^KWOFPRWcf^ 
 
 <^iOGICALSE*\^ 
 
THEOLOGICAL 
 
 TRANSLATION FUND LIBRARY. 
 
 VOL. XXVIII. 
 
 EWALD'S 
 
 COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
COMMENTARY 
 
 BOOK OF JOB 
 
 WITH TRANSLATION 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 DR. GEORG HEIMICH AUGUST VON EWALD, 
 
 Professor of Oriental Languatjes in the university of Göttingen. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 J. FEEDERICK SMITH. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 
 
 14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON 
 AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
v..--"y er 
 
 r.LC. OCT 1882 
 
 This translation into English of the late Professor Ewald's 
 work on the Book of Job, the third part of his Dichter des 
 Alten Bundes, has been made on the same principles as that 
 of his work on the Prophets of the Old Testament, which has 
 appeared as volumes ix, xii, xviii, xxi, and xxvi of this series. 
 The translator has considered it his duty, in this as in the 
 former case, to faithfully observe the fundamental principles 
 on which the great interpreter of the Hebrew Scriptures per- 
 formed his task of reproducing as closely as possible the mi- 
 nutest peculiarities of his Hebrew authors, even at the cost of 
 German grammar and idiom. Real students of Ewald would 
 not thank an English translator for the attempt to improve 
 upon him. On one point only has any concession been made 
 to English popular taste. The Hebrew proper names in this 
 volume appear, with the exception of niii:, in their traditional 
 English form. This slight departure from the author's practice 
 of transcribing these names in their Hebrew form can hardly 
 be regarded as the violation of an essential principle of his 
 Commentaries. 
 
 The references in this volume to other works of the author's 
 have been made as explained in the "Translator's Preface" to 
 the first volume of the "Prophets". The §§ of his Hebrew 
 
VI 
 
 Grammar, which in the German of this volume of the Poets 
 of the Old Testament are those of an early edition, have been 
 made to correspond with the paragraphing of the last editions 
 of that work. The first edition of this Commentary has generally 
 been compared with the second and last, from which this trans- 
 lation is made, and important differences between the two 
 have frequently been noted. 
 
 J. F. S. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 mTRODUCTION:— 
 
 1. The Thought of the Poem . . . . 
 
 2. The Matter of the Poem 
 
 3. The Art of the Poem 
 
 Of the Date and History of the Book 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 — 16 
 16—30 
 30—73 
 
 74—82 
 
 TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY:— 
 
 I. The First Stage of the Drama: Opening of the 
 
 Contention, ch. i — iii 81 — 99 
 
 II. The Second Stage of the Drama: First Advance 
 
 in the Contention, ch. iv — xiv 100 — 169 
 
 III. The Third Stage of the Drama: Second Advance 
 
 in the Qpnteution, ch. xv — xxi 170 — 225 
 
 IV. Fourth Stage of the Drama : Third and last Ad- 
 
 vance in the Contention, ch. xxii — xxviii. . 226 — 266 
 V. Fifth Stage of the Drama: Solution, ch. xxix — 
 
 xxxi., xxxviii — xl. 14, and xlii 267 — 317 
 
 Description of the Hippopotamus and the Croco- 
 dile, ch. xl. 15— xli. 26 318—326 
 
 Elihu's Speeches, ch. xxxii — xxxvii 326 — 349 
 
THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 
 
 It is easy to see from the first glance at the book that 
 the poet is makiug the evils which afflict mortals the sub- 
 ject of his consideration. He found the view which had pre- 
 vailed from of old do"SATi to his own times already self-contra- 
 dictory, and he attempted a profounder solution of the con- 
 flicting principles. The successful accomplishment of this task, 
 however, required as its condition the most distinct conception 
 of the contrary notions themselves. 
 
 1. According to the notion which descended even to Christian 
 times (John ix, 2 compared with the ancient evidence Num. xxvii, 
 3), the dark and grievous ills which befall man are the corre- 
 sponding consequences of special sins. They are primarily the 
 consequences of the sufferer's own sins, but in exceptional cases, 
 where the measure of calamity appears out of proportion to 
 the particular sufferer's guilt, the causes of it are traced back 
 to his parents or earlier ancestors. But in every case the ills 
 are regarded as a consequence of personal sin. Nor need it 
 create surprise that the ancient world possessed at the first 
 no tried and valid notion as regards the causes of human ill. 
 The idea of evil, ill, is of such a wide and indefinite nature, 
 the causes of it are both so various and so concealed, that even 
 after long experience and close examination it remains difficult 
 to present a satisfactory theory of it. As long as natural evil, 
 that is evil which is involved in the very creation and con- 
 
2 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 stitution of the world, is not distinguished from personal evil, 
 or from what is properly wickedness, and as long as men in 
 their personal capacity are not more strictly looked upon as 
 raised above merely external evil and wickedness which has not 
 touched them personally, it will be impossible to attain to a 
 view of evil in its relation to man which will be in all re- 
 spects satisfactory. As long as the above conditions of such a 
 view are unfulfilled, the best, and, as far as the simple feelings 
 of early religion are concerned, the most natural view is that 
 above referred to, which arose in the most distant antiquity. 
 This was a conception which early antiquity embraced with 
 affection and reverence, which was subsequently held for a 
 long time, and which must always retain a certain justification 
 in less elevated and more confined spheres of thought, inas- 
 much as it contains a certain amount of truth. For every ill 
 of the great undistinguished multitude of ills which befall a 
 man, in whatever way it may have arisen, in any case always 
 powerfully provokes serious consideration, and in the first in- 
 stance compels him to abandon his customary indifference and 
 to seek the less obvious causes of the calamities which he so 
 painfully feels. In that case, what will he more naturally think 
 of than his sins and ill deserts ? For the unsophisticated mind 
 feels profoundly that it is from sin that disturbance, confusion, 
 and suffering proceed. In this way natural evil also becomes 
 a moral one to him who is conscious of such a disturbance 
 and disorganisation within, and the wickedness of others with 
 which he has connexion by ties of blood or family appears 
 justly to reach him in its consequences. As long as the con- 
 sciousness of human imperfection and of the magnitude of guilt 
 has not been aroused with sufficient force or clearness, this way 
 of looking at the undistinguished mass of evil is not without 
 reason or usefulness. Every fresh calamity snatches men from 
 their natural indolence and confused thoughtlessness, and every 
 hard or severely felt blow of that kind is like the wave which 
 is meant to impel the ship of the soul, as it is still contend- 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 3 
 
 ing with the troubled billows of ignorance, towards a calmer 
 and fairer port. As thus in the case of men generally the re- 
 cognition of the terrible nature of guilt in all its magnitude must 
 become clear and vivid before they can in return OTcrcome its 
 terrors, so the men of early antiquity were confronted by the 
 undistinguished aggregate of evil in all its forms in order that the 
 truth of human guilt might be brought out most sensibly and 
 painfully. And that nation of antiquity which experienced and 
 felt most vividly all divine truths in this respect also passed 
 through the profouudest experiences, although in a greater or 
 less degree the feeling, that calamities are the consequences of 
 sin, pervades the w^hole of antiquity. So natural and powerful 
 was this feeling in those ages that it was felt by everybody 
 in that stage of human development, not only by individuals 
 who were themselves the immediate sufferers but also by those 
 who were merely spectators and contemporaries. 
 
 Primarily, however, by the immediate sufferer himself. He 
 feels most directly the irresistible assault of mysterious suffer- 
 ing, whether it be the burning fever of a violent illness or 
 some other peril threatening complete destruction. Assailed 
 by the most painful sensations, experiencing nothing gentle, 
 mitigating, alleviating, he believes that instead of the former 
 gentle, quickening divine breath, the value of which he now 
 for the first time fully recognises, he endures the wrath of 
 God, xvi. 9; xix. 11; xxx. 21; Ps.xxxix. 11, 12; Lam. i. 12; ii. 1, 
 3; iii. 1; iv. 11; that he feels His indignation entering into him 
 X. 17, that he grievously and helplessly falls under His enmity 
 xiii. 24; xxx. 21. This feeling seeks expression by means of 
 the most varied figures. The unhappy sufferer feels as if his 
 sufferings were an indignant, chastising hand, with which God 
 clutches him and which rests upon him heavily and without ces- 
 sation, i. 11 ; ii. 5; xiii. 21 ; xix. 21 ; xxiii. 2; xxx. 21; Ps. xxxviii. 
 3; xxxix. 11. The cruel pains of his calamities appear to him 
 like those caused by sharply pointed and deeply penetrating 
 arrows and missiles of all kinds, vi. 4; Ps. xxxviii. 3; Lam. ii. 4; 
 
 I* 
 
4 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 iii. 12. Their incessantly repeated and increasingly violent 
 attack appears to him to be like that of a whole host of 
 armed and fierce assailants, who continually march up with ever 
 fresh forces to storm a fortress, relieving each other by turns, 
 X. 17; xvi. 9, 12—14; xxx. 12—15. And the solitary, frail 
 mortal is set up as it were to be the obnoxious aim of all 
 such incessant attacks, vii. 20; xvi. 11; Lam. iii. 12, and must 
 probably at last succumb as if shamefully prevailed over by 
 the proud enemy who seeks to entrap and to insult the poor 
 unfortunate, xiv. 20; xix. 9, 10; xxx. 19; Lam. iii. 4. All this 
 appears, in consequence of the burning fire which he feels 
 raging within, as if it were at the same time inflicted by the 
 most indignant enemy, as if the arrows which penetrate him 
 were poisoned vi. 4 ; xxx, 27, and wrathful glances from God 
 went through him without ceasing, vii. 19; xiv. 6; xvi. 9; 
 Ps. xxxix. 14. On account of this overwhelming burden and 
 torture, attended by the paralysis of all his energies, the suf- 
 ferer feels himself irrecoverably handed over to a higher power. 
 At one time it seems to him as if shut in on all hands he 
 could find no exit, as in trackless horrible darkness iii. 23; 
 xix. 8; Lam. iii. 7, 9; or as if he were in rigorous confine- 
 ment where he may not move or stir, vii. 12; xiii. 27; xiv. 
 IG; Lam. iii. 7; or as if entangled in a net and caught in 
 snares xix. 6; Lam. i. 13. At another time, when the danger 
 threatens and rages more violently, he seems to himself to be 
 sinking as if forcibly overwhelmed, carried away by a vast 
 flood, Ps. xxxviii. 5; xlii. 8; Ixxxviii. 8, 16—18; Ixix. 1 sq. (a 
 figure not used in the Book of Job) ; or as if hunted and run down 
 by a raging lion, x. 16; xvi. 9; Isa. xxxviii. 13, or even a still 
 more terrible case, as if pursued by the violence of a storm, 
 hurled on high, dashed in pieces, ix. 11, 17; xiii. 25; xxx. 22. 
 Now although these feelings and similes could not have arisen 
 unless from the very first the more or less distinct forboding 
 and terror of the divine wrath had existed in the background, 
 this terror nevertheless only becomes truly powerful and definite 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 5 
 
 in the course of such calamities and pains. It is in his mys- 
 terious afflictions that the poor sufferer thinks he finds the 
 proof and evidence of the divine disfavour and hostility (I Icnow 
 that Thou will not acquit me, says Job, ix. 28 ; x. 13 ; xxx. 23). 
 Thus the trouble is twofold, possessing the whole soul and fil- 
 ling it with the darkest terrors. All the afflictions which are 
 either actually endured or threatened and dreaded become thus 
 precisely so many images of anguish and alarm to the confounded 
 soul which is labouring under the delusion of the divine wrath ; 
 boundless dismay, horrible despair, is added to the physical 
 tortures of the body, destroying every consolation, iii. 24, 25; 
 ix. 11, 15— 20; xxiii. 16; Ps. vi.7,8; xiii.3; Ixxxviii. 16. Whilst 
 he supposes that he feels most painfully the glance and hand 
 of his angry God, he must still feel on the other hand that 
 God as the glorious, kind and gracious One has withdrawn 
 from him and appears to stand afar off with His face turned 
 away, xiii. 24; xix. 7; xxiii. 8, 9; xxx. 20, 21; Ps. xiii. 2; x. 
 1 sq. ; xxxviii. 15. And although with every new and unexpected 
 stroke he experiences afresh the wonders of the divine power, 
 this power is nevertheless simply dark and terrible in this case, 
 ix. 11 sq.; x. 16. This dismay, this ceaseless foreboding terror, 
 is finally the more intense in proportion as the consoling and 
 cheering prospects which the ancient world entertained regard- 
 ing the gloomy Underworld, or Hades, were few; from it there 
 seemed to be no possible return, and dread of the death of 
 the body, and of being compelled early to enter the Underworld, 
 was great. So that a man, whom such a calamity befalls be- 
 fore the satiety and weariness of old age, although in the 
 moment of maddening pain the quickest death seems the one 
 thing to be desired, vi. 8 — 13; vii. 15; xiii. 14, can yet at other 
 times pray pitifully for at least a brief respite before the last 
 breath is drawn, vii. 16, 19; x. 20; xiv. 5 — 12; Isa. xxxviii. 
 10—13. — And if the man who is thus afflicted is conscious of 
 no definite grievous sin, it will still appear to him in the 
 midst of all these conceptions, as if his incessant pain tor- 
 
6 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tured and compelled him to reflect and in penitence and sub- 
 mission confess transgressions the commission of which he can- 
 not recall. His sufferings become a painful instrument of tor- 
 ture with which God enquires after his sins, x. 6, becoming 
 constantly more intense in proportion as he makes resistance 
 (as in fact by the impatience and rebellion of the sufferer his 
 sufferings increase) ix. 12—20, 34; x. 16, 17; xiii. 21. The 
 final punishment, the end of the process of torture, death itself, 
 appears to be irrevocably determined, and God, delaying and 
 yet constantly bitterly punishing, merely meditating amidst 
 the interchanging severe torments upon the manner of the cer- 
 tain impending death, xiii. 15, 26 ; xiv. 17 ; xxiii. 14. In such 
 circumstances the thought of God's omnipotence is itself a bur- 
 den and a terror, because a mortal (even should he innocently 
 fall) appears unable to deliver himself in opposition to omni- 
 potent decrees, inasmuch as beyond God there is no appeal, 
 but He is the almighty and at the same time the highest 
 judge, ix. 2—20, 30-33; xxiii. 6, 13, 14; xxx. 18. 
 
 However the spectators and contemporaries also behold in 
 such sufferings a sign of the divine punishment of the suf- 
 ferer himself: his misfortunes are an unfavourable witness not 
 to himself alone, xiii. 27; xvi, 8, but also to his fellowmen. 
 The alarming sight of such sufferings, which sometimes provokes 
 disgust even, combined with the consciousness of possible parti- 
 cipation in similar sin and punishment, excites even in the 
 kindly-disposed and considerate friend the suspicion, that the 
 sufferer is paying the penalty of equally grievous sins. The 
 ordinary, pusillanimous and selfish man carefully turns away, 
 or even insults and mocks the sufferer, not blushing to charge 
 him with false crimes. As the poor man's afflictions in- 
 crease, the confusion and error of such spectators grow, and 
 nothing causes the sufferer deeper pain than this suspicion 
 which he meets with from his fellowmen, this narrow-minded 
 treachery by which he finds himself isolated or betrayed, this 
 cruel scorn with which he finds himself so bitterly persecuted. 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 7 
 
 ii. 9; xii. 4; xvi. 7 sq., 10, 20; xvii. 6; xix. 22; xxx. 1 sq.; 
 Ps. vi. 8; xiii. 3 sq.; xli. 6 sq.; xxxv. 11 sq.; xxxviii. 12 sq.; 
 Ixix. 5 sq.; Ixxxviii. 8, 9, 19; Lam. ii. 15, 16; Isa. xlix. 7, liii. 3, 
 and many other passages. The most friendly and calmest of the 
 spectators cannot refrain from urging the poor man to do pro- 
 found penance at least, and they insist vehemently on con- 
 fession of committed sins. 
 
 The ancient languages also point by the forms and usages 
 of many words to ideas of this kind as generally prevalent. 
 Thus y^: is a stroke of God, an affliction of the body intended 
 as a punishment; and how deeply the ancient Hebrews felt that 
 the ideas of guilt, punishment, and suffering were interchangeable, 
 is shown by several words which convey all these meanings, as 
 |iy, for instance, denoting properly what is wrong, a trans- 
 gression, guilt, but also the mysterious sufferings connected 
 therewith, Ps. xxxviii. 5; by t.^'^x\ and j'uje transgression, sin, 
 the consequences of wrong-doing, the punishment, or the suf- 
 fering, are at all events often expressed, Ps. xxxix. 9, rather 
 than the wrong-doing itself, on the supposition that the latter 
 implies the former. Nor, indeed, can any one deny that a 
 profound and eternal connexion subsists between sin and suf- 
 fering, as much as between divine right and salvation, as 
 the ancient nations, but particularly the Hebrews, surmised in 
 such a grand and severe manner. It is only the form under 
 which they conceived this connexion to exist which is confused 
 and mixed with error in the above popular conceptions. 
 
 2. For that view may fairly well suffice as long as human 
 life remains in its first simplicity, but not as it grows more 
 complex. With the progress of the collective life of the race, 
 men's relations to each other become by degrees very compli- 
 cated. The individual and separate households get interwo- 
 ven with the prevailing order or disorder of a great commu- 
 nity ; the individual so often suffers without corresponding per- 
 sonal fault under the sufferings of the whole community, or 
 bears alone even the guilt of a whole period, the consequences 
 
8 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the errors of many centuries. As thus the disturbance of the 
 simple equilibrium between suffering and personal conduct be- 
 comes increasingly painful, that ancient view of the calamities 
 of individuals as the consequence of their personal sins also 
 receives perpetually more and more injurious shocks, inasmuch 
 as experience so often and so decidedly contradicts it. This 
 rift in the ancient notion, moreover, widens still further in an- 
 other direction. The idea of guilt, which has been brought to 
 greater perfection under this notion as its outward integument, 
 becomes itself a means of its dissolution. For when that early 
 delusion fully roused and aggravated the consciousness of guilt, 
 it necessarily met with its end precisely as it attained this 
 object: just in proportion as the heart has become softened 
 and obedient, it has also become the more able to escape from 
 its own darkness and errors. When once the idea of the true 
 extent and the real magnitude of the personal guilt of mortals 
 has become quite clear to the mind, it will turn with all the 
 clearer perception and courage to the recognition of what does 
 not strictly constitute a part of that guilt, and resist more 
 and more decidedly the universal validity of the ancient belief. 
 Men learn to put in opposite scales the measure of their suf- 
 ferings and the measure of their possible transgressions; and 
 in the case of the individual who suffers so severely but can- 
 not with the most minute examination discover anything which 
 completely answers to his afflictions, there arises from that 
 early delusion a host of doubts and troubles xiii. 26^'; Ps. xxv. 
 7. And then, on the other hand, God himself is the being 
 who is full of kindness and mercy, and as time goes on is 
 more and more inwardly and cordially felt to be such. If 
 that is the case, wherefore shall the sufiFerer not hope for re- 
 lief from the mercy and salvation of God? For, indeed, mercy 
 must be the predominant characteristic of God, and the Creator 
 seems to be necessitated to treat his creature rather with love 
 than with the desire to destroy it, x. 3, 8; xiv, 15. In the 
 midst of the growing confusion and the increasing universality 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 9 
 
 of misery, the certainty and necessity of the indestructible di- 
 vine mercy as the only salvation come more and more into the 
 foreground: and when once this conviction has grown power- 
 ful, it turns primarily against that ancient belief, which has be- 
 come a delusion and superstition, as its dangerous antagonist. 
 It is true that at first the endeavour was made to main- 
 tain both of these contradictory views, inasmuch as the suf- 
 ferer, though still oppressed by the feeling of the divine wrath, 
 nevertheless prays to be chastised not beyond measure but 
 rather to be pardoned, and while he wrestles with his afflic- 
 tion gathers from the idea of the divine mercy reasons with 
 which to excite God's pity. And as a fact noble souls which 
 can discover such reasons , succeed thus in getting comfort for 
 the moment*. The contradiction between these two ways of re- 
 garding God,— as the hostile unjust tormentor, xxvii. 2, and as 
 the highest judge from whom at all events no final wrong can be 
 expected, xiii. 9; xi. 16,— the poor man seeks to overcome by 
 thinking of God as only at present hostile, xiii. 24; xiv. 16 ; xxiii. 
 3—17, and so putting forth his utmost strength he wrestles to 
 feel that He is once more inclined to him. But notwithstanding 
 there still remains an oppressive, unsatisfied feeling, inasmuch 
 as this solution of the contradiction involves on its part much 
 that is not clear and intelligible. And as the times grow in- 
 creasingly complicated, as the life of the more conscientious 
 gets constantly more troubled and toilsome, the hold of de- 
 spair gets stronger, it becomes growingly difficult within the 
 region of that ancient delusion, notwithstanding the thought 
 of the divine mercy, to attain to lasting satisfaction. Even in 
 cases where a noble power of faith contends with despair and 
 aspires to victory, we soon see notwithstanding at one time 
 how the utmost effort to escape the fear of the divine wrath 
 and the mockery of cruel persecutors, Pss. xxxv; xxxviii ; Ixix; 
 cix., succeeds only with difficulty in overcoming and assuaging 
 
 * See my Commentary on Ps. vi. 13. 
 
10 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the bitter, almost scornful, contemplation of the frailty of hu- 
 man life and endeavours Ps. xxxix., and at another time the most 
 melancholy longing for salvation, pining almost in vain in a 
 last effort to find comfort and deliverance, closing with a mourn- 
 ful outlook, Ps. Ixxxviii. If in such a case the affliction ne- 
 vertheless afresh surprises the poor man who is not at all con- 
 scious of such great guilt, and he sees himself disappointed as 
 regards the peace which should follow his innocence and the 
 hope arising from divine mercy, is it not possible that at last 
 pure despair may prevail and its source — that ancient belief — 
 be turned against itself in fierce indignation? As a sufficient 
 reason for such great wrath is not felt, the fear of that wrath 
 becomes a dread of all divine leadings and providences in ge- 
 neral, and the one thought which ought to bring comfort and 
 hope to the sufferer— the thought of God— is changed into an 
 image of terror. 
 
