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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 Sabaeism; 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, etc., 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 Petraea, 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 Petraea; 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, Lam 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 Jer 49:7, Jer 49:20; Eze 25:13; Amo 1:11, Amo 1:12, and Oba 1:8, Oba 1:9) 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 Jos 15:21, Jos 15:41, 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 (Jer 25:22, Jer 25:23) 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 vapor in the clouds, and the fluid in the sea, are equally denominated waters: thus, Gen 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 vapors 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 Gen 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, Psa 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: -
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: -
Job Exodus Job 13:24Job 4:9
Job 15:24
Job 20:26
Wherefore accountest thou me thine enemy?
Wouldst thou hunt down the parched stubble?
By the blast of God they perish;
And by the breath of His nostrils they are consumed.
Distress and anguish dismay him;
They overwhelm him as a king ready for battle.
Terrors shall be upon him -
Every horror treasured up in reserve for him.
A fire unblown shall consume him. Exo 15:7Exo 15:8
Exo 15:10
Exo 15:16 Thou sentest forth thy wrath,
Consuming them as stubble.
And with the blast of thy nostrils
The waters were gathered together.Thou didst blow with thy wind:
The sea covered them.Terror and dread shall fall upon them:
By the might of thine arm they shall be still as a stone. Job Deuteronomy Job 20:27
Job 18:15
Job 18:16
Job 18:17
18:247:25Job 8:17Job 8:18Job 8:19 The heavens shall disclose his iniquity,
And the earth shall rise up against him.
Brimstone shall be rained down upon his dwelling.Below shall his root be burnt up,
And above shall his branch be cut off.Counsellors he leadeth captive,
And judges he maketh distracted.He bewildereth the judgment of the leaders of the people of the land,
And causeth them to wander in a pathless dessert:
They grope about in darkness, even without a glimpse;
Yea, he maketh them to reel like the drunkard.
His roots shall be entangled in a rock;
With a bed of stones shall he grapple;
Utterly shall it drink him up from his place;
Yea, it shall renounce him, and say, "I never knew thee."
Behold the Eternal exulting in his course;
Even over his dust shall rise up another. Deu 28:22
Deu 28:23
Deu 28:24
Deu 28:28Deu 28:29Deu 28:63 And Jehovah shall mite thee with a consumption;
And with a fever, and with an inflammation,
And with an extreme burning.
And the heaven over thy head shall be brass;
And the earth under thee, iron.
And Jehovah shall make the rain of they land powder and dust;
From heaven shall it come down upon thee,
Until thou be destroyed.
Jehovah shall smite thee with destruction,
And blindness, and astonishment of heart.
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.And it shall come to pass,
As Jehovah exulted over you,
To do you good, and to multiply you,
To destroy you, and reduce you to naught. "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 שש sis, 'to exult,' exulto, glorior, γαυριαω, which occurs in the last verse of both the above passages, and is in each instance equally appropriate: ישיש יהוה yasis Yehovah - הוא משוש hu mesos.
"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 8:1-9 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.
Job Deuteronomy Job 8:8Job 8:10Job 20:17
Job 29:6
Job 15:27
Job 6:4
Job 16:13 For examine, I beseech thee, the past age;
Yea, gird thyself to the study of its forefathers;
Shall not they instruct thee, counsel thee,
And swell forth the sayings of their wisdom?
He shall not behold the branches of the river,
Brooks of honey and butter -
When my path flowed with butter,
And the rock poured out for me rivers of oil.
Though his face be enveloped with fatness,
And heaped up with fatness on his loins.
The arrows of the Almighty are within me;
Their poison drinketh up my spirit:
The terrors of God set themselves in array against me;
His arrows fly around me;
He pierceth my reins without mercy. Deu 32:7Deu 32:13Deu 32:14Deu 32:15
Deu 32:23
Deu 32:42 Reflect on the days of old; Contemplate the times of ages beyond ages;
Inquire of thy father, and he will show thee;
Thine elders, and the will instruct thee.He gave him to suck honey out of the rock
And oil out of the flinty rock,Butter of kine, and milk of sheep.But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked:
Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick;
Thou art enveloped with fatness.I will heap mischiefs upon them,
I will spend my arrows upon them.I will make mine arrows drunk with blood. "The fine pathetic elegy of the ninetieth psalm has been usually ascribed to Moses; and Dath 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;' Deu 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.
Job Psalm Job 14:2Job 14:3Job 14:16Job 14:18Job 14:19
Job 7:21
Job 11:14Job 11:16
Job 11:17 He springeth up as a flower, and is cut down;
Yea, he fleeth as a shadow, and endureth not.
And dost thou cast thine eyes upon such a one?
And wouldst thou bring me into judgment with thyself?
Yet now art thou numbering my steps;
Thou overlookest nothing of my sins: -
And for ever, as the crumbling mountain dissolveth,
And the rock mouldereth away from his place,
So consumest thou the hope of man,
Thou harassest him continually till he perish.
Why wilt thou not turn away from my transgression,
And let my calamity pass by?
If the iniquity of thy hand thou put away evil,
And let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles,
Lo! then shalt thou forget affliction;
As waters passed by shalt thou remember it:
And brighter shall the time be than noontide;
Thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt grow vigorous, like the day-spring. Psa 90:5Psa 90:6Psa 90:7Psa 90:8
Psa 90:9Psa 90:10Psa 90:12
Psa 90:14
Psa 90:15
Psa 90:16
Psa 90:17 They are like the passing grass of the morning;
In the morning it springeth up and groweth:
In the evening it is cut down and withereth.
For we are consumed by thine anger,
And by thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee:
Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
Behold, all our days are passed away in thy wrath,
We spend our years as a tale that is told.
Their strength is labor and sorrow;
It is soon cut off, and we flee away.
So teach us to number our days
That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
O satisfy us early with thy mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days,
Make us glad according to the days of our affliction,
To the years we have seen
Let thy wonders be shown unto thy servants
And thy glory unto their children;
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 Song of Solomon, 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; Pro 8:11, etc. 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;" Pro 1:7.
Job speaks of the state of the dead nearly in the same terms as Solomon: compare Job 21:33; Job 12:22; Job 36:5, with Pro 9:18.
Job says, Job 26:6, "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering." Solomon says, Pro 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, Pro 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 Pro 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; Pro 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, Pro 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; Pro 2:18; Pro 9:18; Pro 7:27. The like sentiment is in Job 26:5. See the Hebrew.
In Job 27:16, Job 27:17, 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, Pro 28:8 : "He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather for him that will pity the poor." Solomon says, Pro 16:18 : "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall:" and, "Before destruction the heart of man is haughty; and before honor is humility;" Pro 18:12 : and, "A man's pride shall bring him low; but honor 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 Pro 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 Pro 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 תשיה tushiyah, which may signify essence, substance, reality, completeness, occurs in Job and Proverbs. See Job 5:12; Job 6:13; Job 11:6; Job 12:16; Job 26:3, and Job 30:22; Pro 2:7; Pro 3:21; Pro 8:14, and Pro 18:1. And it occurs only twice, as far as I can recollect, in all the Bible besides; viz., Isa 28:29, and Mic 6:9. The word הוה havvah, used in the sense of misfortune, ruinous downfall, calamity, occurs Job 6:2, Job 6:30; Job 30:13, and in Pro 10:3; Pro 11:6; Pro 17:4; Pro 19:13. It occurs nowhere else, except once in Eze 7:26, once in Mic 7:3, and a few times in the Psalms, Psa 5:9; Psa 52:2, Psa 52:7; Psa 55:12; Psa 91:3; Psa 94:20; Psa 37:12; Psa 62:3.
The word תחבלות tachbuloth, wise counsels, occurs only in Job 37:12, and in Pro 1:5; Pro 11:14; Pro 12:5; Pro 20:18; Pro 24:6; and nowhere else in the Bible in this form. And פתה potheh, the silly one, simpleton, fool, is used precisely in the same sense in Job 5:2; Pro 19:7, and in various other parts of the same book. The word אבדון, abaddon, destruction, Job 26:6; Job 28:22; Job 31:12, connected sometimes with שאול sheol, hell, or the grave; and מות maveth, death, occurs as above, and in Pro 15:11; Pro 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 favor 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 Psalm Job 15:27 Because he covereth his face with fatness Psa 17:10Psa 73:7 They are inclosed in their own fat.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. Psa 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 not in safe from fear; neither is the rod of God upon them. Psa 73:5 They are trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Job 21:10 Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, casteth not her calf. Psa 144:13, Psa 144:14 Let our sheep bring forth thousands; and our oxen be strong to labor. Job 21:18 They (the wicked) are as stubble before the wind; and as chaff that the storm carrieth away. Psa 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. Psa 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. Psa 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. Psa 107:40 He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness. Job Jeremiah Job 3:3 Let the day perish in which I was born; and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived.. See also Job 10:18 Jer 15:10Jer 20:14, Jer 20:15 Wo is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me, a man of strifeCursed be the day wherein I was also born - let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Job 21:7 Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, and mighty in power? Jer 12:1, Jer 12:2 Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? they grow; yea, they bring forth fruit. Job Collate these verses with Job 28:12Job 28:13 But where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. Baruch 3:14, 15, 29,and seePro 1:20-23; Pro 2:2-7;Pro 3:13-18; Pro 4:5-9;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. Ecc 6:8 : "For what hath the wise more than the fool?" Ecc 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." Ecc 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." Ecc 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 favor 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, etc., 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 labors 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 favor 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 Aesop by Planudes. Seven different cities have claimed the honor of being his birth-place. They are expressed in the following distich: -
Ἑπτα πολεις διεριζουσι περι ριζας Ὁμηρου,
Σμυρνα, Ῥοδος, Κολαφον, Σαλαμις, Χιος, Αργος, Αθηναι.
Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenae, 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, Ὁμηρος Homeros, is merely Hebrew, אמרים omerim, with a Greek termination, signifying the sayings or discourses, from אמר 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 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 Gen 46:13, one of the sons of Issachar is named Job. In the genealogies of Num 26:24, and in Ch1 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 honor 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, Psa 110:4, Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, אתה כהן לעולם על דברתי מלכי-צדק 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, Luk 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, Psa 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 scepter, 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 Gen 2:8, Gen 2:9, 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, etc., there is a language called Lingua 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 Ayoub, which is exactly the same as the Hebrew איוב 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 Ayoub assadeek, Job the righteous. See Abul Faragius, Ebn Batric, D'Herbelot, etc.
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. Next: Job Chapter 1
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Introduction to Job
In reference to no part of the Scriptures have so many questions arisen as to the Book of Job. The time of its composition; the author; the country where the scene was laid; the question whether Job was a real person; the nature and design of the poem; have been points on which a great variety of opinion has been entertained among expositors, and on which different views still prevail. It is important, in order to have a correct understanding of the book, that all the light should be thrown on these subjects which can be; and though amidst the variety of opinion which prevails among men of the highest distinction in learning absolute certainty cannot be hoped for, yet such advances have been made in the investigation that on some of these points we may arrive to a high degree of probability.
Section 1. The Question whether Job Was a Real Person
The first question which presents itself in the examination of the book is, whether Job had a real existence. This has been doubted on such grounds as the following:
(1) The book has been supposed by some to have every mark of an allegory. Allegories and parables, it is said, are not uncommon in the Scriptures where a case is supposed, and then the narrative proceeds as if it were real. Such an instance, it has been maintained, occurs here, in which the author of the poem designed to illustrate important truths, but instead of stating them in an abstract form, chose to present them in the more graphic and interesting form of a supposed case - in which we are led to sympathize with a sufferer; to see the ground of the difficulty in the question under discussion in a more affecting manner than could be presented in an abstract form; and where the argument has all to interest the mind which one has when occurring in real life.
(2) it has been maintained that some of the transactions in the book must have been of this character, or are such as could not have actually occurred. Particularly it has been said that the account of the interview of Satan with yahweh -Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-7 must be regarded merely as a supposed case, it being in the highest degree improbable that such an interview would occur, and such a conversation be held.
(3) the same conclusion has been drawn from the artificial character of the statements about the possessions of Job, both before and after his trials - statements which appear as if the case were merely supposed, and which would not be likely to occur in reality. Thus, we have only round numbers mentioned in enumerating his possessions - as 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 she-asses. So, also, there is something artificial in the manner in which the sacred numbers seven and three are used. He had 7,000 sheep, 7 sons - both before and after his trials; his three friends came and sat down 7 days and 7 nights without saying a word to condole with him Job 2:13; and both before and after his trials he had three daughters. The same artificial and parabolical appearance, it is said, is seen in the fact that after his recovery his possessions were exactly doubled, and he had again in his old age exactly the same number of 7 sons and 3 daughters which he had before his afflictions.
(4) that the whole narration is allegorical or parabolical has been further argued from the conduct of the friends of Job. Their sitting down 7 days and 7 nights without saying anything, when they had come expressly to condole with him, it is said, is a wholly improbable circumstance, and looks as if the whole were a supposed case.
(5) the same thing has been inferred from the manner in which the book is written. It is of the highest order of poetry. The speeches are most elaborate; are filled with accurate and carefully prepared argument; are arranged with great care; are expressed in the most sententious manner; embody the results of long and careful observation, and are wholly unlike what would be uttered in unpremeditated and extemporary debate. No men, it is said, talk in this manner; nor can it be supposed that beautiful poetry and sublime argument, such as abound in this book, ever fell in animated debate from the lips of men. See Eichorn, Einleitung in das Alte Tes. V. Band. 129-131. From considerations such as these the historical character of the book has been doubted, and the whole has been regarded as a supposed case designed to illustrate the great question which the author of the poem proposed to examine.
It is important, therefore, to inquire what reasons there are for believing that such a person as Job lived, and how far the transactions referred to in the book are to be regarded as historically true.
(1) the fact of his existence is expressly declared, and the narrative has all the appearance of being a simple record of an actual occurrence. The first two chapters of the book, and a part of the last chapter, are simple historical records. The remainder of the book is indeed poetic, but these portions bare none of the characteristics of poetry. There are not to be found in the Bible more simple and plain historical statements than these; and there are none which, in themselves considered, might not be as properly set aside as allegorical. This fact should be regarded as decisive, unless there is some reason which does not appear on the face of the narrative for regarding it as allegorical.
(2) the account of the existence of such a man is regarded as historically true by the inspired writers of the Scriptures. Thus, in Eze 14:14, God says, "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it (the land), they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." Compare Eze 14:16, Eze 14:20. Here Job is referred to as a real character as distinctly as Noah and Daniel, and all the circumstances are just such as they would be on the supposition that he had a real existence. They are alike spoken of as real "men;" as having souls - "they should deliver but their own souls by their own righteousness;" as having sons and daughters - "they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, they only shall be delivered" Eze 14:16; and are in all respects mentioned alike as real characters. Of the historic fact that there were such men as Noah and Daniel there can be no doubt, and it is evident that Ezekiel as certainly regarded Job as a real character as he did either of the others.
A parallel passage, which will illustrate this, occurs in Jer 15:1 : "Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people." Here Moses and Samuel are spoken of as real characters, and there is no doubt of their having existed. Yet they are mentioned in the same manner as Job is in the passage in Ezekiel. In either case it is incredible that a reference should have been made to a fictitious character. The appeal is one that could have been made only to a real character, and there can be no reasonable doubt that Ezekiel regarded Job as having really existed; or rather, since it is God who speaks and not Ezekiel, that he speaks of Job as having actually existed. The same thing is evident from a reference to Job by the apostle James: "Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy" Jam 5:11; that is, the happy issue to which the Lord brought all his trials, showing that he was pitiful to those in affliction, and of great mercy.
There can be no doubt that there is reference here to the sufferings of a real man, as there is to the real compassion which the Lord shows to one in great trials. It is incredible that this sacred writer should have appealed in this instance to the case of one whom he regarded as a fictitious character; and if the views of Ezekiel and James are to be relied on, there can be no doubt that Job had a real existence. Ezekiel mentions him just as he does Noah and Daniel, and James mentions him just as he does Elijah Jam 5:17; and so far as this historical record goes there is the same evidence of the actual existence of the one as of the other.
(3) the specifications of places and names in the book are not such as would occur in an allegory. Had it been merely a "supposed case," to illustrate some great truth, these specifications would have been unnecessary, and would not have occurred. In the acknowledged parables of the Scripture, there are seldom any very minute specifications of names and places. Thus, in the parable of the prodigal son, neither the name of the father, nor of the sons, nor of the place where the scene was laid, is mentioned. So of the nobleman who went to receive a kingdom; the unjust steward; the ten virgins, and of numerous others. But here we have distinct specifications of a great number of things which are in no way necessary to illustrate the main truth in the poem. Thus, we have not only the name of the sufferer, but the place of his residence mentioned, as if it were well known. We have the names of his friends, and the places of their residence mentioned - "Eliphaz the Temanite," and "Bildad the Shuhite," and "Zophar the Naamathite." and Elihu "the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram." Why are the places of residence of these persons mentioned unless it be meant to intimate that they were real persons, and not allegorical characters?
In like manner we have express mention of the Sabeans and the Chaldeans - specifications wholly unnecessary if not improbable if the work is an allegory. The single word "robbers" would have answered all the purpose, and would have been such as an inspired writer would have used unless the transaction were real, for an inspired writer would not have charged this offence on any class of men, thus holding them up to lasting reproach, unless an event of this kind had actually occurred. When the Savior, in the parable of the good Samaritan, mentions a robbery that occurred between Jerusalem and Jericho, the word "thieves," or more properly "robbers", is the only word used. No names are mentioned, nor is any class of men referred to, who would by such a mention of the name be held up to infamy. Thus, also we have the particular statement respecting the feasting of the sons and daughters of Job; his sending for and admonishing them; his offering up special sacrifices on their behalf; the account of the destruction of the oxen, the sheep, the camels, and the house where the sons and daughters of Job were - all statements of circumstances which would not be likely to occur in an allegory.
They are such particular statements as we expect to find respecting the real transactions, and they bear on the face of them the simple impression of truth. This is not the kind of information which we look for in a parable. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, almost the only one spoken by the Saviour where a name is mentioned, we have not that of the rich man; and though the name Lazarus is mentioned, yet that is all. We have no account of his family, of his place of residence, of his genealogy, of the time when he lived; and the name itself is so common that it would be impossible even to suspect whom the Savior had in his eye, if he had any real individual at all. Far different is this in the account of Job. It is true that in a romance, or in an extended allegory like the Pilgrim's Progress, we expect a detailed statement of names and places; but there is no evidence that there is any such extended fictitious narrative in the Bible, and unless the Book of Job be one there is no such extended allegory.
(4) the objections urged against this view are not such as to destroy the positive proof of the reality of the existence of Job. The objections which have been urged against the historical truth of the narrative, and which have already been in part alluded to, are principally the following:
The first is, the account of the interview between God and Satan in Job 1 and Job 2:1-13. It is alleged that this is so improbable a transaction as to throw an air of fiction over all the historical statements of the book. In reply to this, it may be observed, first, that even if this were not to be regarded as a literal transaction, it does not prove that no such man as Job lived, and that the transactions in regard to him were not real. He might have had an existence, and been stripped of his possessions, and subjected to these long and painful trials of his fidelity, even if this were a poetic ornament, or merely a figurative representation.
But, secondly, it is impossible to prove that no such transaction occurred. The existence of such a being as Satan is everywhere recognized in the Scriptures; the account which is here given of his character accords entirely with the uniform representation of him; he exerts no power over Job which is not expressly conceded to him; and it is impossible to prove that he does not even now perform the same things in the trial of good men, which it is said that he did in the case of Job. And even if it be admitted that there is somewhat of poetic statement in the form in which he is introduced, still this does not render the main account improbable and absurd. The Bible, from the necessity of the case, abounds with representations of this sort; and when it is said that God "speaks" to men, that he conversed with Adam, that he spake to the serpent Gen. 3, we are not necessarily to suppose that all this is strictly literal, nor does the fact that it is not strictly literal invalidate the main facts. There were results, or there was a series of facts following, as if this had been literally true; see the notes at Job 1:6-12.
A second objection to the historical truth of the transactions recorded in the book is, the poetic character of the work, and the strong improbability that addresses of this kind should ever have been made in the manner here represented. See Eichhorn, Einleit. v. 123, 124. They are of the highest order of poetry; they partake not at all of the nature of extemporaneous effusions; they indicate profound and close thinking, and are such as must have required much time to have prepared them. Especially it is said that it is in the highest degree improbable that Job, in the anguish of his body and mind, should have been capable of giving utterance to poetry and argument of this highly finished character. In regard to this objection, it may be observed,
(1) that even if this were so, and it were to be supposed that the arguments of the various speakers have a poetic character, and were in reality never uttered in the form in which we now have them, still this would not invalidate the evidence which exists of the historic truth of the facts stated about the existence and trials of Job. It might be true that he lived and suffered in this manner, and that a discussion of this character actually occurred, and that substantially these arguments were advanced, though they were afterward wrought by Job himself or by some other hand into the poetic form in which we now have them. Job himself lived after his trials 140 years, and, in itself considered, there is no improbability in the supposition, that when restored to the vigorous use of his powers, and in the leisure which he enjoyed, he should have thought it worthy to present the argument which he once held on this great subject in a more perfect form, and to give to it a more poetic cast. In this case, the main historic truth would be retained, and the real argument would in fact be stated - though in a form more worthy of preservation than could be expected to fall extemporaneously from the lips of the speakers. But
(2) all the difficulty may be removed by a supposition which is entirely in accordance with the character of the book and the nature of the case. It is, that the several speeches succeeded each other at such intervals as gave full time for reflection, and for carefully framing the argument. There is no evidence that the whole argument was gone through with "at one sitting;" there are no proofs that one speech followed immediately on another, or that a sufficient interval of time may not have elapsed to give opportunity for preparation to meet the views which had been suggested by the previous speaker. Everything in the book bears the marks of the most careful deliberation, and is as free as possible from the hurry and bustle of an extemporaneous debate. The sufferings of Job were evidently of a protracted nature. His friends sat down "seven days and seven nights" in silence before they said anything to him.
The whole subject of the debate seems to be arranged with most systematic care and regularity. The speakers succeed each other in regular order in a series of arguments - in each of these series following the same method, and no one of them out of his place. No one is ever interrupted while speaking; and no matter how keen and sarcastic his invectives, how torturing his reproaches, how bold or blasphemous what he said was thought to be, he is patiently heard until he has said all that he designed to say; and then all that he said is carefully weighed and considered in the reply. All this looks as if there might have been ample time to arrange the reply before it was uttered, and this supposition, of course, would relieve all the force of this objection. If this be so, then there is no more ground of objection against the supposition that these things were spoken, as it is said they were, than there is about the genuineness of the poems of the Grecian Rhapsodists, composed with a view to public recitation, or to the Iliad of Homer or the History of Herodotus, both of which, after they were composed, were recited publicly by their authors at Athens. No one can prove certainly that the several persons named in the book - Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zolphar, and Elihu - were incompetent to compose the speeches which are severally assigned to them, or that all the time necessary for such a composition was not taken by them.
Unless this can be done, the objection of its improbability, so confidently urged by Eichhorn (Einleit. v. 123ff.), and defended by Noyes (Intro. pp. xxi., xxi.), where he says that "the supposition that so beautiful and harmonious a whole, every part of which bears the stamp of the highest genius, was the casual production of a man brought to the gates of the grave by a loathsome disease, of three or four friends who had come to comfort him in his affliction, all of them expressing their thoughts in poetical and measured language; that the Deity was actually heard to speak half an hour in the midst of a violent storm; and that the consultations in the heavenly world were actual occurrences, is too extravagant to need refutation," is an objection really of little force.
A third objection has been derived from the round and doubled numbers which occur in the book, and the artificial character which the whole narrative seems to assume on that account. It is alleged that this is wholly an unusual and improbable occurrence; and that the whole statement appears as if it were a fictitious narrative. Thus Job's possessions of oxen and camels and sheep are expressed in round numbers; one part of these is exactly the double of another; and what is more remarkable still, all these are exactly doubled on his restoration to health. He had the same number of sons and the same number of daughters after his trial which he had before, and the number of each was what was esteemed among the Hebrews as a sacred number.
In regard to this objection, we may observe:
(1) That as to the round numbers, this is no more than what constantly occurs in historical statements. Nothing is more common in the enumeration of armies, of the people of a country, or of herds and flocks, than such statements.
(2) in regard to the fact that the possessions of Job are said to have been exactly "doubled" after his recovery from his calamities, it is not necessary to suppose that this was in all respects literally true. Nothing forbids us to suppose that, from the gifts of friends and other causes, the possessions of Job came so near to being just twice what they were before his trials, as to justify this general statement. In the statement itself, there is nothing improbable. Job lived 140 after his trials. If he had then the same measure of prosperity which he had before, and with the assistance of his friends to enable him to begin life again, there is no improbability in the supposition that these possessions would be doubled.
These are substantially all the objections which have been urged against the historical character of the book, and if they are not well founded, then it follows that it should be regarded as historically true that such a man actually lived, and that he passed through the trials which are here described. A more extended statement of these objections, and a refutation of them, may be found in the following works: - Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, Vol. V. p. 298ff. ed. 8vo, London, 1811; Prof. Lee on Job, Intro. Section 11; and Magee on atonement and Sacrifice, p. 212, following, ed. New York, 1813. It should be said, however, that not a few writers admit that such a man as Job lived, and that the book has an historical basis, while they regard the work itself as in the main poetic. In the view of such critics, the poet, in order to illustrate the great truth which he proposed to consider, made use of a tradition respecting the sufferings of a well-known person of distinction, and gave to the whole argument the high poetic cast which it has now. This supposition is in accordance with the methods frequently adopted by epic and tragic poets, and which is commonly followed by writers of romance. This is the opinion of Eichhorn, Einleitung V. Section 638.
Section 2. The Question on Where Job Lived
In Job 1:1, it is said that Job dwelt "in the land of Uz." The only question, then, to be settled in ascertaining where he lived, is, if possible, to determine where this place was. From the manner in which the record is made ("the land of Uz") it would seem probable that this was a region of country of some considerable extent, and also that it derived its name from some man of that name who had settled there. The word Uz (עוּץ ‛ûts), according to Gesenius, means a light, sandy soil; and if the name was given to the country with reference to this quality of the soil, it would be natural to fix on some region remarkable for its barrenness - a waste place or a desert. Gesenius supposes that Uz was in the northern part of Arabia Deserta - a place lying between Palestine and the Euphrates, called by Ptolemy Αἰσῖται Aisitai. This opinion is defended by Rosenmuller (Prolegomena); and is adopted by Spanheim, Bochart, Lee, Umbreit, Noyes, and the authors of the Universal History. Dr. Good supposes that the Uz here referred to was in Arabia Petraea, on the southwestern coast of the Dead Sea, and that Job and all his friends referred to in the poem were Idumeans. Introductory Dissertation, Section 1.
Eichhorn also supposes that the scene is laid in Idumea, and that the author of the poem shows that he had a particular acquaintance with the history, customs, and productions of Egypt. Einleit. Section 638. Bochart (in Phaleg et Canaan), Michaelis (Spicileg. Geog. Hebraeo.), and Ilgen (Jobi, Antiquis. carminis Hebrew natura et indoles, p. 91), suppose that the place of his residence was the valley of Guta near Damascus, regarded as the most beautiful of the four Paradises of the Arabians. For a description of this valley, see Eichhorn, Einleit. V. s. 134. The word עוּץ ‛ûts (Uz) occurs only in the following places in the Hebrew Bible: Gen 10:23; Gen 22:21; Gen 36:28, and Ch1 1:17, Ch1 1:42; in each of which places it is the name of a man; and in Jer 25:20; Lam 4:21, and in Job 1:1, where it is applied to a country. The only circumstances which furnish any probability in regard to the place where Job lived, are the following:
(1) Those which enable us to determine with some probability where the family of Uz was settled, who not improbably gave his name to the country - as Sheba, and Seba, and Tema, and Cush, and Misraim, and others, did to the countries where they settled. In Gen 10:23; Uz עוּץ ‛ûts, is mentioned as a grandson of Shem. In Gen 22:21; an Uz (English Bible, "Huz") is mentioned as the son of Nahor, brother of Abraham, undoubtedly a different person from the one mentioned in Gen 10:23. In Gen 36:28, an individual of this name is mentioned among the descendants of Esau. In Ch1 1:17, the name occurs among the "sons of Shem;" and in Ch1 1:42, the same name occurs among the descendants of Esau. So far, therefore, as the name is concerned, it may have been derived from one of the family of Shem, or from one who was a contemporary with Abraham, or from a somewhat remote descendant Esau. It will be seen in the course of this introduction, that there is strong improbability that the name was given to the country because it was settled by either of the two latter, as such a supposition would bring down the time when Job lived to a later period than the circumstances recorded in his history will allow, and it is therefore probable that the name was conferred in honor of the grandson of Shem. This fact, of itself, will do something to determine the place.
Shem lived in Asia, and we shall find that the settlements of his descendants originally occupied the country somewhere in the vicinity of the Euphrates; Gen 10:21-30. In Gen 10:23; Uz is mentioned as one of the sons of Aram, who gave name to the country known as Aramea, or Syria, and from whom the Arameans descended. Their original residence, it is supposed, was near the river Kir, or Cyrus, from where they were brought, at some period now unknown, by a deliverance resembling that of the children of Israel from Egypt, and placed in the regions of Syria; see Amo 9:7. The inhabitants of Syria and Mesopotamia are always called by Moses "Arameus": as they had their seat in and near Mesopotamia, it is probable that Uz was located also not far from that region. We should, therefore, naturally be led to look for the country of Uz somewhere in that vicinity. In Gen 10:30; it is further said of the sons of Shem, that "their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the East;" a statement which corresponds with what is said of Job himself, that he was "the greatest of all the men of the East" Job 1:8; manifestly implying that he was an inhabitant of the country so called.
Various opinions have been entertained of the places where Mesha and Sephar were. The opinion of Michaelis is the most probable (Spicileg. pt. 11, p. 214), "that Mesha is the region around Passora, which the later Syrians called Maishon, and the Greeks Mesene. Under these names they included the country on the Euphrates and the Tigris, between Seleucia and the Persian Gulf. Abulfeda mentions in this region two cities not far from Passora, called Maisan, and Mushan. Here, then, was probably the northeastern border of the district inhabited by the Joktanites. The name of the opposite limit, Sephar, signifies in the Chaldee shore or coast, and is probably the western part of Yemen, along the Arabian Gulf, now called by the Arabs Tchiainah. The range of high and mountainous country between these two borders, Moses calls "the Mount of the East," or eastern mountains. It is also called by the Arabs, Djebal, i. e., "mountains," to the present day. See Rosenmuller's Alterthumskunde, iii. 163, 164.
The supposition that some portion of this region is denoted by the country where Uz settled, and is the place where Job resided is strengthened by the fact, that many of the persons and tribes mentioned in the book resided in this vicinity. Thus, it is probable that Eliphaz the Temanite had his residence there; see the notes at Job 2:11. The Sabeans probably dwelt not very remote from that region (see the notes at Job 1:15); the Chaldeans we know had their residence there (notes, Job 1:17), and this supposition will agree well with what is said of the tornado that came from the "wilderness," or desert; see the notes at Job 1:19. The residence of Job was so near to the Chaldeans and the Sabeans that he could be reached in their usual predatory excursions; a fact that better accords with the supposition that his residence was in some part of Arabia Deserta, than that it was in Idumea.
(2) this country is referred to in two places by Jeremiah, which may serve to aid us in determining its location; Lam 4:21 :
"Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
That dwellest in the land of Uz;
The cup shall pass through unto thee:
Thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked."
At first view, perhaps, this passage would indicate that the land of Uz was a part of Edom, yet it more properly indicates that the land of Uz was not a part of that land, but that the Edomites or Idumeans had gained possession of a country which did not originally belong to them. Thus, the prophet speaks of the "daughter of Edom," not as dwelling in her own country properly, but as dwelling "in the land of Uz" - in a foreign country, of which she had somehow obtained possession. The country of Edom, properly, was Mount Seir and the vicinity, south of the Dead Sea; but it is known that the Edomites subsequently extended their boundaries, and that at one period Bozrah, on the east of the Dead Sea, in the country of Moab, was their capital; see the Analysis of Isa. 34, and the notes at Isa 34:6. It is highly probable that Jeremiah refers to the period when the Idumeans, having secured these conquests, and made this foreign city their capital, is represented as dwelling there. If so, according to this passage in Lamentations, we should naturally look for the land of Uz somewhere in the countries to which the conquests of the Edomites extended - and these conquests were chiefly to the east of their own land. A similar conclusion will be derived from the other place where the name occurs in Jeremiah. It is in Jer 25:20 ff. "And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Askelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, and Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon," etc. Two things are apparent here. One is, that the country of Uz was distinct from the land of Edom, since they are mentioned as separate nations; the other is, that it was a country of some considerable extent, since it is mentioned as being under several "kings." There is, indeed, in this reference to it no allusion to its situation; but it is mentioned as being well known in the time of Jeremiah.
(3) the same thing is evident from the manner in which the residence of Job is spoken of in Job 1:8. He is there said to have been the "greatest of all the men of the east." This implies that his residence was in the land which was known familiarly as the country of the East. It is true, indeed, that we have not yet determined where the poem was composed, and of course do not know precisely what the author would understand by this phrase, but the expression has a common signification in the Scriptures, as denoting the country east of Palestine. The land of Idumea, however, was directly south; and we are, therefore, naturally led to look to some other place as the land of Uz; compare the notes at Job 1:3. The expression "the East," as used in the Bible, would in no instance naturally lead us to look to Idumea.
(4) the Septuagint renders the word Uz in Job 1:1. by Ασίτις Asitis - a word which seems to have been formed from the Hebrew עוּץ ‛ûts, Utz, or Uz. Of course, their translation gives no intimation of the place referred to. But Ptolemy (Geog. Lib. v.) speaks of a tribe or nation in the neighborhood of Babylon, whom he calls Αὐσίται Ausitai, Ausitae (or as it was perhaps written Αἰσίται Aisitai), the same word which is used by the Septuagint in rendering the word Uz. These people are placed by Ptolemy in the neighborhood of the Cauchebeni - ὑπὸ υὲν τοῖς Καυχαβηνοις hupo men tois Kauchabēnois - and he speaks of them as separated from Chaldea by a ridge of mountains. See Rosenm. Prolegomena, p. 27. This location would place Job so near to the Chaldeans, that the account of their making an excursion into his country Job 1:17 would be entirely probable. - It may be added, also, that in the same neighborhood we find a town called Sabas (Σάβας Sabas) in Diodorus Sic. Lib. iii. Section 46. Prof. Lee, p. 32. These circumstances render it probable that the residence of the patriarch was west of Chaldea, and somewhere in the northern part of Arabia Deserta, between Palestine, Idumea, and the Euphratcs.
(5) the monuments and memorials of Job still preserved or referred to in the East, may be adduced as some slight evidence of the fact that such a man as Job lived, and as an indication of the region in which he resided. It is true that they depend on mere tradition; but monuments are not erected to the memory of any who are not supposed to have had an existence, and traditions usually have some basis in reality. Arabian writers always make mention of Job as a real person, and his pretended grave is shown in the East to this day. It is shown indeed in six different places: but this is no evidence that all that is said of the existence of such a man is fabulous, anymore than the fact that seven cities contended for the honor of the birth of Homer is an evidence that there was no such man. The most celebrated tomb of this kind is that of the Trachonitis, toward the springs of the Jordan. It is situated between the cities still bearing the names of Teman, Shuah, and Naama - (Wemyss); though there is every reason to believe that these names have been given rather with reference to the fact that that was supposed to be his residence, than that they were the names of the places referred to in the book of Job. One of these tombs was shown to Niebuhr. He says (Reisebeschreib, i. 466, "Two or three hours east of Saada is a great mosque, in which, according to the opinion of the Arabs who reside there, the sufferer Job lies buried." "On the eastern limits of Arabia, they showed me the grave of Job, close to the Euphrates, and near the Helleh, one hour south from Babylon." is of importance to remark here only that all of these tombs are outside the limits of Idumea. Among the Arabians there are numerous traditions respecting Job, many of them indeed stories that are entirely ridiculous, but all showing the firm belief prevalent in Arabia that there was such a man. See Sale's Koran, vol. ii. pp. 174, 322; Magee on Atonement and Sacrifice, pp. 366, 367; and D'Herbelot, Bibli. Orient. tom. i. pp. 75, 432, 438, as quoted by Magee.
