps rare, imported ones of curious plumage or melodious song, are kept to please the ladies. 4 Harmless grubs, 5 worms, 6 and spiders 7 delve and spin in the field ; the asp and the adder are apparently the only poisonous reptiles 8 commonly found. Fishes are not an article of food ; perhaps they are not known at all, except vaguely, as inhabitants of the distant sea. 9 Bees furnish honey ; 10 moths flutter and die, or lay their eggs in store-closets among the garments, as they have done and will do, to the annoyance of the housekeeper, forever.

In the plain the palm 1X and the olive, 12 and on the mountain the cedar, 13 stand as emblems of strength, glory, and fruitf ulness. The bramble 14 of the wilderness, transplanted and cultivated, furnishes a thorny hedge 15 to protect the field and garden. The papyrus, 18 both graceful and useful, waves by the river side, or is manufactured into cords, or even woven into boats. Grass grows wild ; 17 willows, 18 marsh-grass, 19 and lotus 20 fringe the streams ; the salt-plant and the broom 21 dot the desert, as do the sage and grease-wood in the great interior basin of North America ; the cultivated fields bear wheat and barley, 22 and in the vineyards hang clusters from the vine. 23 Flowers of some kind there must be, since all things that grow bloom ; but they seem to attract little love or notice.

Even the poet only sees in them a type of frailty and swift destruction. 1

Amid such natural surroundings lives a race of men, in whom the old patriarchal simplicity has not yet been superseded by the multitude of new ideas and occupations which have been added to it. They still count their wealth in flocks and herds, or in hoarded treasure of precious metals or rich clothing. 8 They still practise polygamy, 3 and maintain the authority of the father and head of the family over all his descendants and dependents. 4 Old age is held in reverence among them, 5 and the first-born son leads his brethren. 6 Themselves a race of conquerors, they have banished or enslaved the aborigines, 7 who are so degraded as not to be useful even as laborers, but lurk in caves, feed on roots and herbs, or hang about the settlements to steal. Slaves there are besides, 8 both captives of war 9 and helpless victims seized in childhood for the debts of their parents. 10 Their lot is hard or easy, according to the temper of their masters. If they are wronged, they have no redress. Only the fear of God's wrath restrains the absolute power of the slaveholder " — in too many cases an impotent consideration. Woman takes no part in public or social doings, and is regarded as an inferior creature. 12 The poor who are not slaves labor for hire. 13 In the cities there are houses 14 and palaces ; 16 in the country people dwell chiefly in tents. 18 Hospitality is shown to strangers ; 1T kinsmen maintain intimate relations ; 18 friends make long journeys to visit one another. 19 Feast-days are kept ; 20 great joy

attends the birth of children, especially of sons ; 1 grief is manifested by shaving the head, tearing the garments, 3 and putting sackcloth on the body, 3 and sympathy by sitting long in silence, weeping aloud, and strewing dust on the head. 4 Wine, 5 milk, 6 bread, 7 and eggs 8 are part of the usual diet. Salt is used in cooking or added at the table. 9 Fires are kept in the tents, 10 and lamps or lanterns hang over them. 11 • The ashes, perhaps after being leached for lye, are thrown in heaps, together with broken crockery and other refuse. 12 The men wear an inner 13 and an outer garment, the latter of which is girded up, to shorten it, for work or war. 14 Crowns 15 and rings 16 are worn for ornament or honor. The dead are buried in tombs, 17 and the custom of building pyra-: mids 18 as sepulchres is (unless we consider this allusion an anachronism), if not practised, at least known. All expressions of feeling are frank and strong. Children dance ; 19 reverence is indicated by standing and silence 20 in the presence of its object ; contempt by spitting before his face. 31

The occupations of the inhabitants of Uz comprise many industries. There are, first, the various operations of cattle-raising 22 and agriculture. The land is ploughed 23 with the aid of oxen, harnessed with cords ; 24 the seed is sown, 25 and after the latter rains, when the grain is ripe, it is harvested in sheaves. 26 These are loaded by the slaves 27 upon wagons, and hauled to the threshing-floor, 28 where they are threshed by dragging over them a heavy, rough barrow or threshing-sledge. 29 Outcasts glean the har-

vested fields, 1 or the vineyards, which, until the time of vintage, are closely watched by sentinels, who build booths upon the spot. 2 The grapes are trodden in the wine-press by the feet of slaves. 3 Oil is pressed from the olive by slave-labor also. 4 Next above this may be ranked the menial labor of the women, who grind the grain for household use between two stones. 6 Then there are the different varieties of hunting, such as trapping 8 and snaring, 7 or the chase proper, 8 and the barter that springs from these occupations. 9 This is facilitated by the traveling caravans, 10 which bring treasures of manufactures or precious stones and metals. Perhaps there are no mines in Uz ; but travelers " are able to tell how gold is washed from the streams of Ophir, 12 and how this metal, as well as silver, 13 copper, 14 and iron 1B (wrought or bar, not cast-iron) are won with daring and persevering toil from the heart of the rocks. Brass too is made and formed into pipes, 16 and skillful workmen shape vessels not only of pottery, 17 but also of glass and gold, or jewelry set with sapphire, onyx, rock-crystal, corals and pearls from the sea, or the famous topaz of Ethiopia. 18 Some of these gems are cut as seals. 19 They are bought with gold and silver weighed in the balances 20 — a rude form of money. Humbler metallurgists, yet more useful in their art, make kettles 21 which will stand fire. "Weavers 22 prepare woolen goods from the fleece, 23 and sacks of skin or cloth are sewn and patched to hold water, goods, or valuable documents. 24 For books are not unknown, 26 though

the primitive records, carved in the rocks and filled with molten lead, 1 are considered more permanent. The art of .printing, which makes books permanent by making them numerous, and by fusing the substance of their contents into the consciousness of whole generations, has not yet been dreamed of. Musicians there are, too, who perform upon tabret, harp, and pipe, 2 or sound the trumpet in battle. 3 Surgery and physic are but little practised. The blind, the lame, and the diseased 4 are considered as smitten by fate, and objects for charity rather than cure. Wounds are bound up ; 5 but dislocations and fractures are apparently deemed beyond help.'