 But this possible error does not reach its climax until the 
 personal sufferer turns his dazed and dimmed eye from his 
 own individual calamities to the consideration of the great 
 world to find there its full confirmation. The man that is 
 conscious of such perplexity and confusion within his own soul, 
 such emptiness and desolation, discovers also very quickly ca- 
 lamities of a similarly excessive character in the world around 
 him ; indeed, he simply finds there things which answer to his 
 own mood and experience. How many seem, on the one hand, 
 to suffer most profoundly though no great personal guilt can be 
 proved or presupposed in their case! On the other hand, how 
 prosperous often is the powerful sinner who defies all law and 
 order! If man's external fortunes are to serve as an index for 
 the judgment as regards the divine favour, in such cases does 
 not everything in the present world appear to violate all order, 
 and does not experience teach the exact contrary of the early 
 belief — the adversity of the faithful and, which is the most 
 distressing, the apparently complete and lasting prosperity 
 of the violent and lawless? ix. 22—24; xii. 5, 6; xxi. 6, 7; 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 11 
 
 xxiii, 14; xxiv. 1 — 25; comp. Pss. xlix, Ixxiii. And if it is 
 sought to excuse the outward prosperity of the wicked by the 
 supposition, that at all events his sons would nevertheless have 
 to suffer for it, is that really a righteous retribution propor- 
 tionate to the dignity of God and of the human person? xxi. 
 19—21 ; comp. v. 4. On the contrary, are not the sons of 
 those who suffer innocently sharers in their parents' misfor- 
 tunes from no fault of their own ? Do not many follow the se- 
 ductive example of a prosperous sinner? xxi. 32, 33. In ge- 
 neral, where is the mighty and manifest intervention of God 
 as judge which the early belief maintained ?— Whoever in this 
 general confusion under which the world seems to be suffering 
 feels himself involved and overwhelmed with no light or suc- 
 cour from within or without, must naturally either sink into 
 a state of gloomy and oppressive dread, in which, overwhelmed 
 by the burden, he resigns all collected thought, or, if he re- 
 mains too strong to give way to such cowardly fear, must rise 
 up boldly in warm indignation against the confusion itself and 
 Him whom he regards as its ultimate cause. For the mind 
 of a healthy, intelligent man cannot comprehend such a pre- 
 valence of wrong, inasmuch as it is a contradiction of his own 
 nature. The dark unresolved enigma torments and teases him 
 most painfully. And if such an impossible, yea, preposterous 
 state of things appears to come even from God himself, and 
 thus to force itself upon his attention, man possesses still the 
 marvellous power and desire to turn with a Titanic daring 
 against Heaven itself, to call to account the Omnipotent One 
 regarding that which is to his mind so inexplicable, and not 
 to tremble even in the presence of an angry and threaten- 
 ing God! He who is thus driven by the dark storm of 
 doubt and perplexity is more likely to sacrifice the ancient 
 faith altogether with all that might be true in it, and a single 
 individual may find it easier to combat the universally preva- 
 lent, or even the sacred, notion, than that he should from con- 
 sideration for it betray a true experience which contradicts it 
 
12 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and faint-heartedly pay homage to the dark obscurity. And 
 if God and all the powers of the world endeavoured by means 
 of the ancient doctrine to deprive him of his conscious inno- 
 cence, he could only all the more boldly in the midst of all 
 dangers defend the hereditary faith itself against (the external) 
 God, the outward world. 
 
 But justly as the violated moral feeling revolts against the 
 ancient delusion and in a short time inflicts upon it incurable 
 wounds, this method produces no salutary result, but imme- 
 diately nothing but increased perplexity, growing trouble. Thus 
 we have, on the one hand, a delusive faith grown to a super- 
 stition, and on the other, the same faith simply converted into 
 its contradictory, doubt and denial degenerated into unbelief! 
 On both sides misconception: for both still depend upon ex- 
 ternal appearances, without having grasped the whole and the 
 heart of the matter. Nevertheless amid these painful mental 
 throes the higher truth may at last come to light. Contra- 
 dictory views when most strained and decisively brought out 
 conduct readily to the clearness of truth. When doubt has 
 been fully developed, it soon proves its own destruction; under 
 the ruins of it and the ancient faith there is already lying 
 secreted the purer truth which is so anxiously longed-for and 
 the want of which is so painfully felt, and unexpectedly a fa- 
 vouring wind calls it forth at the right moment. 
 
 3. This correct view proceeds from the recognition of the 
 fact, that outward evil as such is not at all necessarily the 
 consequence and punishment of the sins of the individual, that 
 physical evils such as earthquakes, pestilences, on the con- 
 trary, befall both good and bad no less indiscriminately than 
 physical benefits (comp. Luke xiii. 1—5 ; Matt. v. 45). On the 
 other hand, outward evil which has its origin in human wicked- 
 ness, e. g. oppression and cruelty, can although it affects the 
 guilty most painfully, at the same time just as easily fall upon 
 the innocent also. Evil as something outward, visible, and 
 physical holds therefore no true inward relation whatever to 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 13 
 
 the personal merits of man, inasmuch as the most guilty may 
 sometimes enjoy what is apparently the greatest prosperity 
 and the most innocent may for the moment bear the most 
 painful and humiliating suffering. It can, however, never destroy 
 the immortal spirit of man. The divine design of the evil which 
 befalls a man must therefore be altogether different from that 
 which the ancient belief supposed: evil must be intended simply 
 to raise and bless him by arousing his spirit and compelling 
 the exercise of its profounder energies. For when it meets him 
 as an enemy, it really arouses simply his hidden energies, the 
 unused infinite treasures of his soul, to the endeavour to over- 
 come it, and points the inexhaustible immortal spirit to its 
 own dignity and power. But this spirit as it rises to the 
 struggle, and partially or in the end wholly overcomes the dark, 
 and disturbing view, becomes conscious of its own greatness. 
 It is in this struggle and victory that man becomes a partaker 
 of the divine life, a truly free man and a ruler. So that evil 
 assumes even a necessary place in the divine order of the world, 
 and where there are the most and the greatest evils there also 
 is the possibility of the most glorious victory and the highest 
 happiness. It follows therefore that evil must befall all without 
 distinction, and if it were merely the temptation, or the danger 
 of the idea of erring, which had to be overcome, the most in- 
 nocent would be obliged to pass through this fiery trial; just 
 as, on the other hand, the most guilty is at all events in any 
 case warned and as far as is possible for him summoned to get 
 free from his guilt. And should the sin of parents and ancestors 
 exert considerable influence upon their children and descendants, 
 the spirit is notwithstanding so fresh and capable in each young 
 member of the race that it can annihilate all earlier evils and 
 return to the eternal divine mercy, comp. Deut. xxiv. 16 ; Jer. 
 xxxi. 29, 30; Ezek. xviii. 1 sq.; John ix. 3. As accordingly trial 
 successfully withstood and pain happily overcome are no longer 
 evils, outward evils do not become really evils until they are ^ 
 inward, whether this takes place by means of the evil of a sin 
 
14 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which is rooted in the heart, inasmuch as the heart which is 
 oppressed thereby is inclined to regard every evil which is 
 added from without as related, or whether it takes place by 
 means of the false notion of outward evil as a simple divine 
 punishment. In the first case, the confusion of the inward evil, 
 the evil conscience, with the external one, is put an end to by 
 the destruction of the inward evil ; in the latter case, the mis- 
 taken notion comes to an end of itself by the shining forth of 
 the pure truth as the noblest gain of the conflict with the evil 
 itself, since the latter in this conflict of man with it must gra- 
 dually reveal its own nature more and more distinctly, and as 
 the false spectre of evil flees, the idea of true moral evil be- 
 comes so much the plainer and more certain. 
 
 Is this so, there then naturally follows as a general prin- 
 ciple for the person actually suffering, that he can overcome 
 evil, without fear and despondency, simply by the assurance of 
 the immortality of the spirit and of all other divine truths, by 
 patience and fortitude in true faith and trust, and by the 
 clearer knowledge of himself which comes through suffering, 
 while by the contrary, particularly by the conception of evil as 
 simply the punishment of an angry God and by the gloomy 
 fear and perplexity which arises therefrom, he only makes evil 
 really dangerous and the burden of it most oppressive. — And 
 for the spectator follows the principle, that he may not be 
 alarmed at the outward bugbear of evil and its more repulsive 
 features, that he may not judge hastily and narrowly concerning 
 its mysteries, nor impute to the sufferer some sin and prepare 
 confusion by which both the suffering itself is made more 
 painful and even the good intentions and the desire to com- 
 fort of the sympathetic are frustrated. 
 
 This thought in all its truth, according to the grounds and 
 deepest sources from which it is necessarily derived, it is the 
 design and aim of the Book of Job to illustrate and magnify. 
 At the time of the writing of the book it was without doubt 
 a new thought, which here for the first time finds its worthy 
 
1. THE THOUGHT OF THE POEM. 15 
 
 and fully qualified apostle, but did not obtain general acceptance 
 until a considerably later period. So greatly must the poet 
 have outrun his age. We already meet in this book with the 
 same fundamental view of evil which is subsequently briefly 
 and forcibly established in the N. T. and will last for all time. 
 But here we see it as it is still wholly new in the struggle of 
 its discovery, wrestling with its own inner necessity, in all the 
 freshness of its genesis and formation. By this the book re- 
 ceives a peculiar charm and special importance in comparison 
 with the later and more concise expressions of the same truth. 
 If we wish to see the terrors and dangers of the opposite er- 
 rors in a vivid light, if we desire to experience on the other 
 hand how glorious and refreshing the pure truth is and how 
 necessarily it springs out of its contradictions, we must weigh 
 well what this book contains from beginning to end. Only in 
 this one respect does the thought appear to be not quite fully 
 brought out: we do not find here the idea of the eternal du- 
 ration of the spirit in the same uncommon force with which it 
 prevailed in later times. If subsequently, amid still greater er- 
 rors, a multitude of martyrs bore testimony with their blood 
 to the truth, that for an advanced faith even the greatest of 
 outward evils— death itself— must lose its ancient terrors; if in 
 the N. T. the highest example is given of divine victory over 
 death; there is here, on the other hand, less ease and fami- 
 liarity as regards these ideas, and Job has to contend much 
 in order to get the first foundation of a certain hope in the 
 immortality of his soul and of his just cause. This is, it must 
 be allowed, the mark of an earlier and simpler view of life, 
 and the ancient horror of death has not in this case been yet 
 completely overcome by the act of an innocent death. Still, 
 on the other hand, it is clear that the thought of the book has 
 no validity whatever if it cannot find the basis of its certainty 
 in the immortality of the soul. For how can outward evil be 
 overcome completely to the very end save that the soul main- 
 tains the struggle with it to the end and is conscious that even 
 
16 THE INTEODUCTION. 
 
 by the loss of the last outward good — life itself— it will not 
 perish ? The new thought of the book tends by its very nature 
 to this truth as that wherein it attains for the first time its 
 own perfect power and clearness of view. And from this con- 
 sideration alone we may infer that this constituent portion of 
 the thought of the book could not be wholly wanting. But this 
 truth appears here as only desire, surmise, and intuition struggling 
 with difficulty and aspiration out of lower views, as a final 
 outlook and necessity which only follows from the whole thought 
 of the book and all along remains somewhat in the distant 
 background: hence rather a hope than a fact See xiv. 13—15; 
 xvi. 18, 19; xix. 23 — 29; comp, the already more deeply feeling 
 and stronger utterance of it Ps. xvi and xlix. More closely con- 
 sidered, even this has in a certain respect its advantages, inasmuch 
 as thus in the case of this particular truth also, which is the 
 farthest off and highest of the whole book, we witness its throes 
 as it were and its first birth, and feel how painfully and yet 
 how necessarily and imperatively it forced its way out of the 
 ancient trammels. When a truth for the first time comes to 
 light, shooting forth in its first young impulses, it is always 
 most easily recognised as regards its just claims, whilst later 
 it often seems to luxuriate too rampantly and is easily again 
 misunderstood. The Book of Job has the merit of having pre- 
 pared for the profounder views of evil and of the immortality 
 of the soul and of transmitting them as fruitful germs down 
 to all subsequent times. 
 
 2. THE MATTEE OF THE POEM. 
 The poet's design was not to express the thought of his 
 poem hastily in the winged brevity of a lyric, as though he 
 were still carried away by the first powerful feeling and by the 
 magnitude of the truth; neither was it his design to present 
 it nakedly as a simple doctrine or as a precept and direction. 
 But the thought lies from the very first so profoundly and also 
 so calmly in the poet's soul that he feels urged to present it 
 
2. THE MATTER OP THE POEM. 17 
 
 in a complete form from all points of view. The thought there- 
 fore shall be unfolded and established as necessary not merely 
 out of the heart of the poet but rather out of the light of 
 life's past experiences. It shall emerge from its own deep 
 foundations, in the serious conflicts with its contradictories, and 
 everything which seems to create and mould it, its contra- 
 dictories from both sides, the various stages and advances of 
 truer views — all this must in its proportion and everything in 
 its own manner and its proper force appear and cooperate, in 
 order that the indestructible higher truth may finally proceed 
 from it all as the conclusion and necessity. Without doubt 
 this is a higher grade of poetry, when the inward fire which 
 the true thought has kindled in the poet has the power of self- 
 denial and self-restraint, whilst the calm and brightness which 
 on that very account prevail none the less in the poet look 
 down upon and artistically describe in peaceful contemplation 
 the sway, the struggle and the victory of this thought in the 
 world, so that that first fire is only the hidden warmth with 
 which the poem and its art are aglow, and which in turn re- 
 kindles itself in the breast of every contemplator of such a 
 finished work. Here we have most closely united an inner life 
 and an outer form, the warmth and inwardness of feeling with 
 the vivid realisability and truth of the calm course of every- 
 day life, the impulse of personal hope and higher endeavour 
 with the certainty of divine necessity ; the thought of the poem 
 is precisely thus perceived in its profundity as well as its pre- 
 valence and power in the world. The Drama (for this kind 
 of poetry belongs generally to the drama) includes within it 
 not only lyric, but also the opposite of it, epic poetry. 
 
 As the thought has to be unfolded and proved in this manner, 
 its poetic quickening and embodiment is necessarily sought for 
 from history: but in this wide field nothing immediately presents 
 itself to the poet so suitable as a narrative from hoar antiquity. 
 On the one hand, on account of the peculiar elevation, solemnity 
 and sacredness of a narrative from such a region; the poet feel- 
 
18 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ing such reverence in view of the loftiness and divine truth of 
 the thought to be represented that he prefers to accompany it 
 into a region by the purer air of which he feels himself bene- 
 ficially quickened and his thoughts brightened. On the other hand, 
 on account of the poetic freedom of treatment which is allow- 
 iable in the case of a legend of early antiquity, the more or less 
 scattered elements of which, as they have been preserved to me- 
 mory, receiving from every successive narrator a new connexion 
 and peculiar form, whilst most readily submitting to fresh hand- 
 ling under the plastic art of a poet. As the dramatists of 
 ancient India and of early Greece chose their materials from 
 mythological sources, so to the poet, who is conscious of the 
 power and vocation to give poetic life to that genuinely Hebrew 
 thought, materials presented themselves from the antiquity of 
 the Hebrews in the widest sense, which though not so mytho- 
 logical were yet legendary. 
 
 As such plastic material the poet chose the tradition of Job's 
 sufferings and deliverance. For least of all can it be seriously 
 doubted, that the story of Job which is here handled, is not 
 described by the poet for its own sake as in the stricter sense 
 history, but only serves as the material for the energies of the 
 creative spirit of the poet, and is intended as the foundation 
 for the artistic working-out of the leading thought to be pre- 
 sented. For the work of the poet is not so much a history of 
 Job as of his sufferings and his deliverance, and of the latter 
 only so much is described as is required for the working-out 
 of the thought of the poem. But whatever serves this purpose 
 is wisely selected to meet the laws of artistic proportion. Just 
 as this art, as dealing unrestrainedly with the details accord- 
 ing to its own designs, determines the general arrangement of 
 the entire book, as will be subsequently shown, so it pervades 
 it in every minute detail, to such an extent that hardly a 
 single word is put down without its artistic propriety and suit- 
 ability in the place it occupies. When, e.g., the poet gives to 
 Job before his calamities seven sons and three daughters and 
 
2. THE MATTER OF THE POEM. 19 
 
 afterwards restores to him the same number; when he de- 
 scribes Job as living 140 years after his deliverance; when he 
 presents every detail which the proportion of the whole work 
 requires him to touch upon after the manner of such general 
 proportions and relations — how is it possible to avoid seeing 
 that the story itself has become poetic and artistic under the 
 hand of the poet? And if we had simply the appearance of 
 Satan and the speaking of God, that would be of itself suffi- 
 cient proof that the every-day level of history must not be 
 looked for here, but a somewhat common material, in giving 
 form to which the poetic thought constructs for itself its own 
 higher, that is, purely divine history. 
 
 But on the other hand his unformed material cannot have 
 been simply invented by the poet. For the invention of a 
 history from the very first, the derivation of a person, who is 
 at the same time intended to be regarded as historical, purely 
 from the brain of a poet, is, as extremely forced and unnatural, 
 so entirely foreign to the antiquity of all nations that it only 
 gradually commenced in the later periods of an ancient litera- 
 ture and is met with fully developed only in modern times. 
 The ancient literature of the Hebrews does not contradict this 
 observation. Although in the feeble final growths of its ancient 
 trunk, in the books of Judith, Tobit, the historical accounts 
 are derived simply from the reflections of the poet, even in the 
 case of the chief characters and events, in the older books 
 there is no trace of this species of literary art ; nor was there 
 any necessity for it at an earlier period, inasmuch as a poet 
 who was less removed from earlier antiquity could without 
 difficulty draw from the fullest legendary stream, whilst in the 
 case of later generations this source failed with the course of 
 time. The poet who wrote the Book of Job, however, lived at 
 a time which still remained in many ways in living relation 
 with the views, customs, and traditions of the early antiquity 
 which was then disappearing with its peculiar characteristics. 
 From which circumstance alone it may be confidently inferred, 
 
20 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that the poet was not called upon to create the material of 
 his work, but that a happy glance into the treasury of the 
 legends of antiquity must naturally conduct him to the man 
 whose history was most akin to the special thought which oc- 
 cupied his own mind. 
 
 The less legitimate, therefore, the question is, whether 
 the work of the poet as we possess it contains history or 
 fiction, as if a third thing were not possible, or rather the 
 case, with all the greater urgency does the other question at 
 once arise, what then did he find as ancient tradition ready to 
 his hand? How much did existing legends present to him? 
 For it is only when this point has been more particularly de- 
 termined, that the degree of freedom .with which the poet 
 handled his material and his own peculiar property in it, can 
 be fixed. It is true that the answer to such a question is very 
 difficult, particularly in the case of this book, inasmuch as in 
 other cases of a similar nature in the Bible it is not easy. 
 For a completely satisfactory prosecution of such an inquiry pre- 
 supposes a rich store of related legends of the most various 
 ages and localities. If the same legend can be traced through 
 several directions and halting-places in the course of its travels, 
 it is possible to determine more particularly how it has been 
 gradually transformed after its first separation from its source, 
 and what fresh changes have been made in it at each of its 
 resting-places. Such abundant literary remains as we have 
 from ancient India or Greece, often supply in conjunction 
 with the other remains of antiquity sufficient assistance in this 
 respect for such inquiries ; whilst in literatures which are more 
 meagerly preserved, as the Biblical literature of this class, a 
 legend appears very often standing quite by itself, preserved 
 in one form only, although it may already have passed through 
 many. Accordingly it is only when the inquirer has previously 
 gained experience by the study of the plainer legends of more 
 perfectly preserved literatures that he can successfully deal 
 with the scattered fragments of legends in more limited liter- 
 
2. THE MATTER OF THE POEM. 21 
 
 atures. The legend of Job is now found recorded amongst 
 the older books of the O, T. in this Book of Job alone, and 
 we have neither an early, nor a late, account of him which may 
 not be referred back to our book. For all that is elsewhere 
 found regarding Job turns out on closer inspection to have been 
 derived from this book, or subjoined to it. And accordingly 
 the memory of Job would have probably wholly perished, if 
 our poet had not preserved it in this book by immortalising 
 therein an imperishable thought together with this ancient hero. 
 But now that Job has most gloriously risen from the grave 
 through the poet's mind and art, thus immortalised he lives 
 henceforth a second life, as a light to others, which is evidence 
 of the profound impression which the immortalised Job of our 
 poet produced upon the centuries which immediately followed 
 this spiritual resurrection. Job, as the poet describes him, is 
 first mentioned Ezek. xiv. 14, 20, then more at length in the 
 book of Tobit, particularly ii. 12, and James v. 11. But soon 
 the endeavour prevailed to know still more of this Job than 
 the poet had thought well to say, and accordingly his history 
 passed through a second process of development, partly by 
 means of the annexation of other narratives to those of this 
 book in order to supplement them, partly by means of a free 
 continuation and embellishment of situations which had been 
 already described in this book in brief outline; which two 
 sources of alterations may be regarded as generally the chief 
 causes of the formation of apocryphal narratives. The first is 
 found especially in the Greek addition to the Septuagint at 
 the end of this book, where the innocent but vain attempt is 
 made to connect Job, who was not found elsewhere in the pat- 
 riarchal legends of the 0. T., with the Idumean king Jobab, 
 Gen. xxxvi. 33, 34, based partly upon the similarity of the 
 names, which is however great in the Greek but not in the 
 Hebrews partly upon Uz as Job's country, which could be 
 
 ' 31"«, Jwßi 331", [ußaß. 
 
22 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reckoned as belongiog to Edom ace. Gen. xxxvi. 28 ^ The se- 
 cond kind of continuation, when a later distant re-narrator 
 had the courage to further develop the poetic form and re- 
 suscitation of the history, is met with in the Koran 2, where 
 several passages of Job's life are freely expanded, without our 
 being able to discover any other ultimate source of them than 
 this book before us ; for the things which the Arabians narrate 
 of Job are based in the last instance simply upon various pas- 
 sages of the 0. T. book, and it is in vain to search in Arabic 
 for special oral or written sources 3. Although we can thus 
 
 ' Zerah who is named as the father of Jobab, Gen. xxxvi. 33, is also then 
 compared with the descendant of Esau, ver. 13, and a fresh basis for com- 
 parison therein discovered; '^'J^?*?, which could not well be regarded as Job's 
 city, had to submit to serve as the name of his mother, Boadppa. The Greek 
 augmentor ventured also to add to the number of Job's years before his cala- 
 mities, and to conjecture that the Hebrew book had been translated from the 
 Syriac, i.e., probably the Idumean. — Tolerably early a variety of such detailed 
 narratives regarding Job's fortunes must have been written, how his wife was 
 called Kachma, the daughter of Joseph, etc. ; see Catal. cdd. syr. 3Ius. Brit. 
 p. Ill; Itinerar. Hitrosol. p. 587 ed. Wessel. ; Journal As. 1845, p. 174. The 
 additions found in part here and there in the LXX, particularly ii. 9 and at the 
 end of the book, comp, with Aristseus in Euseh. Prapar. Evang. IX. 25, are pro- 
 bably merely fragments of such a narrative. 
 