(6) the present belief of the Arabians may be referred to as corroborating the results to which we have approximated in this inquiry, that the residence of Job was not in Idumea, but was in some part of Arabia Deserta, lying between Palestine and the Euphrates. Eli Smith stated to me (November, 1840) that there was still a place in the Houran called by the Arabians, Uz; and that there is a tradition among them that that was the residence of Job. It is northeast of Bozrah. Bozrah was once the capital of Idumea (notes on Isa 34:6), though it was situated without the limits of their natural territory. If this tradition is well founded, then Job was not probably an Idumean. There is nothing that renders the tradition improbable, and the course of the investigation conducts us, with a high degree of probability, to the conclusion that this was the residence of Job. On the residence of Job and his friends, consult also Abrahami Peritsol Itinera Mundi, in Ugolin, Thes. Sac. vii. pp. 103-106.
Section 3. The Time When Job Lived
There has been quite as much uncertainty in regard to the time when Job lived, as there has been in regard to the place where he lived. It should be observed here, that this question is not necessarily connected with the inquiry when the book was composed, and will not be materially affected, whether we suppose it to have been composed by Job himself, by Moses, or by a later writer. Whenever the book was composed, if at a later period than that in which the patriarch lived, the author would naturally conceal the marks of his own time, by referring only to such customs and opinions as prevailed in the age when the events were supposed to have occurred.
On this question, we cannot hope to arrive at absolute certainty. It is remarkable that neither the genealogical record of the family of Job nor that of his three friends is given. The only record of the kind occurring in the book, is that of Elihu Job 32:2, and this is so slight as to furnish but little assistance in determining when he lived. The only circumstances which occur in regard to this question, are the following; and they will serve to settle the question with sufficient probability, as it is a question on which no important results can depend.
(1) the age of Job. According to this, the time when he lived, would occur somewhere between the age of Terah, the father of Abraham, and Jacob, or about 1,800 years before Christ, and about 600 years after the deluge. For the reasons of this opinion, see the notes at Job 42:16. This estimate cannot pretend to be entirely accurate, but, it has a high degree of probability. If this estimate is correct, he lived not far from 400 years before the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, and before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; compare the notes at Act 7:6.
(2) as a slight confirmation of this opinion, we may refer to the traditions in reference to the time when he lived. The account which is appended to the Septuagint, that he was a son of Zare, one of the sons of Esau, and the fifth in descent from Abraham, may be seen in the notes at Job 42:16. A similar account is given at the close of the Arabic translation of Job, so similar that the one has every appearance of having been copied from the other, or of their having had a common origin. "Job dwelt in the land of Uz, between the borders of Edom and Arabia, and was before called Jobab. He married a foreign wife, whose name was Anun. Job was himself a son of Zare, one of the sons of Esau; and his mother's name was Basra, and he was the sixth in descent from Abraham. But of the kings who reigned in Edom, the first who reigned over the land was Balak, the son of Beor; and the name of his city was Danaba. And after him Jobab, who is called Job; and after him the name of him who was prince of the land of Teman; and after him his son Barak, he who slew and put to flight Madian in the plain of Moab, and the name of his city was Gjates. And of the friends of Job who came to meet him, was Elifaz, of the sons of Esau, the king of the Temanites." These traditions are worthless, except as they show the prevalent belief when these translations were made, that Job lived somewhere near the time of the three great Hebrew patriarchs.
A nearly uniform tradition also has concurred in describing this as about the age in which he lived. The Hebrew writers generally concur in describing him as living in the days of Isaac and Jacob. Wemyss. Eusebius places him about two "ages" before Moses. The opinions of the Eastern nations generally concur in assigning this as the age in which he lived.
(3) from the representations in the book itself, it is clear that he lived before the departure from Egypt. This is evident from the fact that there is no direct allusion either to that remarkable event, or to the series of wonders which accompanied it, or to the journey to the land of Canaan. This silence is unaccountable on any other supposition than that he lived before it occurred, for two reasons. One is, that it would have furnished the most striking illustration occurring in history, of the interposition by God in delivering his friends and in destroying the wicked, and was such an illustration as Job and his friends could not have failed to refer to, in defense of their opinions, if it were known to them; and the other is, that this event was the great storehouse of argument and illustration for all the sacred writers, after it occurred. The deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and the divine interposition in conducting the nation to the promised land, is constantly referred to by the sacred writers. They derive from those events their most magnificent descriptions of the power and majesty of Yahweh. They refer to them as illustrating his character and government. They appeal to them in proof that he was the friend and protector of his people, and that he would destroy his foes. They draw from them their most sublime and beautiful poetic images, and are never weary with calling the attention of the people to their obligation to serve God, on account of his merciful and wonderful interposition. The very point of the argument in this book is one that would be better illustrated by that deliverance, than by any other event which ever occurred in history; and as this must have been known to the inhabitants of the country where Job lived, it is inexplicable that there is no allusion to these transactions, if they had already occurred.
It is clear, therefore, that even if the book was written at a later period than the exode from Egypt, the author of the poem meant to represent the patriarch as having lived before that event. He has described him as one who was ignorant of it, and in such circumstances, and with such opinions, that he could not have failed to refer to it, if he was believed to have lived after that event. It is equally probable that Job lived before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This event occurred in the vicinity of the country where he lived, and he could not have been ignorant of it. It was, moreover, a case not less in point in the argument than the deliverance from Egypt was; and it is not conceivable that a reference to so signal a punishment on the wicked by the direct judgment of the Almighty, would have been omitted in an argument of the nature of that in this book. It was the very point maintained by the friends of Job, that God interposed by direct judgments to cut off the wicked; and the world never furnished a more appropriate illustration of this than had occurred in their own neighborhood, on the supposition that the calamities of Job occurred after that event.
(4) the same thing is apparent also from the absence of all allusion to the Jewish rites, manners, customs, religious ceremonies, priesthood, festivals, fasts, sabbaths, etc. There will be occasion in another part of this introduction (Section 4) to inquire how far there is in fact such a lack of allusion to these things. All that is now meant is, that there is an obvious and striking lack of such allusions as we should expect to find made by one who lived at a later period, and who was familiar with the customs and religious rites of the Jews. The plan of the poem, it may be admitted, indeed, did not demand any frequent allusion to these customs and rites, and may be conceded to be adverse to such an allusion, even if they were known; but it is hardly conceivable that there should not have been some reference to them of more marked character than is now found. Even admitting that Job was a foreigner, and that the author meant to preserve this impression distinctly, yet his residence could not have been far from the confines of the Jewish people; and one who manifested such decided principles of piety toward God as he did, could not but have had a strong sympathy with that people, and could not but have referred to their rites in an argument so intimately pertaining to the government of yahweh. The representation of Job, and the allusions in the book, are in all respects such as would occur on the supposition that he lived before the special Jewish polity was instituted.
(5) the same thing is manifest from another circumstance. The religion of Job is of the same kind which we find prevailing in the time of Abraham, and before the institution of the Jewish system. It is a religion of sacrifices, but without any officiating priest. Job himself presents the offering, as the head of the family, in behalf of his children and his friends; Job 1:5; Job 42:8. There is no priest appointed for this office; no temple, tabernacle, or sacred place of any kind; no consecrated altar. Now this is just the kind of religion which we find prevailing among the patriarchs, until the giving of the law on Mount Sinai; and hence, it is natural to infer that Job lived anterior to that event. Thus, we find Noah building an altar to the Lord, and offering sacrifices, Gen 8:20; Abraham offering a sacrifice himself in the same manner, Gen 15:9-11; compare Gen 12:1-13; and this was undoubtedly the earliest form of religion. Sacrifices were offered to God, and the father of a family was the officiating priest.
These circumstances combined leave little doubt as to the time when Job lived. They concur in fixing the period as not remote from the age of Abraham, and there is no other period of history in which they will be found to unite. No question of great importance, however, depends on settling this question; and these circumstances determine the time with sufficient accuracy for all that is necessary, in an exposition of the book.
Section 4. The Author of the Book
A question of more vital importance than those which have been already considered, relates to the authorship of the book. As the name of the author is nowhere mentioned, either in the book itself or elsewhere in the Bible, it is of course impossible to arrive at absolute certainty; and after all that has been written on it, it is still and must be a point of mere conjecture. Still the question, as it is commonly discussed, opens a wide range of inquiry, and claims an investigation. If the name of the author cannot be discovered with certainty, it may be possible at least to decide with some degree of probability at what period of the world it was committed to writing, and perhaps with a degree of probability that may be sufficiently satisfactory, by whom it was done.
The first inquiry that meets us in the investigation of this point is, whether the whole book was composed by the same author, or whether the historical parts were added by a later hand. The slightest acquaintance with the book is sufficient to show, that there are in it two essentially different kinds of style - the poetic and prosaic. The body of the work, Job 3-42:6, is poetry; the other portion, Job 1; Job 2:1-13 and Job 42:7-17, is prose. The genuineness of the latter has been denied by many eminent critics, and particularly by DeWette, who regard it as the addition of some later hand. Against the prologue and the epilogue DeWette urges, "that the perfection of the work requires their rejection, because they solve the problem which is the subject of the discussion, by the idea of trial and compensation; whereas it was the design of the author to solve the question through the idea of entire submission on the part of man to the wisdom and power of God;" see Noyes, Intro. pp. xxi., xxii.
To this objection it may be replied:
(1) That we are to learn the view of the author only by all that he has presented to us. It may have been a part of his plan to exhibit just this view - not to present an abstract argument, but such an argument in connection with a real case, and to make it more vivid by showing an actual instance of calamity falling upon a pious man, and by a state of remarkable prosperity succeeding it. The presumption is, that the author of the poem designed to throw all the light possible on a very obscure and dark subject; and in order to that, a statement of the facts which preceded and followed the argument seems indispensable.
(2) without the statement in the conclusion of the prosperity of Job after his trials, the argument of the book is incomplete. The main question is not solved. God is introduced in the latter chapters, not as solving by explicit statements the questions that had given so much perplexity, but as showing the duty of unqualified submission. But when this is followed by the historical statement of the return of Job to a state of prosperity, of the long life which he afterward enjoyed, and of the wealth and happiness which attended him for nearly a century and a half, the objections of his friends and his own difficulties are abundantly met, and the conclusion of the whole shows that God is not regardless of his people, but that, though they pass through severe trials, still they are the objects of his tender care.
(3) besides, the prologue is necessary in order to understand the character, the language, and the arguments of Job. In the harsh and irreverent speeches which he sometimes makes, in his fearful imprecations in Job 3 on the day of his birth, and in the outbreaks of impatience which we meet with, it would be impossible for us to have the sympathy for the sufferer which the author evidently desired we should have, or to understand the depth of his woes, unless we had a view of his previous prosperity, and of the causes of his trials, and unless we had the assurance that he had been an eminently pious and upright man. As it is, we are prepared to sympathize with a sufferer of eminent rank, a man of previous wealth and prosperity, and one who had been brought into these circumstances or the very purpose of trial. We become at once interested to know how human nature will act in such circumstances, nor does the interest ever flag.
Under these sudden and accumulated trials, we admire, at first, the patience and resignation of the sufferer; then, under the protracted and intolerable pressure, we are not surprised to witness the outbreak of his feelings in Job 3; and then we watch with great interest and without weariness the manner in which he meets the ingenious arguments of his "friends" to prove that he had always been a hypocrite, and their cutting taunts and reproaches. It would be impossible to keep up this interest in the argument unless we were prepared for it by the historical statement in the introductory chapters. It should be added, that any supposition that these chapters are by a later hand, is entirely conjectural - no authority for any such belief being furnished by the ancient versions, manuscripts, or traditions. These remarks, however, do not forbid us to suppose, that, if the book were composed by Job himself, the last two verses in Job 42, containing an account of his age and death, were added by a later hand - as the account of the death of Moses Deu 34:1-12 must be supposed not to be the work of Moses himself, but of some later inspired writer.
If there is, therefore, reason to believe that the whole work, substantially as we have it now, was committed to writing by the same hand, the question arises, whether there are any circumstances by which it can be determined with probability who the author was. On no question, almost, pertaining to sacred criticism, have there been so many contradictory opinions as on this. Lowth, Magee, Prof. Lee, and many others, regard it as the work of Job himself. Lightfoot and others ascribe it to Elihu; some of the rabbinical writers, as also Kennicott, Michaelis, Dathe, and Good, to Moses; Luther, Grotius, and Doederlin, to Solomon; Umbreit and Noyes to some writer who lived not far from the period of the Jewish captivity; Rosenmuller, Spanheim, Reimar, Stauedlin, and C. F. Richter, suppose that it was composed by some Hebrew writer about the time of Solomon; Warburton regards it as the production of Ezra; Herder (Hebrew Poetry, i. 110) supposes that it was written by some ancient Idumean, probably Job himself, and was obtained by David in his conquests over Idumea. He supposes that in the later writings of David he finds traces of his having imitated the style of this ancient book.
It would be uninteresting and profitless to go into an examination of the reasons suggested by these respective authors for their various opinions. Instead of this, I propose to state the leading considerations which have occurred in the examination of the book itself, and of the reasons which have been suggested by these various authors, which may enable us to form a probable opinion. If the investigation shall result only in adding one more conjecture to those already formed, still it will have the merit of stating about all that seems to be of importance in enabling us to form an opinion in the case.
I. The first circumstance that would occur to one in estimating the question about the authorship of the book, is the foreign cast of the whole work - the fact that it differs from the usual style of the Hebrew compositions. The customs, allusions, figures of speech, and modes of thought, to one who is familiar with the writings of the Hebrews, have a foreign air, and are such as evidently show that the speakers lived in some other country than Judea. There is, indeed, a common Oriental cast diffused over the whole work, enough to distinguish it from all the modes of composition in the Occidental world; but there is, also, scarcely less to distinguish it from the compositions which we know had their origin among the Hebrews. The style of thought, and the general cast of the book, is Arabian. The allusions; the metaphors; the illustrations; the reference to historical events and to prevailing customs, are not such as an Hebrew would make; certainly not, unless in the very earliest periods of history, and before the character of the nation became so formed as to distinguish it characteristically from their brethren in the great family of the East. Arabian deserts; streams failing from drought; wadys filled in the winter and dry in the summer; moving hordes and caravans that come regularly to the same place for water; dwellings of tents easily plucked up and removed; the dry and stinted shrubbery of the desert; the roaring of lions and other wild beasts; periodical rains; trees planted on the verge of running streams; robbers and plunderers that rise before day, and make their attack in the early morning; the rights, authority, and obligation of the גאל gô'el, or avenger of blood; the claims of hospitality; the formalities of an Arabic court of justice, are the images which are kept constantly before the mind.
Here the respect due to an Emir; the courtesy of manners which prevails among the more elevated ranks in the Arabic tribes; the profound attention which listens to the close while one is speaking, and which never interrupts him (Herder i. 81), so remarkable among well-bred Orientals at the present day, appear everywhere. It is true, that many of these things may find a resemblance in the undoubted Hebrew writings - for some of them are the common characteristics of the Oriental people - but still, no one can doubt that they abound in this book more than in any other in the Bible, and that, as we shall see more particularly soon, they are unmixed as they are elsewhere, with what is indubitably of Hebrew origin. In connection with this, it may be remarked that there are in the book an unusual number of words, whose root is found now only in the Arabic, and which are used in a sense not common in the Hebrew, but usual in the Arabic. Of this all will be convinced who, in interpreting the book, avail themselves of the light which Gesenius has thrown on numerous words from the Arabic, or who consult the Lexicon of Castell, or who examine the Commentaries of Schultens and Lee. That more importance has been attached to this by many critics than facts will warrant, no one can deny; but as little can it be denied that more aid can be derived from the Arabic language in interpreting this book, than in the exposition of any other part of the Bible. On this point Gesenius makes the following remarks "Altogether there is found in the book much resemblance to the Arabic, or which can be illustrated from the Arabic; but this is either Hebrew, and pertains to the poetic diction, or it is at the same time Aramaish, and was borrowed by the poet from the Aramaean language, and appears here not as Aramaean but as Arabic. Yet there is not here proportionably more than in other poetic books and portions of books. It would be unjust to infer from this that the author of this book had any immediate connection with Arabia, or with Arabic literature." Geschichte der hebr. Sprache und Schrift, S. 88. The fact of the Arabic cast of the work is conceded by Gesenius in the above extract; the inferences in regard to the connection of the book with Arabia and with Arabic literature which may be derived from this, is to be determined from other circumstances; compare Eichhorn, Einleitung, v. S. 163ff.
II. A second consideration that may enable us to determine the question respecting the authorship of the book is, the fact that there are in it numerous undoubted allusions to events which occurred before the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, and the establishment of the Jewish institutions. The point of this remark is, that if we shall find such allusions, and also that there are no allusions to events occurring after that period, this is a circumstance which may throw some light on the authorship. It will at least enable us to fix, with some degree of accuracy, the time when the book was committed to writing. Now that there are manifest allusions to events occurring before that period, the following references will show; Job 10:9, "Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me to dust again?" Here there is an allusion in almost so many words to the statements in Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19, respecting the manner in which man was formed - showing that Job was familiar with the account of the creation of man, Job 27:3, "All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;" Job 33:4, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life;" Job 32:8, "But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."
Here there are undoubted allusions, also, to the manner in which man was formed - (compare Gen 2:7) - allusions which show that the fact must have been made known to the speakers by tradition, since it is not such a fact as man would readily arrive at by reasoning. The imbecility and weakness of man also, are described in terms which imply an acquaintance with the manner in which he was created. "How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth;" Job 4:19. In Job 31:33, there is probably an allusion to the fact that Adam attempted to hide himself from God when he had eaten the forbidden fruit. "If I covered my transgressions as Adam." For the reasons for supposing that this refers to Adam, see the notes at the verse. In Job 22:15-16, there is a manifest reference to the deluge. "Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden? which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood?"
See the notes on that passage. In connection with this we may refer also to the fact that the description of the modes of worship, and the views of religion, found in this book, show an acquaintance with the form in which worship was offered to God before the exode from Egypt. They are of precisely such a character as we find in the time of Abel, Noah, and Abraham. These events are not such as would occur to one who was not familiar with the historical facts recorded in the first part of the book of Genesis. They are not such as would result from a train of reasoning, but could only be derived from the knowledge of those events which would be spread over the East at that early period of the world. They demonstrate that the work was composed by one who had had an opportunity to become acquainted with what is now recorded as the Mosaic history of the creation, and of the early events of the world.
III. There are no such allusions to events occurring after the exode from Egypt, and the establishment of the Jewish institutions. As this is a point of great importance in determining the question respecting the authorship of the book, and as it as been confidently asserted that there are such allusions, and as they have been made the basis of an argument to prove that the book had an origin as late as Solomon or even as Ezra, it is of importance to examine this point with attention. The point is, that there are no such allusions as a Hebrew would make after the exode; or in other words, there is nothing in the book itself which would lead us to conclude that it was composed after the departure from Egypt. A few remarks will show the truth and the bearing of this observation.
The Hebrew writers were remarkable above most others for allusions to the events of their own history. The dealings of God with their nation had been so special, and they were so much imbued with the conviction that the events of their own history furnished proofs of the divine favor toward their nation, that we find in their writings a constant reference to what had happened to them as a people. Particularly the deliverance from Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the giving of the law on Sinai, the journey in the wilderness, the conquest of the land of Canaan, and the destruction of their enemies, constituted an unfailing depository of argument and illustration for their writers in all ages. All their poetry written subsequent to these events, abounds with allusions to them. Their prophets refer to them for topics of solemn appeal to the nation; and the remembrance of these things warms the heart of piety, and animates the song of praise in the temple-service. Under the sufferings of the "captivity," they are cheered by the fact that God delivered them once from much more galling oppression; and in the times of freedom, their liberty is made sweet by the memory of what their fathers suffered in the "house of bondage."
Now it is as undeniable as it is remarkable, that in the book of Job there are no such allusions to these events as a Hebrew would make. There is no allusion to Moses; no indisputable reference to their bondage in Egypt, to the oppressive acts of Pharaoh, to the destruction of his army in the Red Sea, to the rescue of the children of Israel, to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, to the perils of the wilderness, to their final settlement in the promised land. There is no reference to the tabernacle, to the ark, to the tables of the law, to the institution and the functions of the priesthood, to the cities of refuge, or to the special religious rites of the Hebrew people. There is none to the theocracy, to the days of solemn convocation, to the great national festivals, or to the names of the Jewish tribes. There is none to the special judicial laws of the Hebrews, and none to the administration of justice but such as we should find in the early patriarchal times.
These omissions are the more remarkable, as has been already observed, because many of these events would have furnished the most apposite illustrations of the points maintained by the different speakers of any which had ever occurred in history. Nothing could have been more in point, on numerous occasions in conducting the argument, than the destruction of Pharaoh, the deliverance and protection of the people of God, the care evinced for them in the wilderness, and the overthrow of their enemies in the promised land. So obvious do these considerations appear, that they seem to settle the question on one point in regard to the authorship of the book, and to show that it could not have been composed by a Hebrew after the exode. For several additional arguments to prove that the book was written before the exode, see Eichhorn, Einleit, section 641. As, however, notwithstanding these facts, it has been held by some respectable critics - as Rosenmuller, Umbreit, Warburton, and others - that it was composed as late as the time of Solomon, or even the captivity, it is important to inquire in what way it is proposed to set this argument aside, and by what considerations they propose to defend its composition at a later date than the exode. They are, briefly, the following:
(1) One is, that the very design of the poem, whenever it was composed, required that there should be no such allusion. The scene, it is said is laid, not in Palestine, but in a foreign country; the time supposed is that of the patriarchs, and before the exode; the characters are not Hebrew, but are Arabian or Idumean, and the very purpose of the author required that there should be no allusion to the unique history or customs of the Hebrews. The same thing, it is said, occurred which would in the composition of poem or romance now in which the scene is laid in a foreign land, or in the time of the Crusades or the Caesars. We should expect that the characters, the costume, the habits of that foreign country or those distant times, would be carefully observed. "As they (the characters and the author of the work) were Arabians who had nothing to do with the institutions of Moses, it is plain that a writer of genius would not have been guilty of the absurdity of putting the sentiments, eats of a Jew into the mouth of an Arabian, at least so far as relates to such tangible matters as institutions, positive laws, ceremonies, and history. The author has manifested abundant evidence of genius and skill in the structure and execution of the work, to account for his not having given to Arabians the obvious peculiarities of Hebrews who lived under the institutions of Moses, at whatever period it may have been written.
Even if the characters of the book had been Hebrews, the argument under consideration would not have been perfectly conclusive, for, from the nature of the subject, we might have expected as little in it that was Levitical or grossly Jewish, as in the Book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes." Noyes, Introduction p. 28. This supposition assumes that the work was written in a later age than that of Moses. It furnishes no evidence, however, that it was so written. It can only furnish evidence that the author had genius and skill so to throw himself back into a distant age and into a foreign land, as completely to conceal his own uniqueness of country or time, and to represent characters as living and acting in the supposed country and period, without betraying his own. So far as the question about the author, and the time when the work was composed, is concerned, the fact here admitted, that there are no allusions to events after the exode, is quite as strong certainly in favor of the supposition that it was composed before as after that event.
There are still some difficulties on the supposition that it was written by a Hebrew of a later age, who designedly meant to give it an Arabic dress, and to make no allusion to anything in the institutions and history of his own country that would betray its authorship, One is, the intrinsic difficulty of doing this. It requires rare genius for an author so to throw himself into past ages, as leave nothing that shall betray his own times and country. We are never so betrayed as to imagine that Shakespeare lived in the time of Coriolanus or of Caesar; that Johnson lived in the time and the country of Rasselas; or that Scott lived in the times of the Crusaders. Instances have been found, it is admitted, where the concealment has been effectual, but they have been exceedingly rare. Another objection to this view is, that such a work would have been especially impracticable for a Hebrew, who of all men would have been most likely to betray his time and country.
The cast of the poem is highly philosophical. The argument is in many places exceedingly abstruse. The appeal is to close and long observation; to the recorded experience of their ancestors; to the observed effects of devine judgments on the world. A Hebrew in such circumstances would have appealed to the authority of God; he would have referred to the terrible sanctions of the law rather than to cold and abstract reasoning; and he could hardly have refrained from some allusion to the events of his own history that bore so palpably on the case, It may be doubted, also, whether any Hebrew ever had such versatility of genius and character as to divest himself wholly of the proper costume of his country, and to appear throughout as an Arabic Emir, and so as never in a long argument to express anything but such as became the assumed character of the foreigner. It should be remembered, also, that the language which is used in this poem is different from that which prevailed in the time of Solomon and the captivity.
It has an antique cast. It abounds in words which do not elsewhere occur, and whose roots are now to be found only in the Arabic. It has much of the peculiarities of a strongly marked dialect - and would require all the art necessary to keep up the spirit of an ancient dialect. Yet in the whole range of literature there are not probably half a dozen instances where such an expedient as this has been resorted to - where a writer has made use of a foreign or an antique dialect for the purpose of giving to the production of his pen an air of antiquity. Aristophanes and the tragedians, indeed, sometimes introduce persons speaking the dialects of parts of Greece different from that in which they had been brought up (Lee), and the same is occasionally true of Shakespeare; but except in the case of Chatterton, scarcely one has occurred where the device has been continued through a production of any considerable length. There is a moral certainty that a Hebrew would not attempt it.
(2) a second objection to the supposition that the work was composed before the exode, or argument that it was composed by a Hebrew who lived at a much later period of the world, is derived from the supposed allusions to the historical events connected with the Jewish people, and to the unique institutions of Moses. It is not maintained that there is any direct mention of those events or those institutions, but that the author has undesignedly "betrayed" himself by the use of certain words and phrases such as no one would employ but a Hebrew. This argument may be seen at length in Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, vol. v. pp. 306-319, and a full examination of it may be seen in Peters' Critical Dissertation on the Book of Job, pp. 22-36. All that can be done here is to make a very brief reference to the argument. Even the advocates for the opinion that the book was composed after the exode, have generally admitted that the passages referred to contribute but little to the support of the opinion. The passages referred to by Warburton are the following:
(a) The allusion to the calamities which the wickedness of parents brings upon their children. "He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail;" Job 17:5. "God layeth up his iniquity for his children; he rewardeth him, and they shall know it;" Job 21:19. Here it is supposed there is a reference to the principle laid down in the Hebrew Scriptures as a part of the divine administration, that the iniquities of the fathers should be visited upon their children. But it is not necessary to suppose that there was any particular acquaintance with the laws of Moses, to understand this. Observation of the actual course of events would have suggested all that is alleged in the Book of Job on this point. The poverty, disease, and disgrace which the vicious entail on their offspring in every land, would have furnished to a careful observer all the facts necessary to suggest this remark. The opinion that children suffer as a consequence of the sins of wicked parents was common all over the world. Thus, in a verse of Theocritus, delivered as a sort of oracle from Jupiter, Idyll. xxvi.
Εὐσεβέων παίδεσσι τὰ λώια, δυσσεβέων δ ̓ οὐ Eusebeōn paidessi ta lōia dussebeōn d' ou.
"Good things happen to children of the pious, but not to those of the irreligious."
(b) Allusion to the fact that idolatry is an offence against the state, and is to be punished by the civil magistrate. "This also (idolatry) were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above;" Job 31:28. This is supposed to be such a sentiment as a Hebrew only would have employed, as derived from his special institutions, where idolatry was an offence against the state, and was made a capital crime. But there is not the least evidence that in the patriarchal times, and in the country where Job lived, idolatrous worship might not be regarded as a civil offence; and whether it were so or not, there is no reason for surprise that a man who had a profound veneration for God, and for the honor due to his name, such as Job had, should express the sentiment, that the worship of the sun and moon was a heinous offence, and that pure religion was of so much importance that a violation of its principles ought to be regarded as a crime against society.
(c) Allusions to certain PHRASES such as only a Hebrew would use, and which would be employed only at a later period of the world than the exode. Such phrases are referred to as the following: "He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter;" Job 20:17. "Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart;" Job 22:22. "O that I were in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;" Job 29:4. It is maintained that these are manifest allusions to facts referred to in the books of Moses: that the first refers to the common description of the holy land; the second, to the giving of the law on Sinai; and the third, to the dwelling of the Shekinah, or visible symbol of God, on the tabernacle. To this we may reply, that the first is such common language as was used in the East to denote plenty or abundance, and is manifestly a proverbial expression. It is used by Pindar, Nem. εἰδ. γ; and is common in the Arabic writers. The second is only such general language as anyone would use who should exhort another to be attentive to the law of God, and has in it manifestly no particular allusion to the method in which the law was given on Sinai. And the third can be shown to have no special reference to the Shekinah or cloud of glory as resting on the tabernacle, nor is it such language as a Hebrew would employ in speaking of it. That cloud is nowhere in the Scripture called "the secret of God," and the fair meaning of the phrase is, that God came into his dwelling as a friend and counselor, and admitted him familiarly to communion with him; see the notes at Job 29:4. It was one of the privileges, Job says, of his earlier life that he could regard himself as the friend of God, and that he had clear views of his plans and purposes. Now, those views were withheld, and he was left to darkness and solitude.
(d) Supposed allusions to the miraculous history of the Jewish people. "Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars;" Job 9:7. Here it is supposed there is allusion to the miracle performed by Joshua in commanding the sun and moon to stand still. But assuredly there is no necessity for supposing that there is a reference to anything miraculous. The idea is, that God has power to cause the sun, the moon, and the stars to shine or not, as he pleases. He can obscure them by clouds, or He can blot them out altogether. Besides, in the account of the miracle performed at the command of Joshua, there is no allusion to the stars. "He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud;" Job 26:12. Here it is supposed there is an allusion to the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. But the language does not necessarily demand this interpretation, nor will it admit of it.
The word improperly rendered "divideth," means to awe, to cause to cower, or tremble, and then to be calm or still, and is descriptive of the power which God has over a tempest. See the notes at the verse. There is not the slightest evidence that there is any allusion to the passage through the Red Sea. "He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way;" Job 12:24. "Who can doubt," says Warburton, "but that these words alluded to the wandering of the Israelites 40 years in the wilderness, as a punishment for their cowardice and diffidence in God's promises?" But there is no necessary reference to this. Job is speaking of the control which God has over the nations. He has power to frustrate all their counsels, and to defeat all their plans. He can found all the purposes of their princes, and throw their affairs into inextricable confusion.
In the original, moreover, the word does not necessarily imply a "wilderness" or desert. The word is תהוּ tôhû a word used in Gen 1:2, to denote "emptiness," or "chaos," and may here refer to the "confusion" of their counsels and plans; or if it refer to a desert, the allusion is of a general character, meaning that God had power to drive the people from their fixed habitations, and to make them wanderers on the face of the earth. "I will show thee; hear me; and what I have seen will I declare; which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it;" Job 15:17-18. "The very way," says Warburton, "in which Moses directs the Israelites to preserve the memory of the miraculous works of God." And the very way, also, it may be replied, in which all ancient history, and all the ancient wisdom from the beginning of the world, was transmitted to posterity. There was no other method of preserving the record of past transactions, but by transmitting the memory of them from father to son; and this was and is, in fact, the method of doing it all over the East. It was by no means confined to the Israelites. "Unto whom alone the earth was given, AND NO STRANGER PASSED AMONGST THEM;" Job 15:19. "A circumstance," says Warburton, "agreeing to no people whatever but to the Israelites settled in Canaan." But there is no necessary allusion here to the Israelites. Eliphaz is speaking of the golden age of his country; of the happy and pure times when his ancestors dwelt in the land without being corrupted by the intermingling of foreigners.
He says that he will state the result of their wisdom and observation in those pure and happy days, before it could be pretended that their views were corrupted by any foreign admixture; see the notes on the passage. These passages are the strongest instances of what has been adduced to show that in the Book of Job there are allusions to the customs and opinions of the Jews after the exode from Egypt. It would be tedious and unprofitable to go into a particular examination of all those which are referred to by Dr. Warburton. The remark may be made of them all, that they are of so general a character, and that they apply so much to the prevailing manners and customs of the East, that there is no reason for supposing that there is a special reference to the Hebrews. The remaining passages referred to, are Job 22:6; Job 24:7, Job 24:9-10; Job 33:17 ff; Job 34:20; Job 36:7-12; and Job 37:13. A fu l examination of these may be seen in Peters' Critical Dissertation, pp. 32-36.
(3) A third objection to the supposition that the book was composed before the time of the exode, is derived from the use of the word yahweh. This word occurs several times in the historical part of the book Job 1:6-9, Job 1:12, Job 1:21; Job 2:1-4, Job 2:6; Job 42:1, Job 42:10, Job 42:12, and a few times in the body of the poem. The objection is founded on what God says to Moses, Exo 6:3; "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name yahweh was I not known to them." At the burning bush, when he appeared to Moses, he solemnly assumed this name, and directed him to announce him as "I am that I am," or as yahweh. From this it is inferred that, as the name occurs in the book of Job, that book must have been composed subsequently to the time when God appeared to Moses. But this conclusion does not follow, for the following reasons:
(a) It might be true that God was not known to "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," by this name, and still the name might have been used by others to designate him.
(b) The name yahweh was actually used before this by God himself and by others; Gen 2:7-9, Gen 2:15-16, Gen 2:18-19, Gen 2:21; Gen 3:9, et al; Gen 12:1, Gen 12:4,Gen 12:7-8, Gen 12:17; Gen 13:10, Gen 13:13-14; Gen 15:6, Gen 15:18; Gen 16:9-10, Gen 16:13, et saepe al. If the argument from this, therefore, be valid to prove that the book of Job was not composed before the exode, it will demonstrate that the book of Genesis was also a subsequent production.
(c) But the whole argument is based on a misapprehension of Exo 6:3. The meaning of that passage, since the name yahweh was known to the patriarchs, must be
(1) that it was not by this name that he had promulgated his existence, or was publicly and solemnly known. It was a name used in common with other names by them, but which He had in no special way appropriated to Himself, or to which He had affixed no special sacredness. The name which He had Himself more commonly employed was another. Thus when He appeared to Abraham and made Himself known, he said, "I am the ALMIGHTY GOD; walk before me, and be thou perfect;" Gen 17:1. So He appeared to Jacob: "I am GOD be fruitful and multiply;" Gen 35:11; compare Gen 28:3; Gen 43:14.
(2) at the bush Exo. 3; Exo 4:3, God publicly and solemnly assumed the name yahweh. He affixed to it a special sacredness. He explained its meaning, Exo 3:14. He said it was the name by which He intended especially to be known as the God of His people. He invested it with a solemn sacredness, as that by which He chose ever afterward to be known among His people as their God. Other nations had their divinities with different names; the God of the children of Israel was to be known by the special and sacred name yahweh. But this solemn assumption of the name is by no means inconsistent with the supposition that He might have used it before, or that it might have been used before in the composition of the Book of Job.
(4) a fourth objection to the supposition that the book was composed before the time of the exode, is, that the name Satan, which occurs in this book, was not known to the Hebrews at so early a date, and that in fact it occurs as a proper name only at a late period of their history. See Warburton's Divine Legation, vol. v. 353ff. In reply to this it may be observed,
(a) that the doctrine of the existence of an evil spirit of the character ascribed in this book to Satan, was early known to the Hebrews. It was known in the time of Ahab, when, it is said, the Lord had put a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets, Kg1 22:22-23, and the belief of such an evil spirit must have been early prevalent to explain in any tolerable way the history of the fall. On the meaning of the word, see the notes at Job 1:6.