Turning to the laws, institutions, and customs, we see that society is divided into ranks, partly if not wholly hereditary. Kings, who lead their subjects to battle, princes, nobles, counselors, judges, prove the existence of some settled government. 7 Courts are called by notice given ; 8 criminals are arrested ; complaints are heard ; lawsuits are conducted concerning disputed inheritances ; 9 the magistrate, sitting in the gate, makes summary judgments ; 10 witnesses testify ; " sureties are offered for accused parties ; 12 accusers present their charges in writing ; 13 the prison 14 and the stocks 15 await the condemned, or capital punishment is inflicted with the sword. 16 In civil suits restitution is enforced ; 17 and, where the law does not inflict due penalty upon those who technically escape its hand, the citizens in the market-place display their contempt for the offenders. 18 The commonest of these legal but odious acts is extortion on the part of creditors, in the exaction of pledges for loans. 19 The op-

pression of widows and orphans is particularly condemned ; 1 and in like manner, either by the hand of justice or the voice of public opinion, murder, 2 adultery, 3 theft, 4 cheating, 5 wrong to slaves, 6 laborers, and tenants, 7 inhospitality, 8 and licentiousness, 9 are branded as sins. Yet the tone of society seems to be demoralized. The judges are bribed by the rich to wrong the poor ; 10 the sins denounced in public are practised secretly ; slaves are cruelly wronged ; the victims of power are oppressed; men admire and are fain to imitate the successful tyrant. 11 Violence is not restrained ; every man is obliged to watch his own fields and dwelling against lurking robbers, 12 or call on his friends to help him repel their assaults, 13 unless, like Job, he is suddenly overwhelmed by them. 14 The aborigines emerge from their hiding-places to rejoice in the misfortunes of their conquerors ; 15 and, when a powerful villain is overthrown, all his former victims are as fierce for vengeance as they had been tame under injury. 16 Self-defense being thus to a great extent in the hands of the individual, it is but natural that charity should be an individual matter also. 17 The society which has not thoroughly organized justice is not likely to have organized beneficence.

The presence of walled cities 18 is proof that enemies from surrounding lands make occasional incursions into Uz. Not only the Sabsean robber tribes, 19 but the disciplined armies of Chaldea, 20 have made the inhabitants familiar with warfare. They have seen sieges laid, 21 breaches stormed, 22 and cities reduced to heaps of ruins. 23

They are familiar with military service, with enlistment, 1 with marches, camps, and battle. Arrows, 3 sometimes tipped with poison that carries madness, 3 shields, 4 swords, 6 spears, 6 coats of mail, 7 the terrible war-horse, 8 doubtless harnessed to the scythed chariot — these are known to them from vivid experience. They have seen captives made slaves ; 9 and they have noted how famine and pestilence 10 follow in the track of war.

Of scientific knowledge the dwellers in this land have comparatively little, and that little is mixed with superstitions. Eclipses they do not calculate, as the Chinese and the Chaldeans have done for five hundred years. On the contrary, they regard them with fear, 11 and associate with them, whether in full belief, or as a reminiscence of a former belief, the idea of a great monster, Rahab," which devours sun and moon for a time, and thus causes the eclipse. This monster has been overcome and prisoned as a constellation in the sky by the power of God ; yet it is still to some extent obedient to the skilled astrologer. The flying serpent is another monster, conquered by God and banished to the sky. 13 They believe in starry influences ; 14 Orion they associate with winter, the Pleiads with the vernal equinox ; 15 these, as well as the Bear 16 and the signs of the zodiac, 17 are conducted through the heavens by the Divine hand. Time is reckoned by the moon 18 and the seasons, 19 and thus by years, as well as by the daily rising and setting of the sun. The earth is believed to be a flat disk, surrounded by the broad band of the sea. The dawn takes hold, as it were, of the edges of this disk, and day ir-

radiates the whole earth at once. 1 Beneath it are pillars, which stand upon nothing 2 in the dim shade of the under world. 3 There are gathered the almost impersonal shadows of the dead ; 4 thither go the clouds that disappear behind the horizon ; 6 the gates to this mysterious realm open from tombs 6 or from the bottom of the sea. 7

The sky is a crystal arch, 8 in which the stars are set, 9 and under which the clouds are rolled as a curtain or floor. 10 Through this arch, mysteriously opened and closed, the rain falls, from the store of waters above the firmament. 11 There are waters also below the earth, perhaps in the under world, which replenish the sea through springs ; 12 but God's power controls all these reservoirs, and keeps the sea from overflowing. 13 What becomes of waters that evaporate no one knows ; 14 and science and poetry are alike silent concerning the exhaustless source of the wind. 18 Earthquakes, storms, floods, and all the striking phenomena of Nature, are ascribed to the direct personal action of God. Besides such legendary men or monsters as Orion, the dragon, and the flying serpent, other strange creatures are believed in, though never seen ; as for instance, the wonderful bird Phoenix, which rises to new life from the ashes of its nest. 16