 2 Sur. xxxviii. 40—44 ; xxi. 83, 84. 
 
 3 There are in the Koran two legends of Job peculiar to it: as he prayed 
 to God for help, it is said, a cool spring broke forth at his feet, with which he 
 washed himself free of the burning heat of his disease (this appears to have 
 been derived from xxix. 6) ; and again, it is said, that after his complete restor- 
 ation he gently chastised his wife at the divine command (inferred from ii. 9 ; 
 xlii. 8). These legends, which the Koran only briefly indicates, and some others, 
 which where they differ have undoubtedly come from impure sources, are nar- 
 rated by the Mohammedan Chroniclers more at length, see at present in their 
 most lengthy form in Tabarts Annals p. 263 — 276, ed. Dubeux (where a city 
 of Job in Basan, p. 273, and the names of his children, p. 276, are specially note- 
 worthy), Abulf. Hist. Antcisl. p. 26 sq. ; see also Sale's Notes on the Koran. The 
 name Ajjfib, or Ejjiib, frequent in the Mohammedan writers, was not first intro- 
 duced by the Koran, as several Arabians of the centuries immediately preceding 
 Mohammed were named after the ancient Hebrew hero (see the particulars in 
 the Zeitschrift für die Kimdc des Morgenlandes HI. p. 234): but many Biblical 
 names were similarly naturalised in these centuries among the Arabians. Thus 
 every trace of Job in Islam belongs to the multitude of Biblical histories that 
 
2. THE MATTER OF THE POEM. 23 
 
 follow the narratives concerning Job from this book of our poet 
 down into late times, on the other hand, all external evidences 
 fail us when we attempt to pass beyond the book itself, the 
 work of the poet alone remaining to assist in the examination 
 of the question of the amount of raw material that descended 
 to the poet from earlier times. And if this question is a bold 
 one, it cannot nevertheless be evaded, and on closer inquiry 
 admits, in general at least, of a tolerably satisfactory answer. 
 The work of the poet itself, when strictly examined, displays its 
 various sources, or the points where the poet freely creates and 
 where he was under greater external restraint. 
 
 1. The name Job is not one first coined by the poet. His 
 procedure in case he wished to coin names required for his 
 purpose, may be inferred from the names of Job's daughters, 
 xlii. 14: for though he forms these names simply because he 
 needs them in order to supply briefly with them the proof of 
 the perfect beauty of these daughters, on that very account 
 he coins them with a meaning which is easily perceived to 
 suit his purpose. A similarly transparent, only slightly veiled 
 meaning, is, however, not to be found in the name Job, as 
 there are neither any traces of it elsewhere in the 0. T., nor 
 can any plain derivation of it be found in the Hebrew tongue. 
 The name may perhaps originally, like most very early ones, 
 have had its origin in the life of this hero, as a concise ex- 
 pression of his chief characteristics, as the world remembered 
 them 1 : still, the poet has plainly received it from tradition, 
 
 found their way to Mohammed only through the medium of indirect sources of 
 various kinds. 
 
 » It is difficult to find the one correct derivation of the word 3'"«. So much 
 is clear, the root 3''^, as a softer form of 31^, a^», denotes to turn, and also 
 to turn imvardly, to return, ^_J| hence a-s i^jLj! « hottle, belly, so called from 
 the notion of turning into itself, morally conversion from ^— oZ, and also, with 
 a dialectic difference, to turn against others, whence in Hebrew "^'S enmity. 
 a'i'^K as the designation of our hero, would therefore most suitably denote a man, 
 
24 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and can hardly have regarded even once its etymological meaning 
 as significant, inasmuch as he does not apply it at all as con- 
 tributing to his purpose. Similarly, the names of the three 
 friends bear no relation whatever to the main idea of the book, 
 or even to the special character of any of them as it is de- 
 scribed in the book. From whatever legendary source the poet 
 may have derived these three names i, it is at all events cer- 
 tain, that they were actual names which did not first origi- 
 nate at the will and in the art of the poet. On the other 
 hand, the manner in which the name and the entire idea of 
 the hero would spring from the thought of the poem, is shown 
 by the words Tobith and Tobia, Judith: names which have a 
 perfectly intelligible meaning in Hebrew, and the veil of which 
 may be easily withdrawn by any one who follows the poetical 
 thought of the book in which they occur. 
 
 2. The hero is removed into a particular country, Uz, or 
 according to the pronunciation of the LXX "'u^vg. The deter- 
 mination of its position is reserved for future inquiries : in the 
 Bible the ancestor of Uz is in the first instance reckoned to be- 
 long to Syria, as a son of Aram, Gen. x. 23, undoubtedly because 
 Aramaic was spoken there; but in the second instance he is 
 reckoned more particularly amongst the sons of Nahor, or the 
 relatives of Abraham, Gen. xxii. 21 ; or he appears too, because 
 
 who after sad despair, turns within himself and by that act turns to God again : 
 for, in fact, in this consists the highest idea of the history of this hero, xlii. 6 ; 
 and we may without difficulty suppose that Job's memory in general was pre- 
 served in this form in ancient legend. The conjecture of some moderns, that 
 ai''K denotes properly the man hated, treated as an enemy (by God), which 
 would be a name in the highest degree indefinite, inexpressive, and indeed (in- 
 asmuch as the chief idea, God, would be absent from it) wholly obscure, is much 
 less appropriate, the only recommendation of it being really the prejudice in 
 favour of a Hebrew derivation. 
 
 1 The first of the three, Eliphaz, is an old renowned Idumean name. Gen. 
 xxxvi. 4, 10, 12, which the poet undoubtedly chose because he wished to have 
 a famous ancient sage out of Edom. Bildad and Zophar must equally have been 
 actual names from early legendary history, of which wo have simply now lost 
 the trace ; there is no possibility of discovering a figurative meaning in them. 
 
2. THE MATTER OF THE POEM. 25 
 
 the country was at last, if perhaps only partially, subjugated 
 by Edora, as a descendant of Edom's, Gen. xxxvi. 28 ^ Ac- 
 cording to this, it lay therefore, as the Greek addition to the 
 LXX says, on the confines of Iduniea and Arabia, that is, 
 bounded on the south by Idumea, on the west by Judca, on 
 the east by Arabia; on the north lay probably Bashan, with 
 which it is even confounded if the Mohammedans mean to de- 
 scribe the country of Job 2. After another fashion, this country is 
 also made to belong probably to northern Arabia, as the southern 
 boundaries of Syria and those of northernmost Arabia run 
 very much into each other, and the Arabians extended them- 
 selves continually in this direction ; according to this geography. 
 Job is reckoned amongst the children of the East, i.e. the Sa- 
 racens, i. 3, comp. Gen. XXV. 6; Judg. vi. 3. Further Uz has 
 no renown in the legendary history of the Hebrews, either as 
 a country or a people; it is, on the contrary, plain that the 
 land first acquired a certain name through this book, and if 
 
 ' Or reversely, and with equal truth, Uz is called the native laud of Edom, 
 Lam. iv. 21. 
 
 3 See above p. 22 and Abulf. p. 26; Josephus also. Ant. i. 16. 4, places the 
 country towards the north-east. The Arabians know nothing of a land Uz ; it 
 is a question whether their name ly^ xp. for Esau, contains a reminiscence of 
 Uz, and is on that account so greatly altered from Esau. For it is certainly 
 allowable to raise the question, whether the names Uz and Esau are not ulti- 
 mately related and only two different formations of one primitive name. 1 have 
 some time ago expressed elsewhere the view, that the name Uz was originally 
 identical with Esau, i.e., at first denoted the same uncultivated land (and people) 
 which was also called Esau. To this the expression Lam. iv. 21 in particular 
 plainly points, and that it is legitimate so far as the letters of the words are 
 concerned follows almost from what is remarked History of Israel I. p. 234 
 (I. p. 336). The various localities and small countries to which the name Uz 
 was subsequently further attached, appear therefore simply as remnants of a land 
 and nation which in primitive times, at all events, must have extended far beyond 
 the country usually called Idumea ; and perhaps the small country intended in the 
 Book of Job may have been that which, as late as Ptolemy, is specially named 
 'Aiafri^. It is, however, unmistakeable that the name appears in the Book of Job 
 precisely as a very ancient one, and that only after it had thus become so fa- 
 mous again is it used Jer. xxv. 20 in conjunction with Edom, ver. 21, and also 
 applied in another manner Lam. iv. 21. 
 
26 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 at the time of Jeremiah it was exceptionally more spoken of, 
 Jcr. XXV. 20, Lam. iv. 21, the explanation according to all the 
 peculiar circumstances is, that the name at that time had again 
 become more current by means of this book. It does not ap- 
 pear, therefore, why the poet should choose a name which was 
 so little renowned and almost forgotten in his time, unless he 
 had been induced to do so by an ancient legend concerning 
 Job. — Similarly, the three friends whom the poet thinks well 
 to introduce are described so definitely as regards their native 
 country that we are compelled to suppose that he has borrowed 
 the names of these men and of the places of their extraction 
 from early legends. The better known Idumean city, Ta3raan, 
 is everywhere closely associated with the name of Eliphaz, 
 Gen. xxxvi. 11, 15 : although it is very probable that the poet 
 selected an Idumean as the first and oldest friend of Job simply 
 because this man, according to the poetic requirements of the 
 book, must be the wisest of the friends, and wisdom at the 
 time of the poet was regarded as specially indigenous in Edom 
 and particularly in the city of Taeman ^ Shuach, whence the 
 second friend came, is, according to Gen. xxv. 2, a small clan 
 between Palestine and the Euphrates, probably, according to 
 Gen. xxv. 2 and Job ii. 11 2, north-east of Uz. Naama, the home 
 of the third, is met with elsewhere as a city of Juda, Josh. 
 XV. 4P. Although, therefore, it will appear further on, that the 
 poet in the first instance interwove this group of three friends, 
 who come from the south, the north, and the west to Job, into his 
 book, because he could not dispense with them in carrying out its 
 idea, the particular men and places themselves cannot nevertheless 
 
 1 Comp. History of Israel IV. 193 (III. p. G96). 
 
 2 It is true Burckhardt's Syr. p. 623 refers to a mountain .Lä\a^ i" 
 
 ancient Moab, but the name of it is rather to be compared with that of tlic 
 early King Sihon of that district. 
 
 3 The better known name of the 3finites, which is uniformly substituted in 
 the LXX (see History of Israel I. p. 240 sq. (I. p. 344), can only have arisen 
 from confusion with another name, as Aristscus (in Eusebius' Proi)ar. Evamj. 
 IX. 25) still wrote Mavvaio?. 
 
2. THE MATTER OF THE POEM. 27 
 
 have been arbitrarily invented, but must have been found ex- 
 isting here or there in ancient legend. 
 
 3. In addition to other commoner calamities which pure 
 poetic invention could put forward, there is a very special and 
 rare one placed upon the hero, which the poet makes to sur- 
 pass all others, as the chief calamity and most violent and per- 
 sistent pain, and to pervade the entire drama. Although it is 
 at first, ii. 7, called simply a bad boil covering the whole body, 
 in the course of the book it is so often and so plainly more 
 particularly touched on that the most attentive readers of all 
 ages have observed that the poet borrows his description from 
 the worst of skin diseases, the elephantiasis, which is in gen- 
 eral one of the most distressing, wearisome, and commonly 
 most incurable of maladies. At the beginning violent itching 
 of the skin, ii. 8; next the transformation of the healthy slrin 
 into one covered with loathsome boils, which now gather and 
 run and then get hardened again, the skin thus becoming 
 cracked, scaly and rigid, in many places thickening as if it 
 were an elephant's hide, vii. 5; the gradual emaciation of the 
 body under the disease often of many years duration, xvi. 8; 
 xix. 20; XXX. 18; the fetid breath, which often of itself, even if 
 the disease were not known to be contagious, frightens every- 
 body from the presence of the diseased person, xix. 17; lastly 
 the constant inward agony of the sufferer night and day as he 
 feels his breathing oppressed and fears suffocation, vii. 4, 13, 
 14; XXX. 17,^— all these are unequivocal indications that the 
 poet really intended in the wiiole course of Job's severe af- 
 fliction to describe this one as the greatest and last of those 
 which affected his body 2. Now, the reason why the poet se- 
 
 1 Hence sufferers from this disease often desire to commit suicide, sec Ab- 
 dias' Hist, of Apost. VII. 15. 
 
 3 A medical view of this disease, which is met with in all the hot countries 
 of Asia and Africa, though of infrequent occurrence and also varying with its 
 localities, wiU not be expected here. But we may remark, that as far back as 
 the accounts of the Job of our book reach, elephantiasis is named as his disease, 
 
Zö TUE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lected precisely this uncommon calamity before all others, see- 
 ing that he could just as well have supposed a number of 
 others, and the reason why he adheres through the whole book 
 to this one with such great tenacity, showing such lucidity and 
 vividness in his descriptions, as if he had been compelled by 
 some external necessity not to depart from it, — this is most 
 easily explained if he was most particularly here led by the 
 legends about Job. For the motive does not lie in a mere 
 poetic or artistic necessity; and the book of Tobit may here 
 again serve as a counterpiece to assist us to perceive that the 
 material of the Book of Job has not been throughout invented. 
 And no one qualified to judge will maintain, that just as mo- 
 dern poets must carefully preserve throughout the situation, 
 even of invented characters, which has once been adopted, so 
 likewise the ancient poet would have been helplessly bound by 
 his own arbitrary supposition: such equivocal art, in which 
 often the highest skill of modern poetry shows itself, was 
 wholly unknown to early antiquity, particularly to the ancient 
 Hebrews, as we shall further see subsequently in the case of 
 this book. 
 
 This is, however, everything that we can certainly say the 
 poet had received from legendary tradition: it is not possible 
 with our present means of inquiry further to lift this veil. 
 Plainly the poet was bound, by the force of the legend which 
 he found the most suitable for his purpose, — to the names, the 
 
 Grig. Con. Cd. VI 5, 2; Abulf. IHst. Anteisl. p. 26 (guddm i.e. mutilation, in- 
 asmuch as the extremities fall off in the end through this disease); comp. J. D. 
 Michaelis EinleituiKj ins A. T. I. p. 57 — 65. If it is desired to see how true 
 the descriptions in the Book of Job are, the lamentations of a noble Arab af- 
 flicted by it may be compared Abulf. Ann. Mosl. t. II. p. 266, 2, 3. — The Sy- 
 rians and Arabs probably also call it the lion-disease on account of its terrible 
 nature, see Catalog, codd. syr. Mus. Brit. p. 65. The Hindoos call it Imshtham 
 i.e. falling-off, like the Arabic word, or the black leprosy in contrast to gvittri 
 the white, Man. iii. 7 ; and they deem it an hereditary punishment from God. 
 W. Ainslie describes it from his personal observations, in the Transactions of 
 the Royal Asiatic Soc. of G. Brit. Vol. I. p. 282—303. Comp, also Bruce's 
 Travels} and Disa-ijption de V£grjpte, itat mod. t. xiii. p. 174 sq. 
 
2. THE MATTER OF THE POEM. 29 
 
 country, the age, and the main features of the history of his 
 hero. But every early tradition which has not yet received a less 
 yielding shape by its later fortunes is extremely fusible, impres- 
 sible, plastic. We may, therefore, equally well suppose that the 
 history of Job received new life and a more fixed form at the 
 hands of our poet, inasmuch as he recoined and ennobled it 
 by means of the higher thought which he had to expound. 
 Whatever the actual personal history of Job may have been, 
 it was not by it alone that the poet was moved and inspired ; 
 but clearly the poet's soul, already filled with the great thought 
 of the poem, sought in tradition his material and found in the 
 legendary story of Job what was most suited to his purpose; 
 so that the Job of olden times rose again in the light of a later 
 and more advanced age as a mirror and instruction for it. — 
 But in that thus the thought and the material of its embodi- 
 ment coincide in the attractive presentation of the truth, the 
 more modern time supplying its deeper feeling and warmth, 
 the ancient time its elevation and calmness, the poet is con- 
 scious in the midst of his own most personal effort of being 
 at the same time supported and elevated by the greatness of 
 the antiquity which he in turn ennobles with his thought. Job 
 is to him no mere semblance, no mere creation of the imagi- 
 nation, but a true hero of the hoar past, whose history shines 
 forth before him only in the brightness of a new truth so glo- 
 riously that amongst the numerous traditionary legends of an- 
 tiquity he selects precisely it alone, and that the material freely 
 chosen in turn assists and moulds his thought. 
 
 The question raised by recent commentators, whether Job is not a purely 
 anegorical person, and his sufferings merely figurative, is accordingly frivolous. 
 That would be pretty much as if it should be supposed that the diseases of the 
 Philoktetes of Sophokles were allegorical and were thus understood by Sopho- 
 kles. Even Pss. vi , xiii., xxxviii., Ixxxviii., the descriptions of physical suffer- 
 ings are not to be taken in a figurative sense: how much less in this book, 
 whose fundamental thought does not at all depend on such details of the de- 
 scription. AU the particular calamities and lamentations of Job are to be taken 
 historically in the sense of the legend, accordingly in conformity with the poetic 
 
30 THE INTEODUCTION. 
 
 purpose of the book : but the sense of the poem itself is expressed only by the 
 whole work, and in this respect the material is very properly to be distinguished 
 from the peculiar idea and aim of the poet. 
 
 3. THE ART OP THE POEM. 
 
 The task which the art of the poet has to accomplish is, 
 to combine this material with the thought, before explained, in 
 such a way that neither shall receive undue prominence but 
 both cooperate in the production of a work of beauty. The 
 poet may neither lose his individuality in the matter he handles, 
 by delineating anything of importance in the history which 
 would be unsuitable or superfluous to his thought, nor, on the 
 other hand, laboriously put forward the thought, as if this did 
 not of itself proceed from that treatment of the material which 
 was suited to it. The thought must permeate and control the 
 material, while the material must be entirely submerged in the 
 thought and lend itself to the latter simply as its convenient 
 and pleasing garment. If both thus cooperate, with the pro- 
 gress of the treatment of the subject in this animated and vivid 
 form, the deeper, secretly^ moving thought, will in its various 
 members successively come out more clearly, and permit itself 
 to be surmised in its truth and necessity with increasing com- 
 pleteness, until with the end of the poet's utterance it shines 
 forth in its fullest brightness. The thought as it lives in the 
 poet's own soul from the very first, thus retreats outwardly 
 into the background, like a light which flashes forth simply 
 from within, of which with wise restraint only so much shines 
 through in the course of the work as the development of the 
 adopted structure of the members in each instance requires, 
 until at the end all rays combine in one bright light, and out 
 of the finished, beautiful, outward form the soul dwelling within 
 shines forth more distinctly than it could have done had it not 
 created for itself such a beautiful body as its visible and en- 
 during representation. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 31 
 
 This task, we maintain, the poet has fulfilled most satis- 
 factorily, although following simply his own individual impulses, 
 without painful toil or scrupulous adherence to a modern rule 
 of art. But since this is not easy for us at once to under- 
 stand, we must now show more particularly in detail, how the 
 poet brings together by an inseparable bond the thing in ques- 
 tion, or the thought, and its representation, or Job's history: 
 for it is in the true combination and fusion of these two things 
 that the stage of art which here bears tlie sway displays its 
 highest powers. 
 
 As the thought is intended to be put forward in a concrete 
 and living illustration, the antitheses in which it successively 
 advances become visible in certain prominent persons, who come 
 at the provocation of the obscure question at issue into con- 
 tact and embroilment, until the confusion and embarrassment 
 begins gradually to work its own destruction, and with the 
 complete solution of the enigma a general reconciliation also 
 takes place. The point was, therefore, to procure perfectly suit- 
 able, clearly defined characters to represent these antitheses, 
 who would contribute by an inward necessity to the progress 
 of the thought, and then to cause them, according to their 
 various powers, to go through their respective ranges of mental 
 conflict in mutual relation to the development of the action. 
 From this plan and its worhing-out follows of itself the cor- 
 responding division and membermeut of the whole work. 
 '"' I. The poet must call into action three dominating powers : 
 with regard to dark mysterious suflering, unbelief and super- 
 stition must enter into conflict with each other, until on 
 their mutual destruction true faith follows. Therefrom result 
 three essentially difi'erent representative characters, or per- 
 sonated antitheses, by the contact of whom the action of the 
 poem opens, and reaches the point of dramatic entanglement, 
 which has then to find its solution. These three characters, 
 not more, result therefore, as a fourth antithetic element is not 
 conceivable; and not less: although it is possible that one of 
 
32 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the three antitheses should resolve itself into several separate 
 persons. These three, as the poet with wise selection deter- 
 mines, are Job, the three friends, God. 
 