(b) The word "Satan" early occurs in history in the sense of an adversary or accuser, and it was natural to transfer this word to the great adversary. See Num 22:22. In Zac 3:1-2, it is used in the same sense as in Job, to denote the great adversary of God appearing before him; see the notes at Job 1:6. Here Satan is introduced as a being whose name and character were well known.
(c) It is admitted by Warburton himself (p. 355), that the notion of "an evil demon," or a "fury," was a common opinion among the pagan, even in early ages, though he says it was not admitted among the Hebrews until a late period of their history. But if it prevailed among the pagan, it is possible that the same sentiment might have been understood in Arabia, and that this might at a very early period have been incorporated into the Book of Job. See this whole subject examined in Peters' Critical Dissertation, pp. 80-92. I confess, however, that the answers which Peters and Magee (pp. 322, 323) give to this objection, are not perfectly satisfactory; and that the objection here urged against the composition of the book before the exode, is the most forcible of all those which I have seen. A more thorough investigation of the history of opinions respecting a presiding evil being than I have had access to, seems to be necessary to a full removal of the difficulty.
The real difficulty is, not that no such being is elsewhere referred to in the Scriptures; not that his existence is improbable or absurd - for the existence of Satan is no more improbable in itself than that of Nero, Tiberius, Richard III, Alexander VI, or Caesar Borgia, than either of whom he is not much worse; and not that there are no traces of him in the early account in the Bible; - but it is, that while in the Scriptures we have, up to the time of the exode, and indeed long after, only obscure intimations of his existence and character - without any particular designation of his attributes, and without any name being given to him, in the Book of Job he appears with a name apparently in common use; with a definitely formed character; in the full maturity of his plans - a being evidently as well defined as the Satan in the latest periods of the Jewish history. I confess myself unable to account for this, but still do not perceive that there is any impossibility in supposing that this maturity of view in regard to the evil principle might have prevailed in the country of Job at this early period, though no occasion occurred for its statement in the corresponding part of the Jewish history. There may have been such a prevalent belief among the patriarchs, though in the brief records of their opinions and lives no occasion occurred for a record of their belief.
(5) a fifth objection has been derived from the fact that in the Book of Job there is a strong resemblance to many passages in the Psalms, and in the Book of Proverbs, from which it is inferred that it was composed subsequently to those books. Rosenmuller, who has particularly urged this objection, appeals to the following instances of resemblance; Psa 107:40; compare with 16:18; Psa 18:12; Psa 29:1-11 :23; Job 22:29; Pro 8:26-29; Pro 30:4; Job 38:4-8; Pro 10:7; Job 20:7. It is unnecessary to go into an examination of these passages, or to attempt to disprove their similarity. There can be no doubt of their very strong resemblance, but still the question is fairly open, which of these books was first composed, and which, if one has borrowed from another, was the original fountain. Warburton has himself well remarked, that "if the sacred writers must needs have borrowed trite moral sentences from one another, it may be as fairly said that the authors of the Psalms borrowed from the book of Job, as that the author of Job borrowed from the book of Psalms." Works, vol. v. 320. The supposition that the Book of Job was first composed will meet the whole difficulty, so far as one was derived from the other. It should be added, also, that many of these sentiments consist of the common maxims that must have prevailed among a people accustomed to close observation, and habituated to expressing their views in a proverbial form.
I have now noticed at length all the objections which have been urged, which seem to me to have any force, against the supposition that the Book of Job was composed before the exode from Egypt, and have stated the arguments which lead to the supposition that it had so early an origin. The considerations suggested are such as seem to me to leave no rational doubt that the work was composed before the departure from Egypt. The train of thought pursued, therefore, if conclusive, will remove the necessity of all further inquiry into the opinion of Luther, Grotius, and Doederlin, that Solomon was the author; of Umbreit and Noyes, that it was composed by some unknown writer about the period of the captivity; of Warburton, that it was the production of Ezra; and of Rosenmuller, Spanheim, Reimer, Staeudlin, and Richter, that it was composed by some Hebrew writer about the time of Solomon. It remains then to inquire whether there are any circumstances which can lead us to determine with any degree of probability who was the author. This inquiry leads us,
IV. In the fourth place, to remark that there are no sufficient indications that the work was composed by Elihu. The opinion that he was the author was held, among others, by Lightfoot. But, independently of the want of any positive evidence which would lead to such a conclusion, there are objections to this opinion which render it in the highest degree improbable. They are found in the argument of Elihu himself. He advances, indeed, with great modesty, but still with extraordinary pretensions to wisdom. He lays claim to direct inspiration, and professes to be able to throw such light on the whole of the perplexed subject as to end the debate. But in the course of his addresses, he introduces but one single idea on the point under discussion which had not been dwelt on at length by the speakers before. That idea is, that afflictions are designed, not to demonstrate that the sufferer was eminently guilty, as the friends of Job held, but that intended for the benefit of the sufferer himself, and might, therefore, be consistent with true piety.
This idea he places in a variety of attitudes; illustrates it with great beauty, and enforces it with great power on the attention of Job; compare Job 33:14-30, notes; Job 34:31-32, notes; Job 35:10-15, notes; Job 36:7-16, notes. But in his speeches Elihu shows no such extraordinary ability as to lead us to suppose that he was the author of the work. He does not appear to have understood the design of the trials that came upon Job; he gives no satisfactory solution of the causes of affliction; he abounds in repetition; his observation of the course of events had been evidently much less profound than that of Eliphaz, and his knowledge of nature was much less extensive than that of Job and the other speakers; and he was evidently as much in the dark in the great question which is discussed throughout the book as the other speakers were. Besides, as Prof. Lee has remarked (p. 44), the belief that Elihu wrote the book is inconsistent with the supposition that the first two chapters and the last chapter were written by the same author who composed the body of the work. He who wrote these chapters manifestly "saw through the whole affair," and understood the reasons why these trials came upon the patriarch. Those reasons would have been suggested by Elihu in his speech, if he had known them.
V. The supposition that Job himself was the author of the book, though it may have been slightly modified by some one subsequently, will meet all the circumstances of the case. This will agree with its foreign cast and character; with the use of the Arabic words now unknown in Hebrew; with the allusions to the nomadic habits of the times, and to the modes of living, and to the illustrations drawn from sandy plains and deserts; with the statements about the simple modes of worship prevailing, and the notice of the sciences and the arts (see the introduction, Section 5), and with the absence of all allusion to the exode, the giving of the law, and the special customs and institutions of the Hebrews. In addition to these general considerations for supposing that Job was the author of the work, the following suggestions may serve to show that this opinion is attended with the highest degree of probability.
(1) Job lived after his calamities 140 years, affording ample leisure to make the record of his trials.
(2) the art of making books was known in his time, and by the patriarch himself, Job 19:23-24; Job 31:35. In whatever way it was done, whether by engraving on stone or lead, or by the use of more perishable materials, he was not ignorant of the art of making a record of thoughts to be preserved and transmitted to future times. Understanding this art, and having abundant leisure, it is scarcely to be conceived, that he would have failed to make a record of what had occurred during his own remarkable trials.
(3) the whole account was one that would furnish important lessons to mankind, and it is hardly probable that a man who had passed through so unusual a scene would be willing that the recollection of it should be entrusted to uncertain tradition. The strongest arguments which human ingenuity could invent, had been urged on both sides of a great question pertaining to the divine administration; a case of a strongly marked character had happened, similar to what is constantly occurring in the world, in which similar perplexing and embarrassing questions would arise; God had come forth to inculcate the duty of man in this case, and had furnished instruction that would be invaluable in all similar instances; and the result of the whole trial had been such as to furnish the strongest proof that however the righteous are afflicted, their sufferings are not proof that they are deceivers or hypocrites.
(4) the record of his own imperfections and failures is just such as we should expect from Job, on the supposition that he was the author of the book. Nothing is concealed. There is the most fair and full statement of his impatience, his murmuring, his irreverence, and of the rebuke which he received of the Almighty. Thus Moses, too, records his own failings, and, throughout the Scriptures, the sacred writers never attempt to conceal their own infirmities and faults.
(5) Job has shown in his own speeches that he was abundantly able to compose the book. In everything he goes immeasurably beyond all the other speakers, except God; and he who was competent, in trials so severe as his were, to give utterance to the lofty eloquence, the argument, and the poetry now found in his speeches, was not incompetent to make record of them in the long period of health and prosperity which he subsequently enjoyed. Every circumstance, therefore, seems to me to render it probable that Job was the compiler, or perhaps we should rather say, the editor of this remarkable book, with the exception of the record which is made of his own age and death. The speeches were undoubtedly made substantially as they are recorded, and the work of the author was to collect and edit those speeches, to record his own and that of the Almighty, and to furnish to the whole the proper historical notices, that the argument might be properly understood.
VI. But one other supposition seems necessary to meet all the questions which have been raised in regard to the origin of the work. It is, that Moses adopted it and published it among the Hebrews as a part of divine revelation, and entrusted it to them, with his own writings, to be transmitted to future times. Several circumstances contribute to render this probable.
(1) Moses spent forty years in various parts of Arabia, mostly in the neighborhood of Horeb; and in a country where, if such a work had been in existence, it would be likely to be known.
(2) his talents and previous training at the court of Pharaoh were such as would make him likely to look with interest on any literary document; on any work expressive of the customs, arts, sciences, and religion of another land: and especially on anything having the stamp of uncommon genius.
(3) the work was eminently adapted to be useful to his own countrymen, and could be employed to great advantage in the enterprise which he undertook of delivering them from bondage. It contained an extended examination of the great question which could not but come before their minds - why the people of God were subjected to calamities; it inculcated the necessity of submission without murmuring, under the severest trials; and it showed that God was the friend of his people, though they were long afflicted, and would ultimately bestow upon them abundant prosperity. There is every probability, therefore, that if Moses found such a book in existence, he would have adopted it as an important auxiliary in accomplishing the great work to which he was called. It may be added
(4) that there is every reason to think that Moses was not himself the author of it. This opinion rests on such considerations as these:
(a) The style is not that of Moses. It has more allusion to proverbs, and maxims, and prevailing views of science, than occur in his poetic writings; see Lowth, Prae. Hebr. xxxii.; Michaelis, Nat. et Epim. p 186, as quoted by Magee, p. 328, and Herder, Hebrew Poetry, vol. i. pp. 108, 109.
(b) Moses in his poetry almost invariably used the word yahweh as the name of God, rarely that of the Almighty (שׁדי shadday); in Job, the word yahweh rarely occurs in the body of the poem, some other name for the Deity being almost uniformly employed.
(c) In the book of Job there are numerous instances of words, the roots of which are now obsolete, or which are found only in the Arabic or Chaldee. See Prof. Lee, Intro. p. 50.
(d) The allusions to Arabic customs, opinions, and manners, are not such as would have been likely to be familiar to the mind of Moses. All that he could have learned of them would have been what he acquired, when over forty years of age, in keeping the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro; and though it might be said with plausibility that the forty years which he spent with him might have made him familiar with the habits of Arabia, still, in a poem of this length, we should have expected that these would not have been the only allusions. The most vivid and permanent impressions on the mind are those made in youth; and on the mind of Moses, those impressions had been received in Egypt. the work had been composed by him we should, therefore, bare expected that there would have been frequent allusions that would have betrayed Egyptian origin. But of these there are none, or if there are any which have such an origin, they are such as might have been readily learned from the common reports of travelers. But with all that pertained to the desert, to the keeping of flocks and herds, to the nomadic mode of life, to the poor and needy wanderers there, to the methods of plunder and robbery, the author of the poem shows himself to be perfectly familiar. It seems to me, therefore, that by this train of remarks, we are conducted to a conclusion tended with as much certainty as can be hoped for in the nature of the case, that the work was composed by Job himself in the period of rest and prosperity which succeeded his trials, and came to the knowledge of Moses during his residence in Arabia, and was adopted by him to represent to the Hebrews, in their trials, the duty of submission to the will of God, and to furnish the assurance that he would yet appear to crown with abundant blessings his own people, however much they might be afflicted.
Section 5. The State of the Arts and Sciences in the Time of Job
There is one important aspect still in which the book of Job may be contemplated. It is as an illustration of the state of the acts and sciences of the period of the world when it was composed. We are not indeed, in a poem of this nature, to look for formal treatises on any of the arts or sciences as then understood, but all that we can expect to find must be incidental allusions, or hints, that may enable us to determine with some degree of accuracy what advances society had then made. Such allusions are also of much more value in determining the progress of society, than extended descriptions of conquests and sieges would be. The latter merely change the boundaries of empire; the former indicate progress in the condition of man. Inventions in the arts and discoveries in science are fixed points, from which society does not go backward. I propose, then, as an illustration of the progress which society had made in the time of Job, as well as to prepare the mind to read the book in the most intelligent manner, to bring together the scattered notices of the state of the arts and sciences contained in this poem. No exact order can be observed in this; nor is there anything in the poem to indicate which of the things specified had the priority in point of time, or when the invention or discovery was made. The order of the arrangement chosen will have some reference to the importance of the subjects, and also some to what may be supposed to have first attracted attention. For a more full view of the various points that will be referred to, reference may be made to the notes on the various passages adduced.
I. Astronomy
The stars were early observed in Chaldea, where the science of astronomy had its origin. A pastoral people always have some knowledge of the heavenly bodies. The tending of flocks by night, under a clear Oriental sky, gave abundant opportunity for observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, and names would soon be given to the most important of the stars; the difference between the planets and the fixed stars would be observed, and the imagination would be employed in grouping the stars into fanciful resemblances to animals and other objects. In like manner, as caravans traveled much at night through the deserts, on account of the comparative coolness then, they would have an opportunity of observing the stars, and some knowledge of the heavenly bodies became necessary to guide their way. The notices of the heavenly bodies in this poem show chiefly that names were given to some of the stars; that they were grouped together in constellations; and that the times of the appearance of certain stars had been carefully observed, and their relation to certain aspects of the weather had been marked. There is no express mention of the planets as distinguished from the fixed stars; and nothing to lead us to suppose that they were acquainted with the true system of astronomy.
He commandeth the sun, and it riseth not,
And he sealeth up the stars.
He alone stretcheth out the heavens
And walketh upon the high waves of the sea.
He maketh Arcturus, Orion,
The Pleiades, and the secret chambers of the south.
Job 9:7-9.
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season,
Or lead forth the Bear with her young?
Knowest thou the laws of the heavens,
Or hast thou appointed their dominion over the earth?
Job 38:31-33.
It would seem from these passages, that the allusion to the clusters of stars here, is made to them as the harbingers of certain seasons. "It is well known, that, in different regions of the earth, the appearance of certain constellations before sunrise or after sunset, marks the distinction of seasons, and regulates the labors of the farmer." Wemyss. It is also known that the appearance of certain constellations - as Orion - was regarded by mariners as denoting a stormy and tempestuous season of the year. See Job 9:7-9, notes; and Job 38:31-33, notes. This seems to be the knowledge of the constellations referred to here, and there is no certain evidence that the observation of the heavens in the time of Job had gone beyond this.
A somewhat curious use has been made of the reference to the stars in the book of Job, by an attempt to determine the time when he lived. Supposing the principal stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in the time of Job, and calculating their positions by the precession of the equinoxes, the time referred to in the book of Job was found to be 818 years after the deluge, or 184 years before the birth of Abraham. "This calculation, made by Dr. Brinkley of Dublin, and adopted by Dr. Hales, had been made also in 1765 by M. Ducontant in Paris, with a result differing only in being forty-two years less." The coincidence is remarkable, but the proof that the constellations referred to are Taurus and Scorpio, is too uncertain to give much weight to the argument.
II. Cosmology
The intimations about the structure, the size, and the support of the earth, are also very obscure, and the views entertained would seem to have been very confused. Language is used, doubtless, such as would express the popular belief, and it resembles that which is commonly employed in the Scriptures. The common representation is, that the heavens are stretched out as a curtain or tent, or sometimes as a solid concave sphere in which the heavenly bodies are fixed (see the notes at Isa 34:4), and that the earth is an immense plain, surrounded by water, which reached the concave heavens in which the stars were fixed. Occasionally, the earth is represented as supported by pillars, or as resting on a solid foundation; and once we meet with an intimation that it is globular, and suspended in space.
In the following passages the earth and the sky are represented as supported by pillars:
He shaketh the earth out of her place,
And the pillars thereof tremble. Job 9:6
The pillars of heaven tremble,
And are astonished at his rebuke. Job 31:11.
In the latter passage the reference is to mountains, which seem to uphold the sky as pillars, in accordance with the common and popular representation among the ancients. Thus Mount Atlas, in Mauritania, was represented as a pillar on which heaven was suspended:
"Atlas' broad shoulders prop th' incumbent skies,
Around his cloud-girt head the stars arise,"
In the following passage the earth is represented as suspended on nothing, and there would seem to be a slight evidence that the true doctrine about the form of the earth was then known:
He stretcheth out the North over the empty space,
And hangeth the earth upon nothing. Job 26:7.
See particularly the notes on that passage. Though the belief seems to nave been that the earth was thus "self-balanced," yet there is no intimation that they were acquainted with the fact that it revolves on its axis, or around the sun as a center.
III. Geography
There are few intimations of the prevalent knowledge of geography in the time of Job. In one instance foreign regions are mentioned, though there is no certainty that the countries beyond Palestine are there referred to:
Have ye not inquired of the travelers?
And will ye not hear their testimony? Job 21:29.
In the close of the book, in the mention of the hippopotamus and the crocodile, there is evidence that there was some knowledge of the land of Egypt, though no intimation is given of the situation or extent of that Country.
The cardinal points are referred to, and there is evidence in this book, as well as elsewhere in the Scriptures, that the geographer then regarded himself as looking toward the East. The South was thus the "right hand," the North the left hand, and the West the region "behind:"
Behold, I go to the East, and he is not there;
And to the West, but I cannot perceive him;
To the North, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him;
He hideth himself on the South, that I cannot see him.
Job 23:8-9.
See the notes on this verse for an explanation of the terms used; compare the following places, where similar geographical terms occur; Jdg 18:12; Deu 11:24; Zac 14:8; Exo 10:19; Jos 17:7; Kg2 23:13; Sa1 23:24; Gen 14:15; Jos 19:27.
Whatever was the form of the earth, and the manner in which it was sustained, it is evident from the following passage that the land was regarded as surrounded by a waste of waters, whose outer limit was deep and impenetrable darkness:
He hath drawn a circular bound upon the waters,
To the confines of the light and darkness. Job 26:10.
Yet the whole subject is represented as one with which man was then unacquainted, and which was beyond his grasp:
Hast thou observed the breadths of the earth?
Declare, if thou knowest it all. Job 38:18.
For a full illustration of this passage, and the views of geography which then prevailed, the reader is referred to the notes. It is evident that the knowledge of geography, so far as is indicated by this book, was then very limited, though it should also be said that in the argument of the poem there was little occasion to refer to knowledge of this kind, and that few intimations are to be expected on the subject.
IV. Meteorology
There are much more frequent intimations of the state of knowledge on the various subjects embraced under this head, than of either astronomy or geography. These intimations show that these subjects had excited much attention, and had been the result of careful observation; and in regard to some of them there are indications of a plausible theory of their causes, though most of them are appealed to as among the inscrutable things of God. The facts excited the wonder of the Arabian observers, and they clothed their conceptions of them in the most beautiful language of poetry; but they do not often attempt to explain them. On the contrary, these obvious and undisputed facts, so inscrutable to them, are referred to as full proof that we cannot hope to comprehend the ways of God, and as reason why we should bow before him with profound adoration. Among the things referred to are the following:
(a) The Aurora Borealis, or Northern lights. Thus the magnificent description of the approach of the Almighty to close the controversy Job 37:21-23, seems to have been borrowed by Elihu from the beautiful lights of the North, in accordance with the common opinion that the North was the seat of the Divinity:
And now - man cannot look upon the bright splendor that is
On the clouds:
For the wind passeth along and maketh them clear.
golden splendor approaches from the North:
How fearful is the majesty of God!
The Almighty! we cannot find him out!
Great in power and in justice, and vast in righteousness!
Compare Isa 14:13, notes; and Job 23:9, notes.
(b) Tornadoes, whirlwinds, and tempests, were the subject of careful observation. The sources from where they usually came were attentively marked, and the various phenomena which they exhibited were so observed that the author of the poem was able to describe them with the highest degree of poetic beauty:
With his hands be covereth the lightning
And commandeth it where to strike.
He pointeth out to it his friends -
The collecting of his wrath is upon the wicked.
At this also my heart palpitates,
And is moved out of its place.
Hear, O hear, the thundrer of his voice!
The muttering thunder that goes forth from his mouth!
He directeth it under the whole heaven,
And his lightning to the ends of the earth.
He thundereth with the voice of his majesty,
And he will not restrain the tempest when his voice is heard.
Job 36:32-33; Job 37:1-4.
Terrors come upon him like waters,
In the night a tempest stealeth him away.
The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth,
And it sweeps him away from his place. Job 27:20-21.
(c) The dew had been carefully observed, yet the speakers did not understand its phenomena. How it was produced; whether it descended from the atmosphere, or ascended from the earth, they did not profess to be able to explain. It was regarded as one of the things which God only could understand; yet the manner in which it is spoken of shows that it had attracted deep attention, and led to much inquiry:
Hath the rain a father?
And who hath begotten the drops of the dew? Job 38:28.
(d) The same remarks may be made of the formation of the hoar frost, of snow, of hail, and of ice. There is no theory suggested to account for them but they are regarded as among the things which God alone could comprehend, and which evinced his wisdom. There had been evidently much careful observation of the facts, and much inquiry into the cause of these things but the speakers did not profess to be able to explain them. To this day, also, there is much about them which is unexplained, and the farther the investigation is carried, the more occasion is there to admire the wisdom of God in the formation of these things, See the notes on the passages that will now be referred to:
From whose womb came the ice;
The hoar-frost of heaven, who gave it birth? Job 38:29 (note).
By the breath of God frost is produced,
And the broad waters become compressed. Job 37:10 (note).
For he saith to the snow, "Be thou on the earth." Job 37:6 (note).
Hast thou been into the storehouses of snow?
Or seen the storehouses of hail, that and Which I have reserved until the time of trouble,
To the day of battle and war? Job 38:22-23 (note).
(e) The dawning of the morning is described with great beauty, and is represented as wholly beyond the power of man to produce or explain:
Hast thou, in thy life, given commandment to the morning?
Or caused the dawn to know His place?
That it may seize on the far corners of the earth,
And scatter the robbers before it?
It turns itself along like clay under the seal,
And all things stand forth as if in gorgeous apparel.
Job 38:12-14.
NOTE: For the meaning of this uncommonly beautiful imagery, see the notes on this place.
(f) So all the phenomena of light are represented as evincing the wisdom of God, and as wholly beyond the ability of man to explain or comprehend them; yet so represented as to show that it had been a subject of careful observation and reflection:
Where is the way to the dwelling-place of light?
And the darkness, where is its place?
That thou couldest conduct it to its limits,
And that thou shouldest knorr the path to its dwelling?
Job 38:19-20.
(g) The clouds and rain also had been carefully observed, and the laws which governed them were among the inscrutable things of God:
Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
And who can empty the bottles of heaven? Job 38:37.
The clouds seem to have been regarded as a solid substance capable of holding rain like a leather bottle, and the rain was caused by their emptying themselves on the earth. Yet the whole phenomena were considered to beyond the comprehension of man. The laws by which the clouds suspended in the air, and the reason why the rain descended in small drops, instead of gushing floods, were alike incomprehensible:
Who also can understand the outspreading of the clouds,
And the fearful thunderings in his pavilion? Job 36:29.
For he draweth up the drops of water;
They distil rain in his vapor,
Which the clouds pour down;
They pour it upon man in abundance. Job 36:27-28.
He bindeth up the waters in the thick clouds,
And the cloud is not rent under them. Job 26:8.
(h) The sea had also attracted the attention of these ancient observers and there were phenomena there which they could not explain:
Who shut up the sea with doors,
In its bursting forth as from the womb?
When I made the cloud its garment,
And swathed it in thick darkness?
I measured out for it its limits.
And fixed its bars and doors,
And said, Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther.
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed! Job 38:8-11.
There is a reference here, undoubtedly, to the creation; but as this is the language of God describing that event, it cannot be determined with certainty that a knowledge of the method of creation had been communicated to them by tradition. But language like this implies that there bad been a careful observation of the ocean, and that there were things in regard to it which were to them incomprehensible. The passage is a most sublime description of the creation of the mighty mass of waters, and while it is entirely consistent with the account in Genesis, it supplies some important circumstances not recorded there.
V. Mining Operations
Job 28 - one of the most beautiful portions of the Bible - contains a statement of the method of mining then practiced, and shows that the art was well understood. The mechanical devices mentioned, and the skill with which the process was carried on, evince considerable advance in the arts:
Truly there is a vein for silver,
And a place for gold where they refine it.
Iron is obtained from the earth,
And ore is fused into copper.
Man putteth an end to darkness,
And completely searches every thing -
The rocks, the thick darkness, and the shadow of death
He sinks a shaft far from a human dwelling;
They, unsupported by the feet, hang suspended;
Far from men they swing to and fro.
The earth - out of it cometh bread;
And when turned up beneath, it resembles fire.
Its stones are the places of sapphires,
And gold dust pertains to it.
The path thereto no bird knoweth,
And the vulture's eye hath not seen it.
The fierce wild beasts have not trodden it,
And the lion hath not walked over it.
Man layeth his hand upon the flinty rock;
He overturneth mountains from their foundations;
He cutteth out canals among the rocks,
And his eye seeth every precious thing.
He restraineth the streams from trickling down,
And bringeth hiddden things to light. Job 28:1-11.
The operation of mining must have early attracted attention, for the art of working metals, and of course their value, was understood in a very early age of the world. Tubal Cain is described as an "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron;" Gen 4:22. The description in Job shows that this art had received much attention, and that in his time it had been carried to a high degree of perfection; see the notes at Job 28:1-11.
VI. Precious Stones
There is frequent mention of precious stones in the book of Job, and it is evident that they were regarded as of great value, and were used for ornament. The following are mentioned, as among the precious stones, though some of them are now ascertained to be of little value. There is evidence that they judged, as was necessarily the case in the early age of the world, rather from appearances than from any chemical knowledge of their nature. The onyx and sapphire:
It (wisdom) cannot be estimated by the gold of Ophir
By the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Job 28:16.
Coral, crystal, and rubies:
No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal;
For the price of wisdom is above rubies. Job 28:18.
The topaz found in Ethiopia, or Cush:
The topaz of Cush cannot equal it,
Nor can it be purchased with pure gold. Job 28:19.
These were found as the result of the processes of mining, though it is not known that the art of engraving on them was known. It is, moreover, not entirely easy to fix the signification of the original words used here. See the notes at Job 28.
VII. Coining, Writing Engraving
It is not quite certain, though there is some evidence, that the art of coining was known in the days of Job. The solution of this question depends on the meaning of the word rendered "a piece of money," in Job 42:11. For an examination of this, the reader is referred to the notes on that verse. There is the fullest evidence that the art of writing was then known:
O that my words were now written!
O that they were engraved on a tablet!
That with an iron graver, and with lead,
They were engraven upon a rock forever. Job 19:23-24.
O that He would hear me!
Behold my defense! May the Almighty answer me!
Would that he who contends with me would write down his charge!
Truly upon my shoulder would I bear it;
I would bind it upon me as a diadem. Job 31:35-36.
The materials for writing are not indeed particularly mentioned, but it is evident that permanent records on stone were made; that this was done sometimes by making use of lead; and also that it was common to make use of portable materials, and as would seem of flexible materials, since Job speaks Job 31 of binding the charge of his adversary, when written down, around his head like a turban or diadem; compare Isa 8:1, note; Isa 30:8, note. Though the papyrus, or "paper reed," of Egypt, seems to be once alluded to (see the notes at Job 8:11), yet there is no evidence that it was known as a material for writing.
VIII. The Medical Art
Physicians are once mentioned.
For truly are ye forgers of fallacies;
Physicians of no value, all of you. Job 13:4.
But there is no intimation of the methods of cure, or of the remedies that were applied. It is remarkable that, so far as appears, no methods were taken to cure the extraordinary malady of Job himself. He excluded himself from society, sat down in dust and ashes, and merely attempted to remove the offensive matter that the disease collected on his person; Job 2:8. So far as appears from the Scriptur early times were chiefly external applications. See Isa 1:6, note; Isa 38:21-22, note. "Physicians" are mentioned in Gen 50:2, but only in connection with embalming, where it is said that "Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father, and the physicians embalmed Israel."
IX. Music
Musical instruments are mentioned in the book of Job in such a manner as to show that the subject of music had attracted attention, though we may not be able now to ascertain the exact form of the instruments which were employed:
They excite themselves with the tabor and the harp,
And rejoice at the sound of the pipe. Job 21:12 (note).
My harp also is turned to mourning,
And my pipes to notes of grief. Job 30:31 (note).
For an explanation of these terms, the reader is referred to the notes on these passages. We have evidence that music was cultivated long before the time in which it is supposed Job lived Gen 4:21, though there is no certainty that even in his time it had reached a high degree of perfection.
X. Hunting
One of the earliest arts practiced in society would be that of taking and destroying wild beasts, and we find several allusions to the methods in which this was done, in the book of Job. Nets, gins, and pitfalls, were made use of for this purpose, and in order to drive the wild beasts into the nets or pitfalls, it was customary for a number of persons to extend themselves in a forest, enclosing a large space, and gradually drawing near to each other and to the center:
His strong steps shall be straitened,
And his own plans shall cast him down.
For he is brought into his net by his own feet,
And into the pitfall he walks.
The snare takes him by the heel,
And the gin takes fast hold of him.
A net is secretly laid for him in the ground,
And a trap for him in the pathway. Job 18:7-10.
The howling of dogs, and the shouts of the hunters, are represented as filling the wild animal with dismay, and as harassing him as he attempts to escape:
Terrors alarm him on every side,
And harass him at his heels. Job 18:11.
While spent with hunger and fatigue, he is entangled in the spread nets, and becomes an easy prey for the hunter:
His strength shall be exhausted by hunger,
And destruction shall seize upon his side.
It shall devour the vigour of his frame,
The first-born of Death shall devour his limbs.
Job 18:12-13.
Compare Psa 140:4-5; Eze 19:6-9.
XI. Methods of Husbandry
The customs of the pastoral life, one of the chief employments of early ages, are often referred to; Job 1:3,Job 1:16; Job 42:12.
He shall never look upon the rivulets -
The streams of the valleys - of honey and butter.
Job 20:17.
When I washed my steps with cream,
And the rock poured me out rivers of oil. Job 29:6.
Plowing with oxen is mentioned, Job 1:14.
So also Job 31:38-40 :
If my land cry out against me,
And the furrows likewise complain;
If I have eaten its fruits without payment,
And extorted the living of its owners;
Let thistles grow up instead of wheat,
And noxious weeds instead of barley. Job 31:38-40.
The cultivation of the vine and the olive, and the pressure of grapes and olives, is mentioned:
He shall cast his unripe fruit as the vine,
And shed his blossoms like the olive. Job 15:33.
They reap their grain in the field (of others),
And they gather the vintage of the oppressor. Job 24:6.
They cause them to express oil within their walls;
They tread their wine-presses, and yet they suffer thirst.
Job 24:11.
It is remarkable that in the book of Job there is no mention of the palm, the pomegranate, or any species of flowers. In a country like Arabia, where the date now is so important an article of food, it would have been reasonable to anticipate that there would have been some allusion known, from what is said, of the implements of husbandry, and nothing forbids us to suppose that they were of the rudest sort.
XII. Modes of Traveling
From the earliest period in the East the mode of traveling to any distance appears to have been by caravans, or companies. Two objects seem to have been contemplated by this in making long journeys across pathless deserts that were much infested by robbers; the one was the purpose of selfdefense, the other mutual accommodation. For the purposes of those traveling companies, camels are admirably adapted by nature, alike from their ability to bear burdens, from the scantiness of food which they require, and for their being able to travel far without water. Caravans are first mentioned in Gen 37:25, "And they sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." A beautiful notice of this mode of traveling occurs in Job Job 6:15-20, as being common in his time:
My brethren are faithless as a brook,
Like the streams of the valley that pass away;
Which are turbid by means of the (melted) ice,
In which the snow is hid (by being dissolved).
In the time when they become warm they evaporate.
When the heat cometh, they are dried up from their place;
The channels of their way wind round about;
They go into nothing, and are lost.
The caravans of Tema look;
The traveling companies of Sheba expect to see them.
They are ashamed that they have relied on them,
They come even to the place, and are confounded.
There is, in one place in Job, a slight intimation that runners or carriers were employed to carry messages when extraordinary speed was demanded, though there is no evidence that this was a settled custom, or that it was regulated by law:
And my days are swifter than a runner;
They flee away, and they see no good. Job 9:25.
Connected with the subject of traveling, we may remark, that the art of making light boats or skiffs from reeds appears to have been known, though there is no mention of ships, or of distant navigation:
They pass on like the reed-skiffs;
As the eagle darting on its prey. Job 9:26.
XIII. The Military Art
There are in the book of Job frequent allusions to weapons of war, and to modes of attack and defense, such as to show that the subject had attracted much attention, and that war then was by no means unknown. In the poem we find the following allusions to the weapons used, and to the methods of attack and defense.
To poisoned arrows:
For the arrows of the Almighty are within me,
Their poison drinketh up my spirit;
The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
Job 6:4.
To the shield:
He runneth upon him with outstretched neck,
With the thick bosses of his shields. Job 15:26.
To the methods of attack, and the capture of a walled town:
He set me up for a mark,
His archers came around me;
He transfixed my reins, and did not spare;
My gall hath he poured out upon the ground.
He breaketh me with breach upon breach;
He rusheth upon me like a mighty man. Job 16:12-14.
To the iron weapon and the bow of brass:
He shall flee from the iron weapon,
But the bow of brass shall pierce him through.
Job 20:24.
To the works cast up by a besieging army for the annoyance of a city by their weapons of war:
His troops advanced together against me;
They throw up their way against me,
And they encamp round about my dwelling. Job 19:12.
In this connection, also, should be mentioned the sublime description of the war-horse in Job 39:19, following The horse was undoubtedly used in war and a more sublime description of this animal caparisoned for battle, impatient for the contest, does not occur in any language:
Hast thou given the horse his strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Dost thou make him to leap as the locust?
How terrible is the glory of his nostrils!
He paweth in the valley; he exulteth in his strength;
He goeth forth into the midst of arms.
He laugheth at fear, and is nothing daunted;
And he turneth not back from the sword.
Upon him rattleth the quiver;
The glittering spear and the lance.
In his fierceness and rage he devoureth the ground,
And will no longer stand still when the trumpet sounds.
When the trumpet sounds, he saith,
"Aba!"
And from afar be snuffeth the battle -
The war-cry of the princes, and the battle-shout.
XIV. Zoology
The references to zoology in this book, which are numerous, and which show that the habits of many portions of the animated creation had been observed with great care, may be ranked under the heads of insects, reptiles, birds, and beasts.
1. Of insects, the only two that are mentioned are the spider and the moth:
His hope shall rot,
And his trust shall be the building of the spider.
He shall lean upon his dwelling, and it shall not stand;
He shall grasp it, but it shall not endure.
Job 8:14-15.
Behold, in his servants he putteth no confidence,
And his angels he chargeth with frailty;
How much more true is this of those who dwell in houses of clay,
Whose foundation is in the dust;
They are crushed before the moth-worm! Job 4:18-19.
He buildeth his house like the moth,
Or like a shed which the watchman maketh. Job 27:18.