 1. Job the mortal hero, the person in whom the whole 
 action centres, represents the part of despair and unbelief, 
 raging against heaven itself in his madness, appearing dangerous 
 and terrible as any Titan inflamed in burning rage against the 
 Gods. However, this is not a despair which springs from an 
 ignoble source, which indeed no true poet can desire either to 
 glorify or to excuse. On the contrary, it is a purely human, 
 noble despair, generated not in an evil but in a good con- 
 science, not by great and destructive personal guilt, but by a 
 painful enigma of life, the puzzle of which so powerfully op- 
 presses and perplexes the mortal who is not prepared for it 
 nor as yet able to meet it. That is, Job is a true model of 
 manly godliness as it grows conscious of its foundations, a man 
 who in his ripe manhood can without vainglory boast that he 
 has not from his youth up committed even lesser sins, xiii. 26; 
 xxxi sq., who therefore bears the most extreme calamities for 
 a long time with the noblest resignation and fortitude, because 
 he feels himself strong in his innocence, i. 20 — 22; ii. 10; yea, 
 who in the midst of the frenzy of most intense pain and in 
 the outbreak of terrible despair has retained from the hidden 
 treasures of his past blameless life so much wise self-posses- 
 sion that he never wholly forgets the grandeur and necessity 
 of integrity, and even defends it against all sad appearances 
 to the contrary most heartily with the language of happy per- 
 sonal conviction and experience, vi. 10; xiii. 16, 23; xvi. 17, 18; 
 xxi. 16; xxiii. 10 — 12; xxvii., xxix — xxxi. When notwithstand- 
 ing such nobleness of life and strength of a pure, fearless con- 
 science, and notwithstanding the clear conviction in the midst 
 of his calamities that he is innocent before God and joyfully 
 awaits and desires his judgment, x. 7; xiii. 3, 16 — 19; xiv. 15; 
 xvi. 19; xix. 25 sq.; xxiii. 10, 17; xxvii. 6; xxxi., he is never- 
 theless seized and more and more completely carried away in 
 
3. TUE AKT OF TUE POEM. 33 
 
 his despair by the force of an unbelief which defies Heaven, 
 the cause of this is to be found simply in the fact, that the 
 noble, outspoken man, at the time when he is surprised in his 
 integrity by his calamities, still shares the general comfortless 
 views of antiquity and particularly the delusion that mys- 
 terious suffering announces the wrath of God. This is a super- 
 stition which he can for a time permit to sleep, but inasmuch 
 as it remains lurking in the background, when aroused and 
 provoked by an unexpected occasion it soon breaks forth ve- 
 hemently, and is transformed, in conflict with that diametrically 
 opposite feeling of innocence, into unbelief: for unbelief is 
 superstition already come to light but not yet overcome and 
 resolved into pure truth. On the one hand, he believes that 
 he suffers the wrath and punishment of God as if he were 
 guilty; on the other, he knows that he is certainly innocent, 
 but is again in the peace and happiness of this conscious- 
 ness disquieted by apparently the plainest, most undeniable 
 proofs of the divine punishment and by the accusations and 
 attacks of men based thereon ; with a pure conscience he hopes 
 in God's graciousness and kindness, and yet is again most pro- 
 foundly perplexed and troubled by his own hard lot of con- 
 tinued and increasing painfulness, and still more by the like 
 apparent injustice and wrong state of things which seem to 
 prevail throughout the world. Thus assailed from the most 
 opposite sides, seeing the ancient superstition shaken by a 
 new, stronger and more certain experience, and still discovering 
 as yet no clear truth in the place of it, a tremendous despair 
 must take possession of him. Then, as he does not under- 
 stand in God the calamity which he feels bound to regard as 
 a suitable divine punishment of wickedness, and as he struggles 
 in vain to find human insight and consolation, he is compelled to 
 turn in wild vehemence against God, against Him who created 
 such a painful enigma, impetuously urging its solution, even 
 passionately, and, as it seems, defiantly rising up against the God 
 who created such an incomprehensible and indeed preposterous 
 
 i 
 
34 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 state of things. He is thus led astray by passion to the most 
 inconsiderate assertions, though all along simply jealous for 
 the divine righteousness and really moved by the force of the 
 purest self-consciousness. Integrity, when called upon to sacri- 
 fice its one peculiar possession — a clear, happy conscience— for 
 the sake of an opposing view, however sacred it may seem to 
 be, prefers with self-denial to throw away with indignation 
 and maddened daring everything which is opposed to it, as the 
 consideration of mankind, the prevailing views, laws and ex- 
 periences, the God of outward nature Himself should He seem 
 to set Himself against it, evil and good, falsehood and truth, 
 whatever appears hostile to it, before it sacrifices itself and the 
 one firm, certain, inalienable truth which is clear at all events 
 to it. For integrity is for the individual the one sole firm, 
 certain, and inalienable thing which can turn even against a 
 beclouded Heaven with a giant's energy, vii. 11; ix. 22sq.; 
 xiii. 13 sq.; xvii. 8; xxiii. 15 — 17; xxvii. 2 — 7. On that account, 
 therefore, even this despair, though to be lamented and in- 
 deed dangerous, inasmuch as a weaker man might easily quite 
 succumb to it, is not without hope and the possibility of deliver- 
 ance in the case of Job. For in the agitated raging sea of 
 pain, doubt, bitterness and deepest calamity, when everything 
 is in most violent commotion and turned upside down, it is 
 precisely the consciousness of his integrity, which is by this 
 very resistance strengthened and fortified, that must increasingly 
 become conscious of itself as the only immovable rock, around 
 which all lost possessions may again collect and new nobler 
 ones may gather. His pure soul is thus violently assailed and 
 brought into such severe struggles only in order that it may 
 in the first instance be thrown back upon itself and give 
 up every untrue and frail hope. When this has been done 
 further advances will be possible. It can then go on to dis- 
 cover its own immortality and certainty. From the new clear- 
 ness of view thus obtained, it is possible both to correct the 
 indiscretions and exaggerations which had escaped him in the 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 35 
 
 heat of the struggle, as well as readily to acknowledge the 
 ultimate and most difficult thing as soon as it is revealed, 
 namely, the higher view of mysterious suffering and divine 
 leading, the want of which had been the sole cause of such 
 heavy trouble. When this higher view is revealed, everything 
 at once finds its reconciliation and adjustment, and the brave 
 spiritual contender is most signally rewarded with the truth 
 which he so zealously sought and surmised but so seriously 
 suffered the loss of when in human haste he missed it, he 
 being as zealous and sincere a recipient of it as he was a 
 searcher after it. As Israel by contending with God obtains 
 for himself a holy divine blessing i, so Job passes through a 
 long and severe conflict with the God of outward nature Him- 
 self, in order finally to begin as a regenerated man a new 
 higher life, after he has by toil and distress achieved the di- 
 vine revelation so fervently longed for. For it is precisely the 
 divine promises and truths which have to be won at greatest 
 cost. God, as He at first appears in the outward course of the 
 world, confronts man in order to reveal Himself to him to the 
 extent to which he by conflict forces from Him His secrets; 
 and if the gain and the rest cannot be obtained without some 
 profound agony and penances for the human rashness and 
 warmth, inasmuch as every spurious and impure element mixed 
 with a noble endeavour must be again separated from it, the 
 final victory is nevertheless all the more remunerative. And 
 thus the aim of the poet in projecting the picture of this 
 noble hero was to show, that though even the noblest man of 
 perfect integrity may sink into the most terrible despair, he 
 need not nevertheless necessarily succumb, but victoriously at- 
 tains, after the greatest pains and dangers, the higher truth 
 and blessedness, which as soon as they have once been reached 
 by one man must become the common possession of all who 
 behold this model. So that in the mind of the poet the one 
 
 1 Gen, xxxii. 25, coinp. History of Israel I. p. 357 sq. (I. p. 512 sq.). 
 
 3* 
 
36 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 man Job, suffering, contending and triumphing, is intended to 
 become the representative of the whole race as passing through 
 similar sufferings; on which account Job is in this poem the 
 principal person in whom everything else centres. All the 
 various opinions and endeavours in the matter of the enigma 
 are arranged with reference to him and powerfully affect him 
 as the person most immediately concerned; and although he 
 represents chiefly unbelief, he has still properly not wholly 
 got free from superstition, as, on the other hand, he stands 
 in closer relation to the true faith than appears to be the 
 case, and as soon as ever this is revealed, without compulsion, 
 willingly following his own perception, he appropriates it, and 
 resigning all former errors remains faithful to it ever after. 
 
 2. The friends represent nothing but the early faith as it 
 has already become a delusion and superstition. This faith is 
 from its nature that which more commonly prevails, which seeks 
 to maintain itself with emphasis and earnestness against every 
 innovation and variation. "With profound insight the poet in- 
 troduces several friends in contrast with the solitary Job, Un- 
 usual calamities and unusual experience are the lot of but a 
 few; endurance under unexpected trials and steady resistance 
 of current narrower views, founded upon fresh and certain ex- 
 perience, is still more uncommon; but most uncommon of all 
 is the hero who successfully brings out triumphantly a new 
 truth which is still weak and little understood. Accordingly 
 the poet must bring forward Job alone, without human help 
 or stay, as every great truth can at first by one man only be 
 felt and defended so keenly and powerfully that the one acts 
 decisively for all. And although in a smaller degree many 
 may have experienced the same and have similarly risen up 
 like Job against it, as indeed the poet makes Job plainly say 
 as much in the course of the conflict, xvii. 8, and makes him 
 more and more contend for all who suffer like him , iii. 20 ; 
 xii. 5; xxi. 6sq.; xxiv. 1 sq., Job must nevertheless alone by 
 himself wage the whole conflict and refute the antiquated 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 37 
 
 views by means of his own personal experience, which is pe- 
 culiar to himself in this degree. On the opposite side stands 
 the great multitude with its prepossessions, consciously or un- 
 consciously combatting the man that revolts against them. 
 The poet accordingly causes the representative personality hos- 
 tile to Job to divide into a number of separate persons, bring- 
 ing forward three old sympathetic friends of Job, who on 
 visiting him and considering more closely his misfortunes soon 
 become his opponents. These three men, whom the poet was the 
 first to require for his purpose, have scarcely been borrowed 
 from the early legend of Job, inasmuch as they are only distantly 
 connected with it: it suffices to suppose that the poet brought 
 them together from other scattered legends. In this instance 
 it was necessary that they should differ from each other 
 merely in respect of their age and mental characteristics. Eli- 
 phaz, the first, is the oldest, xv. 10, and most experienced, iv, 
 8, 12; v. 3; xv. 11, who always takes precedence of the others 
 as the model and umpire, and contends with superior dignity 
 and weight more forcibly than any of them. Bildad, the se- 
 cond, possesses, on the contrary, less adroitness and resource, 
 although not without a certain acuteness in judgment and well- 
 meaning cautiousness. The third, Zophar, as the youngest 
 and most easily excited, begins most hotly but is all the sooner 
 exhausted: We must look upon Job, according to the poet's 
 conception of him*, as a man of ripe middle age, as older 
 than Zophar but considerably younger than Eliphaz, and ac- 
 cordingly of about the same age as Bildad. But the views of 
 these three are the same. Really the most honest, well-inten- 
 tioned men, not less animated by the strictest ideas of the 
 divine exaltation and righteousness than by the most fervent 
 abomination of all human wickedness and wrong-doing, they 
 are still, on the other hand, so completely possessed by that 
 ancient delusion of outward evil being a necessary punishment 
 
 1 And according to the plain indication xlii. 16. 
 
38 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from God of the former sins of the sufferer, that they arc 
 unable to see anything beyond it. Their rigid twofold proposi- 
 tion is, that surely no man can be chastised by God on ac- 
 count of his godliness, that therefore if a man is chastised it 
 must be on account of his sins, xxii. 4, 5. Living in this be- 
 lief as their most sacred conviction, they are accordingly com- 
 pelled to presuppose in the case of every sufferer without dis- 
 tinction blame and sins as the cause of his sufferings, whether 
 he is conscious thereof and has actually committed them or 
 not. And the sufferer with whom they sympathize they can 
 only urge to humble himself, by repenting of and confessing 
 his guilt, whether it is visible or not. If he refuses thus to 
 humiliate himself, either from actual obduracy or because he 
 is unable to discover his guilt, they are obliged to condemn 
 and discard him as obdurate. If they are asked for their 
 reasons, they have no profounder one than, "the fact is, 
 man is such a frail creature, occupying a place far beneath 
 God and the celestial beings, that, inasmuch as he sins con- 
 tinually, indeed lives in sin as in his element, he cannot ac- 
 cordingly be punished enough, and suffering is part of his 
 nature; from which condition there is no other escape than 
 that, whenever a calamity befalls him, he must implore and 
 regain the divine mercy by confessing his guilt and humbling 
 himself", iv. 18—21; v. 6, 7; xv. 14—16; xxv. 4—6. In this 
 way the friends of Job were no doubt accustomed to humiliate 
 and mortify themselves, or, which is the same thing, they 
 sought by endless external sacrifices accompanied by a number 
 of prayers to avert every actual or threatened calamity. But 
 all this is based upon - a low idea of man, which gradually 
 developed itself in such an exclusive way in Mosaism, until at 
 last it became a fundamental principle of the Pharisees. If, 
 however, sin is such a part of human nature that it is in it 
 a necessity, indeed the proper element of man, under the 
 power of which he must bow himself, this nature would be not 
 simply bad from the beginning and without the possibility of 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM, 39 
 
 future amendment (a supposition which is contradicted by the 
 history of the creation itself), but strictly speaking every ca- 
 lamity would in that case be, as a consequence of the (after 
 all necessary) sin, an unjust infliction of God. So that this 
 sad, mournful view refutes itself, if there were not already the 
 plain example of such an innocent and blameless sufferer as 
 Job to contradict it. On that account, because it cannot be 
 logically thought out, this reason is not found to meet the 
 requirements of the friends; but their readiest, more obvious 
 argument remains the ancient tradition and experience which 
 appear to favour the above view, inasmuch as they teach, that 
 it is only the wicked who sufi"er severely and perish without 
 deliverance, while their momentary prosperity is without dura- 
 tion. Hence the friends also dwell particularly upon this, iv. 8 ; 
 v, 3; viii, 8; xv, 17 — 19; xx. 4; xxii, 15, But every external 
 reason of this kind is valid only as long, in any case, as ex- 
 perience does not plainly contradict it: even the least trying 
 experience of the contrary overturns it, although it may have 
 been so long considered valid and sacred. How, therefore, can 
 the friends successfully contend with such arguments against 
 Job, whose perfectly blameless life flatly contradicts all their 
 experiences and opinions? How can they hope to reduce to 
 submission the man who is not conscious in himself of the least 
 stirrings of an evil or troubled conscience? Before the revela- 
 tion of the higher truth comes to him. Job unconsciously goes 
 with them in the first half of their view, namely that suff"ering 
 is a divine punishment; but the second half, that it is a just 
 punishment for corresponding sins, he is obliged from the very 
 first to deny, and can never allow it without giving up him- 
 self and honesty and virtue. The contention must therefore 
 be unequal, inasmuch as Job is not only well acquainted with 
 the ancient superstition, on the basis of which alone his friends 
 speak, but has also to his advantage the wholly opposed and 
 much more deeply felt experience of which they know nothing. 
 He, as knowing both the principle and its contrary, fights with 
 
40 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 double weapons, whilst they simply defend the ancient de- 
 lusion, which does not hold in Job's case, and to free himself 
 from which he has already made the commencement, though 
 it may be unconsciously and uncertainly as yet. If they also 
 try to touch Job's conscience in the most pointed manner, 
 making threatening descriptions of the certain final overthrow 
 of the wicked in order to terrify him, asking whether he alone 
 thinks of arraigning and upsetting the eternal divine justice, 
 viii. 2; xviii. 4; xxii. 4, all these attempts must glance aside 
 from him, because his conscience is clear and he is compelled 
 to deem otherwise than his friends of the divine righteousness, 
 who think that every calamity is a righteous penalty for sins 
 and that to submit in this sense to suffering is to acknowledge 
 the divine justice. Inasmuch, therefore, as the opposite of every- 
 thing which they maintain can be thought and asserted in the 
 same outward, superficial manner, they can only introduce worse 
 confusion into the contention, not help to smooth and settle 
 it. With reference to the question under debate, they judge 
 even more partially and unjustly of God than Job, supposing 
 that He sends to every man suffering only according to the 
 measure of his sin, which neither Job nor God Himself, xlii. 
 7, can ever allow. Starting with the best intentions, they are 
 soon compelled, inasmuch as they gradually come to regard 
 Job simply as an obdurate sinner, to change their attitude 
 towards him into one of severity and hostility, thus simply 
 increasing the sufferings which they meant to assuage. The 
 sole service they render is, that without intending it they by 
 their opposition and blindness, on the one hand, provoke un- 
 belief in such energy, perfection, and self-consciousness that 
 superstition must be dumb before it, and, on the other, drive 
 the sufferer to that inward possession which was at first hidden 
 from him and which has remained unconsumed in spite of all 
 outward calamity. This inward possession is the good con- 
 science which he now first discovers to be his highest good 
 and holds fast when it is about to be taken from him; and 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 41 
 
 by it he confounds his opponents and wins the victory at last. 
 It was, therefore, the object of the poet in describing the three 
 friends to show, how greatly superstition misconceives the truth 
 and how little it can overcome unbelief, which is already a 
 step in advance of it. 
 
 3. God is the revealer of the truth, the author of the 
 nobler faith. He who occasioned this enigma must also solve 
 it for the weal of mankind, or cause men to take closer glances 
 into His nature and His glory; as indeed Job very clearly in 
 the midst of the storm of calamity and passion sees to be 
 necessary, but desires in vain to bring it about by his ve- 
 hemence, xiii. 3 sq. ; whilst God as the plain, gentle revealer 
 will not stoop to man until he, putting aside all ea^'thly pas- 
 sions and confusions, raises himself simply to Him. Therefore 
 the poet, with his whole being occupied with the divine idea, 
 represents God as from the first constructing in heaven the 
 enigma, whether a godly man can suffer though blameless 
 and yet remain faithful, in such a way that the reader may 
 beforehand see at all events the possibility of such a thing 
 happening in harmony with a true idea of God, whilst in the 
 present case it depends on the terrestrial, human participant 
 in the problem to what extent this possibility shall become a 
 reality by means of his personal cooperation. But as regards 
 the earth, God cannot appear upon it to explain, decide and 
 reward, until the human sufferer, already in fact conqueror in 
 the struggle as between men, inwardly prepared and rendered com- 
 petent to penetrate the last veil, draws near to Him in pure long- 
 ing and hope. The appearing of God then supplies simply the 
 outward completion and confirmation of that which is already 
 inwardly accomplished and necessary. A fleeting moment, but 
 one of immeasurable significance, brings the longed-for pure 
 truth forth from its depths, and no sooner docs it appear than 
 at once all still remaining errors are scattered with irresistible 
 force. The inmost mind of God comes forth plainly and dis- 
 tinctly in this enigma, that it may never again be lost among 
 
42 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 men but go on to establish ever greater good. And as the 
 poet can represent in the patriarchal age God Himself as ap- 
 pearing personally in all His greatness and strength, he obtains 
 thereby the happiest opportunity of describing the purest and 
 most striking revelation of the higher truth which it is here 
 intended to magnify. If superstition became silent before un- 
 belief, so the latter in turn is silenced before the true faith, 
 as in every question so particularly in that regarding integrity. 
 To show this is the aim of the poet in his description of the 
 divine revelation. 
 
 n. In that these three dominating principles are brought 
 into contact by the enigma which has to be solved, and mutu- 
 ally, according to their respective views and forces, attract, 
 throw into confusion, and finally come to terms with each 
 other, we have the working-out of the poem corresponding to 
 its plan, or the complicated action of the drama in the de- 
 velopment of which the thought is itself incarnated and ex- 
 plained in all its parts. It is an enigma of actual life which 
 it is intended to solve and disclose. If the proper persons 
 and circumstances are at hand amid which it must actually 
 originate and only after it has been solved disappear, the de- 
 tails assume their proper form of themselves by higher ne- 
 cessity, the first apparently insignificant commencement already 
 involves the end, and the most violent collision of the opposing 
 principles only promotes mere rapidly the final solution. 
 
 1. The action is twice commenced, more remotely in heaven, 
 nearer at hand on the earth, because the question regarding 
 guilt or innocence and its potency or impotency concerns not 
 merely men but also the divine kingdom and all divine truths, 
 indeed in the higher sense is an aftair of His who has His 
 choicest delight in the world of men and by the glory of men 
 is Himself glorified. Now, inasmuch as the exceedingly grand 
 capacity and power of man to suffer blamelessly and to over- 
 come the outward evil and attain higher blessing by the in- 
 tegrity thus attested, has in God an eternal possibility and 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 43 
 
 inner truth, it must also at some time come to light as actual 
 fact and outward truth. And when thus the divine idea be- 
 comes actual human history, it cannot lie beyond the range of 
 the divine will and work to inflict upon the most blameless 
 man the heaviest afflictions; inasmuch as in the case of each 
 concurrence of sufi'ering and blamelessness in the world (and 
 this collision will never be wholly absent), the eternal divine 
 purpose simply aims at pointing man to the peculiar power 
 which lies dormant within him of overcoming the evil under 
 which he sufters and the incitement to wickedness which is 
 therein hidden, and at raising him by the victory over it. 
 Hence the poet's magnificent description, how God in the ce- 
 lestial council suspends over Job on the occasion of the ca- 
 lumny of Satan the heaviest suff"erings, not with an unfriendly 
 intention, nor with the foreknowledge that he must necessarily 
 succumb to them, but continually in watchful love and in the 
 conviction, which though not expressed is evidently strong, 
 that such a valiant combatant as Job will finally prove faithful 
 in utmost extremities. Thus the reader is at the same time 
 initiated beforehand into everything by the celestial scene, and 
 is able to anticipate by "this glimpse into the divine mind the 
 necessary course of the entire action.— But upon earth, where 
 this divine intention is as yet wholly veiled, where what is 
 possible shall first be realised by the cooperation of man, there 
 is opened, on the other hand, a field for doubt and conflict. 
 For such a case has hitherto been unheard of amongst men, that 
 a completely blameless man should suffer so severely. And 
 what conflicts does a new both painful and unusual experience 
 occasion before it is properly understood and favourably ac- 
 cepted? At first Job endures for a long time the heaviest 
 and extremest inflictions, remaining true to himself; since it 
 contradicts all his previously received principles to set himself 
 against God even in the dark, hard enigma of life. But the 
 enigma remains in the background, the still unsolved perplexity 
 merely retreats to permit itself to be surprised and called forth 
 
44 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by 11 lurking opportunity. As such an opportunity the poet 
 very suitably chooses the arrival of the old friends for con- 
 dolence. For before a friend the wounded, pent-up heart opens 
 itself readily and without suspicion ; the desire to hear com- 
 fort and condolence elicits feelings and lamentations from the 
 breast, which would otherwise, when carefully restrained, have 
 never betrayed the real condition of the unfortunate sufferer. 
 Thus for the first time the so long repressed complaint is 
 freely poured forth: despondency bursting its fetters breaks 
 out the more violently, not indeed in a rejection of God Him- 
 self, but still in an execration of life which leads to a sub- 
 dued complaint regarding God's dark providences. But thereby 
 not only has a perilous commencement of self-bewilderment as 
 regards divine things, and at last of a contemning of God Him- 
 self, been made (the evil which lurks in the outward evil), but 
 the friends also, instead of perceiving Job's whole meaning, 
 arc thereby strengthened in their suspicion, that Job suffers 
 on account of serious sins, since instead of showing repentance 
 he even still continues to utter such hard things concerning 
 God as if he desired to dispute with Him. In all directions 
 therefere is the conflict opened up. 
 