2. Of reptiles, we find the asp and the viper mentioned:
He shall suck the poison of asps;
The viper's tongue shall destroy him. Job 20:16.
3. The birds or fowls that are mentioned in this book, are much more numerous. They are the following, nearly all so mentioned as their habits had been the subject of careful observation.
The vulture:
The path thereto no bird knoweth,
And the vulture's eye hath not seen it. Job 28:7.
The raven:
Who provideth for the raven his food,
When his young ones cry unto God,
And wander for lack of food? Job 38:41.
The stork and the ostrich:
A wing of exuiting fowls moves joyfully!
Is it the wing and plumage of the stork?
For she leaveth her eggs upon the ground,
And upon the dust she warmeth them,
And forgetteth that her foot may crush them,
And that the wild beast may break them.
She is hardened toward her young, as it they were not hers;
In vain is her travail, and without solicitude;
Because God hath withheld wisdom from her,
And hath not imparted to her understanding.
In the time when she raiseth herself up on high,
She laugheth at the horse and his rider.
Job 39:13-18.
The eagle and the hawk:
Is it by thy understanding that the hawk flieth,
And spreadeth his wings toward the south?
Is it at thy command that the eagle mounteth up,
And that he buildeth his nest on high?
He inhabiteth the rock and abideth there -
Upon the crag of the rock, and the high fortress.
From thence he spieth out his prey,
His eyes discern it from afar.
His young ones greedily gulp down blood;
And where the slain are, there is he.
Job 39:26-30.
4. The beasts that are mentioned are, also, quite numerous, and the description of some of them constitutes the most magnificent part of the poem. The descriptions of the various animals are also more minute than any thing else referred to, and but a few of them can be copied without transcribing whole chapters. The beasts referred to are the following.
The camel, sheep, ox, and she-ass: Job 1:3; Job 42:12.
The lion:
The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion (are silenced),
And the teeth of young lions are broken out.
The old lion perishes for want of prey,
And the whelps of the lioness are scattered abroad.
Job 4:10-11.
The wild ass:
Doth the wild donkey bray in the midst of grass?
Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Job 6:5.
Who hath sent forth the wild donkey free;
Or who hath loosed the bonds of the wild ass?
Whose home I have made the wilderness,
And his dwellings the barren land.
He scorneth the uproar of the city;
The cry of the driver he heedeth not.
The range of the mountains is his pasture:
He searcheth after every green thing.
Job 39:5-8.
The dog:
But now they who are younger than I have me in derision,
Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the
Dogs of my flock. Job 30:1.
The jackal:
I am become a brother to the jackal,
And a companion to the ostrich. Job 30:29.
The mountain-goat and the hind:
Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth?
Or canst thou observe the birth-throes of the hind?
Canst thou number the months that they fulfil?
Knowest thou the season when they bring forth?
They bow themselves; they give birth to their young;
They cast forth their sorrows.
Their young ones increase in strength,
They grow up in the wilderness,
They go from them, and return no more. Job 39:1-4.
The unicorn:
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?
Will he abide through the night at thy crib?
Wilt thou bind him with his band to the furrow?
And will he harrow the valleys after thee?
Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great?
Or wilt thou commit thy labor to him?
Wilt thou have confidence in him to bring in thy grain?
Or to gather it to thy threshing-floor? Job 39:9-12.
The war-horse, in a splendid passage already quoted, Job 39:19-25 (notes). And, finally, the behemoth or hippopotamus, and the leviathan or crocodile, in Job 40:15-24 (notes); Job 40:21 (note) - perhaps the most splendid descriptions of animals to be found any where in poetry. For the nature and habits of the animals there described, as well as of those already referred to, the reader is referred to the notes.
Such is a mere reference to the various topics of science and the arts referred to in the book of Job. Though brief, yet they furnish us with an invaluable account of the progress which society had then made; and in order to obtain an estimate of the state of the world on these subjects at an early period, there is no better means now at command than a careful study of this book. The scene of the book is laid in the vicinity of those portions of the earth which had made the greatest progress in science and the arts, and from this poem we may learn with considerable accuracy, probably, what advances had then been made in Babylon and in Egypt.
Outline and General Analysis of the Book of Job
First Part - The Historical Intoduction, in Prose, Job 1-2
Second Part - The Argument, or Controversy, in Verse, Job 3-42:6
I. The first series in the controversy, Job 3-14
(1.) Job opens the discussion by cursing his birth-day, and by a bitter complaint of his calamity, Job 3
(2.) Speech of Eliphaz, Job 4-5
(3.) Answer of Job, Job 5-6
(4.) Speech of Bildad, Job 8
(5.) Answer of Job, Job 9-10
(6.) Speech of Zophar, Job 11
(7.) Answer of Job, Job 12-14
II. The second series in the controversy, Job 15-21
(1.) Speech of Eliphaz, Job 15
(2.) Answer of Job, Job 16-17
(3.) Speech of Bildad, Job 18
(4.) Answer of Job, Job 19
(5.) Speech of Zophar, Job 20
(6.) Answer of Job, Job 21
III. The third series in the controversy, Job 22-31
(1.) Speech of Eliphaz Job 22
(2.) Answer of Job, Job 23-24
(3.) Speech of Bildad, Job 25:1-6
(4.) Answer of Job, Job 26-31
IV. Speech of Elihu, Job 32-37
V. The close of the discussion, Job 38-42:6
(1.) The speech of the Almighty, Job 38-41
(2.) The response and penitent confession of Job, Job 42:1-6.
Third Part - The Conclusion, in Prose, Job 42:7-17 Next: Job Chapter 1
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The Book of Job
Introduction
1. The Problem of the Book of Job
Why do afflictions upon afflictions befall the righteous man? This is the question, the answering of which is made the theme of the book of Job. Looking to the conclusion of the book, the answer stands: that afflictions are for the righteous man the way to a twofold blessedness. But in itself, this answer cannot satisfy; so much the less, as the twofold blessedness to which Job finally attains is just as earthly and of this world as that which he has lost by affliction. This answer is inadequate, since on the one hand such losses as those of beloved children cannot, as the loss of sheep and camels, really be made good by double the number of other children; on the other hand, it may be objected that many a righteous man deprived of his former prosperity dies in outward poverty. There are numerous deathbeds which protest against this answer. There are many pious sufferers to whom this present material issue of the book of Job could not yield any solace; whom, when in conflict at least, it might the rather bring into danger of despair. With reference to this conclusion, the book of Job is an insufficient theodicy, as in general the truth taught in the Old Testament, that the end, אהרית, of the righteous, as of the unrighteous, would reveal the hidden divine recompense, could afford no true consolation so long as this אהרית flowed on with death into the night of Hades, שׁאול, and had no prospect of eternal life.
But the issue of the history, regarded externally, is by no means the proper answer to the great question of the book. The principal thing is not that Job is doubly blessed, but that God acknowledges him as His servant, which He is able to do, after Job in all his afflictions has remained true to God. Therein lies the important truth, that there is a suffering of the righteous which is not a decree of wrath, into which the love of God has been changed, but a dispensation of that love itself. In fact, this truth is the heart of the book of Job. It has therefore been said - particularly by Hirzel, and recently by Renan - that it aims at destroying the old Mosaic doctrine of retribution. But this old Mosaic doctrine of retribution is a modern phantom. That all suffering is a divine retribution, the Mosaic Thora does not teach. Renan calls this doctrine la vielle conception patriarcale. But the patriarchal history, and especially the history of Joseph, gives decided proof against it. The distinction between the suffering of the righteous and the retributive justice of God, brought out in the book of Job, is nothing new. The history before the time of Israel, and the history of Israel even, exhibit it in facts; and the words of the law, as Deu 8:16, expressly show that there are sufferings which are the result of God's love; though the book of Job certainly presents this truth, which otherwise had but a scattered and presageful utterance, in a unique manner, and causes it to come forth before us from a calamitous and terrible conflict, as pure gold from a fierce furnace. It comes forth as the result of the controversy with the false doctrine of retribution advanced by the friends; a doctrine which is indeed not Mosaic, for the Mosaic Thora in the whole course of the history of revelation is nowhere impugned and corrected, but ever only augmented, and, consistently with its inherent character, rendered more complete.
To this question the book furnishes, as it appears to us, two answers: (1.) The afflictions of the righteous are a means of discipline and purification; they certainly arise from the sins of the righteous man, but still are not the workings of God's wrath, but of His love, which is directed to his purifying and advancement. Such is the view Elihu in the book of Job represents. The writer of the introductory portion of Proverbs has expressed this briefly but beautifully Pro 3:11; cf. Heb 12). Oehler, in order that one may perceive its distinction from the view of the three friends, rightly refers to the various theories of punishment. Discipline designed for improvement is properly no punishment, since punishment, according to its true idea, is only satisfaction rendered for the violation of moral order. In how far the speeches of Elihu succeed in conveying this view clear and distinct from the original standpoint of the friends, especially of Eliphaz, matters not to us here; at all events, it is in the mind of the poet as the characteristic of these speeches. (2.) The afflictions of the righteous man are means of proving and testing, which, like chastisements, come from the love of God. Their object is not, however, the purging away of sin which may still cling to the righteous man, but, on the contrary, the manifestation and testing of his righteousness. This is the point of view from which, apart from Elihu's speeches, the book of Job presents Job's afflictions. Only by this relation of things is the chagrin with which Job takes up the words of Eliphaz, and so begins the controversy, explained and justified or excused. And, indeed, if it should be even impossible for the Christian, especially with regard to his own sufferings, to draw the line between disciplinary and testing sufferings so clearly as it is drawn in the book of Job, there is also for the deeper and more acute New Testament perception of sin, a suffering of the righteous which exists without any causal connection with his sin, viz., confession by suffering, or martyrdom, which the righteous man undergoes, not for his own sake, but for the sake of God.
If we, then, keep in mind these two further answers which the book of Job gives us to the question, "Why through suffering to blessedness?" it is not to be denied that practically they are perfectly sufficient. If I know that God sends afflictions to me because, since sin and evil are come into the world, they are the indispensable means of purifying and testing me, and by both purifying and testing of perfecting me, - these are explanations with which I can and must console myself. But this is still not the final answer of the book of Job to its great question. And its unparalleled magnitude, its high significance in the historical development of revelation, its typical character already recognised in the Old Testament, consists just in its going beyond this answer, and giving us an answer which, going back to the extreme roots of evil, and being deduced from the most intimate connections of the individual life of man with the history and plan of the world in the most comprehensive sense, not only practically, but speculatively, satisfies.
2. The Chokma-Character of the Book
But before we go so far into this final and highest answer as the province of the Introduction permits and requires, in order to assign to the reader the position necessary to be taken for understanding the book, we ask, How comes it that the book of Job presents such a universal and absolute solution of the problem, otherwise unheard of in the Old Testament Scriptures? The reason of it is in the peculiar mental tendency (Geistesrichtung) of the Israelitish race from which it proceeded. There was in Israel a bias of a universalistic, humanic, philosophical kind, which, starting from the fear or worship (religion) of Jehovah, was turned to the final causes of things, - the cosmical connections of the earthly, the common human foundations of the Israelitish, the invisible roots of the visible, the universal actual truth of the individual and national historical. The common character of the few works of his Chokma which have been preserved to us is the humanic standpoint, stripped of everything peculiarly Israelitish. In the whole book of Proverbs, which treats of the relations of human life in its most general aspects, the name of the covenant people, ישׁראל, does not once occur. In Ecclesiastes, which treats of the nothingness of all earthly things, and with greater right than the book of Job may be called the canticle of Inquiry,
(Note: The book of Job, says H. Heine, in his Vermischte Schriften, 1854, i., is the canticle of Inquiry (das Hodhelied der Skepsis), and horrid serpents hiss therein their eternal Wherefore? As man when he suffers must weep his fill, so must he cease to doubt. This poison of doubt must not be wanting in the Bible, that great storehouse of mankind.)
even the covenant name of God, יהוה, does not occur. In the Son of Songs, the groundwork of the picture certainly, but not the picture itself, is Israelitish: it represents a common human primary relation, the love of man and woman; and that if not with allegorical, yet mystical meaning, similar to the Indian Gitagovinda, and also the third part of the Tamul Kural, translated by Graul.
So the book of Job treats a fundamental question of our common humanity; and the poet has studiously taken his hero not from Israelitish history, but from extra-Israelitish tradition. From beginning to end he is conscious of relating an extra-Israelitish history, - a history handed down among the Arab tribes to the east of Palestine, which has come to his ears; for none of the proper names contain even a trace of symbolically intended meaning; and romantic historical poems were moreover not common among the ancients. This extra-Israelitish history from the patriarchal period excited the purpose of his poem, because the thought therein presented lay also in his own mind. The Thora from Sinai and prophecy, the history and worship of Israel, are nowhere introduced; even indirect reference to them nowhere escape him. He throws himself with wonderful truthfulness, effect, and vividness, into the extra-Israelitish position. His own Israelitish standpoint he certainly does not disavow, as we see from his calling God יהוה everywhere in the prologue and epilogue; but the non-Israelitish character of his hero and of his locality he maintains with strict consistency. Only twice is יהוה found in the mouth of Job (Job 1:21, Job 12:9), which is not to be wondered at, since this name of God, as the names Morija and Jochebed show, is not absolutely post-Mosaic, and therefore may have been known among the Hebrew people beyond Israel. But with this exception, Job and his friends everywhere call God אלוהּ, which is more poetic, and for non-Israelitish speakers (vid., Pro 30:5) more appropriate than אלהים, which occurs only three times (Job 20:29; Job 32:2; Job 38:7); or they call Him שׁדּי, which is the proper name of God in the patriarchal time, as it appears everywhere in Genesis, where in the Elohistic portions the high and turning-points of the self-manifestation of God occur (Job 17:1, Job 35:11, cf. Exo 6:3), and when the patriarchs, at special seasons, pronounce the promise which they have received upon their children (Gen 28:3, Gen 48:3, Gen 49:25; cf. Gen 43:14). Even many of the designations of the divine attributes which have become fixed in the Thora, as אפּים ארך, חנּוּן, רחוּם, which one might well expect in the book of Job, are not found in it; nor טוב, often used of Jehovah in Psalms; nor generally the too (so to speak) dogmatic terminology of the Israelitish religion;
(Note: קרושׁ, of God, only occurs once (Job 6:10); חסד but twice (Job 10:12, and with Elihu, Job 37:13); אהב with its derivatives not at all (Gen. only Gen 19:19). In the speeches of the three, צדיק (only with Elihu, Job 34:17), משׁפט, and שׁלּם, as expressions of the divine justitia recompensativa, are not to be found; נסּה and בחן become nowhere synonymous to designate Job's sufferings by the right name; מסּה appears (Job 9:23) only in the general signification of misfortune.)
besides which also this characteristic, that only the oldest mode of heathen worship, star-worship (Job 31:26-28), is mentioned, without even the name of God (צבאות יהוה or צבאות אלהים) occurring, which designates God as Lord of the heavens, which the heathen deified. The writer has also intentionally avoided this name, which is the star of the time of the Israelitish kings; for he is never unmindful that his subject is an ante-and extra-Israelitish one.
Hengstenberg, in his Lecture on the Book of Job, 1856, goes so far as to maintain, that a character like Job cannot possibly have existed in the heathen world, and that revelation would have been unnecessary if heathendom could produce such characters for itself. The poet, however, without doubt, presupposes the opposite; and if he did not presuppose it, he should have refrained from using all his skill to produce the appearance of the opposite. That he has nevertheless done it, cannot mislead us: for, on the one hand, Job belongs to the patriarchal period, therefore the period before the giving of the law, - a period in which the early revelation was still at work, and the revelation of God, which had not remained unknown in the side branches of the patriarchal family. On the other hand, it is quite consistent with the standpoint of the Chokma, that it presupposes a preparatory self-manifestation of God even in the extra-Israelitish world; just as John's Gospel, which aims at proving in Christianity the absolute religion which shall satisfy every longing of all mankind, acknowledges τέκνα τοῦ Θεοῦ διεσκορπισμένα also beyond the people of God, Joh 11:52, without on this account finding the incarnation of the Logos, and the possibility of regeneration by it, to be superfluous.
This parallel between the book of Job and the Gospel by John is fully authorized; for the important disclosure which the prologue of John gives to us of the Logos, is already in being in the book of Job and the introduction to the book of Proverbs, especially ch. 8, without requiring the intervening element of the Alexandrine religious philosophy, which, however, after it is once there, may not be put aside or disavowed. The Alexandrine doctrine of the Logos is really the genuine more developed form, though with many imperfections, of that which is taught of the Chokma in the book of Job and in Proverbs. Both notions have a universalistic comprehensiveness, referring not only to Israel, but to mankind. The חכמה certainly took up its abode in Israel, as it itself proves in the book Σοφια Σειραχ, ch. 24; but there is also a share of it attainable by and allotted to all mankind. This is the view of the writer even beyond Israel fellowship is possible with the one living God, who has revealed himself in Israel; that He also there continually reveals himself, ordinarily in the conscience, and extraordinarily in dreams and visions; that there is also found there a longing and struggling after that redemption of which Israel has the clear words of promise. His wonderous book soars high above the Old Testament limit; it is the Melchizedek among the Old Testament books. The final and highest solution of the problem with which it grapples, has a quarry extending out even beyond the patriarchal history. The Wisdom of the book of Job originates, as we shall see, from paradise. For this turning also to the primeval histories of Genesis, which are earlier than the rise of the nations, and the investigation of the hieroglyphs in the prelude to the Thora, which are otherwise almost passed over in the Old Testament, belong to the peculiarities of the Chokma.
3. Position in the Canon
As a work of the Chokma, the book of Job stands, with the three other works belonging to this class of the Israelitish literature, among the Hagiographa, which are called in Hebrew simply כתובים. Thus, by the side of תורה and נביאים, the third division of the canon is styled, in which are included all those writings belonging neither to the province of prophetic history nor prophetic declaration. Among the Hagiographa are writings even of a prophetic character, as Psalms and Daniel; but their writers were not properly נביאים. At present Lamentations stands among them; but this is not its original place, as also Ruth appears to have stood originally between Judges and Samuel. Both Lamentations and Ruth are placed among the Hagiographa, that there the five so-called מגלות or scrolls may stand together: Schir ha-Schirim the feast-book of the eight passover-day, Ruth that of the second Schabuoth-day, Kinoth that of the ninth of Ab, Koheleth that of the eight Succoth-day, Esther that of Purim. The book of Job, which is written neither in prophetico-historical style, nor in the style of prophetic preaching, but is a didactic poem, could stand nowhere else but in the third division of the canon. The position which it occupies is moreover a very shifting one. In the Alexandrine canon, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, follow the four books of the Kings. The historical books therefore stand, from the earliest to the latest, side by side; then begins with Job, Psalms, Proverbs, a new row, opened with these three in stricter sense poetical books. Then Melito of Sardis, in the second century, places Chronicles with the books of the Kings, but arranges immediately after them the non-historical Hagiographa in the following order: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Job; here the Salomonic writings are joined to the Davidic Psalter, and the anonymous book of Job stands last. In our editions of the Bible, the Hagiographa division begins with Psalms, Proverbs, Job (the succession peculiar to MSS of the German class); in the Talmud (Bathra, 14b), with Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs; in the Masora, and in MSS of the Spanish class, with Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs. All these modes of arrangement are well considered. The Masora connects with the אחרונים נביאים the homogeneous book, the Chronicles; the Talmud places the book of Ruth before the Psalter as an historical prologue, or as a connection between the prophetico-historical books and the Hagiographa.
(Note: That Job stands after the Psalms is explained by his being contemporary with the Queen of Sheba, or, accepting Moses as the writer of the book (in which case it should stand at the head of the Chethubim), by its not being placed foremost, on account of its terrible contents (according to the maxim בפרענותא מתחילינן לא).)
The practice in our editions is to put the Psalms as the first book of the division, which agrees with Luk 24:44, and with Philo, who places ὕμνους next to the prophetical books. Job stands only in the lxx at the head of the three so-called poetic books, perhaps as a work by its patriarchal contents referring back to the earliest times. Everywhere else the Psalter stands first among the three books. These three are commonly denoted by the vox memoralis מתספרי א; but this succession, Job, Proverbs, Psalms, is nowhere found. The Masora styles them after its own, and the Talmudic order אםספרי ת.
4. The System of Accentuation
Manner of Writing in Verses, and Structure of the Strophe
The so-ciphered three books have, as is known, this in common, that they are (with the exception of the prologue and epilogue in the book of Job) punctuated according to a special system, which has been fully discussed in my Commentary on the Psalms, and in Baer's edition of the Psalter. This accent system, like the prosaic, is constructed on the fundamental law of dichotomy; but it is determined by better organization, more expressive and melodious utterance. Only the so-called prose accents, however, not the metrical or poetic (with the exception of a few detached fragments), have been preserved in transmission. Nevertheless, we are always still able to discern from these accents how the reading in the synagogue divided the thoughts collected into the form of Masoretic verses, into two chief divisions, and within these again into lesser divisions, and connected or separated the single words; while the musical rhythm accommodated itself as much as possible to the logical, so that the accentuation is on this account an important source for ascertaining the traditional exegesis, and contains an abundance of most valuable hints for the interpreter. Tradition, moreover, requires for the three books a verse-like short line stich-manner of writing; and פסוק, versus, meant originally, not the Masoretic verse, but the separate sentence, στίχος, denoted in the accent system by a great distinctive; as e.g., Job 3:3 :
Let the day perish wherein I was born,
And the night, which said, There is a man-child conceived,
is a Masoretic verse divided into two parts by Athnach, and therefore, according to the old order, is to be written as two στίχοι.
(Note: The meaning of this old order, and the aptness of its execution, has been lost in later copyists, because they break off not according to the sense, but only according to the space, as the στίχοι in numbering the lines, e.g., of the Greek orators, are mere lines according to the space (Raumzeile), at least according to Ritschl's view (Die alex. Bibliotheken, 1838, S. 92-136), which, however, has been disputed by Vmel. The old soferish order intends lines according to the sense, and so also the Greek distinction by πέντε στιχηραὶ (στιχήρεις) βίβλοι, i.e., Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes.)
This also is important. In order to recognise the strophe-structure of Hebrew poems, one must attend to the στίχοι, in which the poetic thoughts follow one another in well-measured flow. Parallelism, which we must likewise acknowledge as the fundamental law of the rhythm of Hebrew poetry, forms the evolutions of thought not always of two members, but often - as e.g., Job 3:4, Job 3:5, Job 3:6, Job 3:9 - also of three. The poetic formation is not, however, confined to this, but even further combines (as is most unmistakeably manifest in the alphabetical psalms,
(Note: That from these we may proceed, the ancients here and there conjectures; as e.g., Serpilius says, "It may perhaps occur to some, whether now and then a slight judgment of the Davidic species of verse and poesy may not be in some way formed from his, so to speak, alphabetical psalms.")
and as recently also Ewald inclines to acknowledge)
(Note: On strophes in the book of Job, Jahrb. iii. 118: "That the Masoretic division of the verses is not always correct, follows also from a more exact consideration of the strophes. Here comes a further question, whether one must determine the limit of such a strophe only according to the verses, which are often in themselves very irregular, or rather, strictly according to the members of the verse? The latter seems to me, at least in some parts, certainly to be the case, as I have already had opportunity to remark." Nevertheless, he reckons the strophes in Neue Bemerkungen zum B. Ijob, Job 9:35-37, according to lines = Masoretic verses.)
such distichs and tristichs into a greater whole, forming a complete circle of thought; in other words, into strophes of four, eight, or some higher number of lines, in themselves paragraphs, which, however, show themselves as strophes, inasmuch as they recur and change symmetrically. Hupfeld has objected that these strophes, as an aggregate formed of a symmetrical number of stichs, are opposed to the nature of the rhythm = parallelism, which cannot stand on one leg, but needs two; but this objection is as invalid as if one should say, Because every soldier has two legs, therefore soldiers can only march singly, and not in a row and company. It may be seen, e.g., from Job 36:22-25, Job 36:26-29, Job 36:30-33, where the poet begins three times with הן, and three times the sentences so beginning are formed of eight lines. Shall we not say there are three eight-line strophes beginning with הן? Nevertheless, we are far from maintaining that the book of Job consists absolutely of speeches in the strophe and poetic form. It breaks up, however, into paragraphs, which not unfrequently become symmetrical strophes. That neither the symmetrical nor mixed strophe-schema is throughout with strict unexceptional regularity carried out, arises from the artistic freedom which the poet was obliged to maintain in order not to sacrifice the truth as well as the beauty of the dialogue. Our translation, arranged in paragraphs, and the schemata of the number of stichs in the paragraph placed above each speech, will show that the arrangement of the whole is, after all, far more strophic than its dramatic character allows, according to classic and modern poetic art.
(Note: What Gottfr. Hermann, in his diss. de arte poesis Graecorum bucolicae, says respecting the strophe-division in Theocritus, is nevertheless to be attentively considered: Verendum est ne ipsi nobis somnia fingamus perdamusque operam, si artificiosas stropharum comparationes comminiscamur, de quibus ipsi poetae ne cogitaverint quidem. Viderique potest id eo probabilius esse, quod saepenumero dubitari potest, sic an aliter constituendae sint strophae. Nam poesis, qualis haec bucolicorum est, quae maximam partem ex brevibus dictis est composita, ipsa natura sua talis est ut in partes fere vel pares vel similes dividi possit. Nihilo tamen minus illam strophicam rationem non negligendam arbitror, ut quae apud poetas bucolicos in consuetudinem vertisse videatur, etc.)
It is similar in Canticles, with the melodramatic character of which it better agrees. In both cases it is explained from the Hebrew poesy being in its fundamental peculiarity lyric, and from the drama not having freed itself from the lyric element, and attained to complete independence. The book of Job is, moreover, not a drama grown to complete development. Prologue and epilogue are treated as history, and the separate speeches are introduce din the narrative style. In the latter respect (with the exception of Job 2:10), Canticles is more directly dramatic than the book of Job.
(Note: Hence there are Greek MSS, in which the names of the speakers (e.g., ἡ νύμφη, αἱ νεανίδες, ὁ νυμφίος) are prefixed to the separate parts of Canticles (vid., Repertorium fr bibl. u. morgenl. Lit. viii. 1781, S. 180). The Archimandrite Porphyrios, who in his Travels, 1856, described the Codex Sinaiticus before Tischendorf, though unsatisfactorily, describes there also such διαλογικῶς written MSS of Canticles.)
The drama is here in reference to the strophic form in the garb of Canticles, and in respect of the narrative form in the garb of history or epopee. Also the book of Job cannot be regarded as drama, if we consider, with G. Baur,
(Note: Das B. Hiob und Dante's Gttliche Camdie, Studien u. Krit. 1856, iii.)
dramatic and scenic to be inseparable ideas; for the Jews first became acquainted with the theatre from the Greeks and Romans.
(Note: See my Geschichte der jdischen Dramatik in my edition of the Migdal Oz1 (hebr. handling of the Pastor fido of Guarini) by Mose Chajim Luzzatto, Leipz. 1837.)
Nevertheless, it is questionable whether the drama everywhere presupposes the existence of the stage, as e.g., A. W. v. Schlegel, in his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, maintains. Gthe, at least, more than once asserts, that "drama and a composition for the stage may be separate," and admits a "dramatic plot and execution" in Canticles.
(Note: Werke (neue Ausg. in 30 Bden.), xiii. 596; xxvi. 513f.)
5. The Dramatic Art of the Plot and Execution
On the whole, we have as little hesitation as Hupfeld in calling the book of Job a drama; and it is characteristic of the Israelitish Chokma, that by Canticles and the book of Job, its two generic manifestations, it has enriched the national poesy with this new form of poetic composition. The book of Job is, though not altogether, yet substantially, a drama, and one consisting of seven divisions: (1) ch. 1-3, the opening; (2) ch. 4-14, the first course of the controversy, or the beginning entanglement; (3) ch. 15-21, the second course of the controversy, or the increasing entanglement; (4) ch. 22-26, the third course of the controversy, or the increasing entanglement at its highest; (5) ch. 27-31, the transition from the entanglement (δέσις) to the unravelling (λύσις): Job's monologues; (6) ch. 38-42:6, the consciousness of the unravelling; (7) Job 42:7., the unravelling in outward reality. In this we have left Elihu'a speeches (ch. 32-37) out of consideration, because it is very questionable whether they are a part of the original form of the book, and not, on the contrary, the introduction of another poet. If we include them, the drama has eight divisions. The speeches of Elihu form an interlude in the transition from the δέσις to the λύσις. The book of Job is an audience-chamber, and one can readily suppose that a contemporary or later poet may have mixed himself up with the speakers. Whether, however, this is really the case, may remain here undecided. The prologue is narrative, but still partly in dialogue style, and so far not altogether undramatical. In form it corresponds most to the Euripidean, which also are a kind of epic introduction to the pieces, and it accomplishes what Sophocles in his prologues so thoroughly understands. At the very beginning he excites interest in the occurrences to be brought forward, and makes us acquainted with that which remains concealed from the actors. After the knot of the puzzle is tied in the prologue, it becomes more and more deeply entangled in the three courses of the controversy. In the monologues of Job it begins to be disentangled, and in the sixth part the unravelling follows, well prepared for, and therefore not ἀπὸ μηχανῆς, and is perfected in the epilogue or exodus: the servant of God, being so far as necessary cleared by penitence, is justified in opposition to his friends; and the victor, tried in accordance with the divine utterance, is crowned. It is therefore a continually progressing history. The remark of Herder,
(Note: Geist der Ebrischen Poesi, 1805, i. S. 137.)
"Here all is stationary in long conversations," is superficial. It is from beginning to end a stream of the most active life, with external incident only in the opening and in the unravelling; what Shlegel says of Gthe's Iphigenie holds good of the middle of the book, that the ideas are worked into incidents, and brought, as it were, before the eye. Moreover, as in Gthe's Tasso, the deficiency of external action is compensated by the richness and precision with which the characters are drawn. Satan, Job's wife, the hero himself, the three friends, - everywhere diversified and minute description. The poet manifests, also, dramatic skill in other directions. He has laid out the controversy with a masterly hand, making the heart of the reader gradually averse to the friends, and in the same degree winning it towards Job. He makes the friends all through give utterance to the most glorious truths, which, however, in the application to the case before them, turn out to be untrue. And although the whole of the representation serves one great idea, it is still not represented by any of the persons brought forward, and is by no one expressly uttered. Every person is, as it were, the consonant letter to the word of this idea; it is throughout the whole book taken up with the realization of itself; at the end it first comes forth as the resulting product of the whole. Job himself is not less a tragic hero than the Oedipus of both Sophicles' tragedies.
(Note: Schultens says: Quidquid tragoedia vetus unquam Sophocleo vel Aeschyleo molita est cothurno, infra magnitudinem, gravitatem, ardorem, animositatem horum affectuum infinitum quantum subsidet. Similarly Ewald (Jahrb. ix. 27): Neither the Hindoos, nor the Greek sand Romans, have such a lofty and purely perfected poem to produce. One would perhaps compare it with one of Aeschylus or Sophocles' tragedies as the nearest, but we cannot easily find a single one among these approaching its unblemished height and perfection in the midst of the greatest simplicity.)
What is there an inevitable fate, expressed by the oracle, is in the book of Job the decree of Jehovah, over whom is no controlling power, decreed in the assembly of angels. As a painful puzzle the lot of affliction comes down on Job. At the beginning he is the victor of an easy battle, until the friends' exhortations to repentance are added to suffering, which in itself is incomprehensible, and make it still harder to be understood. He is thereby involved in a hard conflict, in which at one time, full of arrogant self-confidence, he exalts himself heavenward; at another time, sinks to the ground in desponding sadness.
The God, however, against which he fights is but a phantom, which the temptation has presented to his saddened eye instead of the true God; and this phantom is in no way different from the inexorable fate of the Greek tragedy. As in that the hero seeks to maintain his inward freedom against the secret power which crushes him with an iron arm; so Job maintains his innocence against this God, which has devoted him to destruction as an offender. But in the midst of this terrific conflict with the God of the present, this creation of the temptation, Job's faith gropes after the God of the future, to whom he is ever driven nearer the more mercilessly the enemies pursue him. At length Jehovah really appears, but not at Job's impetuous summons. He appears first after Job has made a beginning of humble self-concession, in order to complete the work begun, by condescendingly going forth to meet him. Jehovah appears, and the fury vanishes. The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unabolished, is here reconciled. Human freedom does not succumb; but it becomes evident that not an absolute arbitrary power, but divine wisdom, whose inmost impulse is love, moulds human destiny.
6. Time of Composition
That this masterpiece of religious reflection and systematic creative art - this, to use Luther's expression, lofty and grand book, in which, as the mountains round an Alpine valley, all the terribly sublime that nature and human history present is ranged one above another - belongs to no other than the Salomonic period, we might almost assume, even if it were not confirmed on all sides. The opinion that Moses wrote the book of Job before the giving of the law, is found in the Talmuds (jer. Sota V. 8; b. Bathra, 15a). This view has been recently revived by Ebrard (1858). But how improbable, all but impossible, that the poetical literature of Israel should have taken its rise with such a non plus ultra of reflective poetry, and that this poem should have had Moses the lawgiver for its author? "Moses certainly is not the composer of the book of Job," says Herder rightly,
(Note: Geist der Ebr. Poesie, 1805, i. S. 130.)
"or Solon might have written the Iliad and the Eumenides of Aeschylus." This opinion, which is also found in Origen, Jerome, Polychronius, and Julian of Halicarnassus, would surely never have suggested itself to any one, had not the studious avoidance in the book of all reference to the law, prophecy, history, religious worship, and even of the religious terminology of Israel, consequent on its design, produced the appearance of a pre-Sinaitic origin. But, first, this absence of such reference is, as we have already seen, the result of the genius and aim which belong to the book; secondly, the writer distinctly enough betrays his acquaintance with the Thora: for as the Chokma for the most part necessarily presupposes the revelation of God deposited in the Thora, and is even at pains to show its universal and eternal ideas, and its imperishable nature full of meaning for all men, so a book like the book of Job could only have been written by an Israelitish author, only have sprung from the spiritual knowledge and experience rendered possible by the Thora.
(Note: Reggio indeed maintains (Kerem Chemed, vi. 53-60) in favour of the Mosaic pre-Sinaitic composition: "God is only represented as the Almighty, the Ruler of the universe: His love, mercy, forbearance - attributes which the Thora first revealed - are nowhere mentioned;" and S. D. Luzzatto concludes from this even the non-Israelitish origin of the book: "The God of Job is not the God of Israel, the gracious One: He is the almighty and just, but not the kind and true One;" but although the book does not once use the words goodness, love, forbearance, compassion of God, it is nevertheless a bright example of them all; and it is the love of God which it manifests as a bright ray in the dark mystery of the affliction of the righteous.)
For as insight into the groping of the heathen world after divine truth is only possible in the light of Christianity, so also such a spiritually bold and accurate reproduction of an old patriarchal tradition was only possible in the light of the revelation of Jehovah: not to mention that the middle part of the book is written in the style of the book of Proverbs, the surrounding parts in evident imitation of the style of the primitive histories of the Pentateuch.