 2. But, first of all, superstition, as the antagonist most 
 immediately concerned, which feels itself painfully struck at, 
 must oppose itself to the unbelief which has thus risen against 
 it. Thus arises the merely human conflict, which, as the com- 
 plete truth is found on neither side, becomes as passionate, 
 complicated, and wearisome as all earthly conflicts upon which 
 the pure light does not shine. Whence it follows that the im- 
 mediate general result can be simply, that the weakness of 
 both sides is evidently brought out, and though the old ideas 
 nuist give way to the new, delusion to certain experience, 
 superstition to unbelief, yet the latter, together with the former, 
 still remains without true illumination and complete satisfac- 
 tion with regard to the real matter of the conflict. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 45 
 
 The positions of both sides arc at the beginning of the con- 
 flict the following: the friends, having heard Job's complaint, 
 maintain, (1) man may not speak against God, as if he were 
 juster and wiser than God, because (2) general divine justice 
 is never in default, but always expresses itself at some time in a 
 terrible manner towards all sinners. In these two propositions, 
 which are perfectly true in this general form, the friends hold 
 therefore positions which cannot easily be taken: they have here 
 strong defences from which they can make attacks and behind 
 which they can retreat: they have here their advantage and 
 their strength. But together with these two propositions they 
 maintain also (3) the principle, that calamity is never un- 
 attended by guilt, so that whoever speaks on account of ca- 
 lamity against God and the divine righteousness betrays him- 
 self ipso facto as guilty. This latter is their weak, dangerous 
 position, by which their former positions are again rendered 
 insecure. For as this third proposition does not in the least 
 accord with the case in question, upon which the entire con- 
 flict is based, they get constantly in danger of falsely applying 
 their excellent general truths. The advantage which they possess 
 on the one side, they lose on the other; indeed, what they have 
 of the truth must by constant diversion to false issues fall 
 under suspicion, their best weapons must gradually get blunted. 
 They are like orators who say much that is good and true, 
 only it is not true and appropriate for the case in point. The 
 more they are compelled therefore by the course of the con- 
 tention to deal precisely with the particular case at issue, 
 the more they must get wrong and lose their way. At first, 
 it is true, the advantage seems to be wholly on their side; 
 inasmuch as starting from a good intention and relying upon 
 the doctrines of antiquity generally, they meet Job with quiet 
 confidence, with unbroken ranks, relieving and supporting each 
 other repeatedly. Moreover, every assailant has always an 
 advantage, how much more these men as assailants of a sufferer 
 who is so low and despondent as Job. Still, the assailant has 
 
46 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but to retreat at one point, and his entire cause may easily 
 be lost, and woe to him if because he cannot defend the weak 
 position, he must also surrender his secure ones to the as- 
 saulted opponent who has become an angry assailant! 
 
 At first Job is much less favourably situated. A blame- 
 less man, when thus seriously suspected or severely accused, 
 will often blush at once to refer to the perverse and foolish 
 charges, and the more innocent he is conscious of being, the 
 less will he hasten with the defence of his innocence before 
 fellow-mortals. As if he considered it beneath him. Job never 
 speaks to his assailants simply to justify himself sedulously 
 and scrupulously against their veiled or open reproaches; he 
 prefers so far to expose himself even to the most unsparing 
 sallies. Thus exposed, he further endures, all the more, great 
 pain at the wholly unexpected attack and, as it seems to him, 
 perfidy of his friends. It is the addition of this trouble to all 
 his previous calamities which adds the climax to his woe and 
 renders a calm defence so difficult. On the other hand, so 
 far as the views and positions asserted are concerned, Job has 
 (1) the great advantage, that from his own personal experience 
 he can positively know and conscientiously maintain most 
 firmly, that calamity is possible without guilt. That which is 
 the weak and obscure side of the matter in the case of his 
 opponents is in his case the strongest and plainest, and as in 
 fact everything in the whole contention really depends on this 
 central position, he must from the very first be in possession 
 of the chief truth which is in this matter decisive, the truth 
 which they so wholly fail to see that they stoutly maintain the 
 exact opposite of it. But, again, because Job, still partially 
 blinded by the old delusion, does not as yet at all comprehend 
 tliis truth, under the birth-pains of which he suffers, as actually 
 and justly based in the nature of God, but on the contrary ex- 
 pects God will not permit the innocent to suffer, he is exposed 
 from the beginning to the danger of falling into great errors and 
 shocking assertions, on account of his own greatly troubled 
 
3. THE ART OF TUE POEM. 47 
 
 stcate of mind and in respect of the course of the world. As 
 innocent, suffering, therefore, as he thinks unjustly, he may in 
 his impatience be easily led astray— (2) to dispute generally 
 with God, not merely endeavouring to get reasons which might 
 avail to move Him to take pity, but also calling Him to ac- 
 count vehemently, indeed, apparently defiantly, which rashness 
 attains its climax in the actual challenge of God to appear 
 and to give judgment. And going still further, taking a wider 
 view of the world generally, he may even— (3) question the 
 presence of the general divine righteousness in the world, and 
 maintain the exact contrary of a connexion between happiness 
 and innocence as prevailing in the world. These are the two 
 dangerous propositions by which Job is about to surrender the 
 general truths which his friends were in possession of and 
 which he himself must have maintained in calmer moments. 
 They are propositions which had lurked covertly in his troubled 
 soul from the commencement of his calamities, but which could 
 only gradually by the violence of the contention and the spirit 
 of contradiction assume such a terrible power within him. In- 
 deed, they may at last become even opposing positions and 
 weapons against his friends, for the purpose of expelling them 
 from their firm positions; because if really outward prosperity 
 or adversity is to be the guide of the judgment concerning 
 innocence or guilt, then, according to the undoubted experience of 
 the adversity of innocence, these propositions can be with equal 
 justice used for attacking the friends, just as they constantly 
 apply their truths falsely in Job's case. But if these proposi- 
 tions had really been uttered by Job as his truths, particularly 
 the proposition against the divine justice, there would have 
 been opened for him at last the broad road of endless error, 
 of a complete fall, of denial of God Himself, since no one can 
 in calm judgment fail to see, or even deny, the divine justice 
 without denying God Himself. His own integrity, which Job 
 will defend and protect before all things, is in extreme peril 
 and is but a step removed from its fall, save that his con- 
 
48 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 scious adherence to right is too great and powerful to permit 
 it ever wholly to desert him in the course of the contention, 
 even in its most extreme bewilderment and perplexity. The 
 more, therefore, Job confines himself alone to his own case and 
 his consciousness of pure integrity, and the more closely he is 
 compelled to consider his own case, the greater gainer is he, 
 whilst by that very means and to an equal extent his opposers 
 are the losers. Notwithstanding all dangers and errors, Job 
 possesses precisely in the special case which occasions the con- 
 tention, and still more in the consciousness of his integrity, a 
 secure foundation and basis of departure which cannot be wrested 
 from him; he may go wrong in the human contention, but it 
 is only the more certainly to recover himself. 
 
 As now the positions assumed by both sides are from the 
 very first so totally different, that they only accord in the 
 mutual misunderstanding of the enigma to be resolved and its 
 different false applications ^ in that Job also fails to see his 
 case as clearly as is needed, although he is better acquainted 
 with it than they, there can only follow from the encounter 
 in the first instance a constant increase of the misunderstand- 
 ing. It is true, the friends display at first much caution and 
 forbearance in conformity with their disposition: and Job, as 
 though he foreboded the sad danger of mutual provocation 
 and exasperation, at first shuns the commencement of the real 
 contention, asks for friendly consideration, vi. 28 — 30, and avoids 
 for a long time speaking directly against his friends, ch. ix. 
 But nevertheless the contention advances inevitably to the point 
 of violence: if the friends only distantly hint at Job's guilt, 
 his inmost feelings are roused; if in his indignation or pain 
 an ambiguous or hard word escapes him, their suspicion is 
 increased. Thus they come into collision with each other and 
 get wider apart without meaning it, simply compelled by the 
 
 1 The friends : calamity befalls the guilty as punishment ; therefore he may 
 not speak against God — . Job: calamity befalls the blameless as punishment; 
 therefore he may very properly—. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 49 
 
 growing misunderstanding neither side can give way; because 
 the one defends the ancient, sacred belief, the other, his good 
 conscience and human right. The most angry and difficult 
 contention has been kindled, in which every point must be 
 fought out to the last. Still, it is also possible provisionally 
 to foresee as the end, that it is rather Job who will at least survive 
 the conflict and conquer in the contention with his fellow-mortals. 
 First, because he personally quite well knows not only what 
 the friends allege, but also much more, and precisely what is 
 here decisive, namely, the truth, that a blameless man may 
 suffer severely ; and, next, because he possesses in addition the 
 infinite treasure of a good conscience, a power which grows in 
 the conflict with immeasurable independence and energy, which, 
 the more the endeavour is made to dim and darken it, the 
 less does it suffer any darkening,— which, when exasperated 
 and injured, reacts against its enemies with a keenness which 
 was not anticipated. The friends seek to deprive him of his 
 good conscience, in that they urge him to confess a sin which 
 he really cannot charge himself with, thus to perplex his pure 
 conscience and make him surrender it; and he himself in the 
 heat of the conflict comes into the tremendous danger of wholly 
 losing his clear self-possession and speaking against the sacred 
 voice of his inmost conscience. But all the more powerfully 
 in the end his conscience rises up against all that is hostile 
 to it, and becomes at last, since it is the one certain and per- 
 fectly true thing in this contention, the sole victor and judge, 
 as far as it can end and settle the human part of the conflict 
 without the new revelation which must fully remove the enigma. 
 When carefully considered, there follows from these primary 
 positions and principles of the two parties also the complete 
 plan of the necessary course of this contention, with all its 
 possible movements and vicissitudes. The assailants, it is true, 
 possess in their mind in reserve from the first the three 
 primary truths which constitute the strength and the weak- 
 ness of their positions, and are unable to surrender any one 
 
 4 
 
50 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of them, because they conceive human life in general, and Job's 
 case in particular, simply in the light of the closest combina- 
 tion of all three truths: but they are not obliged to give equal 
 prominence to each of the three on every occasion and in every 
 situation of the contest. On the contrary, as Job's half-des- 
 pairing half-querulous complaint had led them first to suspicion, 
 and they hope at the beginning to be still able to save him, 
 they advise him (1) first of all to abstain from such rash and 
 defiant words, calling him seriously but kindly to repentance, 
 and permitting the hard fate of the wicked to appear only in 
 the background. If they thereby attain nothing, they can 
 (2), by placing as they proceed their second truth in the front 
 and bringing forward the general divine righteousness, then seek 
 to touch his conscience by terrible descriptions of the frightful 
 ruin threatening all the wicked, as if they regarded him as 
 already semi-obdurate and lost. Finally, if neither this severe 
 measure prove efficacious, they can (3) accuse him openly of 
 the greatest sins, which they cannot, it is true, strictly prove 
 by evidence, but presuppose as certainly committed, thus un- 
 ambiguously and unsparingly applying their third principle, 
 that calamity is never without guilt. This is the necessary 
 line of progress which their attack takes. The assailant must, 
 if he will not retreat when an assault has not attained its 
 object, cause necessarily a still more pointed and merciless 
 assault to follow, until at last he puts forth all his resources, 
 even the residue and reserve of forces, which at the commence- 
 ment of the contention he had imagined he should never be 
 obliged to bring out. Twice this line of advance recurs; the 
 first time more by the way, less perceptibly and abruptly, 
 though essentially the same; iv. 2 — v. 7; viii. 2 — 19; xi. 6: but 
 the second time at length, very plainly and pointedly, iv., v., 
 viii., xi., XV., xviii., xx., xxii. When they have thus not shrunk, 
 led on by the growing heat of the conflict, from expressing 
 the utmost that they can say, and nevertheless have not sub- 
 dued the object of their attack, they are evidently compelled as 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 51 
 
 completely exhausted to think of a retreat and hold their 
 peace; their first confusion and exhaustion becomes a total de- 
 feat, even a retreat is cut oif from them if they are determined 
 not to surrender. 
 
 Whilst the assailants thus perform their movements in but 
 a somewhat limited space, to the man attacked a much larger 
 field is open: he can defend himself, make the attack, and 
 withdraw in safety from the attack to his original position: — 
 
 (1) He can defend himself by showing, as he adheres with 
 increasing emphasis to his integrity, that he has the justest 
 reason to complain on account of the undeserved mysterious 
 sufferings which have befallen him, as vi. 2 — 13; xvi. 6— 17; 
 xix. 6 — 22 ; xxi. 4, 5 ; and this remains to him a powerful stay 
 which cannot be wrested from him, because it is exactly suited 
 to the present case. But although he may thus defend him- 
 self by reference to the present case itself, or at the same 
 time complain with increasing bitterness of the harshness of 
 his friends as they (intentionally) fail to perceive his innocence, 
 vi. 14 — 27; xvi. 4, 5; xvii. 4, 10 — 16, what avails even the most 
 emphatic and sincere defence against the want of intelligence 
 of his opponents, who, when all is said and done, are determined 
 not to let go the proposition of their experience and faith, 
 that calamity is never without guilt? In vain does Job endea- 
 vour repeatedly by every possible means to get them to see 
 his innocence. At the very commencement, he seeks to en- 
 lighten them with an affectionate appeal to their consideration, 
 vi.; he puts before them in agonising despair, how terrible a 
 thing is the persecution of a blameless man, xvi., xvii.; he tries 
 finally, in the profouudest grief, to touch their conscience and 
 to supplicate their compassion, xix. But all is in vain; pre- 
 cisely the truest and deepest words of suffering integrity are 
 in this case unintelligible to the friends; they discern in them 
 only evidences of the growing audacity and the rashness of 
 the sufferer! If therefore Job meant all along to confine him- 
 self in his answers to the defensive, he would inevitably be at 
 
 4* 
 
52 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 last overthrown, inasmuch as integrity, particularly in its own 
 defence, is not such a material, palpable thing that it could make 
 its defence by openly showing itself. He must therefore, even 
 in self-defence, 
 
 (2) assume the offensive, when this at length becomes a 
 necessity. He must attack the first two principles of his op- 
 ponents, because from the basis of these their firm positions 
 they perpetually defend their assertion regarding calamity as 
 the sign of guilt. But as regards the question of Job's guilt 
 or innocence, it is wholly impossible they should come to an 
 understanding ; neither can Job venture a successful attack on 
 behalf of his innocence, so long as the opponents believe in 
 his guilt on the ground of their two general propositions, sup- 
 posing he must be guilty because he speaks against God and the 
 divine righteousness, and threatening him with God's appearance 
 and His retributive justice. They thus compel him at last to 
 turn these dangerous weapons with which they attack him 
 against themselves: by their blind opposition they call forth 
 the evil spirits which from the very first lie dormant in the 
 sufferer, in order that these spirits, when they have become 
 powerful by the provocation, may turn against themselves. For 
 certainly Job has to some extent a right thus to retort upon 
 them. A truth, when falsely applied to a particular case, can 
 precisely on the basis of that case be reversed. If it is main- 
 tained, that man may not speak against God and fail to per- 
 ceive the divine righteousness, because innocence cannot suffer, 
 then the man that nevertheless actually suffers though inno- 
 cent (therefore according to the early belief contrary to justice), 
 will be in a position to speak against God and to doubt the 
 divine righteousness, in defiance of all who call in question his 
 innocence; and the man who is closely pursued by his oppo- 
 nents will, almost against his own will, be at last driven to this 
 as his only way of escape. It is not simply Job's fault, that 
 when both unfairly and blindly attacked, he at last presents 
 his uncouth aspect alone, thus likewise losing his self-possession. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 53 
 
 If the opponents desired early in the contention, as fearing their 
 own weakness, the approach of God in judgment against Job, 
 xi., how much more justly and courageously can the man, who is 
 now persecuted even by his friends without a cause, appeal to 
 this judgment on his own behalf, and eagerly turn this weapon 
 against themselves, using this opportunity to get a moment of 
 respite? xii. — xiv. Nor does this blow remain without its con- 
 sequences in the case of the friends. For although Job pays 
 dearly for this rashness, since, inasmuch as God does not ap- 
 pear, he for the first time feels himself wholly abandoned of 
 God, inexpressibly miserable and cast-down, still neither do the 
 friends, confounded by such unlooked for rashness, venture 
 ever again to invoke such a judgment; they are compelled to 
 think of other lines of attack. And if the friends then tenaciously 
 maintain the general proposition, that the sinner is according 
 to the divine righteousness always unprosperous, with the im- 
 plied meaning, that the unprosperous man, e.g., Job, is always 
 guilty, of course Job must at length, as soon as he takes a 
 closer view of this stronghold, perceive the terrible reverse- 
 side of this opinion ; since the mere outward appearance, which 
 the friends follow, teaches also the exact opposite of it, that 
 the sinner may be (at times) very prosperous, the godly man 
 very unprosperous, just as may be most plainly perceived pre- 
 cisely in the present case of the pertinacity, bordering on 
 cruelty, of these fortunate friends towards the unfortunate suf- 
 ferer. If they present to him a completely onesided, false pic- 
 ture of the divine righteousness, he is naturally compelled, in- 
 asmuch as it does not answer in the least to his immediate 
 experience, to discover the exact opposite of it from his point 
 of view : for he would only too gladly adopt the picture which 
 his opponents present; because, if it were true, he would as 
 innocent necessarily be made prosperous immediately. But 
 since he is both conscious in himself of the exact opposite and also 
 perceives it in the world, he is compelled in deepest bitterness 
 and perplexity of soul to call in question this divine righteous- 
 
54 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ness described to him. Without intending it, his discourse 
 becomes the keenest attack upon the no less pertinacious than 
 one-sided assertions of the friends, xxi., xxiv. But if the op- 
 ponents are thus in their firmest positions shaken, thrust 
 through, and if not convinced yet brought to silence, by the 
 reckless attacks of the sufferer, which they had not looked for, 
 so that Job is now able as conqueror to review the entire 
 situation with greater calmness and circumspection, he must 
 at once perceive, that he cannot permanently retain these 
 weapons with which he combated and overcame his opponents. 
 For if there were really nothing in the world but wrong, he 
 would himself have no longer any ground for complaint re- 
 garding his present personal misfortunes, nor for life at all: 
 with the deliberate denial of divine righteousness generally, all 
 human reflections and endeavours must be annihilated. Either 
 Job proceeds still further upon the dangerous course (in which 
 case there is nothing for it but to deny God himself, as the 
 friends believe he will do, and has already done in secret); 
 or he must now cast off the appearance of being capable 
 of that, and must all the more necessarily do this in conformity 
 with his own conscience, inasmuch as precisely in the course 
 of the contention he has become conscious, with a strength 
 never dreamed of before, of his integrity and its grandeur. 
 For during the growing confusion of the limited views of 
 mortals, there has already in secret been stirring and attaining 
 clearer consciousness the superhuman energy, which can alone 
 preserve the despairing sufferer from wholly sinking and hinder 
 the conflict from ending in mere altercation and exasperation. 
 While Job at first, before the attack of his friends, did not at 
 all clearly and consciously recognize the infinite treasure of 
 his integrity, by means of that attack he is conducted more 
 and more forcibly, and then more and more consciously, to it, 
 and learns to value a possession which he had hitherto over- 
 looked. The more his opponents seek to deprive him of it, 
 the more intimately he gets acquainted with it and the more 
 
3. THE AKT OF THE POEM. 55 
 
 stoutly he defends it. The voice of his integrity has made 
 itself heard, gently at first, vi. 10 c, then with greater power, 
 ix. 21, quite early speaking out most vehemently, when the mo- 
 ment came to wrest from the opponents the appeal to God, 
 xiii. It is true, that by this unreasonable, half-defiant appeal 
 the zeal which had been awakened was greatly quenched, and 
 the hope as it is here conceived was destroyed: but in the midst 
 of the worst confusion of this conflict, when he regards himself 
 as wholly cast off by men and God, his good conscience rises 
 all the more absolutely by its own indestructible force and 
 clear conviction above all that is wrong and enigmatical in 
 the present: the soul recognises its own unending duration, 
 xvi. 19; xix. 25—29. This inward certainty and pure self-re- 
 flection, which thus germinated unobserved in the midst of the 
 fiercest storm of all his calamity, can now all the more spring 
 forth wholly unhindered, as Job has just now again experienced 
 in his own case in this conflict the wealth and grandeur of 
 integrity and already foresees, although as yet but dimly, a 
 final deliverance. The dark, dangerous proposition of the reign 
 of unrighteousness needs only to have been plainly brought 
 forward in all its force, to be in this loftier and calmer frame 
 of mind for ever abandoned. Accordingly Job has 
 
 (3) a secure retreat from the attack and the victory. 
 As a brave victor, who has after all never become unfaith- 
 ful to God, and who has now become conscious of his own 
 powers, he can at last draw the conclusion from the conten- 
 tion— 'no one will again deny that calamity may exist with- 
 out guilt'; and Job will never permit himself to be deprived 
 of this doctrine and actual result of the contention; indeed, 
 he can grant the misery of the wicked, of ^ which so much is 
 made, because he is entitled to expect a better lot ; — although 
 to himself it is still not clear, liow suffering integrity is in it- 
 self possible and a divine arrangement. At last the clear 
 consciousness of himself and his integrity, after it has long 
 been overwhelmed by the billows of melancholy and despair, 
 
56 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 breaks forth in full splendour as the enduring fundamental 
 principle, expressing for him, in an abiding form and in calm 
 patience, that which is certain to him and still uncertain in 
 God, and closing the conflict as between himself and his fellow- 
 men not merely truly victoriously but also consciously and 
 modestly, xxvii.— xxviii. 
 