But as the supposition of a pre-Salomonic composition is proved invalid, so also are all the grounds on which it has been sought to prove a post-Salomonic. Ewald, whom Heiligstedt and Renan follow, is of opinion that it shows very unsettled and unfortunate times in the background, and from this and other indications was written under Manasseh; Hirzel, that the writer who is so well acquainted with Egypt, seems to have been carried into Egypt with King Jehoahaz; Stickel, that the book presupposes the invasion of the Asiatic conqueror as begun, but not yet so far advanced as the destruction of Jerusalem; Bleek, that it must belong to the post-Salomonic period, because it seems to refer to a previous comprehensive diversified literature. But all this rests on invalid grounds, false observation, and deceptive conclusions. Indeed, the assumption that a book which sets forth such a fearful conflict in the depths of affliction must have sprung from a time of gloomy national distress, is untenable: it is sufficient to suppose that the writer himself has experienced the like, and experienced it at a time when all around him were living in great luxury, which must have greatly aggravated his trial. It would be preferable to suppose that the book of Job belongs to the time of the exile (Umbreit and others), and that Job, though not exactly a personification of Israel, is still לרשׂראל משׁל,
(Note: Vid., c. 90 of Ez chajim, by Ahron b. Elias of Nicomedia, edited by Delitzsch, 1841, which corresponds to More Nebuchim, iii. 22-24. The view that the poet himself, by Job intended the Israel of the exile (according to Warburton, the Israel of the restoration after the exile; according to Grotius, the Edomites carried into exile by the Babylonians), is about the same as the view that the guilty Pericles may be intended by King Oedipus, or the Sophists by the Odysseus of the Philoctetes.)
a pattern for the people of the exile (Bernstein); for this view, interesting indeed in itself, has the similarity of several passages of the second part of the book of Isaiah in its favour: comp. Isa 40:14 with Job 21:22; Isa 40:23 with Job 12:24; Isa 44:25 with Job 12:17, Job 12:20; Isa 44:24 with Job 9:8; Isa 49:4 with Job 15:35; Psa 7:15. These, however, only prove that the severely tried ecclesia pressa of the exiles might certainly recognise itself again in the example of Job, and make it seem far more probable that the book of Job is older than that period of Israel's suffering.
The literature of the Chokma began with Solomon. First in the time of Solomon, whose peculiar gift was worldly wisdom, a time which bears the character of peaceful contemplation resulting from the conflicts of belief of David's time,
(Note: Thus far Gaupp, Praktische Theol. ii. 1, 488, is in some degree right, when he considers the book of Job a living testimony of the new spirit of belief which was bursting forth in David's time.)
the external and internal preliminary conditions for it existed. The chief part of Proverbs and Canticles is by Solomon himself; the introductory passages (Prov 1-9) represent a later period of the Chokma, probably the time of Jehoshaphat; the book of Ecclesiastes, which is rightly assigned by H. G. Bernstein in his Questiones Kohelethanae to the time between Artaxerxes I Longimanus, and Darius Codomannus, and perhaps belongs to the time of Artaxerxes II Mnemon, represents the latest period. The book of Job is indicated as a work of the first of these three periods, by its classic, grand, and noble form. It bears throughout the stamp of that creative, beginning-period of the Chokma, - of that Salomonic age of knowledge and art, of deeper thought respecting revealed religion, and of intelligent, progressive culture of the traditional forms of art, - that unprecedented age, in which the literature corresponded to the summit of glorious magnificence to which the kingdom of the promise had then attained. The heart of Solomon (according to Kg1 5:9., Hebrew version; Kg1 4:29, English version) enclosed within itself a fulness of knowledge, "even as the sand that is on the seashore:" his wisdom was greater than the קרם בני, from whom the traditional matter of the book of Job is borrowed; greater than the wisdom of the מצרים, with whose country and natural marvels the author of the book of Job is intimately acquainted. The extensive knowledge of natural history and general science displayed in the book of Job, is the result of the wide circle of observation which Israel had reached. It was a time when the chasm between Israel and the nations was more than ever bridged over. The entire education of Israel at that time took a so to speak cosmopolitan direction. It was a time introductory to the extension of redemption, and the triumph of the religion of Israel, and the union of all nations in belief on the God of love.
7. Signs from the Doctrinal Contents
That the book of Job belongs to this period and no other, is confirmed also by the relation of its doctrinal contents to the other canonical writings. If we compare the doctrine respecting Wisdom - her super-eminence, applicability to worldly matters, and co-operation in the creation of the world - in Prov 1-9, especially ch. 8, with Job 28, it is there manifestly more advanced, and further developed. If we compare the pointing to the judgment of God, Job 19:29, with the hint of a future general judgment, which shall decide and adjust all things, in Ecc 12:14, we see at once that what comes forward in the former passage only at first as an expression of personal belief, is in the latter already become a settled element of general religious consciousness.
And however we may interpret that brilliant passage of the book of Job, Job 19:25-27, - whether it be the beholding of God in the present bodily, future spiritual, or future glorified state, - it is by no means an echo of an already existing revelation of the resurrection of the dead, that acknowledgment of revelation which we see breaking forth and expanding throughout Isa 26:19, comp. Isa 25:8, and Ezek 37 comp. Hos 6:2, until Dan 12:2. The prevailing representations of the future in the book of Job are exactly the same as those in the Psalms of the time of David and Solomon, and in the Proverbs of Solomon. The writer speaks as one of the same age in which Heman sighed, Psa 88:11., "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead? or shall the shades arise and praise Thee? Shall Thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave, Thy faithfulness in the abyss?" Besides, the greatest conceivable fulness of allusion to the book of Job, including Elihu's speeches, is found in Ps 88 and 89, whose authors, Heman and Ethan, the Ezrahites, are not the same as the chief singers of David and of the same name, but the contemporaries of Solomon mentioned in Kg1 5:11. These two psalms coincide with the book of Job, both in expressions with which remarkable representations are united, as קרושׁים of the celestial spirits, רפאים of the shades in Hades, אבדון of Hades itself, and also in expressions which do not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament, as אמים and בּעתים; and the agreement is manifest, moreover, in the agreement of whole verses either in thought or in expression: comp. Psa 89:38 with Job 16:19; Psa 89:48 with Job 7:7; Psa 89:49 with Job 14:14; Psa 88:5 with Job 14:10; Psa 88:9 with Job 30:10; Psa 89:8 with Job 31:34. In all these passages, however, there is no such similarity as suggests a borrowing, but an agreement which, since it cannot possibly be accidental, may be most easily explained by supposing that the book of Job proceeds from just the same Chokma-fellowship to which, according to Kg1 5:11, the two Ezrahites, the writers of Ps 88 and 89, belong.
One might go further, and conjecture that the same Heman who composed Ps 88, the gloomiest of all the Psalms, and written under circumstances of suffering similar to Job's, may be the author of the book of Job - for which many probable reasons might be advanced; by which also what G. Baur rightly assumes would be confirmed, that the writer of the book of Job has himself passed through the inward spiritual conflict which he describes, and accordingly gives a page from his own religious history. But we are satisfied with the admission, that the book of Job is the work of one of the wise men whose rendezvous was the court of Solomon. Gregory of Nazianzen and Luther have already admitted the origin of the book in Solomon's time; and among later critics, Rosenmller, Hvernick, Vaihinger, Hahn, Schlottmann, Keil, and Hofmann (though in his Weissagung und Erfllung he expressed the opinion that it belongs to the Mosaic period), are agreed in this.
(Note: Also Professor Barnwell, in the Carolina Times, 1857, No. 785, calls the book of Job "the most brilliant flower of this brighter than Elizabethan and nobler than Augustan era.")
8. Echoes in the Later Sacred Writings
It may be readily supposed, that a book like this, which is occupied with a question of such vital import to every thinking and pious man, - which treats it in such a lively manner, riveting the attention, and bespeaking sympathy, - which, apart from its central subject, is so many-sided, so majestically beautiful in language, and so inexhaustible in imagery, - will have been one of the most generally read of the national books of Israel. Such is found to be the case; and also hereby its origin in the time of Solomon is confirmed: for at this very period it is to Ps 88-89 only that it stands in the mutual relation already mentioned. But the echoes appear as early as in the חכמים דברי, which are appended to the Salomonic משׁלי in the book of Proverbs: comp. the teaching from an example in the writer's own experience, Pro 24:30. with Job 5:3. The book of Job, however, next to the Proverbs of Solomon, was the favourite source of information for the author of the introductory proverbs (Prov 1-9). Here (apart from the doctrine of wisdom) we find whole passages similar to the book of Job: comp. Pro 3:11 with Job 5:17; Pro 8:25 with Job 15:7; Pro 3:15 with Job 28:18.
Then, in the prophets of the flourishing period of prophetic literature, which begins with Obadiah and Joel, we find distinct traces of familiarity with the book of Job. Amos describes the glory of God the Creator in words taken from it (Amo 4:13; Amo 5:8, after Job 9:8; cf. Job 10:22; Job 38:31). Isaiah has introduced a whole verse of the book of Job, almost verbatim, into his prophecy against Egypt (Isa 19:5 = Job 14:11): in the same prophecy, Isa 19:13. refer to Job 12:24., so also Isa 35:3 to Job 4:4. These reminiscences of the book of Job are frequent in Isaiah (Isa 40-66). This book of solace for the exiles corresponds to the book of Job not only in words, which exclusively belong in common to the two (as גּזע and צאצאים), and in surprising similarity of expression (as Isa 53:9, comp. Job 16:17; Isa 60:6, comp. Job 22:11), but also in numerous passages of similar thought and form (comp. Isa 40:23 with Job 12:24); and in the description of the Servant of Jehovah, one is here and there involuntarily reminded of the book of Job (as Isa 50:6, comp. with Job 16:10). In Jeremiah, the short lyric passage, Jer 20:14-18, in which he curses the day of his birth, falls back on Job 3: the form in which the despondency of the prophet breaks forth is determined by the book of Job, with which he was familiar. It requires no proof that the same prophet follows the book of Job in many passages of Lamentations, and especially the first part of Lam 3: he makes use of confessions, complaints, and imagery from the affliction of Job, to represent the affliction of Israel.
By the end of the time of the kings, Job was a person generally known in Israel, a recognised saint: for Ezekiel, in the year 593-2 b.c. (Eze 14:14.), complains that the measure of Israel's sin is so great, that if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the midst of Israel, though they might save themselves, they would not be able to hold back the arm of divine justice. The prophet mentions first Noah, a righteous man of the old world; then Daniel, a righteous man of contemporary Israel; and last of all Job, a righteous man beyond the line of the promise.
(Note: Hengstenberg (Beitrge, i. 72) thinks Job is mentioned last because less suited to Ezekiel's purpose than Noah and Daniel. Carpzov (Introd. in ll. poet. p. 35) is more ingenious, but too artificial, when he finds an anti-climax in the order: Noachus in clade primi mundi aecumenica, Daniel in clade patriae ac gentis suae, Iobus in clade familiae servatus est.)
He would not, however, have been able to mention him, if he had not, by means of the written narrative, been a person well known among the people to whom the prophetical discourse was addressed. The literature of the Old Testament has no further reference to the question of the time of the composition of the book of Job; for, on a comparison of Ecc 5:14 with Job 1:21, it scarcely remains a question to which the priority belongs.
9. The Chief Critical Questions
Whether, however, the whole book, as we now have it, comes from the time of Solomon, as the work of one poet, or of one chief poet,
(Note: Compare Bttcher, Aehrenlese, S. 68: "Respecting the mode of composition, we think there was one chief poet, with several contemporary associates, incited by a conversation on the then (i.e., according to Bttcher's view, in the reign of Manasseh) frequent afflictions of the innocent.")
is a question which can be better determined in the course of the exposition. More or less important doubts have been entertained whether some constituent parts of the whole belong to the original setting. By far the most important question of criticism respects the six chapters of Elihu's speeches (ch. 32-37), respecting which the suspicion entertained by the fathers, and first decidedly expressed by Stuhlmann (1804), that not only in form are they inferior to the artistic execution of the rest of the work, but also in contents are opposed to its original plan, is not yet set aside, and perhaps never will be altogether satisfactorily settled. Besides this, Kennicot also has suspected the speech of Job, Job 27:11-28:28, because there Job seems to yield to the friends' controverted doctrine of retribution. De Wette is more inclined here to suppose a want of connection on the part of the writer than an interpolation. We shall have to prove whether this speech of Job really encroaches upon the province of the unravelling, or renders the transition more complete.
The whole description of Behemoth and Leviathan, Job 40:15-41:26, is regarded by Ewald as a later addition: De Wette extends this judgment only to Job 41:4-26: Eichhorn was satisfied at first with changing the order of Jehovah's speeches; but in the last edition of his Einleitung ascribed the passage about the two monsters to a later poet. The exposition will have to bring the form of expression of the supposed interpolation, and its relation to the purpose of the second speech of Jehovah, in comparison with the first, under consideration. But we need not defer our judgment of the prologue and epilogue. All the doubts raised by Stuhlmann, Bernstein, Knobel (diss. de carminis Iobi argumento, fine ac dispositione, and Studien u. Kritiken, 1842, ii.), and others, respecting both these essential parts, are put an end to by the consideration, that the middle part of the book, without them, is a torso without head and feet.
10. The Satan of the Prologue
But the Satan in the prologue is a stumbling-block to many, which, if it does not lead them to doubt the authenticity of the prologue, still causes them to question whether the composition of the book belongs to the time of Solomon. For Satan is first definitely named, Zac 3:1-10, and Ch1 21:1; consequently in writings of the period after the exile. On the other hand, שׁטן, Num 22:22, appellatively describes one who comes forward hostilely, or as a hindrance; and Psa 109:6 is at least open to question whether the prince of evil spirits may not be meant, which, according to Zac 3:1, seems to be intended. However, in Micaiah's vision, Kg1 22:19-23, where one might expect השׂטן, הרוח is used. It is even maintained in the present day, that the idea of Satan was first obtained by the Israelitish race from contact with the East-Asiatic nations, which began with Israel in the time of Menahem, with Judah in the time of Ahaz; the view of Diestel, that it is the copy of the Egyptian Set-Typhon, stands at present alone. When we consider that the redemptive work of Jesus Christ is regarded by Him and His apostles from one side as the overthrow of Satan, it were a miserable thing for the divine truth of Christianity that this Satan should be nothing more than a copy of the Persian Ahriman, and consequently a mere phantom. However, supposing there were some such connection, we should then have only two periods at which the book of Job could possibly have been composed, - the time after the exile, and the time of Solomon; for these are the only periods at which not only collision, but also an interchange of ideas, between Israel and the profane nations could have taken place. It is also just as possible for the conception of Satan to have taken possession of the Israelitish mind under Solomon as during the exile, especially as it is very questionable whether the religion of Cyrus, as found in the Zend books, may not have been far more influenced by Israel, than, contrariwise, have influenced Israel.
But the conception of Satan is indeed much older in its existence than the time of Solomon: the serpent of paradise must surely have appeared to the inquiring mind of Israel as the disguise of an evil spirit; and nothing further can be maintained, than that this evil spirit, which in the Mosaic worship of the great day of atonement is called עזאזל (called later זבוב בעל, a name borrowed from the god of Ekron), appears first in the later literature of Israel under the name השׂטן. If now, moreover, the Chokma of the Salomonic period was specially conversant with the pre-Israelitish histories of Genesis, whence indeed even the chief thought of Canticles and the figure of חיים עץ, e.g., frequently occurring in Proverbs are drawn, it is difficulty to conceive why the evil spirit, that in its guise of a serpent aimed its malice against man, could not have been called השׂטן so early as the Salomonic period.
The wisdom of the author of the book of Job, we have said above, springs from paradise. Thence he obtains the highest and ultimate solution of his problem. It is now time to give expression to this. At present we need only do so in outline, since it is simply of use to place us from the commencement at the right standpoint for understanding the book of Job.
11. The Ultimate Solution of the Problem
The nature of sin is two-sided. It consists in the creature's setting up himself in opposition to God, who is the essence of the personality of the creature. It consists also, on the other side, in the stirring up of the depth of the nature of the creature, whose essential consistence has its harmony in God; and by this stirring up, falls into a wild confusion. In other words, evil has a personal side and a natural side. And just so, also, is God's wrath which it excites, and which operates against it. For God's wrath is, on the one hand, the personal displeasure or aversion into which His love is changed, since the will of the creature and the will of God are in opposition; on the other hand, an excited condition of the contrary forces of the divine nature, or, as Scripture expresses it, the kindling of the fire of the divine glory, in which sense it is often said of wrath, that God sends it forth, that He pours it forth, and that man has to drink of it (Job 21:20, comp. Job 6:4).
(Note: Vid., my Proleg. to Weber's book on the Wrath of God.)
In reference to the creature, we call evil according to its personal side ἔχηθρα, and according to its natural side ἀταξία, turba.
(Note: Vid., Biblische Psychologie, S. 128, 160.)
Both personal evil and natural evil have originated in the spirit world: first of all, in a spirit nearest to God, which as fallen is called השׂטן. It has sought its own selfish ends, and thereby deranged its nature, so that it has become in every respect the object of the divine wrath, and the material for the burning of the divine wrath: for the echthra and turba have the intention and the burning of the wrath of God in themselves as divine correlata; but Satan, after that he has become entirely possessed of these divine powers (Energien), is also their instrument. The spirit of light and love is altogether become the spirit of fire and wrath; the whole sphere of wrath is centred in him. After having given up his high position in the realm of light, he is become lord of the realm of wrath.
He has, from the commencement of his fall, the hell within himself, but is first cast into the lake of fire at the end of the present dispensation (Mat 25:41; Rev 20:10 : comp. Dan 7:11). In the meantime, he is being deprived of his power by the Son of man, who, in the midst of His own and His disciples' victories over the demons, beholds him fall as lightning from heaven (Luk 10:18), and by His death gives him his deathblow, - a final judgment, which, later on, becomes fully manifest in the continuous degradation of the vanquished (comp. Rev 12:9; Rev 20:3, Rev 20:10). Accordingly, when Satan, in the book of Job, still appears among the angles of God in heaven, and indeed as κατήγωρ, it is quite in accordance with the disclosures which the New Testament Scriptures give us respecting the invisible angelic side of the present dispensation.
Thus Job's suffering is a dispensation of love, but brought about by the wrath-spirit, and with every appearance of wrath. It is so with every trial and chastisement of the righteous. And it cannot be otherwise; for trial is designed to be for man a means of overcoming the evil that is external to him, and chastisement of overcoming the evil that is within him. There is a conflict between evil and good in the world, which can issue in victory to the good only so, that the good proves itself in distinction from the evil, withstands the assault of evil, and destroys the evil that exists bound up with itself: only so, that the good as far as it is still mixed with the evil is refined as by fire, and more and more freed from it.
This is the twofold point of view from which the suffering of Job is to be regarded. It was designed, first of all, that Job should prove himself in opposition to Satan, in order to overcome him; and since Job does not pass through the trial entirely without sinning, it has the effect at the same time of purifying and perfecting him. In both respects, the history of Job is a passage from the history of God's own conflict with the evil one, which is the substance of the history of redemption, and ends in the triumph of the divine love. And Gaupp
(Note: Praktische Theologie, ii. 1, S. 488f.)
well says: In the book of Job, Satan loses a cause which is intended only as prelude to the greatest of all causes, since judgment is gone forth over the world, and the prince of darkness has been cast forth. Accordingly the church has always recognised in the passion of Job a type of the passion of Jesus Christ. James (Jam 5:11) even compares the patience of Job and the issue of the Lord's sufferings. And according to this indication, it was the custom after the second century to read the book of Job in the churches during passion-week.
(Note: Vid., Origen's Opp. t. ii. p. 851: In conventu ecclesiae in diebus sanctis legitur passio Iob, in deibus jejunii, in diebus abstinentiae, in diebus, in quibus tanquam compatiuntur ii qui jejunant et abstinent admirabili illo Iob, in deibus, in quibus in jejunio et abstinentia sanctam Domini nostri Jesu Christi passionem sectamur. Known thus from the public reading in the churches, Job was called among the Syrians, Machbono, the Beloved, the Friend (Ewald, Jahrb. x. 207); and among the Arabs, Es-ssabûr, the patient one.)
The ultimate solution of the problem which this marvellous book sets forth, is then this: the suffering of the righteous, in its deepest cause, is the conflict of the seed of the woman with the seed of the serpent, which ends in the head of the serpent being trampled under foot; it is the type or copy of the suffering of Christ, the Holy God, who has himself borne our sins, and in the constancy of His reconciling love has withstood, even to the final overthrow, the assault of wrath and of the angel of wrath.
The real contents of the book of Job is the mystery of the Cross: the Cross on Golgotha is the solution of the enigma of every cross; and the book of Job is a prophecy of this ultimate solution.
12. The History of the Exposition
Before proceeding to the exposition, we will take a brief review of the history of the exposition of the book. The promise of the Spirit to lead into all truth is continually receiving its fulfilment in the history of the church, and especially in the interpretation of Scripture. But nowhere is the progress of the church in accordance with this promise so manifest as in the exposition of the word, and particularly of the Old Testament. In the patristic and middle ages, light was thrown only on detached portions of the Old Testament; they lacked altogether, or had but an inadequate knowledge of, the Hebrew language. They regarded the Old Testament not as the forerunner, but allegory, of the New, and paid less attention to it in proportion as the spiritual perception of the church lost its apostolic purity and freshness. However, so far as inward spiritual feeling and experience could compensate for the almost entire absence of outward conditions, this period has produced and handed down many valuable explanations.
But at the time of the Reformation, the light of the day which had already dawned first spread in all its brightness over the Old Testament. The knowledge of Hebrew, until then the private possession of a few, became the public property of the church: all erroneous interventions which had hitherto separated the church both from Christ and from the living source of the word were put aside; and starting from the central truth of justification by faith and its results, a free but still not unrestricted investigation commenced. Still there was wanting to this period all perception of historical development, and consequently the ability to comprehend the Old Testament as preparing the way for the New by its gradual historical development of the plan of redemption. The exposition of Scripture, moreover, soon fell again under the yoke of an enslaving tradition, of a scholastic systematizing, and of an unhistorical dogmatizing which mistook its peculiar aim; and this period of bondage, devoid of spirituality, was followed by a period of false freedom, that of rationalism, which cut asunder the mutual relation between the exposition of Scripture and the confession of the church, since it reduced the covenant contents of the church's confession to the most shallow notion of God and the most trivial moral rules, and regarded the Old Testament as historical indeed, but with carnal eyes, which were blind to the work of God that was preparing the way in the history of Israel for the New Testament redemption. The progress of exegesis seemed at that time to have been stayed; but the Head of the church, who reigns in the midst of His enemies, caused the exposition of His word to come forth again from the dead in a more glorious form. The bias towards the human side of Scripture has taught exegesis that Scripture is neither altogether a divine, nor altogether a human, but a divine-human book. The historical method of regarding it, and the advanced knowledge of language, have taught that the Old Testament presents a divine-human growth tending towards the God-man, a gradual development and declaration of the divine purpose of salvation, - a miraculous history moving inward towards that miracle of all miracles, Jesus Christ. Believing on Him, bearing the seal of His Spirit in himself, and partaking of the true liberty His Spirit imparts, the expositor of Scripture beholds in the Old Testament, with open face, now as never before, the glory of the Lord.
The truth of this sketch is confirmed by the history of the exposition of the book of Job. The Greek fathers, of whom twenty-two (including Ephrem) are quoted in the Catena,
(Note: It contains as basis the Greek text of the book of Job from the Cod. Alexandrinus, arranged in stichs.)
published by Patricius Junius, 1637, furnish little more than could be expected. If there by any Old Testament book whose comprehensive meaning is now first understood according to the external and internal conditions of its gradual advance to maturity, it is the book of Job. The Greek fathers were confined to the lxx, without being in a position to test that translation by the original text; and it is just the Greek translation of the book of Job which suffers most seriously from the flaws which in general affect the lxx. Whole verses are omitted, others are removed from their original places, and the omissions are filled up by apocryphal additions.
(Note: On this subject vid., Gust. Bickel's De indole ac ratione versionis Alexandrinae in interpretando l. Iobi, just published (1863).)
Origen was well aware of this (Ep. ad Afric. 3f.), but he was not sufficiently acquainted with Hebrew to give a reliable collation of the lxx with the original text in his Tetrapla and Hexapla; and his additions (denoted by daggers), and the passages restored by him from other translators, especially Theodotion (by asterisks), deprive the Septuagint text of its original form, without, however, giving a correct impression of the original text. And since in the book of Job the meaning of the whole is dependent upon the meaning of the most isolated passage, the full meaning of the book was a perfect impossibility to the Greek fathers. They occupied themselves much with this mysterious book, but typical and allegorical could not make up what was wanting to the fathers, of grammatical and historical interpretation. The Italic, the next version to the lxx, was still more defective than this: Jerome calls the book of Job in this translation, Decurtatus et laceratus corrosusque. He revised it by the text of the Hexapla, and according to his own plan had to supply not less than about 700-800 versus (στίχοι). His own independent translation is far before its age; but he himself acknowledges its defectiveness, inasmuch as he relates, in his praefatio in l. Iob, how it was accomplished. He engaged, non parvis numis, a Jewish teacher from Lydda, where there was at that time an university, but confesses that, after he had gone through the book of Job with him, he was no wiser than before: Cujus doctrina an aliquid profecerim nescio; hoc unum scio, non potuisse me interpretari nisi quod antea intellexeram. On this account he calls it, as though he would complain of the book itself, obliquus, figuratus, lubricus, and says it is like an eel - the more tightly one holds it, the faster it glides away. There were then three Latin versions of the book of Job, - the Italic, the Italic improved by Jerome, and the independent translation of Jerome, whose deviations, as Augustine complains, produced no little embarrassment. The Syrians were better off with their Peschito, which was made direct from the original text;
(Note: Perhaps with the use of the Jewish Targum, though not the one extant, for Talmudic literature recognises the existence of a Targum of the book of Job before the destruction of the temple, b. Sabbath, 115a, etc. Besides, the lxx was considered of such authority in the East, that the monophysite Bishop Paulus of Tela, 617, formed a new Syriac translation from the lxx and the text of the Hexapla Published by Middeldorff, 1834-35; cf. his Curae hexaplares in Iobum, 1817).)
but the Scholia of Ephrem (pp. 1-19, t. ii. of the three Syriac tomi of his works) contain less that is useful than might be expected.
(Note: Froriep. Ephraemiana in l. Iobi, 1769, iv., says much about these Scholia to little purpose.)
The succeeding age produced nothing better.
Among the expositors of the book of Job we find some illustrious names: Gregory the Great, Beda Venerabilis (whose Commentary has been erroneously circulated as the still undiscovered Commentary of Jerome), Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus,
(Note: His Postillae super Iob are still unprinted.)
and others; but no progress was made in the interpretation of the book, as the means were wanting. The principal work of the middle ages was Gregory the Great's Expositio in beatum Iob seu Moralium, ll. xxxv., a gigantic work, which leaves scarcely a dogmatic-ethical theme untouched, though in its own proper sphere it furnishes nothing of importance, for Gregory explained so, ut super historiae fundamentum moralitatis construeret aedificium et anagoges imposuerit culmen praestantissimum
(Note: Notker quoted by Dmmler, Formelbuch des Bischof's Salomo von Constanz, 1857, S. 67f.)
but the linguistic-historical foundation is insufficient, and the exposition, which gives evidence of significant character and talent, accordingly goes off almost constantly into digressions opposed to its object.
It was only towards the end of the middle ages, as the knowledge of the Hebrew language began, through Jewish converts, to come into the church, that a new era commenced. For what advance the Jewish exposition of the book of Job had hitherto made, beyond that of the church, it owed to the knowledge of Hebrew; although, in the absence of any conception of the task of the expositor, and especially the expositor of Scripture, it knew not how fittingly to turn it to account. Saadia's (born 890) Arabic translation of the book of Job, with explanations,
(Note: Vid., Ewald-Duke's Beitrge zur Gesch. der ltesten Auslegung und Spracherklrung des A. T. 2 Bdd. 1844.)
does not accomplish much more than that of Jerome, if we may in general say that it surpasses it. Salomo Isaaki of Troyes (Raschi, erroneously called Jarchi), whose Commentary on the Book of Job (rendered incomplete by his death, 1105) was completed by his grandson, Samuel b. Mer (Raschbam, died about 1160),
(Note: Respecting this accounts are uncertain: vid., Geiger, Die franzsische Exegetenschule (1855), S. 22; and comp. de Rossi, Catalogus Cod. 181. Zunz, Zur Geschichte und Literatur.)
contains a few attempts at grammatical historical exposition, but is in other respects entirely dependent on Midrash Haggada (which may be compared with the church system of allegorical interpretation), whose barren material is treasured up in the catena-like compilations, one of which to the collected books of the Old Testament bears the name of Simeon ha-Darschan (שמעוני ילקוט); the other to the three poetical books, the name of Machir b. Todros (מכירי ילקוט). Abenezra the Spaniard, who wrote his Commentary on the Book of Job in Rome, 1175, delights in new bold ideas, and to enshroud himself in a mystifying nimbus. David Kimchi, who keeps best to the grammatical-historical course, has not expounded the book of Job; and a commentary on this book by his brother, Mose Kimchi, is not yet brought to light. The most important Jewish works on the book of Job are without doubt the Commentaries of Mose b. Nachman or Nahmanides (Ramban), born at Gerona 1194, and Levi b. Gerson, or Gersonides (Ralbag), born at Bagnols 1288. Both were talented thinkers; the former more of the Platonic, the latter of the Aristotelic type. Their Commentaries (taken up in the collective Rabbinical Commentaries), especially that of the latter, were widely circulated in the middle ages. They have both a philosophical bias.
(Note: Other older commentaries bearing on the history of exposition, as Menahem b. Chelbo, Joseph Kara, Parchon, and others, are not yet known; also that of the Italian poet Immanuel, a friend of Dante, is still unprinted. The rabbinical commentaries contain only, in addition, the Commentary of Abraham Farisol of Avignon (about 1460).)
What is to be found in them that is serviceable on any point, may be pretty well determined from the compilation of Lyra. Nikolaus de Lyra, author of Postillae perpetuae in universa Biblia (completed 1330), possessed, for that age, an excellent knowledge of the original text, the necessity of which he acknowledged, and regarded the sensus literalis as basis of all other sensus. But, on the one hand, he was not independent of his Jewish predecessors; on the other, he was fettered by the servile unevangelical spirit of his age.
With the Commentary of Albert Schultens, a Dutchman (2 vols. 1737), a new epoch in the exposition begins. He was the first to bring the Semitic languages, and chiefly the Arabic, to bear on the translation of the book. And rightly so,
(Note: Though not in due proportion, especially in Animadversiones philologicae in Iobum (Op. minora, 1769), where he seeks to explain the errors of translation in the lxx from the Arabic.)
for the Arabic has retained more that is ancient than any other Semitic dialect; and Jerome, in his preface to Daniel, had before correctly remarked, Iob cum arabica lingua plurimam habet societatem. Reiske (Conjecturae in Iobum, 1779) and Schnurrer (Animadv. ad quaedam loca Iobi, 1781) followed later in the footsteps of Schultens; but in proportion as the Israelitish element was considered in its connection with the Oriental, the divine distinctiveness of the former was forgotten. Nevertheless, the book of Job had far less to suffer than the other biblical books from rationalism, with its frivolous moral judgments and distorted interpretations of Scripture: it reduced the idea of the book to tameness, and Satan, here with more apparent reason than elsewhere, was regarded as a mythical invention; but there were, however, no miracles and prophecies to be got rid of.
And as, for the first time since the apostolic period, attention was now given to the book as a poetical masterpiece, substantial advantage arose to the exposition itself from the translations and explanations of an Eckermann, Moldenhauer, Stuhlmann, and others. What a High-German rhymster of the fourteenth century, made known by Hennig, and the Florentine national poet Juliano Dati at the beginning of the sixteenth century, accomplished in their poetical reproductions of the book of Job, is here incomparably surpassed. What might not the fathers have accomplished if they had only had at their disposal such a translation of the book of Job as e.g., that of Bckel, or of the pious Miss Elizabeth Smith, skilled in the Oriental languages (died, in her twenty-eighth year, 1805), or of a studious Swiss layman (Notes to the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, together with a Translation of the Book of Job, Basel 1841)?
The way to the true and full perception of the divine in Scripture is through the human: hence rationalism - especially after Herder, whose human mode of perception improved and deepened - prepared the way for a new era in the church's exposition of the book of Job. The Commentaries of Samuel Lee (1837), Vaihinger (1842), Welte (1849), Hahn (1850), and Schlottmann (1851),
(Note: Vid., the review of the last two by Oehler in Reuter's Repertorium, Feb. 1852; and Kosegarten's Aufsatz ber das B. Hiob in der Kieler Allgem. Monatsschrift, 1853, S. 761-774.)
are the first-fruits of this new period, rendered possible by the earlier Commentaries of Umbreit (1824-32), Ewald (1836-51), and Hirzel (1839, second edition, edited by Olshausen, 1852), of whom the first
(Note: Vid., Ullmann-Riehm's Bltter der Erinnerung an F. W. C. Umbreit (1862), S. 54-58.)
is characterized by enthusiasm for the poetical grandeur of the book, the second by vivid perception of the tragical, and the third by sound tact and good arrangement, - three qualifications which a young Scotch investigator, A. B. Davidson, strives, not unsuccessfully, to unite in his Commentary (vol. i. 1862).
(Note: The author, already known by a Treatise on the Hebrew Accentuology, is not to be mistaken for Sam. Davidson. In addition, we would call attention to the Commentary of Carey (1858), in which the archaeology and geography of the book of Job is illustrated by eighty woodcuts and a map.)
Besides these substantially progressive works, there is the Commentary of Heiligstedt (1847), which is only a recapitulatory clavis after the style of Rosenmller, but more condensed; and for what modern Jewish commentaries, as those of Blumenfeld, Arnheim (1836), and Lwenthal (1846), contain beyond the standpoint of the earlier פרושׁים and באורים, they are almost entirely indebted to their Christian predecessors. Also in the more condensed form of translations, with accompanying explanations, the understanding of the book of Job has been in many ways advanced. We may mention here the translations of Kster (1831), who first directed attention to the strophe-structure of Hebrew poetry, but who also, since he regarded the Masoretic verse as the constructive element of the strophe, has introduced an error which has not been removed even to the present day; Stickel (1842), who has, not untastefully, sought to imitate the form of this masterpiece, although his division of the Masoretic verse into strophe lines, according to the accents, like Hirzel's and Meier's in Canticles, is the opposite extreme to the mistake of Kster; Ebrard (1858), who translates in iambic pentameters, as Hosse had previously done;
(Note: Vid., Schneider, Die neuesten Studien ber das B. Hiob, Deutsche Zeitschr. fr christl. Wissensch., 1859, No. 27.)
and Renan, who solely determines his arrangement of the stichs by the Masoretic division of verses, and moreover haughtily displays his scornful opposition to Christianity in the prefatory Etude.
(Note: Against which Abb Crelier has come forward: Le livre de Job venge des interprtations fausses et impies de M. Ernest Renan, 1860.)
Besides, apart from the general commentaries (Bibelwerke), among which that of Von Gerlach (Bd. iii. des A. T. 1849) may be mentioned as the most noted, and such popular practical expositions as Diedrich's (1858), many - some in the interest of poetry generally (as Spiess, 1852), others in the interest of biblical theology (as Haupt, 1847; Hosse, 1849; Hayd, 1859; Birkholz, 1859; and in Sweden, Lindgren, Upsala 1831) - have sought to render the reading of the book of Job easier and more profitable by means of a translation, with a short introduction and occasional explanations.
Even with all these works before us, though they are in part excellent and truly serviceable, it cannot be affirmed that the task of the exposition has been exhaustively performed, so that absolutely no plus ultra remains. To adjust the ideal meaning of the book according to its language, its bearing on the history of redemption, and its spiritual character, - and throughout to indicate the relation of the single parts to the idea which animates the whole is, and remains, a great task worthy of ever-new exertion. We will try to perform it, without presuming that we are able to answer all the claims on the expositor. The right expositor of the book of Job must before everything else bring to it a believing apprehension of the work of Christ, in order that he may be able to comprehend this book from its connection with the historical development of the plan of redemption, whose unity is the work of Christ. Further, he must be able to give himself up freely and cheerfully to the peculiar vein of this (together with Ecclesiastes) most bold of all Old Testament books, in order that he may gather from the very heart its deeply hidden idea. Not less must he possess historical perception, in order that he may be able to appreciate the relativeness with which, since the plan of salvation is actually and confessedly progressive, the development of the idea of the book is burdened, notwithstanding its absolute truth in itself. Then he must not only have a clear perception of the divinely true, but also of the beautiful in human art, in order to be able to appreciate the wonderful blending of the divine and human in the form as in the contents. Finally, he must stand on the pinnacle of linguistic and antiquarian knowledge, in order to be able to follow the lofty flight of its language, and become families with the incomparably rich variety of its matter. This idea of an expositor of the book of Job we will keep in view, and seek, as near as possible, to attain within the limit assigned to this condensed exegetical handbook.