 It appears from this, that the turning-point of the whole 
 conflict and the commencement of the decision of Job's good 
 cause, takes place at the point, which is at the same time the 
 climax of the complication of the contention, when the friends 
 appear outwardly to have the victory and Job appears humanly 
 speaking to be doomed to perish, xvi.— xix. The last human 
 hope has just been snatched from him, which he had resorted 
 to after the perception of the unfaithfulness of the friends. 
 God, for whose appearance he had so zealously and courageously 
 prayed, xii. — xiv., has not appeared, the most agonising prayer 
 is not heard: everything in which he previously believed he 
 had a stay has perished ; and bitterly deceived in all his hopes, 
 he seeks in vain for some conceivable external support and 
 help. But this profound humiliation and disappointment was 
 not uncalled-for, in order to completely destroy all the elements 
 of his previous superstition, to which he still so firmly adheres, 
 and to direct him to the true eternal possession. Forsaken of 
 men and of the God of the outward world in whom he had 
 hitherto believed, he must nevertheless learn to retain and to 
 protect his good conscience by looking to the hidden God 
 within and the immortality of the soul. If every fragile sup- 
 port disappear, the imperishable one is all the more clearly 
 recognised. Thus where already complete ruin appeared to 
 prevail, there arises from the mysterious depth of his soul, 
 when driven into its inmost, holiest consciousness, a new, living, 
 indestructible truth; as a flash of lightning, the light of the 
 pure clear intuition shines through the ancient darkness, and 
 for the first time the true, inward strength and hope springs up, 
 towering above all times and vicissitudes, xvi. 19; xix. 25—29. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 57 
 
 On that account the gain of this highest moment can never 
 be again >Yhülly lost. Amid the final spasms of the word of 
 the friends, who do not comprehend such a spiritual elevation, 
 when Job also pours forth the last residue of the dark 
 thoughts which are stirred by his opponents, the noble sufferer 
 exhibits after all already an unlooked-for calm and confidence, 
 as if he felt that God, thougli it might not be till after the 
 death of the body, but not weak men, would be able to help 
 him, xxi. 2—6; xxiii., xxiv., xxvi. And immediately he returns 
 with growing conviction, after the defeat of the opponents, to 
 that profounder consciousness, and closes with marvellously 
 strengthened powers xxvii., xxviii. Job's inward power grows, 
 therefore, under all circumstances from stage to stage, whilst 
 that of his. opponents irretrievably declines, and at last the 
 unfavourable vicissitudes also promote his advantage. He, left 
 to himself, passing through such profound sufferings, combats 
 each opponent whenever one of them speaks, never wholly 
 flagging, and not one of his speeches falls short of its adverse 
 predecessor in point of inward or outward force and finish. He is 
 always original and inexhaustible, w^hilst his opponents proceed 
 vigorously a few steps, just at the commencement of each fresh 
 encounter, soon flag, and getting impoverished, repeat their 
 words with but little variation. If he several times in succes- 
 sion positively scorns to answer, following more his own re- 
 flections than the charges and will of his opponents, vi — vii., 
 ix— X., xvi— xvii., xix., yet in a single powerful speech he 
 amply supplies subsequently everything that had been omitted 
 and replies to three adversaries at once xii— xiv., xxi. He 
 leaves nothing allowable and noble untried, to arouse even the 
 compassion of his unfeeling opponents, both at the first and 
 again in the thickest of the fight, vi. 28—30; xix. 21, 22, and 
 resorts to severe measures only when compelled to do so. Thus 
 concealed or openly, on the defensive or tlic offensive, always 
 making victorious progress and gaining even by apparent losses, 
 from being the suspected, persecuted, insulted sufterer, he 
 
58 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 becomes the daring, invincible hero, the wonderful teacher, 
 xxvii. 11, of those who endeavour to correct him, the vanquisher 
 of all the superstition which has prevailed till that time. 
 
 On Job, as assailed but invincible, more and more vic- 
 toiious, depends, therefore, the true progress of the contention 
 in all its successive steps and stages: instead of being urged 
 on by the assailants, he soon urges them on much more than 
 they him. They take up a position against him: he compels 
 them to seek another by finally destroying it and occupying 
 it himself. They are obliged continually to seek a stronger 
 and more decisive position if they expect success ; and in fact 
 Job's increasing daring and apparent impiety justifies them in 
 becoming more and more pointed and decisive, inasmuch as 
 they find a confirmation of their suspicion in this conduct. 
 When he has in vain invoked God, they are obliged to deem 
 him mad; when he has plainly called in question the divine 
 righteousness, they must look upon him as manifestly impious. 
 Thus on both sides everything is brought to the most decisive 
 point. But if at last they cannot maintain the third most 
 extreme and decisive position which was possible (see p. 50), 
 they must suddenly find their strength fail them and the vic- 
 tory is incontestably Job's ; for the friends have but three dif- 
 ferent positions corresponding to their three main truths. On 
 each occasion Job does not make any great haste to attack; 
 since warding off the enemies' blows better becomes him who 
 is as sorely troubled as he is innocent, and for the noble soul 
 the attack is resorted to only in self-defence. The two first 
 times, accordingly, he leaves his adversaries to speak without 
 properly paying them back in their own coin and provoking 
 them by intentional attacks. The first time, he avoids every 
 irritating word towards his friends and proceeds simply in 
 complaints toward God, compelled by his sadness, vi — vii., 
 ix — X. ; the second time, he is less able to bring himself to do this, 
 xvi — xvii., xix. ; it is not until the third and youngest opponent 
 declines nevertheless to leave him in peace, that he replies by 
 
3, THE AliT OF THE POEM. 59 
 
 an attack, and the first time, when the point is the coming of 
 God to judgment, with a sharply irritating contradiction, 
 xii — xiv., the second time, in connexion with the question of 
 the divine righteousness, rather compelled by the profoundest 
 anguish to opposition, xxi. Thus three times the oldest of the 
 three friends, the one to whom it may soonest be left by his 
 colleagues also, is forced to assume a new position, which the 
 two first times the two subordinate friends maintain, the first 
 time making also an important advance, but the second time 
 only a little. But as the contention has thus been carried 
 much too far to permit of an understanding and reconciliation. 
 Job, not provoked by the unconcealed reproaches, remains by 
 his two former attacks which have not been answered, xxiii — 
 xxiv., but, in order to put an end to the contention which has 
 become unprofitable, he smites the second speaker who is scarcely 
 able to utter a few words, xxvi., with such crushing superiority 
 to the ground, that the third does not venture to speak again, 
 and Job rising instead of him, can now for the first time de- 
 clare his innocence quite triumphantly. The entire contention 
 as carried on between these men passes, therefore, through three 
 phases, which, inasmuch as the three friends speak each time 
 in their order, may also be called its three revolutions or ad- 
 vances. The first advance is on both sides an attempt, in 
 which everything, all that is dark as well as all that is clear, 
 is first brought into action, but everything gradually more and 
 more into perplexity and complication. The second advance 
 presents the highest point of complication, when Job appears 
 outwardly as already lost, whilst his deliverance is preparing 
 in secret. The third advance completes Job's victory. The 
 first two advances serve to bring out the two dangerous thoughts 
 of Job, his resentful discontent regarding his own calamities 
 which becomes at times a challenge to God, and his indigna- 
 tion at the apparent injustice prevailing in the whole world; 
 until these two thoughts, precisely because they have been 
 made perfectly clear, are set aside before they obtain complete 
 
60 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ascendancy. It is at the end of the third advance, after the 
 exaggerations and passions on both sides have spent them- 
 selves, that these thoughts are overcome by that party in the 
 conflict which, notwithstanding all reprehensible wanderings 
 and errors, was nevertheless right in the present matter, and 
 possesses, morever, a good conscience, and this result which has 
 been brought home to the mind in the contention and trouble 
 can make itself freely felt and remain alone dominant, in that 
 the victor in the contention with men regards himself as 
 vanquished by God, xxvii.— xxviii. 
 
 To make a brief resume of the whole : As between the human representatives 
 of it, the contention proceeds in the following three antitheses, in which also 
 its three advances and phases appear: — 
 
 The three friends maintain that a 
 man may not 
 
 (1) speak against God, because 
 
 (2) the universal divine righteousness 
 is never at fault; for 
 
 (3) calamity is never without guilt: 
 so that whoever on account of calamity 
 speaks against God and divine right- 
 eousness, ipso facto betrays himself as 
 guilty. 
 
 Job on the contrary maintains : 
 
 (1) Calamity, it cannot be denied, is 
 possible without guilt ; therefore the 
 blameless man, i.e., the man suffering 
 unjustly, may and must, in spite of those 
 who try to deny that clear fact, 
 
 (2) speak against God, in order to 
 challenge Him to a defence and the 
 restoration of justice fend of the first 
 advance), and if nevertheless justice is 
 not restored, 
 
 (3) call in question the general di- 
 vine righteousness (end of the second 
 advance). 
 
 But still, speaking against God and 
 calling in question the divine righteous- 
 ness, is after all when carefully con- 
 sidered, not merely useless and confusing 
 but even impious when done deliberatily 
 and persistently, and if done in passion 
 for once, the godly man will not con- 
 tinue it in his deliberate moments. 
 Therefore, with a full acknowledgment 
 of the divine majesty and universal jus- 
 tice, the original proposition. 
 
THE ART OF THE POEM. 61 
 
 'Calamity is possible without guilt't, 
 is still valid ; but how it is so, that 
 remains after all a divine enigma, mo- 
 destly to be acknowledged but still al- 
 ways painful in the extreme (end of 
 the third advance). 
 This is the course of the contention together with its necessary limits. 
 
 3. Thus it is true that by the result of the contention 
 between the mortal participants therein the enigma has not 
 as yet been solved on earth. Those on the one side have been 
 wearied out; the one representative of the other side has been 
 rendered wishful by the merely negative result, not yet per- 
 fectly satisfied and enlightened. So all long for a higher wis- 
 dom coming from another source. Even to Job, though he is 
 victorious over men, a still more exalted victor must approach. 
 One whom he has in fact already begun to anticipate and in 
 silent humility to desire to see draw near. Everything that 
 has gathered turbidly and dark around the question has been 
 cleared up; the merely onesided, passionate conceptions and 
 aims lie destroyed as victims of the conflict. But not until 
 now that the real question itself is quite closely approached, 
 does its true darkness appear, to scatter which all past human 
 wisdom has proved unavailing. It is only a new revelation 
 which can here supply the deficiencies of the ancient views and 
 illuminate what was to them impenetrable darkness. And in 
 fact the friends already early invoked this new revelation, xi. 5, 
 and Job at first desired nothing more intensely, indeed, challenged 
 it with vehemence, xiii., but at last perceived with deepest 
 pain the futility of a desire so presented, xxiii.: for the hidden 
 truth does not come when thus called for with defiance and 
 in persistent folly. Now for the first time, when Job has at- 
 tained to all the calm reflection of which he is capable, does 
 the longed-for revelation become perhaps possible.— Still, the 
 course of this weary contention has by no means been fruit- 
 less; on the contrary, the solution has been in secret thereby 
 
62 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 prepared for. For, in the first place, all lower conceptions are 
 now on the way to be completely exposed, because they have 
 been shown to be weak and unsatisfactory. Superstition, if 
 not convinced of the contrary, has been reduced to silence in 
 any case, and has been perceived most plainly to be insuffi- 
 cient. Unbelief, after it has vainly tried everything possible 
 to it, has perceived, just as it was victorious, its own insuf- 
 ficiency and of itself begun to rise to the inkling of a higher 
 truth. In that the passionate, almost defiant speech towards 
 God, as if He did injustice in the present case, and the empty 
 despair regarding the general wrongness of the world cease, 
 the mind turns with all the greater inwardness, intelligence, 
 and collectedness to the calm, although intense, confiding manner 
 of regarding the particular case in question, hoping the eternal 
 divine truths may not fail even in this darkness, and perceiving 
 that when this darkness is dispersed, the divine righteousness 
 will approve itself similarly everywhere. But what is still 
 more, integrity has only now perfectly stood the test of prac- 
 tical action by resisting the most perilous mental trials under 
 all extremest pains. Job has neither surrendered to supersti- 
 tion, thus sinning against his better knowledge, nor resigned 
 himself so far to the threatening unbelief, that he ever let God 
 Himself and the divine truths go ; since, on the contrary, in 
 every instance where this danger specially beset him, and most 
 of all as soon as he had clearly perceived it, he started back 
 with horror. He went wrong in his conceptions, but never in 
 intention and action, and so in the midst of his calamities, 
 when the attempt is made to deprive him of his integrity, he 
 has become fully conscious of this infinite good, and now, as 
 a victor amongst his fellow-men, he stands upon the threshold 
 of higher insight. How vastly he has been the gainer by the 
 conflict in point of self-knowledge and stable conviction, is shown 
 by nothing more plainly than the comparison of the discourse 
 which kindles the strife, iii., with that which closes it, xxvii 
 — xxviii.: the first is deficient in clearness and dangerous, while 
 
3, THE ART OF THE POEJI. 63 
 
 the second is admirable, and if not wholly clear is yet tending 
 towards clearness. All the vicissitudes intervening serve only 
 to mediate between these antitheses and the avoidance of that 
 danger. At last the calamities of Job, which are at first com- 
 pletely dark to human view, begin of themselves even to catch 
 a brightening light. Inasmuch as they have not been able to 
 destroy Job's integrity, it may already be surmised that they 
 are no real inward calamity, no punishment from God, but the 
 opposite of it; and after he has learnt this by experience, Job 
 is thereby alone prepared for this higher insight. Accordingly 
 there is in fact nothing further wanting than the advance to 
 the closing revelation of the pure divine voice, which recon- 
 ciles and glorifies everything, to that awful moment when the 
 last veil is drawn aside, in that heaven and earth meet together 
 and what in heaven was eternally prepared is consummated 
 upon earth. 
 
 After, therefore, Job having turned away wholly from his 
 friends, without any defiance or any sullenness as regards the 
 world in general, quite collected and worthy of himself, serious 
 and modest, has in grief compared together his former prosperity, 
 now so wishfully asked for again, and his present vast misery, 
 and at the same time most solemnly with animated certainty 
 protested from the purest soul his innocence (and that now 
 for the first time with such calm composure, full consciousness, 
 and definiteness) ; after he has thus, exhausting all human 
 power in agonising, holy zeal, uttered to God alone everything 
 that he can say of a longing, painful, purifying nature before higher 
 enlightenment has come, not violently calling forth the divine 
 decision, yet with repressed longing desiring it, drawing forth 
 his whole inner man with great sincerity and cordiality, xxix 
 — xxxi ; — when all this has been done by Job, at last God Him- 
 self appears, not as an enemy and not calling Job to account 
 for some former sin, but in order to deliver the brave con- 
 tender, if he has suffered himself previously to be warned and 
 enlightened by the higher truth. No complete deliverance can 
 
64 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 come as long as Job has not completely released himself from 
 the bonds of delusion, i.e., until he perceives that he hedges 
 up the way to knowledge and deliverance by speaking against 
 God and the divine righteousness. For during his calamities 
 and temptations he has suffered himself to be misled to 
 thoughts which alone hinder the solution of the enigma; 
 thoughts which he has, it is true, already begun to abandon, 
 but has not yet clearly enough perceived to be wholly false, nor 
 sincerely enough repented of. It is always true, that the light 
 of the divine truth does not appear without at the same time 
 bringing to light and removing more deeply concealed defects 
 in what is humanly devoid of blame and sin. So in this case, 
 it cannot appear without first cancelling certain defects in him 
 whom it has come to deliver and exalt, and when he has been 
 wholly purified from them then nobly to reward him. And it 
 is always true, that man never contends with God in order 
 that he may enter in His secrets without at the same time 
 carrying away as conqueror at last some scars as marks of 
 the divine superiority and traces of the mortal struggle, Gen. 
 xxxii. 26^. Now, inasmuch as Job had previously sinned in 
 two respects, first, in that he spoke at all against God, and 
 next that he spoke in particular against God as judge by 
 calling in question the supremacy of righteousness in the world, 
 God accordingly now challenges him twice to contend with 
 Him, demanding whether he is determined really to continue the 
 one or the other form of speech against Him Who now not only 
 makes Himself known as the strict judge and ruler, but also as 
 the infinitely wise arranger of the universe, as the marvellous 
 restorer of justice, as the revealer of His full glory? And as 
 Job, having seen the purest light, submits in humility before 
 a glory which has now become fully revealed, xxxviii. 1 — xl. 
 14; xlii. 1—6, as he stands pure before God and has put away 
 even the small spots which human haste and perplexity during 
 
 1 See above p. 35. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 65 
 
 his suflferiug had brought aud left upon him, God at last gives him 
 the noblest opportunity of obtaining satisfaction from his three 
 friends, namely, the opportunity of interceding for them; and 
 for himself, God gives him deliverance from all the evils which 
 have befallen him and the noblest reward, in that his prosperity 
 becomes greater than it was before his calamities. And thus 
 the higher belief is established, that integrity may suffer, in- 
 deed, but going forth from its trial with steadfastness and 
 victory, then first attains its true reward, having arrived at 
 true self-consciousness aud higher knowledge. The dark enigma 
 is nobly solved on earth to the glory of God and man. The 
 end of the drama refers back to the beginning. Considering 
 the example of Job and the enigma which is now solved, 
 henceforth every one may overcome like Job, without having 
 like him to contend so severely with superstition and to suffer 
 so perilously from unbelief. 
 
 The common supposition that it is the poet's purpose to 
 show, that man cannot penetrate God's plans and therefore does 
 best to submit in his ignorance to everything and without 
 complaining, has not been derived from an accurate knowledge 
 and a clear survey of the book. If the book went no further 
 than from ch. iii. to ch. xxviii., it might be possible to regard 
 that supposition as not improbable, although the thought would 
 then be bad enough and unworthy, much as it may commend 
 itself to many in these days. However, the fact is, the plan 
 of God is revealed in the book, in the form in which every 
 prophet reveals it; and Job is not blamed by God because he 
 wished to penetrate the divine plan. No more weight ought 
 to be attached to an incidental remark of Goethe's ^ than to such 
 
 1 The remark of Goethe's referred to is to be found in his review of La- 
 vater's Predigten über das Buch Joiuis, one of the early reviews contributed by 
 him to the Fi-atikfurter Gelehrte Anäeigen. It is simply: "In the Book of Job 
 the proposition, God's providence is unsearchable but nevertheless always great 
 and worthy of admiration on account of its issues, was undoubtedly the manifest 
 main purpose of the author." Tr. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 an endless number of other superficial opinions regarding the 
 meaning and aim of this book. — If others actually suppose that 
 the book is confused and its thought not well worked out, 
 they simply betray the fact, that they have not understood it 
 either in detail or as a whole. 
 
 III. The human portion of the contention, occupying the 
 principle part of the main body of the book, proceeds therefore 
 by three stages, in such a way that, although in this part of 
 the poem speeches alone are found and neither fresh persons 
 nor great outward events are introduced, nevertheless the ques- 
 tion itself upon which everything in the end depends makes 
 thereby regular and proportional progress, and the proper 
 solution is of itself insensibly prepared for from the midst of 
 the complication of the question as it reaches its climax. The 
 entire poem accordingly falls into five perfectly distinct and 
 yet most closely connected parts. And if the poem, according 
 to what we saw above ^, intends by its very plan to supply 
 the answer to its question in a corresponding illustration of it 
 taken from the midst of human life, or in a Drama, the true 
 development of such a drama cannot be more correctly pre- 
 sented than is done in these five parts. For they are just 
 the same five stages as those in which an important action in 
 a human life must naturally unfold itself and advance to its 
 satisfactory conclusion : first contact of the various conflicting 
 elements, complication, climax of the complication, commencement 
 of the solution, solution. The complication, or entanglement, of 
 the question follows of itself from the introduction of it with its 
 various conflicting elements; and in that this complication ad- 
 vances to its climax, through all the profoundly agitated aspects 
 and torn-up recesses of the question, in order that the most hidden 
 and apparently most impossible elements of the case may be 
 forced to develop themselves and come to light, the commence- 
 ment of a solution is prepared for by the new possibilities and 
 
 p. 17. 
 
3, THE ART OF THE POEM. 67 
 
 energies which come to light, under a progressive destruction 
 of the errors. The solution itself actually comes as soon as 
 the necessity which is at first completely hidden can at last 
 get wholly free from its impediments by the destruction of even 
 the last errors. This will always be the outline of the plan 
 and development of a true drama; and inasmuch as it is in- 
 volved in the nature of the thing itself, the Greeks were not 
 necessary to teach it. But as early as in this Book of Job it 
 appears carried out with such perfection and ease, both in the 
 details and the whole poem, that our admiration of the work 
 can only be increased as we rediscover more correctly its per- 
 fections in this respect. Every part and every detail is most 
 compactly put together, with the first foundations the whole 
 execution of the work is already clearly provided for, there is 
 nothing redundant and nothing defective, everything is in its 
 place, and in its place it is in all cases the right thing and 
 just what is required. 
 
 Compactly and necessarily as the larger and smaller members of this drama 
 all haug together and present themselves by every indication as the authentic 
 work of the poet, with equal certainty and plainness the two pieces of the pre- 
 sent book which are not included in the action of the drama, the speeches of 
 Elihu, xxxii — xxxvii., and the description of the two animal-monsters, xl. 15 — 
 xli. 26 (A. V. ver. 34) do not belong to the original work. This conclusion 
 which is explained in detail below, I established as early as 1828 * ; and nothing 
 has been said in reply which can be substantiated by the truth of the case. But 
 only a serious misconception of the whole book could mislead several moderns 
 to conjecture a want of connexion, or another hand, in the case of ch. xxvii 
 and xxviii. Similarly, the so-called prologue, i., ii and the epilogue, xlii. 7 — 17, 
 have had suspicion cast upon them without any just reason: for these prose 
 passages thoroughly harmonize as regards their material and thought, style and 
 art, and language also (as far as prose can be like poetry), with the ancient 
 poetic book, and everything that has been urged to the contrary is either pure 
 misconception or of no importance. The transposition of certain verses in ch. xx.xi 
 and xxxviii has only been erroneously proposed. Whoever has really understood 
 the book, will, we hope, as often as he reads it over again and with closer 
 attention, find this judgment regarding primary or later pieces in it confirmed, 
 just as I have found nothing since the year 1828 to alter in this respect. 
 
 > In the Theol. Stud, una Kritiken, Vol. II. p. 767 sq. 
 