Appendix to the Commentary on Job
The Monastery of Job in Hauran, and the Tradition of Job
The oral tradition of a people is in general only of very subordinate value from a scientific point of view when it has reference to an extremely remote past; but that of the Arabs especially, which is always combined with traditions and legends, renders the simplest facts perplexing, and wantonly clothes the images of prominent persons in the most wonderful garbs, and, in general, so rapidly disfigures every object, that after a few generations it is no longer recognisable. So far as it has reference to the personality of Job, whose historical existence is called in question or denied by some expositors, it may be considered as altogether worthless, but one can recognise when it speaks of Job's native country. By the ארץ עוּץ the writer of the book of Job meant a definite district, which was well known to the people for whom he wrote; but the name has perished, like many others, and all the efforts of archaeologist to assign to the land its place in the map of Palestine have been fruitless. Under these circumstances the matter is still open to discussion, and the tradition respecting Job has some things to authorize it. True, it cannot of itself make up for the want of an historical testimony, but it attains a certain value if it is old, i.e., if it can be traced back about to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, when reliable information was still obtainable respecting that district, although its name was no longer in use.
In all the larger works of travel on Palestine and Syria, we find it recorded that Haurn is there called Job's fatherland. In Hauran itself the traveller hears this constantly; if any one speaks of the fruitfulness of the whole district, or of the fields around a village, he is always answered: Is it not the land of Job (bildd jb)? Does it not belong to the villages of Job (di' jb)? Thus to Seetzen
(Note: Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, etc., i. 66.)
Bosr was pointed out as a city of Job; and to Eli Smith
(Note: Ed. Robinson, Palstina, iii. 911 Germ. edit..)
even the country lying to the east of the mountains was called the land of Job. In Kanawat, a very spacious building, belonging to the Roman or Byzantine period, situated in the upper town, was pointed out to me as the summer palace of Job (the inscription 8799 in Corp. Inscr. Graec. is taken from it). The shepherds of D'il, with whom I passed a night on the Wdi el-Lebwe, called the place of their encampment Job's pasture-ground. In like manner, the English traveller Buckingham, when he wandered through the Nukra, was shown in the distance the village of Gherbi (i.e., Chirbet el-ghazale, which from its size is called el-chirbe κατ ̓ εξοχήν) as the birthplace and residence of Job,
(Note: C. Ritter, Geogr. von Syr. u. Pal. ii. 842 = Erdkunde, xv. Pt. 2, p. 842].)
and it seems altogether as though Hauran and the Land of Job are synonymous. But if one inquires particularly for that part of the country in which Job himself dwelt, he is directed to the central point of Hauran, the plain of Hauran (sahl Haurn),
(Note: Whether the word מישׁר, Deu 3:10, only signifies the plain of Hauran or its southern continuation, the eastern Belk, may be doubtful, because in that passage both the Amorite kingdoms are spoken of. But since it is the "cities" of the plain, of which the eastern Balk can have had but few or none, that are spoken of, מישׁר will surely exclude the latter.)
and still more exactly to the district between the towns of Naw and Edre't, which is accounted the most fertile portion of the country, covered with the ruins of villages, monasteries, and single courts, and is even now comparatively well cultivated. Among the nomads as well as among the native agricultural population, this district is called from its formation Nukra or Nukrat esh-Shm,
(Note: On this name, which belongs to the modern geography of the country, comp. my Reisebericht ber Hauran u. d. Trachonen, S. 87.)
a name by which this highly-favoured plain is known and celebrated by the poets in the whole Syrian desert, as far as 'Irk and Higz.
But even the national writers are acquainted with and frequently make mention of the Hauranitish tradition of Job; yet they do not call Job's home Nukra, - for this word, which belongs only to the idiom of the steppe, is unknown to the literature of the language, - but Bethenje (Betanaea). It is so called in a detailed statement of the legends of Job:
(Note: Catalogue of Arab. MSS collected in Damascus by J. G. Wetzstein. Berlin 1863, No. 46, p. 56.)
After the death of his father, Job journeyed into Egypt
(Note: The connection with Egypt, in which these legends place Job, is worthy of observation. - Del.)
to marry Rahme (רחמה) the daughter of Ephraim, who had inherited from her grandfather Joseph the robe of beauty; and after he had brought her to his own country, he received from God a mission as prophet to his countrymen, viz., to the inhabitants of Haurn and Batanaea (Arab. b‛ṯh 'llh t‛ rsûlâ 'lâ qûmh whm 'hl ḥûrân w-'l-btnı̂t). The historian of Jerusalem, Mugr ed-dn el-Hambeli, in the chapter on the legend of the prophets, says: "Job came from el-'s, and the Damascene province of Batanaea was his property." In like manner, in the Geography of Jkt el-Hamawi,
(Note: Orient. MSS in the Royal Library in Berlin, Sect. Sprenger, No. 7-10.)
under the art. Bethenje, it is said: "and in this land lived Job (wakn jb minh)."
Modern exegetes, as is known, do not take the plain of Hauran, but the mountain range of Hauran with its eastern slope, as the Provincia Batanaea. I have sought elsewhere
(Note: Reisebericht, S. 83-87.)
to show the error of this view, and may the more readily confine myself to merely referring to it, as one will be convinced of the correctness of my position in the course of this article. One thing, however, is to be observed here, that the supposition that Basan is so called as being the land of basalt rocks, is an untenable support of this error. The word basalt may be derived from βασάντις, or a secondary formation, βασάλτις, because Basan is exclusively volcanic;
(Note: Vid., p. 540, comp. p. 542, note 1, of the foregoing Commentary.)
but we have no more right to reverse the question, than to say that Damascus may have received its name from the manufacture of damask.
(Note: In the fair at Muzrb we again saw the sheikh of the Wsje-Beduins, whose guest we had been a week before at the Springs of Joseph in western Gln, where he had pitched his tent on a wild spot of ground that had been traversed by lava-streams. In answer to our question whether he still sojourned in that district, he said: "No, indeed! Nâzilin el-jôm bi-ard bethêne shêle (we are not encamped in a district that is completely bethêne)." I had not heard this expression before, and inquired what it meant. The sheikh replied, bethêne (Arab. buṯaynat) is a stoneless plain covered with rich pasture. I often sought information respecting this word, since I was interested about it on account of the Hebrew word בּשׁן, and always obtained the same definition. It is a diminutive form, without having exactly a diminutive signification, for in the language of the nomads it is an acknowledged fact that such a form takes the place of the usual form. The usual form is either bathne or bathane. The Kms gives the former signification, "a level country." That the explanation of the Kamus is too restricted, and that of the Sheikh of Wjje the more complete, may be shown from the Kamus itself. In one place it says, The word moreover signifies (a) the thick of the milk (cream); (b) a tender maiden; (c) repeated acts of benevolence. These three significations given are, however, manifestly only figurative applications, not indeed of the signification which the Kamus places Primo loco, but of that which the Sheikh of the Wjje gave; for the likening of a "voluptuously formed maiden," or of repeated acts of benevolence, to a luxurious meadow, is just as natural to a nomad, as it was to the shepherd Amos (Amo 4:1) to liken the licentious women of Samaria to well-nourished cows of the fat pastures of Basan. Then the Kamus brings forward a collective form buthun (Arab. butun, perhaps from the sing. bathan = בּשׁן, like Arab. usud from asad) in the signification pastures (Arab. ryâd); pastures, however, that are damp and low, with a rich vegetation. That the word is ancient, may be seen from the following expression of Chlid ibn el-Weld, the victor on the Jarmk: "'Omar made me governor of Damascus; and when I had made it into the buthêne, i.e., a stoneless fertile plain (easy to govern and profitable), he removed me." Jkt also mentions this expression under Bethenje. Chlid also uses the diminutive as the nomads do (he was of the race of Machzm); probably the whole word belongs only to the steppe, for all the women who were called buthêne, e.g., the beloved of the poet Geml, and others mentioned in the "Dwn of Love" (Dı̂wân es-sabâbe), were Beduin women.
After what has been said, we cannot assign to the Hebr. בּשׁן any other signification than that of a fertile stoneless plain or low country. This appellation, which was given, properly and originally, only to the heart of the country, and its most valuable portion, viz., the Nukra, would then a potiori be transferred to the whole, and when the kingdom of Basan was again destroyed, naturally remained to that province, of which it was the proper designation.)
The home of Job is more definitely described in the following passages. Muhammed el-Makdeshi
(Note: Orient. MSS in the Royal Library at Berlin; Sect. Sprenger, No. 5.)
says, p. 81 of his geography: "And in Haurn and Batanaea lie the villages of Job and his home (di' jb wa-diruh). The chief place (of the district) is Naw, rich in wheat and other cereals." The town of Naw is still more definitely connected with Job by Jkt el-Hamawi under the article Naw: "Between Nawa and Damascus in two days' journey; it belongs to the district of Hauran,
(Note: If writers mention Haurn alone, they mean thereby, according to the usage of the language of the Damascenes, and certainly also of the prophet Ezekiel (Eze 47:16, Eze 47:18), the plain of Haurn as far as the borders of the Belk, including the mountains of Haurn, the Leg, and Gdr; it is only in the district itself, where special divisions are rendered necessary, that the three last mentioned parts are excluded. If writers mention Haurn and Bethenje together, the context must determine whether the former signifies the whole, and the latter the part, as in the above quotation from Makdeshi, or whether both are to be taken as coordinate, as in a passage of Istachri (edited by Mller, Botha 1839): "And Haurn and Bethenje are two provinces of Damascus with luxuriant corn-fields." Here the words are related to one another as Auranitis (with the chief town Bostra) to Batanaea (with the chief town Adratum, i.e., Edre't), or as the Haurn of the Beduins and the Nukra of the same. The boundary between both is the Wdi 'Ir, which falls into the Zd south of Edre't.)
and is, according to some, the chief town of the same. Naw was the residence (menzil) of Job;" and Ibn er-Rbi says, p. 62 of his essay on the excellences of Damascus:
(Note: Catalogue of Arab. MSS collected in Damascus, No. 26.)
"To the prophets buried in the region of Damascus belongs also Job, and his tomb is near Naw, in the district of Hauran." Such passages prove at the same time the identity of the Nukra with Batanaea; for if the latter is said to be recognisable from the fact of Job's home being found in it, and we find this sign in connection with the Nukra in which Naw with its surrounding country is situated, both names must denote one and the same district.
That, according to the last citation, Job's tomb is also shown in the Nukra, has been already observed in my Reisebericht, S. 121. Jkt, under Dr jb, thus expresses himself: "The Monastery of Job is a locality in Hauran, a Damascene province, in which Job dwelt and was tried of God. There also is the fountain which he made to flow with his foot, and the block of rock on which he leant. There also is his tomb." What Kazwni ways in his Wonders of Creation (‛agâib el-machlûkât), under Dr jb, accords with it: "The Monastery of Job lies in one of the Damascene provinces, and was the place of Job's residence, in which God tried him. There also is the fountain which sprang forth at the stamping of his foot, when at the end of his trial God commanded him, and said: Strike with thy foot - (thus a fountain will spring forth, and) this shall be to thee a cool bath and a draught (Korn, xxxviii. 41ff.). There is also the rock on which he sat, and his tomb." Recurring to the passage of the Koran cited, we shall see that the stone of Job, the fountain and the tomb, are not situated in the Monastery itself, but at some little distance from it.
I came with my cortge out of Gln, to see the remarkable pilgrim fair of Muzrb, just when the Mekka caravan was expected; and since the Monastery of Job, never visited by any one now-a-days, could not lie far out of the way, I determined to seek it out, because I deluded myself with the hope of finding an inscription of its founder, 'Amr I, and in fact one with a date, which would have been of the greatest importance in reference to the history of the Ghassanides, - a hope which has remained unfulfilled. In the evening of the 8th of May we came to Tesl. Here the Monastery was for the first time pointed out to us. It was lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, - a stately ruin, which lay in the distance a good hour towards the east. The following morning we left Tesl. Our way led through luxuriant corn-fields and fields lying fallow, but decked with a rich variety of flowers in gayest blossom, to an isolated volcanic mound, Tell el-Gum',
(Note: "Hill of the heaps of riders." The hill is said to have been named after a great engagement which took place there in ancient days. Among the 'Aneze the gem‛, נמע, plur. gumû‛ is a division of 400-600 horsemen.) from which we intended to reconnoitre the surrounding country.
from this point, as far as the eye could reach, it swept over fields of wheat belonging to the communities of Sahm, Tell Shihb, Tesl, Naw, and Sa'dje, which covered a region which tradition calls the home of Job. True, the volcanic chaos (el-wa'r) extended in the west to the distance of some three miles up the hill on which we stood, and on the north the plain was bounded partly by Tell el-Gbia and the "tooth of Naw" (sinn Naw), a low ridge with a few craters; but towards the E. and S. and S.W. the plain was almost unbounded, for isolated eminences, as Tell 'Ashtar, T. Ash'ar, T. Shihb, T. el-Chammn, and others, rose above the level of the plain only like mole-hills; and the deep gorges of the Meddn, Jarmk, Ht, and Muchbi, were sudden and almost perpendicular ravines, either not seen at all, or appeared as dark marks. The plain slopes gently and scarcely perceptibly towards Kufr el-m, Kufr es-smir, Zzn, and Bendek; and the Naher el'Owrid, a rover abounding in water in its level bed, resembles a glistening thread of silver. If this district had trees, as it once had, - for among the ruins one often discovers traces of vineyards and garden walls, which it can have no longer, since the insecurity and injustice of the country do not admit of men remaining long in one and the same village, therefore not to take hold upon the soil and establish one's self, and become at home anywhere, - it would be an earthly paradise, by reason of its healthy climate and the fertility of its soil. That even the Romans were acquainted with the glorious climate of Hauran, is proved by the name Palaestina salutaris, which they gave to the district.
(Note: This appellation is erroneously given to the province of Petra (Palaestina tertia) in Burckhardt's Travels (Gesenius' edition, S. 676). Bcking also, Not. dign. or. pp. 139, 345, and 373, is guilty of this oversight. Comp. thereon, Mommsen, Verzeichniss der rm. Provinzen aufgesetzt um, 297, in the Transactions of the Berlin Acad. der Wissensch. 1862, S. 501f.)
The inhabitants of Damascus say there is no disease whatever in Haurn; and as often as the plague or any other infectious disease shows itself in their city, thousands flee to Hauran, and to the lava-plateau of the Leg. This healthy condition may arise from the volcanic formation of the country, and from the sea-breeze, which it always has in connection with its position, which is open towards the west. Even during the hottest days, when e.g., in the Ghta a perfect calm prevails, so that no breeze is felt, this cool and moist sea-breeze blows refreshingly and regularly over the plain; and hence the Hauranitish poet never speaks of his native country without calling it the "cool-blowing Nukra" (en-nukra el-‛adı̂je). But as to the fertility of the district, there is indeed much good arable land in the country east of the Jordan, as in Irbid and Suwt, of the same kind as between Salt and 'Ammn, but nowhere is the farming, in connection with a small amount of labour (since no manure is used), more productive than in Hauran, or more profitable; for the transparent "Batanaean wheat" (hinta bethenı̂je) is always at least 25 per cent. higher in price than other kinds. Hence the agriculture of that region also, in times of peace and security (during the first six centuries after Christ), produced that fondness for building, some of the magnificent memorials of which are our astonishment in the present day; and, in fact, not unfrequently the inscriptions testify that the buildings themselves owe their origin to the produce of the field. Thus, in the locality of Nhite in the Nukra, I found the following fragment of an inscription:...Μασαλέμου Ράββου κτίσμα ἐξ ἰδίων κόπων γεωργικῶν ἐν ἔτι στ, Masalemos son of Rabbos set up (this memorial) out of the produce of his farming in the year 280. Of a like kind is the following remains of two distichs in Marduk: . . . δρός τε σαόφρων . . . μεγαρόν . . . ις ἀνάπαυμα μέγιστον . . . γεωπονίης. In Shakk the longer inscription of a mausoleum in a state of good preservation begins:
Βάσσος ἑῆς πάτρης μεγακύδεος ἀγλαὸν ὄμμα
Ἐκ σφετέρου καμάτοιο γεωπονίης τέ μ ̓ ἔδειμεν.
Bassos, beaming eye of the honourable city of his birth,
Has built me out of the produce of his own tillage.
Similar testimonies are to be found in the inscriptions of Burckhardt.
After a long sojourn on the hill, which was occasioned by the investigation of some interesting plants in the crater of the mound, we set out for Sa'dje, which is built on the slope of a hill. After a good hour's journey we arrived at the Makm jb, "the favoured tomb of Job," situated at the southern base of the hill, and rendered conspicuous by two white domes, and there we dismounted. The six attendants and alumni of the Makm, or, as the Arabs thoughtfully call them, "the servants of our master Job" (chdimn sjidna jb), received us, with some other pilgrims, at the door of the courtyard, and led us to the basin of the fountain of Job, by the side of which they spread out their mantles for us to rest upon under the shade of walnut tree and a willow. While the rest were negated in the duties of hospitality, the superior of the Makm, the Sheikh Sa'd el-Darfri (from Darfr) did not leave us, and made himself in every way obliging. Like him, all the rest of the inhabitants of the place were black, and all unmarried; their celibacy, however, I imagine, was only caused by the want of opportunity of marrying, and the limited accommodation of the place. Sheikh Sa'd believed himself to be fifty years of age; he left his home twenty years before to go on pilgrimage to Mekka, where he "studied" four years; the same length of time he sojourned in Medna, and had held his present office ten years. Besides his mother tongue, he spoke Arabic and a little Turkish, having been in Constantinople a few years before. His judgment of the inhabitants of that city is rather harsh: he charges them with immorality, drunkenness, and avarice. In one year, said he, I could hardly save enough to travel by the steamer to Chdscha Bk (Odessa). How different was my experience to the inhabitants of this city! I was there three months, during which time I had nothing to provide for, and left with ninety Mnt (imperials), which just sufficed to set up these dilapidated relics again. A Russian ship brought me to Smyrna, whence I travelled by the Nemswi (Austrian Lloyd steamer) to Syria.
According to the account given by the inhabitants of Sa'dje, the Makm has been from ancient times a negro hospice. These Africans, commonly called 'Abd in Damascus, and in the country Tekrine, come chiefly from Tekrr in Sdn; they first visit Mekka and Medna, then Damascus, and finally the Makm of Job. Here they sojourn from twenty to thirty days, during which time they wash themselves daily in Job's fountain, and pray upon Job's stone; and the rest of the day they either read or assist the dwellers in the Makm in their tillage of the soil. When they are about to leave, they received a testimonial, and often return home on foot across the Isthmus of Suez, often by water, chiefly from Jf, by the Austrian Lloyd ship to Egypt, and thence to their native country. These pilgrims, so far as the requirements of their own country are concerned, are literati; and it appears as though by this journey they obtained their highest degree. I have frequently met them in my travels. They are known by their clean white turban, and the white broad-sleeved shirt, which reaches to the ankles, their only garment. They carry a small bundle over the shoulder upon a strong staff, which may serve as a weapon of defence in case of need. In this bundle they carry a few books and other effects, and above this their cloak. They are modest, taciturn men, who go nimbly onward on their way, and to whom one always gladly gives a supper and a night's lodging.
We visited the holy places in the company of the Sheikh Sa'd. The Makm, and the reservoir, which lies fifty paces to the front of it, are surrounded by a wall. This reservoir is filled by a strong, rapid, and cold stream of water, which comes from the fountain of Job, about 400 paces distant. The fountain itself springs up by the basalt hill on which the village and the Job's stone are situated; and it is covered in as far as the reservoir (called birke), in order to keep the water fresh, and to guard against pollution. Between the fountain and the Makm stand a half-dozen acacias and a pomegranate, which were just then in full bloom. The Makm itself, on which the wretched habitations for the attendants and pilgrims adjoin, is a one-storey stone building, of old material and moderate circumference. The first thing shown us was the stone trough, called gurn, in which Job bathed at the end of his trial. The small space in which this relic stands, and over which, so far as I remember, one of the two domes is raised, is called wadjet sjidn jb, "the lavatory of our lord Job." Adjoining this is the part with the tomb, the oblong mound of which is covered with an old torn green cloth. The tomb of Sa'd was more carefully tended. Our Damascene travelling companions were divided in their opinions as to the person whose tomb was near that of Job, as in Syria it is hardly possible to find and distinguish the makms of the many men of God (rigl Allh) or favoured ones of God (auli) who bear the same names; but a small white flag standing upon the grave informed us, for it bore the inscription: "This is the military emblem (rje) of our lord Sa'd ab Merzka."
Perhaps the preservation of the Makm of Job is due to the tomb of Sa'd, as its endowments have long since disappeared, while the tomb of Sa'd still has its revenues. From 'Agln it receives tribute of oil and olives yearly. And several large vegetable gardens, which lie round about the Makm, and are cultivated by its attendants, must also contribute something considerable towards its maintenance. In these gardens they grow dura (maize), tobacco, turnips, onions, and other things, for their own use and for sale. The plants, which can be freely watered from the fountain of Job, are highly esteemed. The government levies no taxes on the Makm, and the Arabs no tribute; and since, according to the popular belief, that Beduin horse that is watered from the birke dies, the Beduins do not even claim the rights of hospitality, - a fortunate circumstance, the removal of which would speedily cause the ruin of the hospice. From nightly thieves, who not unfrequently break through the walls of the stables in the villages of the plain, and carry off the smaller cattle, both the Makm and the village are secure; for if the night thieves come, they see, as every one in Hauran testifies, a surging sea around the place, which prevents their approach.
From the Makm we ascended the hill of the village, on the highest part of which is the stone of Job (Sachrat jb). It is inside a small Mussulman hall of prayer, which in its present form is of more modern origin, but is undoubtedly built from the material of a Christian chapel, which stood here in the pre-Muhammedan age. It is an unartistic structure, in the usual Hauranitish style, with six or eight arches and a small dome, which is just above the stone of Job. My Mussulman attendants, and a Hauranite Christina from the village of Shemiskn, who had joined us as we were visiting the Sachra, trod the sacred spot with bare feet, and kissed the rock, the basaltic formation of which is unmistakeable. Against this rock, our guide told us, Job leaned "when he was afflicted by his Lord" (hı̂n ibtelâ min rabbuh).
(Note: As is generally known, the black stone in Mekka and the Sachra in Jerusalem are more celebrated than the stone of Job; but less revered are the Mebrak en-nka in Bosr, the thievish stone of Moses in the great mosque at Damascus, the doset en-neb on the mountain of el-Hgne, and others.)
While these people were offering up their 'Asr (afternoon) prayer in this place, Sa'd brought me a handful of small long round stones and slag, which the tradition declares to be the worms that fell to the ground out of Job's sores, petrified. "Take them with thee," said he, "as a memento of this place; let them teach thee not to forget God in prosperity, and in misfortune not to contend with Him." The frequent use of these words in the mouth of the man might have weakened them to a set phrase: they were, however, appropriate to the occasion, and were not without their effect. After my attendants had provided themselves with Job's worms, we left the Sachra. These worms form a substantial part of the Hauranitish tradition of Job, and they are known and revered generally in the country. Our Christian attendant from Shemiskn bound them carefully in the broad sleeve of his shirt, and recited to us a few verses from a kasde, in which they are mentioned. The poem, which a member of our company, the dervish Regeb, wrote down, is by a Hauranite Christian, who in it describes his unhappy love in colours as strong as the bad taste it displays. The lines that are appropriate here are as follows: -
Min ‛azma nârı̂ nâra jôm el-qijâma,
Tûfâna Nûha 'dmû‛ a 'ênı̂ ‛anuh zôd.
Ja‛ qûba min hoznı̂ hizânuh qisâma
Min belwetı̂ Ejûba jerta‛ bihe ‛d-dûd.
(Note: The metre forms two spondeo-iambics and trochaeo-spondaics.)
The fire of hell at the last day will kindle itself from the glow of my pain,
And stronger than the flood of Noah are the tear-streams of mine eyes.
The grief of Jacob for his son was but a small part of my grief;
And, visited with my misery, Job was once the prey of worms.
(Note: Comp. p. 576 of the foregoing Commentary.)
The village, which the peasants call Shch Sa'd, and the nomads Sa'dje, is, as the name implies, of later origin, and perhaps was founded by people who fled hither when oppressed elsewhere, for the sake of being able to live more peacefully under the protection of the two tombs. That the place is not called jbje, is perhaps in order to distinguish it from the Monastery of Job.
In less than a quarter of an hour we rode up to the Dr jb, a square building, standing entirely alone, and not surrounded by ruins. When the Arabian geographers call it a village, they reckon to it the neighbouring Sa'dje with the Makm. It is very extensive, and built of fine square blocks of dolerite. While my fellow-traveller, M. Drgens, was engaged in making a ground-plan of the shattered building, which seemed to us on the whole to have had a very simple construction, I took some measurements of its sides and angles, and then searched for inscriptions. Although the ground-floor is now in part hidden in a mezbele,
(Note: On the word and subject, vid., p. 573 of the foregoing Commentary.)
which has been heaped up directly against the walls, on the east side, upon the architrave, not of the chief doorway, which is on the south, but of a door of the church, is found a large Greek inscription in a remarkable state of preservation. The architrave consists of a single carefully-worked block of dolerite, and at present rests almost upon the ground, since the rubbish has filled the whole doorway. The writing and sculpture are hollowed out.
In the center is a circle, and the characters inscribed at each side of this circle are still undeciphered; the rest of the inscription is easy to be read: αὕτη ἡ πύλη κ(υρίο)υ δίκαιοι εἰσελεύσοντε ἐν αὐτῇ· τοῦτο τὸ ὑπέρθυρον ἐτέθη ἐν χρόνοις Ἠελίου εὐλαβεστ(άτου) ἡγουμ(ένου) μ(ηνί) Ἰουλίῳ κε ἰνδ(ι)κ(τίωνος) ιε τοῦ ἔτους πηντακοσιοστοῦ τρικοστοῦ ἕκτου κ(υρί)ου Ἰ(ης)οῦ Χ(ριστ)οῦ Βασιλεύοντος. The passage of Scripture, Psa 118:20, with which this inscription beings, is frequently found in these districts in the inscriptions on church portals.
This inscription was an interesting discovery; for, so far as I know, it is the oldest that we possess which reckons according to the Christian era, and in the Roman indiction (indictio)
(Note: Vid., Gibbon, ed. Smith, ii. 333. - Tr.)
we have an important authority for determining its date. Now, since there might be a difference of opinion as to the beginning of the "kingdom of Christ," I was anxious to have the judgment of an authority in chronology on the point; and I referred to Prof. Piper of Berlin, who kindly furnished me with the following communication: - "...The inscription therefore furnishes the following data: July 25, indict. xv., year 536, κυρίου Ιοῦ Χοῦ βασιλεύοντος. To begin with the last, the Dionysian era, which was only just introduced into the West, is certainly not to be assumed here. But it is also by no means the birth of Christ that is intended. Everything turns upon the expression βασιλεύοντος. The same expression occurs once in an inscription from Syria, Corp. Inscr. Graec. 8651: βασιλεύοντος Ιουστινιανοῦ τῷ ια ἔτει. The following expression, however, occurs later concerning Christ on Byzantine coins: Rex regnantium and βασιλεὺς βασιλέων (after Rev 17:14; Rev 19:16), the latter under John Zimiszes (died 975), in De Saulcy, Pl. xxii. 4. But if the βασιλεία of Christ is employed as the era, we manifestly cannot refer to the epoch of the birth of Christ, but must take the epoch of His ascension as our basis: for with this His βασιλεία first began; just as in the West we sometimes find the calculation begins a passione. Now the fathers of the Western Church indeed place the death (and therefore also the ascension) of Christ in the consulate of the two Gemini, 29 a.d. Not so with the Greek fathers. Eusebius takes the year of His death, according to one supposition, to be the 18th year of Tiberius, i.e., 785 a.u.c. = 32 a.d. Supposing we take this as the first year regnante Jesu Christo, then the year 536, of the inscription of the Monastery of Job, is reduced to our era, after the birth of Christ, by adding 31. Thus we have the number of the year 567, to which the accompanying xv. indictio corresponds, for 567 + 3 = 570; and 570/15 has no remainder. XV is therefore the indiction of the year 567, which more accurately belongs to the year from 1st Sept. 566 to 31st Aug. 567. And since the day of the month is mentioned in the inscription, it is the 25th July 567 that is indicated. For it appears to me undoubted that the indictions, according to the usual mode of computation among the Greeks, begin with the 1st Sept. 312. Thus a Sidonian inscription of dec. 642 a.d. has the I indiction (Corp. Inscr. Gr. 9153)...."
Thus far Prof. Piper's communication. According to this satisfactory explanation of its date, this inscription is perhaps not unqualified to furnish a contribution worth notice, even for the chronology of the life of Jesus, since the Ghassinides, under whom not only the inscription, but the Monastery itself 300 years earlier, had its origin, dwelt in Palestine, the land of Christ; and their kings were perhaps the first who professed Christianity.
The "festival of the Monastery of Job," which, according to Kazwn's Syrian Calendar,
(Note: Calendarium Syriacum Cazwinii, ed. Guil. Volck, Lips. 1859, p. 15.)
the Christians of the country celebrated annually on the 23rd April, favours the pre-Muhammedan importance of the Monastery. This festival in Kazwn's time, appearing only by name inf the calendar, had undoubtedly ceased with the early decline of Christianity in the plain of Hauran, for the historically remarkable exodus of a large portion of the Ghassinides out of the cities of Hauran to the north of Georgia had taken place even under the chalifate of Omar. The Syrian Christians of the present day celebrate the festival of Mr Gorgius (St. George), who slew the dragon (tennn) near Beirt, on the 23rd April. A week later (the 1st May, oriental era) the Jews of Damascus have the sm jb (the fast of Job), which lasts twenty-four hours. In Kazwn's calendar it is erroneously set down to the 3rd May.
Moreover, with reference to the Monastery, it must be mentioned that, according to the history of Ibn Kethr,
(Note: Comp. A. v. Kremer, Mittelsyrien, etc., Vienna 1853, S. 10.)
the great Greco-Ghassinide army, which, under the leadership of Theodoric, a brother of the Emperor Heraclius, was to have repulsed the attack of the Mussulmans on Syria, revolted in its neighbourhood in the 13th year of the Hegira (Higra), while the enemy was encamped on the south bank of the Meddn, and was drawn up near Edre't. After several months had passed came the battle known as the "battle of the Jarmk," the issue of which cost the Byzantines Syria. The volcanic hollows of the ground, which for miles form a complex network of gorges, for the most part inaccessible, offer great advantages in defensive warfare; and here the battle near Edre', in which 'Og king of Bashan lost his kingdom, was probably fought.
According to the present division of the country, the Monastery of Job and the Makm are in the southern part of Gdr, an administrative district, which is bounded on the north by the Wd Brt, on the east by the W. el-Horr and the high road, on the south by the Jarmk, and on the west by the W. Hit and by a range of volcanic mounds, which stretch to the south-east corner of the Snow-mountain (el-Hermn); this district, however, has only a nominal existence, for it has no administration of its own. Either it is added to Haurn, or its revenues, together with those of Gln, are let out to the highest bidder for a number of years. Gdr is the natural north-western continuation of the plain of Haurn; and the flat bed of the Horr, which does not form a gorge until it comes to the bridge of Sra, forms no boundary proper. Moreover, the word is not found in ancient geography; and the Arabian geographers, even the later ones, who recognised the idea of Gdr, always so define the position of a locality situated in Gdr, that they say it is situated in the Haurn. Thus Jkt describes the town of el-Gbia, situated in western Gdr, and in like manner, as we have seen above, Naw and the Monastery of Job, etc.
(Note: Jkt says under Gdr, "It is a Damascene district, it has villages, and lies in the north of Haurn; according to others, it is reckoned together with Haurn as one district." The last words do not signify that Gdr and Haurn are words to be used without any distinction; on the contrary, that Gdr is a district belonging to Haurn, and comprehended in it.)
There is no doubt that, as the Gdr of the present day is reckoned in the Nukra, so this country also in ancient days, at least as far as its northern watershed, has belonged to the tetrarchy of Batanaea.
The Monastery of Job is at present inhabited. A certain sheikh, Ahmed el-Kdir, has settled down here since the autumn of 1859, as partner of the senior of the Damascene 'Omarje (the successors of the Chalif 'Omar), to whose family endowments (waqf) the Monastery belongs, and with his family he inhabits a number of rooms in the inner court, which have escaped destruction. He showed us the decree of his partner appointing him to his position, in which he is styled Sheikh of the Dr jb, Dr el-Lebwe, and 'Ashtar. Dr el-Lebwe, "the monastery of the lion,"
(Note: The name of this monastery, which is about a mile and a half north-east of the Dr Ejb, is erroneously called D. el-leb in Burckhardt's Travels in Syria (ed. Gesenius, S. 449). The same may be said of D. en-nubuwwe in Annales Hamzae, ed. Gottwaldt, p. 118.)
was built by the Gefnide Eihem ibn el-Hrith; and we shall have occasion to refer to 'Ashtar, in which Newbold,
(Note: C. Ritter, Geogr. v. Syr. u. Pal. ii. 821 [Erdk. xv. Pt. 2, p. 821].)
in the year 1846, believed he had found the ancient capital of Basan, 'Ashtart, further on. But the possessor of all these grand things was a very unhappy man. While we were drinking coffee with him, he related to us how the inhabitants of Naw had left him only two yoke (feddân) of arable land from the territory assigned to him, and taken all the rest to themselves. The harvest of that year, after the deduction of the bedhâr (the new seed-corn), would hardly suffice to meet the demands of his family, and of hospitality; and for his partner, how had advanced money to him, there would be nothing left. In Damascus he found no redress; and the Sheikh of Naw, Dhib el-Medhjeb, had answered his last representation with the words, "He who desires Job's inheritance must look for trials." Here also, as in Arabia generally, I found that intelligence and energy was on the side of the wife. During our conversation, his wife, with one of her children, had drawn near; and while the child kissed my hand, according to custom, she said: "To-morrow thou wilt arrive at Muzrb; Dhib will also be going thither with contributions for the pilgrims. We put our cause in thy hands, arrange it as seems thee best; this old man will accompany thee." And as we were riding, the Sheikh Ahmed was also obliged to mount, and his knowledge of the places did us good service on Tell Ashtar and Tell el-Ash'ar. In Muzrb, where the pilgrim fair and the arriving caravans for Mekka occupied our attention for five days, we met Dhib and the Ichtirje (elders of the community) of Naw; and, after some opposition, the sheikh of the Monastery of Job obtained four feddân of land under letter and seal, and returned home satisfied.
The case of this man is no standard of the state of the Hauranites, for there are so many desolated villages that there is no lack of land; only round about Naw it is insufficient, since this place is obliged to take possession of far outlying fields, by reason of its exceedingly numerous agricultural population.
(Note: That the Sheikh Ahmed was permitted to take up his abode in the Monastery, was owing to a religious dread of his ancestor (gidd), 'Abdel-Kdir el-Glni, and out of courteousness towards his partner.)