 5* 
 
G8 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Throughout the whole poem there runs, as has been said, 
 a single, closely interwoven, sharply defined action, based upon 
 its great thought. However this drama was not intended by 
 the poet for actual performance on a stage. Whether or when, 
 therefore, the action, in simple narrative, or in the elabor- 
 ately presented speeches of the persons taking part in it, is 
 meant to advance may be gathered from the relation of the 
 particular description to the fundamental thought of the 
 book: where the latter requires a closer inspection of the 
 dangers, stages, and grounds of the higher faith, the simple 
 thread of narrative then gives place to the broader web of the 
 elaborate discourses of the persons engaged in the action. 
 Nothing can so clearly, so instructively, so inspiringly conduct 
 a reader into the inmost feelings and thoughts of integrity as 
 it wrestles with calamity, with God and the world, into the 
 soul of the restricted, antiquated, helpless faith, into the full 
 all-surpassing grandeur of the divine mind when it reveals 
 itself, as elaborate discourses from each representative person 
 exhausting the reason of the matter. It is not so much rapid 
 disconnected dialogue, such as is used in the bustle of common 
 life, which is appropriate here, where the most serious subject 
 is treated in its dignity and difficulty by the representatives 
 of diflfering views, who are of their respective classes the 
 worthiest and wisest, and each of the longer discourses is like 
 a wise, well-considered, sententious proverb ^ On the contrary, 
 the vast preponderance of purely spiritual matter, combined 
 with the desire and capacity of the poet to give it exhaustive 
 utterance by means of its proper instrument, the human-divine 
 word, must cause the decided predominance of the calm, pro- 
 foundly penetrating development of the action by means of 
 elaborate discourses. As soon, therefore, as the action comes 
 to the first decisive moment, which gives rise to a course of 
 development the end of which cannot be seen, this profoundly 
 
 bvin xxvii. 1 ; xxix. 1, comp. xiii. 12. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 69 
 
 penetrating mode of trcatmeut comnieiiccs in a discourse which 
 calmly further pursues its way, ch. iii.; and it is only a little 
 before the cud, after the whole spiritual matter has already 
 been completely treated in an uninterrupted tournament of 
 thought and oratory, and the final result is necessarily at hand, 
 that the continuation of the action in simple narrative again 
 suffices, xlii. 7 — 17. But while thus the flow of discourse pro- 
 ceeds in all directions, carrying forward the action of the poem 
 at first imperceptibly and soon very perceptibly, the less im- 
 portant accompaniments of the main action also advance with 
 it, inasmuch as it receives everything into its stream as it is 
 all along predominant. To much of a subordinate nature which 
 takes place in the meantime there is, however, only incidental 
 reference made, e.g., that according to the intention of the 
 poet, the disasters of Job are further increased by the cowardly 
 mockery of inferiors, becomes plain xvii. 6; xxx. 1 — 10; that 
 the three stages of the contention, as is of itself probable, are 
 meant to be distributed amongst successive days, appears from 
 the hint let fall xxiii. 2.^ 
 
 As accordingly the art of the poem as a wliole is brought 
 to perfection by the judicious arrangement, accurate working- 
 out and compact jointing of the whole, no particle of it being 
 in the wrong place, there being nothing redundant or deficient, 
 nothing detached and without easy transition and preparation, 
 nor anything without effective reference to what went before 
 or what comes after, so also in detail the poet's art is all 
 along the skilful mistress of his material, determining its des- 
 tination and form in conformity with the requirements of the 
 thought which has in each instance to be illustrated. The 
 greatest variety of description, style, manner of presentation, 
 is required in matters of detail by the general arrangement of 
 the poem: the poet knows how to present in every case the 
 most varied things at their proper places, so as to meet the 
 
 1 See on this point the further remarks in the Tübinger Thcol. Jahrbb., 
 1843, p. 753. 
 
70 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 requirements made by his work as a whole, without ever losing 
 himself in the details, or treating any detail too feebly or too 
 elaborately. The raving and all the misery of despair, no less 
 than the peace and blessedness of better knowledge, the pungent, 
 castigating speech of him that instructs from good-will or 
 threatens from provocation, no less than the agonizing com- 
 plaint, ending in woeful grief, of him that is bowed-down, the 
 helpless exhaustion of him that is vanquished, no less than the 
 exultation and pride of him that is deeply afflicted and yet not 
 compelled to succumb, the passionateness and precipitancy of 
 man, no less than the gladness of God, shedding its serious but 
 smiling rays over everything, and the glory of God, — all this the 
 poet represents attractively and adequately. It follows of itself 
 from the entire form of Hebrew poetry, that the speeches of 
 the persons of the poem, when they at a longer or shorter 
 length, rise to a poetic height, may at the same time be broken 
 up into strophes; but it is needful to remark that the poet 
 approves himself in this respect also as a rare master ^ . But 
 even the prose, where it is introduced, is worthy of the poet 
 and bears his impress. The prolixities and repetitions of the 
 friends too, in the second stage of the contention, though not 
 of themselves very pleasing, only cast a shadow which all the 
 more heightens the effect of the rest of the poem. It is only 
 a little too clearly that we hear the voice of calamity in the 
 century of the poet coming from the long, mournful descrip- 
 tions of the confusion and wrongness of the world, eh. xxi. and 
 xxiv., as if the poet had himself delayed as long with it as 
 possible and had at last been compelled to give it vent in the 
 most gloomy passage of the poem. But how powerfully does 
 Job immediately rise against it with recovered heart, xxvi sq., 
 and how sublime also is the close, for which everything great 
 and surprising appears to have been preserved. Moreover, every- 
 thing is free from all trace of constraint, without any laboured 
 
 * The treatment of this matter which 1 have given in the Jahrbücher der 
 Bibl. Wiss. 111. p. 116 sq., appears below more completely worked out in detail. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 71 
 
 artificiality, manifestly the easiest, most unforced effusion of 
 a lofty poet-mind and of his unfettered art. 
 
 On account of the peculiarity and complete originality of this poem, it is 
 therefore difficult to assign it a place in Greek poetic art. As regards its 
 matter and purpose, the book, as is evident on the face of it, is the most sub- 
 lime didactic poem of the Bible : but it appears more difficult to say what it 
 is as respects art. Still, when more closely considered, the book, leaving out 
 of view adaptation for the stage which has not here been made, belongs, as we 
 saw p. 17, to the drama, and, if it is desired to give it at least an approxi- 
 mate Greek name, cannot properly be described otherwise than as the divine 
 drama of the ancient Hebrews ^ , since it is not only unique of its class in 
 the O. T., but is also distinguished amongst all books by the peculiar art as 
 well as the deep feeling and sublimity of its matter. If, however, in point 
 of simple truth and freshness particular thoughts of many other pieces of 
 the 0. T. may compare with this, on the other hand, the art which in it makes 
 such successful efforts in a subject of such magnitude and with such a high 
 degree of perfection is quite peculiar to it. This book supplies us with the 
 greatest thing that the Hebrews accomplished in poetic art, in the way of a 
 masterly handling of a given material and immortalising a thought. Accordingly 
 it has subsequently, if not as a whole (inasmuch as for this the requisite know- 
 ledge was very often wanting) yet in certain parts of it, been admired and 
 imitated by many great poets, particularly has this been the case with its open- 
 ing, which is more easily understood. This is not the place to examine the 
 question whether Goethe's Faust can be compared with this book or not: it is, 
 however, plain enough that its brilliant prologue would not have been what it 
 is without the Book of Job. 
 
 With what ease the poet is able to handle his material 
 appears also in the fact, that he draws a sharp distinction in 
 outward respects between the time of early antiquity, which 
 his material requires him to describe, and his own later age, 
 and takes care to avoid every unsuitable confusion of them. 
 It is true that he does not by any means, like our modern 
 poets, pedantically make a point of keeping up the antique 
 colouring in every smallest point and of carefully avoiding the 
 appearance here and there of the age of his real contempor- 
 
 1 Inasmuch as several writers, since the appearance of the first edition of 
 this work, have made a great ado at this view of mine, I may lierc just re- 
 mark, that to Leibnitz also the book appeared to be "operatic"; as was recently 
 remarked from a manuscript in Dr. Schmidt's Zeitschrift für Geschichte 1847, 
 Mai, p. 436. 
 
72 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 arics. On the contrary, as his design is after all really to 
 instruct his own age, he does not scruple to let traces of it 
 clearly shine through the artistic veil, yet always at the proper 
 place, where it has no disturbing effect on the whole poem 
 and appears naturally to suggest itself. If in the midst of his 
 own maddening pain Job cast a glance also at the large number 
 of others who like him suffer for no fault of their own, and 
 then illustrations of calamities suggest themselves such as only 
 the experience of later times could present in such a manner, 
 ix. 24; xii. 23; xxi. 7 sq.; xxiv. 2 — 17, he uses in such cases the 
 language of one carried away by the higher flight of imagina- 
 tion and surveying all times, describing evils in striking ex- 
 amples such as were in the actual time of Job already about 
 to arise. And if the poet sometimes, as the exception, puts into 
 Job's mouth ^ the Mosaic divine name Jahve, though he usually, 
 when he makes the old men speak, uses the pre-Mosaic names 
 rribN, bx and ^'i':i, these are the most sublime passages in Job's 
 life and discourses, where the ancient hero, who according to 
 tradition worshipped like Abraham the true ancient God 2, as 
 if suddenly moved by the purest spirit, thus early gazed quite 
 into the glory of the God of Moses; which exceptional use of 
 the name Jahv6, thus introduced at the proper place, is very 
 effective. There are also some figures borrowed from a later 
 time, such as the frequent one from the customs of writing 
 and sealing, xiii. 26; xiv. 17; xix. 23, 24; xxxi. 35, 36; xxxviii. 
 14. But where simple narrative and the connexion of circum- 
 stances require an antique description, at the commencement 
 i. ii., at the close xlii. 7 sq. and elsewhere, there the genuine 
 colouring of the time of Job, that is the time between Abra- 
 ham and Moses, is everywhere very faithfully preserved, so 
 
 ' i. 21 ; xxviii. 28, where "^a"« = nifi". Further xii. 9, where however JTi^s 
 is probably to be read, as some MSS. do. — Where the poet simply narrates, 
 there is nothing in his usage to hinder him from employing the name Jahve, 
 i. 2; xxxviii. 1 ; xl. 1, .3, 6; xlii. 1 sq. 
 
 « Comp, also particularly xxxi. 26 — 28. 
 
3. THE ART OF THE POEM. 73 
 
 that it can be seen that the poet well kept up the difference 
 of times when anything depended upon it. Historical examples 
 are borrowed only from the primitive and patriarchal world, 
 as xviii. 15; xxii. 15, 16. 
 
 The question may be asked, whether the poet has not at aU events in tlie 
 delineation of subordinate circumstances of the action now and then forgotten 
 himself? With regard to one circumstance in particular this question may be 
 raised. According to i. 18, 19, comp. xlii. 13—15, Job loses nil his children 
 at the very beginning of the tragedy; but according to the correct meaning of 
 the words xiv. 21 ; xvii. 5; -xix. 17, 18, he stiU has children at a later stage of 
 his calamities. This discrepancy cannot be removed by the supposition that 
 the narrative at the commencement, i., ii., and at the end, xlii. 7 sq., is by 
 another author : for this supposition is supported by no other reason (as we 
 have seen); and moreover, there is the further fact that according to viii. 4, 
 xxix. 5, comp. xxi. 11, the author of these verses presupposes the destruction of 
 Job's children. If the contradiction should be regarded as irreconcilable, we 
 should still not be compelled on that account alone to lay upon the author any 
 great blame. At aH events Goethe (Gespräche mit Eckermann, vol. III. p. 155) 
 maintains on another occasion, that a great poet may very well for once forget 
 himself as regards unimportant details, as Shakespeare has done in Macbeth, 
 Act i and iv., in reference to the question whether Macbeth had children or 
 not; as a fact, this discrepancy in Macbeth has not been removed, as Tieck's 
 remarks on Act iv. do not at all meet the case. Neither in the Book of Job 
 is it enough to suppose, that Job means in his speeches by his sons really his 
 grandsons, as the latter were in any case still quite young according to xix. 18, 
 and as it may be supposed that probably some grandchildren escaped the de- 
 struction of the sons. For even that only some of such grandchildren were 
 left to him is when well considered but little accordant with the sense of the 
 whole poem; and, moreover, these sons are expressly described, xix. 17, as of 
 his own body. However, when we remember that the poet describes Job as a 
 man of the same kind as Abraham, or a similar patriarch, he could very well 
 give to him, particularly in his later age after his wife had grown old, some 
 children by a concubine ; and these children could as easily be passed over 
 without mention in the brief narrative of cli. i., as the fev,- scattered servants 
 which Job still possessed according to xix. 15, 16, notwithstanding that his ser- 
 vants were slain ace. i. 17. 
 
74 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ON THE DATE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK. 
 
 For the discovery of the name and other personal relations 
 of the poet, the more particular indications are now wanting. 
 There is hardly another piece in the 0. T. by the same author : 
 with regard to Ps. xxxix., which would most naturally claim 
 to be compared, see my Commentary on the Psalms in loco. 
 It is a natural supposition that the poet was inspired to under- 
 take the work by some personal experience : but the historical 
 evidence is wanting which would carry us beyond supposition. 
 Neither is it possible to fix the date of the book other than 
 approximately by centuries. For as a deliberate product of 
 poetic art this book did not originally proceed so immediately 
 from the definite circumstances of a particular time as did the 
 prophetic and most of the simple lyrics; and such circum- 
 stances can the less be presented by it in palpable indications, 
 in proportion as the poet, by letting go his time, has consis- 
 tently carried through the illustrations from distant antiquity 
 required by his materials. Nevertheless, the poet plainly wrote 
 his book for contemporaries who were prepared for and in- 
 tensely desirous to hear its doctrine. The old faith regarding 
 evil must already have been most profoundly shaken by con- 
 trary experiences and unbelief have taken deep root ; for with- 
 out such precursors the thought and design of the book can- 
 not be comprehended. Accordingly it cannot have been written 
 in early antiquity, when the simple faith was still quite valid 
 and satisfactory, Ex. xx. 5; nor at the time when undaunted 
 courage still contended successfully with what was unsatisfac- 
 tory in the ancient view, as in Pss. vi., xiii. But from the 
 eight and the seventh century B. C, the perplexing confusion 
 of personal and national relations and circumstances was so 
 greatly increased that it might quite well rouse the poet to 
 seek a solution of the enigma of the time: the detailed proof 
 of which belongs rather to the general history of the nation 
 and of its literature than to this place. If the despair of the 
 
ON THE DATE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK. 75 
 
 faithful had risen to the manifestly undue height of Ps. xxxix., 
 and the cry for help had become so urgent as in Ps. xii., all 
 the conditions were supplied which the poet needed for con- 
 ceiving and working-out the conception of his work. One sees 
 also in the background of this poem the picture of such extra- 
 ordinarily disorganised, calamitous times as precisely the cen- 
 turies above-named were for Israel ^ On the other hand, the 
 poet appears to be one of the first whose mind arose out of 
 that perplexing confusion to this elevation of pure insight and 
 advanced hope. For we see him still struggling with the higher 
 part of the thought, and the greatest truth which has to be 
 here presented is so far from being anything long since made 
 out and ready-to-hand that it breaks forth in this book as 
 something quite new and fresh from its first source. That 
 which is the consequence and teaching of this book appears 
 already in a more fixed and final form in Pss. xvi., xlix., and 
 Ixxiii., as if the higher hope had further developed itself by 
 the simple progress of the times. If in this book the view, 
 that children ought not to suffer for their parents, makes it- 
 self felt in painful struggle, as if it were only just seeking to 
 get clear to itself, xxi. 19—21, by Jeremiah and Ezekiel {ante 
 p. 13) it is already announced with forcible brevity as a pro- 
 position which cannot be denied, as also the whole manner of 
 the discourse of Ezekiel's on the divine righteousness, xiv. 
 14 sq., xviii., appears like a result of our book. But, again, 
 without doubt that steadfast faithfulness unto death, which, 
 according to the piece on which is founded Isa. liii., the martyrs 
 under Manasseh exhibited 2, was still not historically known to 
 the poet. Similarly, the truth which is forcibly presented in 
 
 1 ix. 24; xii. 4—6, 23; xv. 28; xvii. 6—9; xxi., xxiv. The fire of burn- 
 ing sympathy with which the poet really refers to the disastrous calamities of 
 his own time and of contemporary Israel, to the ruined condition of the ancient 
 kingdom, the rise of a tyrannis, the intrusion of foreigners (xv. 19), and the 
 commencing deportation of the nation into captivity, often flashes quite suddenly 
 from the midst of the speeches of the heroes from an olden time. 
 
 2 Comp. History of Israel Vol. V. 207 sq. (IV. 715 sq.). 
 
76 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that chapter and in the whole of the great work "Isa." xl — 
 Ixvi., as the climax of all higher views regarding evil, namely, 
 that the true servant of Jahve suffers for others, and indeed 
 for the guilty, in order that the divine kingdom may spread 
 in ever wider circles, is not yet touched upon at all here. 
 Putting all these things together, it will be found most probable 
 that the poet lived not long after Isaiah, towards the end of 
 the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century, when the 
 northern kingdom was destroyed, the southern, Judah, suffered 
 under various disasters. It is unfortunate that we know but 
 little of the history of these first years under Manasseh. — This 
 conclusion is confirmed by a comparison of the later portions 
 of the present book with the earlier ones. The speeches of 
 Elihu, as will appear below, show a time considerably further 
 advanced, which had already made a much closer acquaintance 
 with the truth which the poet had previously experienced. 
 According to all other signs also the distance between the dif- 
 ferent pieces of the book is that of a century, or even of two. 
 If therefore the later additions were written in about the se- 
 cond half of the sixth century, as may with probability be 
 supposed, the date of the book is brought by that fact con- 
 siderably earlier than the time of the Babylonian captivity. 
 
 Other indications do not appear to contradict this supposi- 
 tion. A number of unusual poetic figures and conceptions ap- 
 pear to unfold themselves in this book like a new world. From 
 which fact the question naturally arises, whether they all ap- 
 peared here for the first time in Hebrew poetry, and whence 
 they originated? In consequence of the limited extent of the 
 O. T., this question is often difficult to answer quite precisely, 
 particularly as this book (except the Canticles, which is again 
 of such a very different character, in that it does not admit of 
 sublime and lofty figures) is the only one belonging to the class 
 of artistic poetry in the strict sense, in which therefore almost 
 alone the poetic conception of the Hebrews regarding the vi- 
 sible and invisible world with a certain conscious purpose are 
 
ON THE DATE AND THE HISTORY OP THE BOOK. 77 
 
 presented at length. To mention a few of the most important 
 things in this respect, the book contains 
 
 (1) many very unusual representations and pictures of ter- 
 restrial things, as of plants, viii. 11; ix. 26, of animals, xxix. 
 18; xxxix. 1 sq., of mining and precious treasures of the earth, 
 xxviii., of the marvellous edifices of men, iii. 14. We see also 
 that a very large knowledge of the more distant wonders of 
 the earth must have reached the poet, which is not conceivable 
 without an active intercourse between the nations ; but we must 
 regret that we are often imperfectly informed as regards the 
 precise nature of the dispersion of such knowledge or traditions. 
 Several figures appear to be borrowed from Egyptian things, 
 iii. 14; viii. 11; ix. 26. However, it would be hasty to infer 
 from that fact, that the author, as in this respect a fellow- 
 sufferer with Jeremiah perhaps, wrote his book in Egypt, in- 
 asmuch as many Egyptian and Ethopian characteristics were 
 known in Palestine, Isa. xviii. 19, and the two chief pictures 
 which can be cited in favour of such an inference, of the Nile- 
 horse and the Crocodile, xl. 15— xli. 26 (A.V. xli. 34) are from 
 a later hand. It appears, however, to be certain that all the 
 figures of this kind might very well be well-known at the be- 
 ginning of the seventh century. 
 
 (2) A great number of astrological traditions and figures, as 
 well as of conceptions of other celestial wonders, distinguishes 
 this poet, by which he often trenches upon the mythological 
 region, as iii. 8; ix. 9, 13; xxv. 2, 3; xxvi. 12, 14; xxxviii. 7, 
 31—33, 36. It is worth further inquiry where legends of 
 this kind were first formed and made current. The Hebrews 
 were certainly the furthest from being the originators of such 
 first elements of a mythology, since everything mythological 
 which is found amongst them was preserved or spread simply 
 in spite of Mosaism. Yet traces of mythological elements are 
 decidedly met with amongst them as early as the eiglith cen- 
 tury, since Rahab occurs Isa. xxx. 7, the Seven Stars and Orion 
 
78 THE INTEODUCTION. 
 
 even as early as Amos v. 8, whilst the simple herdsman Amos 
 will be furthest from using new figures in such matters, 
 
 (3) Most remarkable are the conceptions of angels and 
 Satan which are peculiar to this book. The Satan, as he is 
 described i., ii., is, it is true, as regards his love of tracking 
 and punishing among men what is wicked or suspicious, quite 
 the subsequent evil spirit : but with all that similarity, what a 
 great difference is at the same time discernible ! Subsequently, 
 when these conceptions had been fully developed under the 
 influence of the religions of Eastern Asia, we see the Satan at 
 the head of a great empire of spirits, and between him and 
 the empire of the good spirits an infinite and impassable gulf 
 fixed, so that scarcely in the earliest ages of the creation is 
 the possibility yet presupposed of the origin of this gulf. But 
 in this book not only does Satan enter alone, without attendant 
 hosts, into the divine Council-Meeting, and appears still as in- 
 dependent and self-sufficient only to a very limited degree, but 
 the entire empire of superior spirits has not as yet got into 
 this irreconcilable separation. On the contrary, the spirits 
 generally are regarded as such as can go astray in spite of 
 all their elevation, just as the visible heaven notwithstanding 
 its unearthly splendour is yet dull and impure in comparison 
 with the purest light iv. 18; xv. 15; xxv. 4 — 6. And the myth- 
 ology tells not only of great revolts on the part of the higher 
 powers, but also of how stern judgment was held over them, 
 so that not one even of the mightiest of heaven is able to 
 withstand the true God, but all serve Him in peace, ix. 13; 
 xxi. 22; XXV. 2, 3; xxvi. 12, 13, comp. v. 1. This conception 
 of the variable moral condition of the higher spirits occupies 
 a place midway between the ancient Mosaic conception, ac- 
 cording to which the angels have no separate, personal will 
 whatever, and the later view, which strictly separates good 
 and evil in the innumerable hosts of si)irits also, but makes 
 the first angels of God all good and without error. As this 
 phenomenon of the book cannot on closer examination be 
 
ON THE DATE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK. 79 
 
 mistaken, it points to a time when the ancient conceptions of 
 the reahn of spirits, undoubtedly not wholly without the in- 
 fluence of foreign religions, were undergoing their first trans- 
 formation and assuming new forms, when unfaithful spirits and 
 a spirit which secretly sought and willed evil, were spoken of, 
 while, on the other hand, they were not yet so completely 
 transferred into a separate realm of an entirely different nature. 
 From the description of a prophet of the ninth century, 1 Kings 
 xxii. 19 — 22, to that of this book, i., ii., which is in some re- 
 spects so similar, there is, it must be allowed, an important 
 step, in that the name and the idea of the Satan appear for the 
 first time in this book; but from this description to that of 
 Zech. iii. 1, 2, where Satan and angels of God contend con- 
 cerning a man and Jahve speaks to Satan only in anger, there 
 is again a scarcely less important step, because that separation 
 between good and evil in the realm of spirits appears here as 
 already completed; and from what is here said regarding re- 
 sisting celestial powers, that which is said by a later prophet 
 "Isa." xxiv. 21, 22 differs in an important degree. Similarly, 
 there occurs here for the first time the prayer to higher spirits 
 as intercessors, v. 1, a thought which arises as soon as ever 
 the realm of spirits is conceived as taking shape more freely; 
 but this thought is in our book far less rigid than subsequently. 
 And whilst later poets and prophets shrink from introducing 
 God immediately, or even as appearing on the earth, this poet 
 does not scruple to make Him appear and speak to Job. We 
 can therefore come to no other conclusion than that the author 
 of this book occupies a place midway between ancient and late 
 conceptions, and lived at a time when that which became the 
 prevailing view was still thoroughly malleable and modern. 
 