The more desolate a land exposed to plunder becomes, the more populous must its separate towns become, since the inhabitants of the smaller defenceless villages crowd into them. Thus the inhabitants of the large town of Kenkir at the present time till the fields of twelve neighbouring deserted villages; and Salt, the only inhabited place in the Belk, has its corn-fields even at a distance of fifteen miles away. The poet may also have conceived of Job's domain similarly, for there were five hundred ploughmen employed on it; so that it could not come under the category of ordinary villages, which in Syria rarely have above, mostly under, fifty yoke of oxen. According to the tradition, which speaks of "Job's villages" (di' jb), these ploughmen would be distributed over several districts; but the poet, who makes them to be overwhelmed by one ghazwe, therefore as ploughing in one district, will have conceived of them only as dwelling in one locality.
It might not be out of place here to give some illustration of the picture which the poet draws of Job's circumstances and position as a wealthy husbandman. Haurn, the scene of the drama (as we here assume), must at that period, as at present, have been without protection from the government of the country, and therefore exposed to the marauding attacks of the tribes of the desert. In such a country there is no private possession; but each person is at liberty to take up his abode in it, and to cultivate the land and rear cattle at his own risk, where and to what extent he may choose. Whoever intends doing so much first of all have a family, or as the Arabs say, "men" (rigâl), i.e., grown-up sons, cousins, nephews, sons-in-law; for one who stands alone, "the cut off one" (maktû‛), as he is called, can attain no position of eminence among the Semites, nor undertake any important enterprise.
(Note: In the present day the household is called ‛ashı̂ra, and all families of important in Haurn are and call themselves ‛ashâir (Arab. ‛šâ'r); but the ancient word batn does also occur, and among the Semitic tribes that have migrated to Mauritania it is still in use instead of the Syrian ‛ashı̂ra. Batn, collect. butûn, is the fellowship of all those who are traced back to the בּטן of one ancestral mother. Thus even in Damascus they say: nahn ferd batn, we belong to one family; in like manner in the whole of Syria: this foal is the batn of that mare, i.e., its young one; or: I sold my mare without batn, or with one, two, three-fourths of her batn, i.e., without her descendants, or so that the buyer has only 6 or 12 or 18 kı̂rât right of possession in the foals she will bear. In all these applications, batn is the progenies uteri, not the uterus itself; and, according to this, בני בטני, Job 19:17, ought to be explained by "all my relations by blood.")
Then he has to make treaties with all the nomad tribes from which he has reason to fear any attack, i.e., to pledge himself to pay a yearly tribute, which is given in native produce (in corn and garments). Thus the community of el-Hgne, ten years since, had compacts with 101 tribes; and that Job also did this, seems evident from the fact that the poet represents him as surprised not by neighbouring, but by far distant tribes (Chaldaeans and Sabaeans), with whom he could have no compact.
(Note: These sudden attacks, at any rate, do not say anything in favour of the more southernly position of Ausitis. If the Beduin is but once on his horse or delûl, it is all the same to him whether a journey is ten days longer or shorter, if he can only find water for himself and his beast. This, however, both bands of marauders found, since the poet distinctly represents the attacks as having been made in the winter. The general ploughing of the fallow-lying wâgiha of a community (it is called shiqâq el-wâgiha), ready for the sowing in the following autumn, always takes place during January and February, because at this time of the year the earth is softened by the winter rains, and easy to plough. While engaged in this work, the poet represents Job's ploughmen as being surprised and slain. Hence, for the destruction of 500 armed ploughmen - and they were armed, because they could only have been slain with their weapons in their hands in consequence of their resistance - at least 2000 horsemen were necessary. So large a ghazwe is, however, not possible in the summer, but only in the winter, because they could not water at a draw-well, only at the pools (ghudrân) formed by the winter rains. For one of these raids of the Chaldaeans, Haurn, whither marauding bands come even now during the winter from the neighbourhood of Babylon in six or seven days, lay far more convenient than the country around Ma'n and 'Akaba, which is only reached from the Euphrates, even in winter, by going a long way round, since the Nufd (sandy plains) in the east, and their western continuation the Hlt, suck in the rain without forming any pools. On the other hand, however, this southern region lay nearer and more convenient for the incursions of the Sabaeans, viz., the Keturaean (Gen 25:3), i.e., Petraean tribe of this name. The greater or less distance, however, is of little consequence here. Thus, as the Shemmar of Negd from time to time make raids into the neighbourhood of Damascus, so even the tribes of Wdi el-Kor might also do the same. Moreover, as we observed above, the poet represents the sudden attacks as perpetrated by the Sabaeans and Chaldaeans, probably because they only, as being foreign and distant races which never had anything to do with Job and his men, and therefore were without any consideration, could practise such unwonted barbarities as the robbery of ploughing heifers, which a ghazwe rarely takes, and the murder of the ploughmen.)
Next he proceeds to erect a chirbe, i.e., a village that has been forsaken (for a longer or shorter period), in connection with which, excepting the relations, slaves, and servants of the master, all those whom interest, their calling, and confidence in the good fortune of the master, have drawn thither, set about the work. Perhaps Job 15:28 has reference to Job's settlement.
(Note: Verbally, Job 3:14, which we, however, have interpreted differently, accords with this. - Del.)
With reference to the relation of the lord of a village (ustâd beled, or sâhib dê‛a) to his work-people, there are among the dependents two classes. The one is called zurrâ‛, "sowers," also fellâhin kism, "participating husbandmen," because they share the produce of the harvest with the ustâd thus: he receives a fourth while they retain three-fourths, from which they live, take the seed for the following season, give their quota towards the demands of the Arabs, the village shepherds, the field watchmen, and the scribe of the community (chatı̂b); they have also to provide the farming implements and the yoke-oxen. On the other hand, the ustâd has to provide for the dwellings of the people, to pay the land-tax to the government, and, in the event of a failure of the crops, murrain, etc., to make the necessary advances, either in money or in kind at the market price, and without any compensation. This relation, which guarantees the maintenance of the family, and is according to the practice of a patriarchal equity, is greatly esteemed in the country; and one might unhesitatingly consider it therefore to be that which existed between Job and his ploughmen, because it may with ease exist between a single ustâd and hundreds, indeed thousands, of country people, if Job 1:3 did not necessitate our thinking of another class of country people, viz., the murâbi‛ı̂n, the "quarterers." They take their name from their receiving a fourth part of the harvest for their labour, while they have to give up the other three-fourths to the ustâd, who must provide for their shelter and board, and in like manner everything that is required in agriculture. As Job, according to Job 1:3 (comp. on Job 42:12), provided the yoke-oxen and means of transport (asses and camels), so he also provided the farming implements, and the seed for sowing. We must not here think of the paid day-labourer of the Syrian towns, or the servants of our landed proprietors; they are unknown on the borders of the desert. The hand that toils has there a direct share in the gain; the workers belong to the aulâd, "children of the house," and are so called; in the hour of danger they will risk their life for their lord.
This rustic labour is always undertaken simultaneously by all the murâbi‛ı̂n (it is so also in the villages of the zurrâ‛) for the sake of order, since the ustâd, or in his absence the village sheikh, has the general work of the following day announced from the roof of his house every evening. Thus it is explained how the 500 ploughmen could be together in one and the same district, and be slain all together.
The ustâd is the sole judge, or, by deputy, the sheikh. An appeal to the government of the country would be useless, because it has no influence in Hauran; but the servant who has been treated unjustly by his master, very frequently turns as dachı̂l fi 'l-haqq (a suppliant concerning his right) to his powerful neighbour, who is bound, according to the customs of the country, to obtain redress for him (comp. Job 29:12-17). If he does not obtain this by persuasion, he cries for force, and such a demand lies at the root of many a bloody feud.
Powerful and respected also as the position, described in Job 29:1, of such a man is, it must, according to the nature of its basis, fall in under strokes of misfortune, like those mentioned in Job 1:14-19, and change to the very opposite, as the poet describes it in Job 30:1.
After these observations concerning the agricultural relations of Hauran, we return to the tradition of Job. As we pursue the track of this tradition further, we first find it again in some of the Christina writers of the middle ages, viz., in Eugesippus (De distanc. loc. terr. sanct.), in William of Tyre (Histor. rerum a Francis gest.), and in Marino Sanuto (De secretis fid. cruc.). The passages that bear upon the point are brought together in Reland (Palest. pp. 265f.); and we would simply refer to them, if it were possible for the reader to find his way among the fabulous confusion of the localities in Eugesippus and Sanuto.
The oldest of these citations is from Eugesippus, and is as follows: One part of the country is the land of Hus, out of which Job was; it is also called Sueta, after which Bildad the Suhite was named. Sanuto tells us where this locality is to be sought. "Sueta is the home of Baldad the Suite, Below this city (civitas), in the direction of the Kedar-tribes, the Saracens are accustomed to assemble out of Aram, Mesopotamia, Ammon, Moab, and the whole Orient, around the fountain of Fiale; and, on account of the charms of the place, to hold a fair there during the whole summer, and to pitch their coloured tents." In another place he says: fontem Fialen Medan, i.e., aquas Dan, a Saracenis nuncupari.
Now, since according to an erroneous, but previously prevalent etymology, "the water of Dan" (מי דן = יאר דּן) denoted the Jordan, and since we further know from Josephus (Bell. iii. 10, 7) that the Phiala is the small lake of Rm, whose subterranean outflow the tetrarch Philip is said to have shown to be the spring of the Jordan, which comes to light deeper below, we should have thought the country round about the lake of Rm, at the south foot of Hermn, to be the home of Job and Bildad. This discovery would be confirmed by the following statement of Eugesippus (in Reland, loc. cit.): "The river Dan flows under ground from its spring as far as the plain of Meldan, where it comes to light. This plain is named after the fair, which is held there, for the Saracens call such an one Meldan. At the beginning of the summer a large number of men, with wares to sell, congregate there, and several Parthian and Arabian soldiers also, in order to guard the people and their herds, which have a rich pasture there in the summer. The word Meldan is composed of mel and dan." It is indeed readily seen that the writer has ignorantly jumbled several words together in the expression meldan, as m Dan, "water of Dan," and Mdn or mı̂dân, "market-place;" perhaps even also leddân, the name of the great fountain of the Jordan in the crater of the Tell el-Kdi. In like manner, the statement that the neighbourhood of Phiala, or that of the large fountain of the Jordan, might formerly have been a fair of the tribes, is false, for the former is broken up into innumerable craters, and the latter is poisoned by the swamp-fevers of the Hle; but as to the rest, both Eugesippus and Sanuto seem really to speak of a tradition which places Job's or Bildad's home in that region. And yet it is not so: their tradition is no other than the Hauranitish; but ignorance of the language and geography of the country, and some accidental circumstances, so confused their representations, that it is difficult to find out what is right. The first clue is given us by the history of William of Tyre, in which (l. xxii. c. 21) it is said that the crusaders, on their return from a marauding expedition in the Nukra, wished to reconquer a strong position, the Cavea Roob, which they had lost a short time before. "This place," says the historian, "lies in the province of Suite, a district distinguished by its pleasantness, etc.; and that Baldad, Job's friend, who is on that account called the Suite, is said to have come from it." This passage removes us at once into the neighbourhood of Muzrb and the Monastery of Job, for the province of Suete is nothing but the district of Suwt (Arab. ṣwı̂t),
(Note: Reisebericht, S. 46; comp. Ritter, Syr. u. Pal. ii. 1019 [Erdk. xv. Pt. 2, p. 1019].)
the north-western boundary of which is formed by the gorge of the Wd Rahb. The Cavea Roob, which was first of all again found out by me on my journey in 1862, lies in the middle of the steep bank of that wadi, and is at present called maghret Rahb, "the cave of R.," or more commonly mu'allakat Rahb, "the swinging cave of R.," and at the time of the Crusades commanded the dangerous pass which the traveller, on ascending from the south end of the Lake of Galilee to Edre't by the nearest way, has to climb on hands and feet. In another passage (xvi. 9), where the unhealthy march to Bosr is spoken of, Will. of Tyre says: "After we had come through the gorge of Roob, we reached the plain which is called Medan, and where every year the Arabs and other oriental tribes are accustomed to hold a large fair." This plain is in the vicinity of Muzrb, in which the great pilgrim-fair is held annually. We find something similar in xiii. 18: "After having passed Decapolis
(Note: Here in the more contracted sense, the district of Gadara, Kefrt, and Irbid.)
we came to the pass of Roob, and further on into the plain of Medan, which stretches far and wide in every direction, and is intersected by the river Dan, which falls into the Jordan between (Tiberias and Scythopolis (Bsn)." This river, the same as that which Sanuto means by his aquae Dan (M Dn), is none other than the Wdi el-Meddn, called "the overflowing one," because in the month of March it overflows its banks eastward of the Gezzr-bridge. It is extremely strange that the name of this river appears corrupted not only in all three writers mentioned above, but also in Burckhardt; for, deceived by the ear, he calls it Wd Om el-Dhan.
(Note: Burckhardt, Travels in Syr. and Pal. (ed. Gesenius, S. 392).)
The Meddn is the boundary river between the Suwt and Nukra plains; it loses its name where it runs into the Makran; and where it falls into the valley of the Jordan, below the lake of Tiberias, it is called el-Muchb.
We have little to add to what has been already said. The Fiale of Sanuto is not the Lake Rm, but the round begge, the lake of springs of Muzrb, the rapid outflow of which, over a depth of sixty to eighty feet, forms a magnificent waterfall, the only one in Syria, as it falls into the Meddn near the village of Tell Shihb.
The unfortunate confusion of the localities was occasioned by two accidental circumstances: first, that both the springs of the Jordan below Bnis and the lake of Muzrb, have a village called Rahb (רחוב) in their vicinity, of which one is mentioned in Jdg 18:28., and the other, about a mile below the Cavea Roob, is situated by a fountain of the same name, from which village, cavern, and wadi derive their names; secondly, that there, as here, there is a village Abil (אבל): that near Dan is situated in the "meadow-district of 'Ijn" (Merg. 'Ijn); and that in the Suwt lies between Rahb and the Makran, and was visited by Seetzen as well as by myself. Perhaps the circumstance that, just as the environs of Muzrb have their Mdn,
(Note: The word el-mı̂dân and el-mêdân signifies originally the hippodrome, then the arena of the sham-fight, then the place of contest, the battle-field, and finally a wide level place where a large concourse of men are accustomed to meet. In this sense the Damascenes have their el-mı̂dân, the Spanish cities their almeidân, and the Italians their corso.)
so the environs of Bnis have their Ard el-Mejdn, "region of battle-fields," may also have contributed to the confusion; thus, for example, the country sloping to the west from the Phiala towards the Hle, between Gubbt ez-zt and Za'ra, is called, perhaps on account of the murderous encounters which took place there, both in the time of the Crusades and also in more ancient times. It is certainly the ground on which the battle narrated in the book of Joshua, Jos 11:1, took place, and also the battle in which Antiochus the Great slew the Egyptian army about 200 b.c.)
What we have gained for our special purpose from this information (by which not a few statements of Ritter, K. v. Raumer, and others, are substantiated), is not merely the fact that the tradition which places Job's home in the region of Muzrb existed even in the middle ages (which the quotation given above from Makdesh, who lived before the time of the Crusades, also confirms), and even came to the ears of the foreigners who settled in the country as they then passed through the land, but also the certainty that this tradition was then, as now, common to the Christians and the Mussulmans, for the three writers previously mentioned would hardly have recorded it on the testimony of the latter only.
(Note: Estri ha-Parchi, the most renowned Jewish topographer of Palestine, in his work Caftor wa-ferach, completed in 1322 (newly edited by Edelmann, published by Asher, Berlin, 1852, S. 49), says דאר איוב lies one hour south of נבו, since he identifies Naw with the Reubenitish Neb, Num 32:38, as Zora'' with יעזר, Num 32:35; so that he explains ארץ עוץ by ארץ יעזר, although he at the same time considers the name, according to Saadia, as one with אלגוטה (el Ghuta). His statements moreover are exact, as one might expect from a man who had travelled for seven years in all directions in Palestine; and his conclusion, ארץ עוץ היא ארץ קדם לארץ ישׂראל כנגד טבריא, perfectly accords with the above treatise. - Del.)
There can be no doubt as to which of these two religions must be regarded as the original mother of this tradition. The Hauranite Christians, who, from their costume, manners, language, and traditions, undoubtedly inherited the country from the pre-Muhammedan age, venerate the Makm perhaps even more than the Muhammedans; which would be altogether impossible in connection with the hostile position of the two religious sects towards one another, and in connection with the zealous scorn with which the Syrian Christians regard the religion of Islam, if the Hauranitish tradition of Job and the Makm were of later, Muhammedan origin. It is also possible that, on a closer examination of the Makm and the buildings about the Sachra, one might find, besides crosses, Greek inscriptions (since they are nowhere wanting in the Nukra), which could only have their origin in the time before the occupation of Islam (635 a.d.); for after this the Hauranite Christians, who only prolong their existence by wandering from chirbe to chirbe, have not even built a single dwelling-house, much less a building for religious worship, which was forbidden under pain of death in the treaty of Omar. But in connection with the pre-Islam Monastery of Job, which owed its origin only to the sacred tradition that held its ground in that place, are monumental witnesses that this tradition is pre-Islamic, and has been transferred from the Christians to the Mussulmans, required? We may go even further, and assert that Muhammed, in the Sur. xxxviii. 41ff. of the Korn, had the Hauranitish tradition of Job and the localities near Sa'dje definitely before his mind.
We must regard the merchandise caravans which the inhabitants of Tehma sent continuously into the "north country," esh-shâm,
(Note: In Jemen the Higz, Syria may have been called Shm in the earliest times. The name was taken into Syria itself by the immigration of the Jemanic tribes of Kud'a, and others, because they brought with them the name of Syria that was commonly used in their native land.)
and the return freight of which consisted chiefly of Hauranitish corn, as proof of a regular intercourse between the east Jordanic country and the west of the Arabian peninsula in the period between Christ and Muhammed. Hundreds of men from Mekka and Medina came every year to Bosr; indeed, when it has happened that the wandering tribes of Syria, which were, then also as now, bound for Hauran with the kêl, i.e., their want of corn, got before them, and had emptied the granaries of Bosr, or when the harvests of the south of Hauran had been destroyed by the locusts, which is not unfrequently the case, they will have come into the Nukra
(Note: The remarkable fair at Muzrb can be traced back to the earliest antiquity, although Bosr at times injured it; but this latter city, from its more exposed position, has been frequently laid in ruins. It is probable that the merchants of Damascus pitched their tents for their Kasaba, i.e., their moveable fair, twice a year (in spring and in autumn) by the picturesque lake of Muzrb. If, with the tradition, we take the Nukra to be the home of Job, of the different ways of interpreting Job 6:19 there is nothing to hinder our deciding upon that which considers it as the greater caravan which acme periodically out of southern Arabia to Hauran (Bosr or Muzrib). Tm with its well, Heddg (comp. Isa 21:14), celebrated by the poets of the steppe, from which ninety camels (sâniât) by turns raise a constantly flowing stream of clear and cool water for irrigating the palms and the seed, was in ancient times, perhaps, the crossing point of the merchant caravans going from south to north, and from east to west. Even under the Omajad Cahlifs the Mekka pilgrim-route went exclusively by way of Tm, just as during the Crusades so long as the Franks kept possession of Kerak and Shbak. An attempt made in my Reisebericht (S. 93-95) to substitute the Hauranitish Tm in the two previously mentioned passages of Scripture, I have there (S. 131) given up as being scarcely probable.)
as far as Naw, sometimes even as far as Damascus, in order to obtain their full cargo.
If commerce often has the difficult task of bringing together the most heterogeneous peoples, and of effecting a reciprocal interchange of ideas, it here had the easy work of sustaining the intercourse among tribes that were originally one people, spoke one idiom, and regarded themselves as all related; for the second great Sabaean migration, under 'Amr and his son Ta'labe, had taken possession of Mekka, and left one of their number, Rab'a ibn Hritha, with his attendants (the Chuz'ites), behind as lord of the city. In the same manner they had become possessed of Jathrib (el-Medna), and left this city to their tribes Aus and Chazreg: the remainder of the people passed on to Peraea and took possession of the country, at that time devastated, as far as Damascus, according to Ibn Sa'd, even including this city. By the reception of Christianity, the Syrian Sabaeans appear to have become but slightly or not at all estranged from their relatives in the Higz, for Christianity spread even here, so that the Caesars once ventured to appoint a Christian governor even to the city of Mekka. This was during the lifetime of the Gefnite king 'Amr ibn Gebele. At the time of Muhammed there were many Christians in Mekka, who will for the most part have brought their Christianity with the Syrian caravans, so that at the commencement of Islm the Hauranitish tradition of Job might have been very well known in Mekka, since many men from Mekka may have even visited the Makm and the Sachra, and there have heard many a legend of Job like that intimated in the Korn xxxviii. 43. Yea, whoever will give himself the trouble to investigate minute commentaries on the Koran, especially such as interpret the Koran from the tradition (hadı̂th), e.g., the Kitb ed-durr el-muchtr, may easily find that not merely Kazwn, Ibn el-Ward, and Jkt, whose observations concerning the Monastery of Job have been given above, but also much older authorities, identify the Koranish fountain of Job with the Hauranitish.
A statement of Eusebius, of value in connection with this investigation, brings us at one stride about three hundred years further on. It is in the Onomastikon, under Καρναείμ, and is as follows: "Astaroth Karnaim is at present (about 310 a.d.) a very large village (κώμη μεγίστη) beyond the Jordan, in the province of Arabia, which is also called Batanaea. Here, according to tradition (ἐκ παραδόσεως), they fix the dwelling (οἶκος) of Job." On the small map which accompanies these pages, the reader will find in the vicinity of the Makm the low and somewhat precipitous mound, not above forty feet in height, of Tell 'Ashtar, the plateau of which forms an almost round surface, which is 425 paces in diameter, and shows the unartistic foundations of buildings, and traces of a ring-wall. Here we have to imagine that 'Astarot Karnaim. Euseb. here makes no mention whatever of the city of Astaroth, the ancient capital of Basan, for this he does under Astaroo'th; the hypothesis of its being the residence of king 'Og, which Newbold
(Note: C. Ritter, Geogr. v. Syr. u. Pal. ii. 819ff. [Erdk. xv. 2, p. 819ff.] The information of Newbold, which is printed in the Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellschaft, i. 215f., is unfortunately little to be relied on, and is to be corrected according to the topography of the mound given above.)
set up here, consequently falls to the ground. The κώμη μεγίστη of Eusebius must, in connection with the limited character of the ground, certainly be somewhat contracted; but the identity of the localities is not to be doubted in connection with the great nearness of the οἶκος (the Makm).
(Note: A small, desolated stone village, situated a quarter of an hour's journey from the mound of 'Ashtar, which however has not a single house of any importance, has two names among the inhabitants of that region, either Chirbt 'Ijn en-Nle (the ruins near the Nila-springs) or Chirbt 'Ashtar, which can signify the ruins of 'Ashtar and the ruins near 'Ashtar. Since it is, however, quite insignificant, it will not be the village that has given the name to the mound, but the mound with its buildings, which in ancient days were perhaps a temple to Astarte, surrounded by a wall, has given the name to the village.)
Let us compare another statement that belongs here; it stands under Ἀσταρὼθ Καρναείμ, and is as follows: "There are at the present time two villages of this name in Batanaea, which lie nine miles distant from one another, μεταξὺ ΑΔΑΡΩΝ καὶ ΑΒΙΛΗΞ." Jerome has duo castella instead of two villages, by which at least the κώμη μεγίστη is somewhat reduced; for that it is one of these two castles
(Note: The meaning of "castle," as defined by Burckhardt, Travels in Syr. etc. p. 657, should be borne in mind here. "The name of Kal'at or castle is given on the Hadj route, and over the greater part of the desert, to any building walled in and covered, and having, like a Khan, a large courtyard in its enclosure. The walls are sometimes of stone, but more commonly of earth, though even the latter are sufficient to withstand an attack of Arabs." - Tr.)
can be the less doubtful, since they also regulate the determining of the respective localities. If the reading ΑΒΙΛΗΞ is correct, only Abil (אבל) in the north of Suwt can (since, without doubt, the Arabian names of the places in Hauran existed in Eusebius' day) be intended; and ΑΔΑΡΩΝ ought then to be changed into ΑΛΑΡΩΝ, in order to denote the large village of El-hr, on the lofty peak of the same name in the plain of Gdr. El-hr lies to the north, and Abil to the south of 'Ashtar. If, however, as is most highly probable, instead of ΑΒΙΛΗΞ (which form Euseb. does not use elsewhere, for he calls the town of Abil Ἀβέλ, and the inscription in Turra has the form πόλεως Ἀβέλις), ΑΒΙΔΗΞ is to be read, which corresponds to the Ἀβιδᾶ of Ptolemy (ed. Wilberg, p. 369) and the modern /Abidn near Btirr, thus the name of the other village is to be changed from ΑΔΑΡΩΝ to ΑΡΑΡΩΝ (for which the Cod. Vat. erroneously has ΔΡΑΡΩΝ), the modern 'Arr.
(Note: Some, in connection with this word, have erroneously thought of the city of Edre't, which Eusebius calls Ἀδρά in the immediately preceding article Ἀδραά, and in the art. Edraei'.)
'Abdn, however, lies nine miles west, and 'Arr nine miles east of 'Ashtar.
Now, as to the second village, and its respective castle, which is mentioned in the second citation from the Onomastikon, I believe that both Euseb. and Jerome intend to say there are two villages, of which the one has the byname of the other; consequently the one is called Astart (Karnaim), and the other Karnaim (Astart). Twelve miles west of 'Ashtar lies the Golanite village of Kornje (קרניּה), which in old Kantra I have taken up in my trigonometrical measurements.
We find also a third passage in the Onomast. which belongs here; it is under Ἰαβώκ in Cod. Vat., under Ἰδουμαία in Cod. Leid. and Vellarsi, and runs: "According to the view of a certain one (κατά τινος), this region is the land of Asitis (Ausitis), the home of Job, while according to others it is Arabia (ἡ Ἀραβία); and again, according to others, it is the Land of Shn." Whether genuine or not, this passage possesses a certain value. If it is genuine, Jerome would have left it accordingly untranslated, because he would not be responsible for its whole contents, for he not unfrequently passes over or alters statements of Eusebius where he believes himself to be better informed; but, taken exactly, he could only have rejected the views of those who seek Job's native country on the Jabbok (if the passage belongs to the art. Ἰαβώκ) or in Edom (if it belongs to Ἰδουμαία), or in the Belk, the land of Shn; but not the view of those who make Arabia (Batanaea) to be Ausitis, for the statement of Eusebius with reference to this point under Carnaei'm he translates faithfully. If the passage is not genuine, it at any rate gives the very early testimony of an authority distinct from Eusebius and Jerome in favour of the age of the Hauranitish tradition concerning Job, while it has only a single (κατά τινος) authority for the view of those who make Edom to be Ausitis, and even this only when the passage belongs to Ἰδουμαία.
By means of these quotations from the Onomastikon, that passage of Chrysostom (Homil. V. de Stud. 1, tom. ii. p. 59), in which it is said that many pilgrims from the end of the earth come to Arabia, in order to seek for the dunghill on which Job lay, and with rapture to kiss the ground where he suffered ( - - ἀπὸ περάτων τῆς γῆς εἰς τῆν Ἀραβίαν τρέχοντες, ἵνα τῆν κοπρίαν ἴδωσι, καὶ θεασάμενοι καταφιλήσωσι τῆν γῆν), appears also to obtain its right local reference. This Arabia is certainly none other than that which Eusebius explains by ἣ καὶ Βαταναία, and that κοπρία or mezbele to be sought nowhere except near the Makm jb. And should there by any doubts upon the subject, ought they not to be removed by the consideration that the proud structure of the Monastery of Job, with its spring festivals mentioned above, standing like a Pharos casting its light far and wide in that age, did not allow either the Syrian Christians or the pilgrims from foreign parts to mistake the place, which tradition had rendered sacred, as the place of Job's sufferings?
There is no monastery whose origin, according to an unimpeachable testimony, belongs to such an early date as that of the Monastery of Job. According to the chronicles of the peoples (ta'rı̂ch el-umem), or the annals of Hamze el-Isfahni (died about 360 of the Hegira), it was built by 'Amr I, the second Gefnide. Now, since the first Ghassanitish king (Gefne I) reigned forty-five years and three months, and 'Amr five years, the Monastery would have been in existence about 200 a.d., if we place the beginning of the Gefnide dynasty in the time 150 a.d. Objections are raised against such an early date, because one is accustomed on good authority to assign the origin of monasteries to about the year 300 a.d. In the face of more certain historical dates, these objections must remain unheeded, for hermit and monastery life (rahbanı̂ja) existed in the country east of Jordan among the Essenes and other societies and forms of worship, even before Christianity; so that the latter, on its appearance in that part, which took place long before 200 a.d., received the monasteries as an inheritance: but certainly the chronology of the Gefnide dynasty is not reliable. Hamze fixes the duration of the dynasty at 616 years; Ibn Sa'd,
(Note: Wetzstein, Catal. Arab. MSS collected in Damascus, No. 1, p. 89.)
in his history of the pre-Islamic Arabs, at 601 years; and to the same period extends the statement of Mejnishi,
(Note: Wetzst. Catal. Arab. MSS collected in Damascus, No. 24, p. 16.)
who, in his topography of the Ka'be, says that between the conquest of Mekka by Ta'lebe and the rule of the Kos in this city was 500 years. On the contrary, however, Ibn Jusef
(Note: Hamzae Isfahan. Annales, ed. Gottwald, Vorrede, p. xi.)
informs us that this dynasty began "earlier" than 400 years before Islamism. With this statement accord all those numerous accounts, according to which the "rupture of the dyke" (sêl el-‛arim), the supposed cause of the Jemanic emigration, took place rather more than 400 years before Islamism. If therefore, to content ourselves with an approximate calculation, we make Islamism to begin about 615 (the year of the "Mission" was 612 a.d.), and the Gefnide dynasty, with the addition of the "earlier," 415 years previous, then the commencement of the reign of Gefne I would have been 200 a.d., and the erection of the Monastery shortly before 250.
When the tribe whose king later on built the Monastery migrated from Jemen into Syria, the Trachonitis was in the hands of a powerful race of the Kud'ides, which had settled there in the first century of our era, having likewise come out of Jemen, and become tributary to the Romans. This race had embraced Christianity from the natives; and some historians maintain that it permitted the Gefnides to settle and share in the possession of the country, only on the condition that they likewise should embrace Christianity. In those early times, these tribes, of course, with the new religion received the tradition of Job also from the first hand, from the Jews and the Jewish Christians, who, since the battle of the Jewish people with the Romans, will have found refuge and safety to a large extent in Petraea, and especially in the hardly accessible Trachonitis. The Nukra also, as the most favoured region of Syria and Palestina, will have had its native population, among which, in spite of the frequent massacres of Syrians and Jews, there will have been many Jews. Perhaps, moreover, the protection of the new Jemanic population of Hauran again attracted Jewish settlers thither: Naw
(Note: If Naw is not also of Jewish origin, its name is nevertheless the old Semitic נוה, "a dwelling" (Job 5:3, Job 5:24; Job 8:6; Job 18:15), and not, as Jkt supposes, the collective form of nawât, "the kernel of a date.")
at least is a place well known in the Talmud and Midrash, which is mentioned, as a city inhabited by the Jews among those who are not Jews, and as the birth-place of several eminent teachers.
(Note: No less than three renowned teachers from Naw appear in the Talmud and Midrash: ר שׁילא דנוה, Schila of Nawa (jer. Sabbath cap. ii., Wajikra rabba cap. xxxiv., Midrasch Ruth on ii. 19a), ר פלטיא דנוה (Midr. Koheleth on i. 4b) and ר שׁאול דנוה (ib. on xii. 9a). נוה is mentioned as an enemy of the neighbouring town of חלמיש in Wajikra rabba c. xxiii., Midr. Echa on i. 17a, and Midr. Schir on ii. 1. - Del.)
Moreover, in Syria the veneration of a spot consecrated by religious tradition is independent of its being at the time inhabited or desolate. The supposed tombs of Aaron near Petra, of Hud near Gerash, of Jethro (Su'b) in the valley of Nimrn, of Ezekiel in Melhat Hiskn, of Elisha on the el-Jesha' mountains, and many other mezâre (tombs of the holy, to which pilgrims resort), are frequently one or more days' journey distant from inhabited places, and yet they are carefully tended. They are preserved from decay and neglect by vows, by the spring processions, and especially by the piety of the Beduins, who frequently deposit articles of value near the mezâre, as property entrusted to the care of the saint. The Makm of Job may also have been such a consecrated spot many centuries before the erection of the Monastery, and perhaps not merely to the Jews, but also to the Aramaean and Arab population. The superstitious veneration of such places is not confined among the Semites to a particular religious sect, but is the common heritage of the whole race; and the tradition of Job in particular was, originally, certainly not Israelitish, but Aramaean.
Job is not mentioned in the writings of Josephus, but we do find there a remarkable passage concerning Job's native country, the land of the Usites, viz., Ant. i. 6: "Aram, from whom come the Aramaeans, called by the Greeks Syrians, had four sons, of whom the first was named Οὔσης, and possessed Trachonitis and Damascus." The first of these two, Trachonitis, has usually been overlooked here, and attention has been fixed only on Damascus. The word el-Ghta (Arab. 'l-gûṭt), the proper name of the garden and orchard district around Damascus, has been thought to be connected in sound with 'Us, and they have been treated as identical: this is, however, impossible even in philological grounds. Ghta would certainly be written עוּטה in Hebrew, because this language has no sign for the sound Gh (Arab. g); but Josephus, who wrote in Greek, ought then to have said Γούσης, not Οὔσης, just as he, and the lxx before him and Eusebius after him, render the city עזה by Γάζα, the mountain עיבל by Γαιβάλ, the village עי by Γαΐ́, etc. In the same manner the lxx ought to have spoken of a Γαυσῖτις, not Αὐσῖτις, if this were the case. Proper names, also, always receive too definite and lasting an impress for their consonants, as ץ and ט, to be easily interchanged, although this is possible with the roots of verbs. Moreover, if the word עוץ had had the consonant ץ (Arab. ḍ), Josephus must have reproduced it with τ or θ, not with s, in accordance with the pronunciation (especially if he had intended to identify עוץ and Ghta). And we see from Ptolemy and Strabo, and likewise from the Greek mode of transcribing the Semitic proper names in the Haurnite inscriptions of the Roman period, e.g., Μάθιος and Νάταρος for Arab. mâḍâ and nḍr, that in the time of Josephus the sound of ץ had already been divided into Arab. ṣ and ḍ; comp. Abhandl. der Berlin. Acad. d. Wissenschaft, 1863, S. 356f. Hence it is that Josephus manifestly speaks only of one progenitor Οὔσης, therefore of one tribe; while the word Ghta, often as a synonym of buq'a (בקעה), denotes a low well-watered country enclosed by mountains, and in this appellative signification occurs as the proper name of several localities in the most widely separated parts of Arabia (comp. Jkt, sub voce), which could not be the case if it had been = ארץ עוץ.
(Note: On the name 'Us, as the name of men and people, may be compared the proper names 'As and 'Aus, together with the diminutive 'Ows, taken from the genealogies of the Arabs, since the Old Testament is wanting in words formed from the root עוץ, and none of those so named was a Hebrew. In Hebr. they might be sounded עוץ, and signify the "strong one," for the verbal stems Arab. ‛ṣṣ, ‛wṣ, ‛ṣy (comp. Arab. ‛ṣb, ‛ṣr, ‛ṣm, and others) have the signif. "to be compressed, firm, to resist.")
The word Ausitis used by the lxx also has no formation corresponding to the word Ghta, but shows its connection with עוּץ ארץ by the termination; while the word Ghta rendered in Greek is Gouthata' (in Theophanes Byzant. Gouthatha'), in analogy e.g., with the form Cheblatha' for Ribla (Jos. Ant. x. 11).
(Note: On this word-formation comp. Reisebericht, S. 76.)
But why are we obliged to think only of Damascus, since Josephus makes Trachonitis also to belong to the land of the Usites? If we take this word in its most limited signification, it is (apart from the eastern Trachon) that lava plateau, about forty miles long and about twenty-eight broad, which is called the Leg in the present day. This is so certain, that one is not obliged first of all to recall the well-known inscription of the temple of Mismia, which calls this city situated in the Leg, Μητροκώμη τοῦ Τράχωνος. From the western border of this Trachon, however, the Monastery of Job is not ten miles distant, therefore by no means outside the radius that was at all times tributary to the Trachonites (Arab el-wa'r), a people unassailable in their habitations in the clefts of the rocks.
(Note: Comp. Jos. Ant. xv. 10, 3; Zeitschr. fr allg. Erdkunde, New Series, xiii. 213.)
According to this, the statement of Josephus would at least not stand in open contradiction to the Hauranitish tradition of Job. But we go further and maintain that the Monastery of Job lies exactly in the centre of Trachonitis. This word has, viz., in Josephus and others, a double signification - a more limited and a wider one. It has the more limited where, together with Auranitis, Batanaea, Gamalitica, and Gaulonitis, it denotes the separate provinces of the ancient kingdom of Basan. Then it signifies the Trachonitis kat' exochee'n, i.e., the wildest portion of the volcanic district, viz., the Leg, the Haurn mountain range, the Saf and Harra of the Rgil. On the other hand, it has the wider signification when it stands alone; then it embraces the whole volcanic region of Middle Syria, therefore with the more limited Trachonitis the remaining provinces of Basan, but with the exception, as it seems, of the no longer volcanic Galadine (North Gilead). In this sense, therefore, as a geographical notion, Trachonitis is almost synonymous with Basan.
Since it is to the interest of this investigation to make the assertion advanced sure against every objection, we will not withhold the passages in support of it. Josephus says, Ant. xv. 10, 3, the district of Hle (Οὐλαθά) lies between Galilee and Trachonitis. He might have said more accurately, "between Galilee and Gaulonitis," but he wished to express that the great basaltic region begins on the eastern boundary of the Hle. The word Trachonitis has therefore the wider signification. In like manner, in Bell. iii. 10 it is said the lake of Phiala lies 120 stadia east of Paneion (Bnis) on the way to the Trachonitis. True, the Phiala is a crater, and therefore itself belongs to Trachonitis, but between it and Bnis the lava alternates with the chalk formation of the Hermn, whereas to the south and east of the Phiala it is everywhere exclusively volcanic; Trachonitis has therefore here also the wider signification. Ant. xvii. 2, it is said Herod had the castle of Βαθύρα built in Batanaea (here, as often in Josephus, in the signification of Basan), in order to protect the Jews who travel from Babylon (vi Damascus) to Jerusalem against the Trachonite robbers. Now, since this castle and village (the Btirr mentioned already), which is situated in the district of Gamalitica on an important ford of the Muchbi gorge between 'Abidin and Sebbte, could not be any protection against the robbers of Trachonitis in the more limited sense, but only against those of Golan, it is manifest that by the Trachonites are meant the robbers of Trachonitis in the wider sense. Aurelius Victor (De Hist. Caes. xxvii.) calls the Emperor M. Julius Philippus, born in Bosr, the metropolis of Auranitis, quite correctly Arabs Trachonites; because the plain of Hauran, in which Bosra is situated, is also of a basaltic formation, and therefore is a part of the Trachonitis.
The passage of Luke's Gospel, Luk 3:1, where it says Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, also belongs here. That Philip possessed not perhaps merely the Trachonitis (similar to a province assigned to a man as banishment rather than for administration, producing little or no revenue) in the more limited sense, but the whole Basanitis, is shown by Josephus, who informs us, Ant. xvii. 11, 4 and freq., that he possessed Batanaea (in the more restricted sense, therefore the fruitful, densely populated, profitable Nukra), with Auranitis, Trachonitis, etc. We must therefore suppose that in the words τῆς Ἰτουραίας καὶ Τραχωνίτιδος χώρας in Luke, one district is meant, which by Ἰτουραίας is mentioned according to the marauding portion of its population, and by Trachooni'tidos more generally, according to its trachonitic formation.
(Note: Eusebius in his Onomast. also correctly identifies the two words, at one time under Ἰτουραία, and the other time under Τραχωνῖτις. After what we have said elsewhere (Reisebericht, S. 91ff.) on the subject, surely no one will again maintain that the peaceful villages of the plain of Gdr were the abodes of the Ituraeans, the wildest of all people (Cic. Phil. ii. 11; Strabo, xvi. 2). Their principal hiding-places will have been the Trachonitis in the more restricted sense, but one may seek them also on the wooded mountains of Gln and in the gorges of the Makran. That Ptolemy and Josephus speak only of the Trachonites and never of the Ituraeans (in the passage Ant. xiii. 11, 3, Ἰδουμαία is to be read instead of Ἰτουραία), and Strabo, on the other hand, speaks only of the latter, favours the identity of the two; of like import is the circumstance, that Pliny (H. N. v. 23) makes the inhabitants of the region of Baetarra (Btirr) Ituraeans, and Josephus (Ant. xvii. 2) Trachonites. But in spite of the identity of the words Trachonitis and Ituraea, one must not at the same time overlook the following distinction. If the Trachonites are called after the country, it must be the description of all the inhabitants of the country, whereas the Ituraeans, if they gave the name to the country, are not necessarily its exclusive population. The whole of the district of which we speak has a twofold population in keeping with its double character (rugged rock and fruitful plain), viz., cattle-rearing freebooters in the clefts of the rocks, and peaceful husbandmen in the plain; the former dwelling in hair tents (of old also in caves), the latter in stone houses; the former forming the large majority, the latter the minority of the population of the district. If writers speak of the Ituraeans, they mean exclusively that marauding race that hates husbandry; but if they speak of the Trachonites, the connection must determine, whether they speak of both classes of the population, or only of the marauding Trachonites (the Ituraeans), or of the husbandmen of the plain (of the provinces of Batanaea and Auranitis). The latter are rarely intended, since the peaceful peasant rarely furnishes material for the historian.)
Ioannes Malalas (Chronogr. ed. Dindorf, p. 236), who, as a Syrian born, ought to be well acquainted with the native usage of the language, hence calls Antipas, as a perfectly adequate term, only toparch of Trachonitis; and if, according to his statement (p. 237), the official title of this Herod was the following: Σεβαστὸς Ἡρώδης τοπάρχης καὶ θεσμοδότης Ἰουδαίων τε καὶ Ἑλλήνων, Βασιλεὺς τῆς Τραχωνίτιδος, it is self-evident that "king of Trachonitis" here is synonymous with king of Basan. In perfect harmony with this, Pliny says (H. N. v. 18) that the ten cities of Decapolis lay within the extensive tetrarchies of Trachonitis, which are divided into separate kingdoms. Undoubtedly Pliny adds to these tetrarchies of Trachonitis in the wider sense, which are already known to us, Galadine also, which indeed belonged also the pre-Mosaic Basan, but at the time of Josephus is mostly reckoned to Peraea (in the more limited sense).
On the ground of this evidence, therefore, the land of the Usites of Josephus, with the exception of the Damascene portion, was Trachonitis in the wider sense; and since the Makm jb is in the central point of this country, this statement accords most exactly with the Syrian tradition. It is clear that the latter remains untouched by the extension of the geographical notion in Josephus, for without knowing anything more of a "land of the Usites," it describes only a portion of the same as the "native country of Job;" and again, Josephus had no occasion to speak of Job in his commentary on the genealogies, therefore also none to speak of his special home within the land of the Usites. Eusebius, on the other hand, in his De Originibus (ix. 2, 4), refers to this home, and says, therefore limiting Josephus' definition: Hus, Traconitidis conditor, inter Palaestinam et Coelesyriam tenuit imperium; unde fuit Iob.
With this evidence of agreement between two totally independent witnesses, viz., the Syrian tradition and Josephus, the testimony of the latter in particular has an enhanced value; for, although connected with the Bible, it nevertheless avails as extra-biblical testimony concerning the Usites, it comes from an age when one might still have the historical fact from the seat of the race, and from an authority of the highest order. True, Josephus is not free from disfigurements, where he has the opportunity of magnifying his people, himself, or his Roman patrons, and of depreciating an enemy; but here he had to do with nothing more than the statement of the residence of a people; and since the word Ou'sees also has no similarity in sound with the words Damascus and Trachonitis, that might make a combination with them plausible, we may surely have before us a reliable historical notice here, or at least a tradition which was then general (and therefore also for us important), while we may doubt this in connection with other parts of the genealogies, where Josephus seems only to catch at that which is similar in sound as furnishing an explanation.
But that which might injure the authority of Josephus is the contradiction in which it seems to stand to a far older statement concerning Ausitis, viz., the recognised postscript of the lxx to the book of Job, which makes Job to be the Edomitish king Jobab. The identification, it may be said, can however only have been possible because Ausitis was in or near Edom. But the necessity of this inference must be disputed. It is indeed unmistakeable that that postscript is nothing more than a combination of the Jews beyond Palestine (probably Egytpio-Hellenistic), formed, perhaps, long before the lxx, - such a vagary as many similar ones in the Talmud and Midrash. From the similarity in sound of Ἰωβάβ with Ἰώβ, and the similarity in name of Ζαρά, the father of Jobab, with a son of Re'l and grandson of Esau (Gen 36:13), Job's descent from Esau has been inferred. That Esau's first-born was called Elphaz and his son Temn, seemed to confirm this combination, since (in accordance with the custom
(Note: From this custom, which is called the grandfather's "living again," the habit, singular to us, of a father calling his son jâ abı̂, "my father!" or jâ bêjı̂, "my little father," as an endearing form of address, is explained.)
of naming the grandson as a rule after his grandfather) Elphaz the Temanite might be regarded as grandson of that Elphaz, therefore like Job as great-grandson of Esau and πέμπτος ἀπὸ Ἀβραάμ. The apparent and certainly designed advantages of this combination were: that Job, who had no pedigree, and therefore was to be thought of as a non-Israelite, was brought into the nearest possible blood-relationship to the people of God, and that, by laying the scene in the time of the patriarchs, all questions which the want of a Mosaic colouring to the book of Job might excite would be met. Now, even if the abode of Job were transferred from the land of 'Us to Edom, it would be only the consequence of his combination with Jobab, and, just as worthless as this latter itself, might lead no one astray. But it does not seem to have gone so far; it is even worthy of observation, that מבצרה (from Bosra, the Edomite city),
(Note: It need hardly be mentioned that one is not to think of the Hauranitish Bosr (Arab. bṣrâ), since this name of a city only came into use some centuries after Christ.)
being attached to the misunderstood υἱὸς Ζαρά ἐκ Βοσόῤῥας, Gen 36:33, is reproduced in the lxx by μητρὸς Βοσόῤῥας, as also that Job's wife is not called an Edomitess, but a γυνὴ Ἀράβισσα. And it appears still far more important, that Ausitis lies ἐν τοῖς ὁρίοις τῆς Ἰδουμαίας καὶ Ἀραβίας, so far as the central point of Ἰδουμαία is removed by the addition καὶ τῆς Ἀραβίας, and Job's abode is certainly removed from the heart of Idumaea. The Cod. Alex. exchanges that statement of the place, even in a special additional clause, for ἐπὶ τῶν ὁρίων τοῦ Εὐφράτου, therefore transfers Ausitis to the vicinity of the Euphrates, and calls the father of Jobab (= Job) Ζαρὲθ ἐξ ἀνατολῶν ἡλίου (מבני קדם). Nevertheless we attach no importance to this variation of the text, but rather offer the suggestion that the postscript gives prominence to the observation: οὗτος (viz., Ἰώβ) ἑρμεενεύεται ἐκ τῆς Συριακῆς βίβλου.
(Note: It is indeed possible that the Hebrew text is meant here, for Philo usually calls the Hebrew Χαλδαΐστί, and the Talmud describes the Jewish country-dialect as סורסי; it is possible, and even more probable, that it is a Syrian, i.e., Aramaean Targum - but not less possible that it is a Syrian original document. According to Malalas (ed. Dindorf, p. 12), Origen understands ἐκ τῆς Συριακῆς βίβλου elsewhere of a Hebrew original, but in c. Celsum iii. 6 he describes the Hebrew language in relation to the Syriac and Phoenician as ἑτέρα παρ ̓ ἀμθοτέρας, and the Homilies on Job in Opp. Origenis, ed. Delaure, ii. 851, say: Beati Iob scriptura primum quidem in Arabia Syriace scripta, ubi et habitabat. - Del.)
If we compare the postscript of the lxx with the legend of Islam, we find in both the Esauitish genealogy of Job; the genealogy of the legend is: jb ibn Zrih (זרח) ibn Re'l ibn el-'Ais ibn Ishk ibn Ibrhm; and we may suppose that it is borrowed directly from the lxx, and that it reached Arabia and Mekka even in the pre-Islamic times by means of the (Arabian) Christians east of Jordan, who had the Old Testament only in the Greek translation. Even the Arabic orthography of the biblical proper names, which can be explained only on the supposition of their transfer from the Greek, is in favour of this mode of the transmission of the Christian religion and its legends to the people of the Higaz. Certainly there can be no doubt as to an historical connection between the postscript and the legend, and therefore it would be strange if they did not accord respecting the home of Job. The progenitor el-'Ais (עיץ), in the genealogy of the legend, is also a remarkable counterpart to the Ausitis ἐν τοῖς ὁρίοις τῆς Ἰδουμ. καὶ Ἀρ., for it is a blending of עשׂו and עוּץ, and it has to solve the difficult problem, as to how Job can be at the same time an Usite and an Esauite; for that Job as an Aisite no longer belongs to Idumaea, but to the district of the more northern Aramaeans, is shown e.g., from the following passage in Mugr ed-dn's History of Jerusalem: "Job belonged to the people of the Romans (i.e., the Aisites),
(Note: We will spare ourselves the ungrateful task of an inquiry into the origin of this 'Ais and his Protean nature. Biblical passages like Lam 4:21, or those in which the readings ארם and אדום are doubtful, or the erroneous supposition (Jos. Ant. viii. 7) that the Ben-Hadad dynasty in Damascus is of Edomitish origin, may have contributed to his rise. Moreover, he is altogether one and the same with the Edom of the Jerish tradition: he is called the father of Rm, Asfar, Sfar, Sfn (מלך חצפון), and Nidr (Hamz. Isfah. Ann. p. 79, l. 18, read Arab. ndr for ntsr, and Zeitschr. d. d. m. Gesellsch. ii. 239, 3, 6, read ennidr for ennefer), i.e., of the Messiah of the Christians (according to Isa 11:1))
for he sprang from el-'Ais, and the Damascene province of Batanaea was his property."
The κοπρία of the lxx, at Job 2:8, leads to the same result; that it is also found again as mezbele in the later legend, is a further proof how thoroughly this accords with the lxx, and how it has understood its statement of the position of Ausitis. It may also be maintained here, that it was only possible to translate the words בתוך־חאפר by ἐπὶ τῆς κοπρίας ἔξω τῆς πόλεως when "heap of ashes" and "dunghill" were synonymous notions. This, however, is the case only in Hauran, where the dung, as being useless for agricultural purposes, is burnt from time to time in an appointed place before the town (vid., p. 573),
(Note: Comp. p. 576, note, of the foregoing Commentary. The Arabic version of Walton's Polyglot translates after the Peschito in accordance with the Hebr. text: "on the ashes (er-remâd)," whereas the Arabic translation, of which Tischendorf brought back fifteen leaves with him from the East, and which Fleischer, in the Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitschr. 1864, S. 288ff., has first described as an important memorial in reference to the history of MSS, translates after the Hexapla in accordance with the lxx: "on the dunghill (mezbele) outside the city."-Del.)
while in every other part of Syria it is as valuable and as much stored up as among us. If the lxx accordingly placed the kopri'a of Job in Hauran, it could hardly represent Ausitis as Edom.
But how has the Ausitis of the lxx been transferred hither? Certainly not as the "land of 'Us" (in the sense of the land of Basan, land of Haurn), for without wasting a word about it, there has never been such an one in the country east of the Jordan: but as "the land of the Usites" in the sense of the Arabic dir 'Us (dwelling-place of the Usites) or ard ben 'Us. A land receives designations of this kind with the settlement of a people in it; they run parallel with the proper name of the country, and in the rule vanish again with that people. These designations belong, indeed, to the geography of the whole earth, but nowhere have they preserved their natural character of transitoriness more faithfully than in the lands where the Semitic tongue is spoken. It is this that makes the geographical knowledge of these countries so extremely difficult to us, because we frequently take them to be the names of the countries, which they are not, and which - so far as they always involve a geological definition of the regions named - can never be displaced and competently substituted by them. In this sense the land of the Usites might, at the time of the decay of both Israelitish kingdoms, when the ארם דמשׂק possessed the whole of Peraea, very easily extend from the borders of Edom to the gates of Damascus, and even further northwards, if the Aramaean race of 'Us numbered many or populous tribes (as it appears to be indicated in כל מלכי ארץ העוץ, Jer 25:20), in perfect analogy with the tribe of Ghassn, which during five hundred years occupied the country from the Aelanitic Gulf to the region of Tedmor, at one time settling down, at another leading a nomadic life, and Hauran was the centre of its power. By such a rendering the Ἀραβία of the postscript would not be different from the later provincia Arabiae, of which the capital was the Trachonitish Bostra, while is was bounded on the south end of the Dead Sea by Edom (Palaestine tertia).
But should any one feel a difficulty in freeing himself from the idea that Ausitis is to be sought only in the Ard el-Hlt east of Ma'n, he must consider that the author of the book of Job could not, like that legend which places the miraculous city of Iram in the country of quicksands, transfer the cornfields of his hero to the desert; for there, with the exception of smaller patches of land capable of culture, which we may not bring into account, there is by no means to be found that husbandman's Eldorado, where a single husbandman might find tillage for five hundred (Job 1:3), yea, for a thousand (Job 42:12) yoke of oxen. Such numbers as these are not to be depreciated; for in connection with the primitive agriculture in Syria and Palestine, - which renders a four years' alternation of crops necessary, so that the fields must be divided into so many portions (called in Hauran wâgihât, and around Damascus auguh, Arab. 'wjh), from which only one portion is used annually, and the rest left fallow (bûr), - Job required several square miles of tillage for the employment of his oxen. It is all the same in this respect whether the book of Job is a history or poem: in no case could the Ausitis be a country, the notorious sterility of which would make the statement of the poet ridiculous.
Our limited space does not admit of our proving the worth which we must acknowledge to the tradition, by illustrating those passages of the Old Testament scriptures which have reference to עוץ and ארץ עוץ. But to any one, who, following the hints they give, wishes again to pursue the investigations, elsewhere useless, concerning the position of the land of the Usites, we might indicate: (1) that עוץ the first-born of Aram (Gen 10:23) is the tribe sought, while two others of this name - a Nahorite, Job 22:21, and a Horite, Job 36:28 - may be left out of consideration; the former because the twelve sons of Nahor need not be progenitors of tribes, and the latter because he belongs to a tribe exterminated by the Edomites in accordance with Deu 2:12, Deu 2:22 : (2) that ארץ העוץ, Jer 25:20, is expressly distinguished from אדום in the Jer 25:21, and - if one compares the round of the cup of punishment, Jer. 25, with the detailed prophecies which follow in Jer 46:1, to which it is a prooemium that has been removed from its place - corresponds to דמשׂק (with Hamt and Arpad), Jer 49:23 : (3) that therefore Lam 4:21, where יושׁבת בארץ עוץ would be devoid of purpose if it described the proper habitable land of Edom, must describe a district extending over that, in which the Edomites had established themselves in consequence of Assyria having led away captive the Israelitish and Aramaean population of the East Jordanic country and Coele-Syria. In connection with Jer 25:20 one must not avoid the question whether עוץ is the name of the ארם דמשׂק that has been missed. Here the migration of the Damascene Aramaeans from Kr (Amo 9:7) ought to be considered, the value of the Armenian accounts concerning the original abode of the Usites tested, what is erroneous in the combination of קיר with the river Kur shown and well considered, and in what relations both as to time and events that migration might have stood to the overrunning of Middle Syria by the Aramaean Sbaean tribes (from Mesopotamia) under Hadad-ezer, and to the seizure and possession of the city of Damascus by Rezon the Sbaean? Finally, one more tradition might be compared, to which some value may perhaps be attached, because it is favoured by the stone monuments, whose testimony we are not accustomed otherwise to despise in Palestine and Syria. The eastern portal of the mosque of Ben Umja in Damascus, probably of the very temple, the altar of which king Ahaz caused to be copied (Kg2 16:10), is called Grn or the Gerun gate: the portal in its present form belongs to the Byzantine or Roman period. And before this gate is the Grnje, a spacious, vaulted structure, mostly very old, which has been used since the Mussulman occupation of the city as a mêda'a, i.e., a place for religious ablutions. The topographical writings on Damascus trace these two names back to a Grn ibn Sa'd ibn 'Ad ibn 'Aus (עוץ) ibn Iram (ארם) ibn Sm (שׁם) ibn Nh (נוח), who settled in Damascus in the time of Solomon (one version of the tradition identifies him with Hadad, Jos. Ant. viii. 7), and built in the middle of the city a castle named after him, in which a temple to the planet (kôkeb) Mushteri, the guardian-god of the city, has been erected. That this temple, which, as is well known, under Theodosius, at the same time with the temple of the sun at Ba'lbek, passed over to the Christians, was actually surrounded with a strong, fortified wall, is capable of proof even in the present day. In this tradition, which has assumed various forms, a more genuine counterpart of the biblical עוץ appears than that 'Ais which we have characterized above as an invention of the schools, viz., an 'Aus (Arab. ‛wṣ), father of the Adite-tribe which is said to have settled in the Damascene district under that Grn, and also ancestor of the prophet Hd, lost to the tradition, whose makâm on the mountains of Sut rises far above Gerash a city of pillars, this true Iram dht el-'imd, the valley of the Jabbok and the Sawd of Gilead.
It is with good reason that we have hitherto omitted to mention the Αἰσῖται of Ptolemy v. 18 (19). The Codd have both Αἰσεῖται and Αἰσῖται; different Semitic forms (e.g., the name of the Arab. bny hays, which, according to Jkt, once dwelt in the Harra of the Ragil) may lie at the basis of this name, only not the form עוּץ, which ought to be Οὐσῖται, or at least Αὐσῖται (which no Cod. reads). As to the abodes of the Αἰσῖται, Ptolemy distributes them under nine greater races or groups of races, which in his time inhabited the Syrian steppe. Three of these had their settlements in the eastern half of the Syrian steppe towards the Euphrates of on its western banks: the Καυχαβηνοί in the north, the Αἰσῖται in the middle, and the Ὀρχηνοί in the south. According to this the Αἰσῖται would have been about between Ht and Kfa, or in that district which is called by the natives Ard el-Wudjan, and in which just that race of the Chaldaeans might have dwelt that plundered Job's camels. There we are certainly not to seek the scene of the drama of Job; and if the Edomites were dispersed there (Lam 4:21), they were not to be envied on account of their fortune. But if the Aisi'tai are to be sought there, we may not connect the Καυχαβηνοί with the village of Cochabe (Arab. kawkab) on the Hermon (Epiphan. Haer. x. 18), in order then to remove the Aisi'tai, dwelling "below them," to Batanaea.
And now, in concluding here, I have still to explain, that in writing these pages I was not actuated by an invincible desire of increasing the dull literature respecting the ארץ עוץ by another tractate, but exclusively by the wish of my honoured friend that I should furnish him with a contribution on my visit to the Makm jb, and concerning the tradition that prevails there, for his commentary on the book of Job.
As to the accompanying map, it is intended to represent the hitherto unknown position of the Makm, the Monastery, and the country immediately around the, by comparing it with two localities marked on most maps, Naw and the castle of Muzrb. The latter, the position of which we determined in 1860 as 32 44' north lat. and 35 51' 45" east long. (from Greenwich), lies three hours' journey on horseback south of the Monastery. The Wdi Jarmk and Wdi Ht have the gorge formation in common with all other wadis that unite in the neighbourhood of Zzn and from the Makran, which is remarkable from a geological point of view: a phenomenon which is connected with the extreme depression of the valley of the Jordan. For the majority of the geographical names mentioned in this essay I refer the reader to Carl Ritter's Geographic von Syrien und Palstina;
(Note: Translated by W. L. Gage, and published by T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1866, 4 vols.)
others will be explained in my Itinerarien, which will be published shortly. Next: Job Chapter 1
job 0:0JOB A REAL PERSON.--It has been supposed by some that the book of Job is an allegory, not a real narrative, on account of the artificial character of many of its statements. Thus the sacred numbers, three and seven, often occur. He had seven thousand sheep, seven sons, both before and after his trials; his three friends sit down with him seven days and seven nights; both before and after his trials he had three daughters. So also the number and form of the speeches of the several speakers seem to be artificial. The name of Job, too, is derived from an Arabic word signifying repentance.But Eze 14:14 (compare Eze 14:16, Eze 14:20) speaks of "Job" in conjunction with "Noah and Daniel," real persons. St. James (Jam 5:11) also refers to Job as an example of "patience," which he would not have been likely to do had Job been only a fictitious person. Also the names of persons and places are specified with a particularity not to be looked for in an allegory. As to the exact doubling of his possessions after his restoration, no doubt the round number is given for the exact number, as the latter approached near the former; this is often done in undoubtedly historical books. As to the studied number and form of the speeches, it seems likely that the arguments were substantially those which appear in the book, but that the studied and poetic form was given by Job himself, guided by the Holy Spirit. He lived one hundred and forty years after his trials, and nothing would be more natural than that he should, at his leisure, mould into a perfect form the arguments used in the momentous debate, for the instruction of the Church in all ages. Probably, too, the debate itself occupied several sittings; and the number of speeches assigned to each was arranged by preconcerted agreement, and each was allowed the interval of a day or more to prepare carefully his speech and replies; this will account for the speakers bringing forward their arguments in regular series, no one speaking out of his turn. As to the name Job--repentance (supposing the derivation correct)--it was common in old times to give a name from circumstances which occurred at an advanced period of life, and this is no argument against the reality of the person.WHERE JOB LIVED.--"Uz," according to GESENIUS, means a light, sandy soil, and was in the north of Arabia-Deserta, between Palestine and the Euphrates, called by PTOLEMY (Geography, 19) Ausitai or Aisitai. In Gen 10:23; Gen 22:21; Gen 36:28; and Ch1 1:17, Ch1 1:42, it is the name of a man. In Jer 25:20; Lam 4:21; and Job 1:1, it is a country. Uz, in Gen 22:21, is said to be the son of Nahor, brother of Abraham--a different person from the one mentioned (Gen 10:23), a grandson of Shem. The probability is that the country took its name from the latter of the two; for this one was the son of Aram, from whom the Arameans take their name, and these dwelt in Mesopotamia, between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Compare as to the dwelling of the sons of Shem in Gen 10:30, "a mount of the East," answering to "men of the East" (Job 1:3). RAWLINSON, in his deciphering of the Assyrian inscriptions, states that "Uz is the prevailing name of the country at the mouth of the Euphrates." It is probable that Eliphaz the Temanite and the Sabeans dwelt in that quarter; and we know that the Chaldeans resided there, and not near Idumea, which some identify with Uz. The tornado from "the wilderness" (Job 1:19) agrees with the view of it being Arabia-Deserta. Job (Job 1:3) is called "the greatest of the men of the East"; but Idumea was not east, but south of Palestine: therefore in Scripture language, the phrase cannot apply to that country, but probably refers to the north of Arabia-Deserta, between Palestine, Idumea, and the Euphrates. So the Arabs still show in the Houran a place called Uz as the residence of Job.THE AGE WHEN JOB LIVED.--EUSEBIUS fixes it two ages before Moses, that is, about the time of Isaac: eighteen hundred years before Christ, and six hundred after the Deluge. Agreeing with this are the following considerations: 1. Job's length of life is patriarchal, two hundred years. 2. He alludes only to the earliest form of idolatry, namely, the worship of the sun, moon, and heavenly hosts (called Saba, whence arises the title "Lord of Sabaoth," as opposed to Sabeanism) (Job 31:26-28). 3. The number of oxen and rams sacrificed, seven, as in the case of Balaam. God would not have sanctioned this after the giving of the Mosaic law, though He might graciously accommodate Himself to existing customs before the law. 4. The language of Job is Hebrew, interspersed occasionally with Syriac and Arabic expressions, implying a time when all the Shemitic tribes spoke one common tongue and had not branched into different dialects, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. 5. He speaks of the most ancient kind of writing, namely, sculpture. Riches also are reckoned by cattle. The Hebrew word, translated "a piece of money," ought rather be rendered "a lamb." 6. There is no allusion to the exodus from Egypt and to the miracles that accompanied it; nor to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (PATRICK, however, thinks there is); though there is to the Flood (Job 22:17); and these events, happening in Job's vicinity, would have been striking illustrations of the argument for God's interposition in destroying the wicked and vindicating the righteous, had Job and his friends known of them. Nor is there any undoubted reference to the Jewish law, ritual, and priesthood. 7. The religion of Job is that which prevailed among the patriarchs previous to the law; sacrifices performed by the head of the family; no officiating priesthood, temple, or consecrated altar.THE WRITER.--All the foregoing facts accord with Job himself having been the author. The style of thought, imagery, and manners, are such as we should look for in the work of an Arabian emir. There is precisely that degree of knowledge of primitive tradition (see Job 31:33, as to Adam) which was universally spread abroad in the days of Noah and Abraham, and which was subsequently embodied in the early chapters of Genesis. Job, in his speeches, shows that he was much more competent to compose the work than Elihu, to whom LIGHTFOOT attributes it. The style forbids its being attributed to Moses, to whom its composition is by some attributed, "whilst he was among the Midianites, about 1520 B.C." But the fact, that it, though not a Jewish book, appears among the Hebrew sacred writings, makes it likely that it came to the knowledge of Moses during the forty years which he passed in parts of Arabia, chiefly near Horeb; and that he, by divine guidance, introduced it as a sacred writing to the Israelites, to whom, in their affliction, the patience and restoration of Job were calculated to be a lesson of especial utility. That it is inspired appears from the fact that Paul (Co1 3:19) quotes it (Job 5:13) with the formula, "It is written." Our Savior, too Mat 24:28), plainly refers to Job 29:30. Compare also Jam 4:10 and Pe1 5:6 with Job 22:29; Rom 11:34-35 with Job 15:8. It is probably the oldest book in the world. It stands among the Hagiographa in the threefold division of Scripture into the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa ("Psalms," Luk 24:44).DESIGN OF THE BOOK.--It is a public debate in poetic form on an important question concerning the divine government; moreover the prologue and epilogue, which are in prose, shed the interest of a living history over the debate, which would otherwise be but a contest of abstract reasonings. To each speaker of the three friends three speeches are assigned. Job having no one to stand by him is allowed to reply to each speech of each of the three. Eliphaz, as the oldest, leads the way. Zophar, at his third turn, failed to speak, thus virtually owning himself overcome (Job 27:1-23). Therefore Job continued his reply, which forms three speeches (Job 26:1-14; Job 27:1-23; Job 28:1-28; Job 29:1-31:40). Elihu (Job 32:1-37:24) is allowed four speeches. Jehovah makes three addresses (Job 38:1-41:34). Thus, throughout there is a tripartite division. The whole is divided into three parts--the prologue, poem proper, and epilogue. The poem, into three--(1) The dispute of Job and his three friends; (2) The address of Elihu; (3) The address of God. There are three series in the controversy, and in the same order. The epilogue (Job 42:1-17) also is threefold; Job's justification, reconciliation with his friends, restoration. The speakers also in their successive speeches regularly advance from less to greater vehemence. With all this artificial composition, everything seems easy and natural.The question to be solved, as exemplified in the case of Job, is, Why are the righteous afflicted consistently with God's justice? The doctrine of retribution after death, no doubt, is the great solution of the difficulty. And to it Job plainly refers in Job 14:14, and Job 19:25. The objection to this, that the explicitness of the language on the resurrection in Job is inconsistent with the obscurity on the subject in the early books of the Old Testament, is answered by the fact that Job enjoyed the divine vision (Job 38:1; Job 42:5), and therefore, by inspiration, foretold these truths. Next, the revelations made outside of Israel being few needed to be the more explicit; thus Balaam's prophecy (Num 24:17) was clear enough to lead the wise men of the East by the star (Mat 2:2); and in the age before the written law, it was the more needful for God not to leave Himself without witness of the truth. Still Job evidently did not fully realize the significance designed by the Spirit in his own words (compare Pe1 1:11-12). The doctrine, though existing, was not plainly revealed or at least understood. Hence he does not mainly refer to this solution. Yes, and even now, we need something in addition to this solution. David, who firmly believed in a future retribution (Psa 16:10; Psa 17:15), still felt the difficulty not entirely solved thereby (Psa. 83:1-18). The solution is not in Job's or in his three friends' speeches. It must, therefore, be in Elihu's. God will hold a final judgment, no doubt, to clear up all that seems dark in His present dealings; but He also now providentially and morally governs the world and all the events of human life. Even the comparatively righteous are not without sin which needs to be corrected. The justice and love of God administer the altogether deserved and merciful correction. Affliction to the godly is thus mercy and justice in disguise. The afflicted believer on repentance sees this. "Via crucis, via salutis" ["The way of the cross, the way of deliverance"]. Though afflicted, the godly are happier even now than the ungodly, and when affliction has attained its end, it is removed by the Lord. In the Old Testament the consolations are more temporal and outward; in the New Testament, more spiritual; but in neither to the entire exclusion of the other. "Prosperity," says BACON, "is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity that of the New Testament, which is the mark of God's more especial favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost has labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes." This solution of Elihu is seconded by the addresses of God, in which it is shown God must be just (because He is God), as Elihu had shown how God can be just, and yet the righteous be afflicted. It is also acquiesced in by Job, who makes no reply. God reprimands the "three" friends, but not Elihu. Job's general course is approved; he is directed to intercede for his friends, and is restored to double his former prosperity.POETRY.--In all countries poetry is the earliest form of composition as being best retained in the memory. In the East especially it was customary for sentiments to be preserved in a terse, proverbial, and poetic form (called maschal). Hebrew poetry is not constituted by the rhythm or meter, but in a form peculiar to itself: 1. In an alphabetical arrangement somewhat like our acrostic. For instance, Lam. 1:1-22. 2. The same verse repeated at intervals; as in Psa 42:1-11; Psa. 107:1-43. 3. Rhythm of gradation. Psalms of degrees, Psa. 120:1-134:3, in which the expression of the previous verse is resumed and carried forward in the next (Psa 121:1-8). 4. The chief characteristic of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, or the correspondence of the same ideas in the parallel clauses. The earliest instance is Enoch's prophecy (Jde 1:14), and Lamech's parody of it (Gen 4:23). Three kinds occur: (1) The synonymous parallelism, in which the second is a repetition of the first, with or without increase of force (Psa 22:27; Isa 15:1); sometimes with double parallelism (Isa 1:15). (2) The antithetic, in which the idea of the second clause is the converse of that in the first (Pro 10:1). (3) The synthetic, where there is a correspondence between different propositions, noun answering to noun, verb to verb, member to member, the sentiment, moreover, being not merely echoed, or put in contrast, but enforced by accessory ideas (Job 3:3-9). Also alternate (Isa 51:19). "Desolation and destruction, famine and sword," that is, desolation by famine, and destruction by the sword. Introverted; where the fourth answers to the first, and the third to the second (Mat 7:6). Parallelism thus often affords a key to the interpretation. For fuller information, see LOWTH (Introduction to Isaiah, and Lecture on Hebrew Poetry) and HERDER (Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, translated by Marsh). The simpler and less artificial forms of parallelism prevail in Job--a mark of its early age. Next: Job Chapter 1