 The language and orthography of the later pieces of the 
 book conduct to a time when the Aramaic peculiarities were 
 creeping in already to a considerable extent : but the language 
 and orthography of the earlier pieces show scarcely any marks of 
 a commencing decline, e.g., the more abbreviated orthography 
 
80 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 )W'^, viii. 8\ instead of -jivun^ ; üsy^^, vi. 27, instead of 's^n, 
 and nothing whatever which a poet of the first half of the 
 seventh century might not have written, since the name S'^uiij: 
 "saints", v. 1, for the angels of God, occurs again Zech. xiv. 5 
 in a piece which was certainly written before the dissolution 
 of the kingdom of Judah. The fact that many words rarely 
 found elsewhere occur here, is simply one of the numerous in- 
 dications that nothing else by this poet has been preserved, 
 probably also evidence that he did not write in Jerusalem. 
 But if some words appear here for the first time which sub- 
 sequently became common in the later language, the reason 
 for that is rather to be found in the general relations of the 
 Hebrew poetic language. — The high stage of the art of the 
 book was neither possible in the earlier centuries, when Hebrew 
 poetic art was only commencing its course of development, nor 
 is it very easily conceivable in the later centuries when poetic 
 art generally declined gradually, and most of all the higher 
 art needful for the production of greater creations and works; 
 neither is such a compressed, pithy style of discourse as pre- 
 vails in this book found subsequently in longer pieces. 
 
 Lastly, the observation of the outward condition in which 
 this book is found in the series of the books of the 0. T. points 
 to the same age. It is true, to conclude from the extreme 
 purity of the copies in which the book came into the Canon, 
 it appears not to have been much read for a long time: but 
 on the other hand, it must be remembered that this purity is 
 owing to the fact that the poet must himself have provided 
 for it in his original manuscript. ^ Still, the traces of the 
 book being read can to some extent be followed. Of the Psalms 
 of the third period some refer back very plainly to this book, 
 just as Zech. i. 10—14; iii. 1, 2; vi. 5 presuppose the descrip- 
 
 1 Comp. 11«}S"il, XV. 7: an ovthograpliy which is also found in Sacy's C'or- 
 respondcnce des Samarit. p. 103, 1. 
 
 * According to the remarks, History of Jsrad IV. p. 280 (III. p. 821 sq); 
 see further below. 
 
ON THE DATE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK. 81 
 
 tions of ch. i., ii, as long known ; Nin^, "Isa." xl. 2, is borrowed 
 from vii. 1, or at all events originated about the same time * . 
 If Ezekiel mentions Job in company with Noah and Daniel as 
 a model of a godly man (ante p. 21), it can only be, when all 
 circumstances are considered, because our book had made that 
 hero once more famous ^. The book must have been known in 
 Ezekiel's time and much read. In the Book of Jeremiah, with 
 whose tone of mind this book accorded extremely well, and still 
 more in the Book of Lamentations, there is much reechoed from 
 it'. On which side the employment of the words is original cannot 
 in this case be a matter of doubt. Ps. Iviii. 8 reminds us of 
 iii. 16; Ps. Ixxii. 12 is almost exactly repeated from xxix. 12: 
 and thus it is not difficult to show that this book accordingly 
 dates as far back as the beginning of the seventh century*. 
 Reversely, passages can be quoted which show that earlier 
 authors were before the mind of the poet, as the expression 
 "he that walketh over the heights of the sea", ix. 8, is formed 
 probably after the simpler form Amos iv. 13 ^, and the whole 
 verse-member xiv. 11 after Isa. xix. 5^; although the poet con- 
 tinues to be very markedly distinguished from the later artistic 
 poets, who borrow their chief excellences from the ancient writings. 
 
 1 See IJistory of Israel IV. p. 208 (III. p. 716 sq.). 
 
 2 The relation of Daniel to the readers of that time is a distinct question 
 which must be answered elsewhere. See now Prophets of the Old TtHament V. 
 p. 169 sq. (III. p. 312 sq.). 
 
 8 As Jer. XX. 14 — 18 from iii. 3 — 26; xv. 18 from vi. 15 sq.; xvii. 1 from 
 xix. 24; xlix. 19 from ix. 19. As regards the Booh of Lamentations, see ante 
 p. 3 sq., and comp, in addition how the words Lam. iii. 38 are only a slight 
 echo from Job ii. 10. In all such cases the most decisive point is the multi- 
 tude of the signs of the use of one book in another. 
 
 * As regards the still earlier Book of Deuteronomy, see the remarks in the 
 History of Israel I. p. 127 sq. (I. p. 186); as regards Prov. i — ix., Hid. IV. 
 p. 220 (HI. p. 733). 
 
 5 In this case also the most decisive thing is the accumulation of indications : 
 xviii. 16 further reminds us strongly of Amos ii. 9; xii. 15, of Amos ix. 6; and 
 the reference to the constellations is similar in both writers. The connexion 
 of the words even in xxvii. 16 appears to have been taken from "Zech." ix. 3. 
 
 < Comp, also the continuation Isa. xix. 13, 14 witli the repetition Job xii. 24, 25. 
 
 6 
 
82 THE INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The book came into the Canon undoubtedly somewhat late, after the sub- 
 sequent additions to it had also been written a considerable time, and the 
 name, date, and circumstances of the earlier poet had long been lost to me- 
 mory. On that account many readers of the centuries subsequent to the for- 
 mation of the 0. T. down to our own times have believed that Job himself 
 was the poet, or at all events that the book was written in very early anti- 
 quity by Moses or a similar holy man. Or it has been conjectured that the 
 original language of the book (as if it were written by Job himself) was not 
 Ilebrew, perhaps the Idumean or the Arabic. However, all such suppositions 
 are wholly groundless, inasmuch as they have sprung ultimately from confound- 
 ing the hero with the author of the book. Many readers have in recent times 
 suffered themselves to be so far misled by these errors that they cannot make 
 the book late enough, and bring it down at least into the Babylonian exile. 
 But they thereby overlook partly the great dissimilarity that exists between the 
 earlier and the later pieces of the book, and partly their judgment with regard 
 to many points of it is in other respects insufficiently instructed. When, e.g.^ the 
 false derivation of the word 1^3^ i., ii, from ü^^ i. 7, was rejected, but at the same 
 time the absurd assertion was made, that the Satan appears here exactly as he 
 is met with later, even the little amount of truth, however much mixed with 
 error, was then lost again. A completely reliable proof of the view of the age 
 of the book above offered belongs, however, rather to a treatment of the entire 
 course of general ancient Hebrew Literature: it was intended here simply to 
 supply briefly some of the leading marks of it. Further details have been given 
 in various places of the History of Israel. 
 
 That this book was much read as early as the seventh 
 century B. C, appears from the evidence referred to a short 
 time ago. And how greatly its beauty early produced all kinds 
 of imitations and continuations of it, we shall see below, when 
 we come to consider the two considerable pieces which were 
 subsequently inserted into it. But originally the poem must 
 have been written and distributed abroad in very good copies : 
 for even yet the text, particularly in the original portion of 
 the book, is comparatively very pure, a point carefully to be 
 noted in connexion with the question of the sense of some- 
 what more obscure passages ' . 
 
 > Accordingly there is no reason for supposing that many emendations of 
 the Hebrew are necessary. The passages arc rare where a few small errors 
 may have crept in, as vi, U, 21; xii. 13; xx. 11; xxii. 23; x.xiii. 2; xxix. 7; 
 XXX. 12, see also below on ixi. 10. The error which could most easily arise 
 through the fault even of early copyists, would be the omission here and there 
 of a verse-member or a whole verse. 
 
I. THE FIRST STAGE OF THE DRAMA. 
 
 OPENING OP THE CONTENTION. 
 
 1. Job's life and character, ch. i. 1 — 5. 
 "With reference to this, simply what is absolutely necessary; 
 particularly that which is of importance for the course of the 
 action, namely, how Job was no less prosperous than god-fear- 
 ing; everything put with individuality, yet only so as to meet 
 circumstances which are generally suitable. Of those two as- 
 pects of Job's life, the prosperity and the piety of it, however, 
 it is the last which is the more important for everything that 
 follows: it is put forward at the very commencement, and at 
 the end, vv. 4, 5, it is returned to with the additional detail ap- 
 propriate here, how carefully Job watched over the purity and 
 blamelessness not only of his own life but also of his whole 
 house, presenting sacrifices annually, even on account of the 
 sins which his grown-up children might possibly have com- 
 mitted in secret. So that the calamities which followed natur- 
 ally befell him wholly unexpectedly, inasmuch as he had, ac- 
 cording to ancient belief, done all that was humanly possible 
 to avert divine punishments from his whole house. But since, 
 as will subsequently appear, all such customary religious works 
 are insufficient to avert the calamities, the insufficiency of such 
 works may in any case be inferred from the result. 
 
 6* 
 
34 I- 1 — Ch. i. 1—5. 
 
 i, 1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was 
 
 Job : the same man was blameless and upright, godfearing 
 
 2 and departing from evil. And there were born to him seven 
 
 3 sons and three daughters; and his possession was seven 
 thousand head of sheep three thousand camels five hundred 
 yoke of oxen and five hundred she-asses, and a very large 
 household : so that the man was greater than all sons of the 
 
 4 East. — Now his sons went often and made a feast, at the 
 house of each on his day, and sending they invited their 
 
 It appears from the corresponding passages ver. 8, ii. 3, that the conjunctive 
 ~) before ö-n^H K'n'^ ver. 1, is not much required: for the first two adjectives 
 are simply explained more accurately by the last two, as the integrity of the 
 heart on necessarily implies the fear of God, uprightness in action the avoid- 
 ance of evil. Thus the four words together supply the plainest definition of 
 perfect piety. — As the occasion when the children of Job, who as might be ex- 
 pected from the example of their father were in other respects blameless and 
 living in perfect amity (xlii. 15), might have sinned, the poet chooses, vv. 4, 5, 
 the annual festive gatherings * , which the sons, who had already grown-up and 
 were living in various directions around their father's abode in separate houses, 
 kept in common, and where the boisterous pleasure might easily on an occasion 
 get the better of the generally prevailing seriousness and break the bonds of 
 the habitual earnest habits. For it must be remembered that the degree of 
 stability in divine things which Job presupposes in the case of his sons is not 
 that to which he supposes himself to have attained, upon which godliness is no 
 longer a command and compulsion, is not a thing which might be lost, say in 
 a moment of intoxication. If it is asked more particularly of what kind these 
 seven feasts were, after the passing-by of which Job brought an expiatory ofler- 
 ing, the birthdays of the brothers might be thought of, as if each one had kept 
 liis birthday in his house. Yet as the seven birthdays must have been spread 
 more over the whole year, it is not easy to see why Job did not always make 
 sacrifices immediately after each of them ; neither would it in that case be said 
 "when the days of the feast were ended", as if all the days were connected, 
 but something like "when the days of the year were ended" would be said. 
 It is therefore much better to suppose that the ordinary annual feasts of joy 
 are intended, particularly the autumn feast which was much observed in ancient 
 times, or again the feast of spring, all these feasts generally lasting a week, 
 so that exactly one day fell to each son for keeping the feast in his house ac- 
 cording to the order of seniority, which is confirmed by ver. 13. With regard to 
 1Ö11 v>H rr^a m the house on the day, i.e., in the order, of each, see §§ 3005, 278 b. 
 
 ' That is, not the simple daily meal, but special banquets are plainly in- 
 tended, as appears from the words and the general meaning of the description. 
 
I. 2— Cn. i. 6— ii. 10. 85 
 
 5 three sisters to cat and to drink with them. But when the 
 days of the feast were gone by, Job sent and atoned for thera, 
 early in the morning bringing whole-burnt-oiferings according 
 to the number of them all. For Job thought that perhaps 
 his sons had sinned and bidden God adieu in their heart. 
 Thus did Job all the time. 
 
 Tfie reason for such a careful reference to the place and succession of the feast, 
 does not appear until vv. 13, 19. Moreover, as the sons had each time to 
 come together from their different houses in that one to which the turn fell, 
 the description begins with their going (they went and made a feattj ; and be- 
 cause their father did not keep the feast with them, he sent each time to them 
 after it, to cause them to come and be atoned for, since the person to be puri- 
 fied might not be absent from the sacrifice. Lev. iv., vi. 17 — 23; vii. 1 — 10; 
 the zeal with which Job did this, is shown by the added clause early in the 
 morning. With regard to the variation of the expression in cases where fre- 
 quent repetition is described, vv. 4, 5, see § 342 b. 
 
 2. Job's heavy and heaviest cahmities, determined upon 
 
 in heaven, carried out on the earth, as yet without 
 
 becoming' dangerous to him, i. 6 — ii. 10. 
 
 Mysterious calamity, the cause of which is to the earth an 
 enigma, must fall upon Job who is so completely blameless. 
 Yet it is mysterious only on the earth of that time ; for in the 
 presence of the pure divine light, where all scattered rays 
 converge and whence they proceed, the clue to this enigma 
 cannot be lost in the darkness. But for the reader, who must 
 from the first behold under the pure light of heaven the real 
 commencement of the action of the drama, in order that he 
 may comprehend its necessary development, and, standing above 
 the mortal sufferer, follow his history, the poet at once draws 
 back the celestial curtain and lets him glance into the holy 
 of holies, as far as the veil may be withdrawn thus early in 
 the poem. Job is, it is true, given over by God Himself to 
 his sufferings: but not by the malicious God, or the God who 
 is angry with him, but by the God who knows and loves him, 
 the compassionate One ; by the God who is at first, as it were, 
 
86 I. 2. — Ch. 5. 6— ii. 10. 
 
 loath to let him suffer inasmuch, as He does not desire the 
 suffering as such and Job's destruction, and yet must neces- 
 sarily cause him to suffer. For Job's godliness has not as yet 
 passed through the fire of purification, and that God Himself 
 cannot hinder. Indeed, the man to whom the greatest mea- 
 sure of strength and prosperity has been granted must also 
 contend the most painfully. If just now, within the limita- 
 tions by which he has hitherto been surrounded, he seems to 
 stand most securely and really so far to deserve all divine ap- 
 proval, he is immediately sent forth to new and perilous strug- 
 gles, that it may appear whether as conqueror there also he 
 can more firmly hold his earlier attainments and succeed in 
 gaining fresh and higher ones. The preparation for these 
 perilous struggles accordingly is made in the celestial counsels. 
 Jahve in the divine council-chamber mentions with pleasure 
 his servant Job to the Satan who ferrets out everything bad 
 or suspicious and gladly inflicts evils. Jahve refers to Job as 
 a servant against whom this Satan can produce nothing. But 
 the enemy with wicked cunning seeks to throw suspicion upon 
 him, as one who is godly merely for the sake of prosperity as 
 an earthly advantage. Inasmuch as the suspicion has once 
 been raised, and appears not without foundation, as judged by 
 possible, and indeed probable, human weakness, Jahve can do 
 no other than permit the trial which the Satan desires, were 
 it for no other reason than simply to put the Satan himself 
 to shame. Keeping silence as regards the issue, yet not say- 
 ing or thinking that the godly man must succumb, prescribing 
 to the trial its limits, Jahv6 dismisses the Satan with full 
 power. We fear as men for Job and await with intense in- 
 terest the issue, but taking a deeper view anticipate the pos- 
 sibility, indeed the certainty, that he will not succumb, and 
 that evil together with the Satan will in this case only serve 
 as the instrument for the promotion of goodness itself. That 
 which is thus prepared for in heaven finds its fulfilment on 
 earth within its prescribed limits, save that what in heaven 
 
I. 2.— Ch. i. C— ii. 10. 
 
 87 
 
 is clear is on earth veiled, and is only painfully felt in its 
 effects, especially as the Satan spares no pains to bring decreed 
 calamities upon Job with surprising suddenness and severity. 
 And yet the temptation to impatience, despair, confused think- 
 ing, and folly is withstood by the brave man whom God dis- 
 tinguishes by the name of his servant, and who does not dis- 
 appoint the divine hope. He shows the noblest resignation and 
 submission, maintaining, both from voluntary personal impulse as 
 well as under the derision and provocation which he has to bear, 
 the truest moderation under suffering and resignation under 
 bereavement, although his calamities all the time continue to be 
 dark and mysterious to him, and though accepted in humility 
 are still regarded and borne as a positive evil sent by God. As 
 therefore Job is thus brave and great, thus steadfast and faith- 
 ful, the advance of this entire stage of the action is twice 
 repeated : preparation in heaven, mysterious suffering on earth, 
 patience and steadfastness standing the trial; all this is twice 
 repeated, only with accumulating force and pressure. The first 
 trial takes from him all his valued outward possessions together 
 with his children; the second, the last outward good which 
 outweighs all the rest, his health, by a disease which both 
 creates disgust and threatens life itself. The first time his 
 patience has simply to contend against himself; the second 
 time, with the despair of the only being on an equality with 
 him in his house remaining to him, his wife. He remains 
 faithful, therefore, to the uttermost in that stage of religious 
 life upon which he had hitherto moved. — All this is described, 
 though only in a rapid narrative, with truly poetic vividness 
 and perfection. The inapproachable dignity of Jahv6, though 
 engaged in a consultation after the fashion of men, the alarm 
 and surprise of calamities accumulating in rapid succession, 
 the genuine human resignation of the godly man, can hardly 
 be pourtrayed more forcibly than is done in these few noble 
 lines. 
 
88 I- 2.— Ch. i. 6— ii. 10. 
 
 6 And it came to pass on the day the sous of God came to 
 present themselves before Jahve, and there came also the 
 
 7 Adversary in their midst. Then said Jahve to the Adversary : 
 whence comest thou? and the Adversary answered Jahve and 
 said : from ranging through the earth and from going about 
 
 8 through it. Then said Jahve to the Adversary: hast thou 
 set thy attention upon my servant Job? for there is not like 
 him in the earth a man perfect and upright, godfearing and 
 
 9 departing from evil. And the Adversary answered Jahve and 
 
 10 said: doth then Job fear God for nothing? surely Thou hast 
 set a fence around him and around his house and around all 
 that he hath, hast blessed the work of his hands, and his 
 
 1 1 herds spread abroad in the land ; but only stretch forth Thine 
 hand and touch all that he hath, verily to Thy face he will 
 
 i. 6 — 12. 'o^^Ti as a transitional form, in cases where an event of a single 
 day, occurring in a space of time formerly mentioned, is intended to be referred 
 to, means the day •= the time, then, or on the day. Sons of God is an ancient 
 name for the celestial beings subordinate to God, Gen. vi. 2, particularly used 
 when they are described as occupied in heaven (as in this passage, xxxviii. 7 
 and Ps. xxix), whilst when they are employed on the earth they are called 
 angels. Like the magnates of an earthly realm before their king, they must 
 present themselves at certain fixed times before Jahve, in order to hear His 
 inquiries and commands. If in the answer of Satan, ver. 7, the emphasis is 
 laid on the word earth, an antithesis to other worlds might be found in it, as 
 if he also ranged through the moon also, e.g.; but this would be quite opposed 
 to the ideas of the ancient world, and it is plain that the emphasis is simply 
 on the fact that Satan does not now come back from some commission in parti- 
 cular, such as inflicting upon the earth some great calamity, but only from a 
 general expedition into all quarters of the earth, in order to come upon some- 
 thing of a suspicious nature somewhere or other, "a Uia» expresses merely a 
 rapid ranging-through, "3 "^Vn^n the cautious and attentive movement in all 
 directions, which is no less desirable ; both words together are required to supply 
 the complete idea of a rapid but at the same time observant journey through 
 the earth in all directions; although either word alone would on an occasion suffice. 
 Vv. 9, 10 said with great craft: No wonder that Job fears God, since God so 
 carefully protects him ; probably therefore he does not act from pure love, but 
 only for the sake of his reward and advantage, in order to be thus protected 
 in future. Evil spirits which everywliere presuppose nothing but mortal weak- 
 ness always draw such inferences, and not without a certain justification as 
 long as they have not been refuted by experience. To thy face, quite openly 
 and boldly, not merely secretly in his heart, as ver. 5 ; comp. ii. 5 ; xiii. 15 ; 
 xvi. 8 ; xxi. 31 with xxi. 14; xxii. 17. 
 
I. 2. — Ch. i. 6-ii. 10. 89 
 
 12 bid Thee farewell! Then said Jahve to the Adversary: see 
 thou hast all that is his; only upon him lay not thine hand! 
 
 13 And the Adversary went forth from Jahve's presence. — And 
 it came to pass on the day whilst his sons and his daughters 
 were eating and drinking wine at the house of their first-born 
 
 14 brother, there came a messenger unto Job and said: the oxen 
 were ploughing and the she-asses were feeding at their side, 
 
 15 then the Sabeans invaded and took them, smiting the man- 
 servants at the edge of the sword; and I only escaped alone 
 
 16 to tell it to thee. While he was yet speaking, there came 
 another and said: Fire of God fell from heaven, set on fire 
 the sheep and the manservants and consumed them; and I 
 
 i. 13 — 19. As the valued outward possessions of Job consist, ace. vv. 2, 3, 
 in children and four kinds of flocks and herds, together with the servants cor- 
 responding to them, the poet here suitably distributes everything in such a 
 way, that at first three calamitous blows carry off all his flocks and herds 
 together with his servants, the she-asses being easily connected with the oxen, 
 ver. 14, while then there is added to these three, as the fourth and most 
 painful calamity, the loss of all his children at once. Further, inasmuch as 
 for these four calamitous blows four dilTerent visible causes and instruments 
 must be put forward, the poet again interweaves the four cases so appropriately 
 that he derives the first and third from human, the second and fourth from 
 celestial causes. In the first pair of cases he makes the men act as robbers, 
 and in the first instance, ver. 15, the Sabeans, the marauding part of that 
 northwestern Arabian tribe, the other part of which was engaged in trade 
 (vi. 19, comp. Gen. x. 7, 28 ; xxv. 3), who made their attack from the 
 south; and then, ver. 17, the still more warlike Chaldeans, who fought in a 
 more orderly fashion, from the northeast, whose mention here seems to disclose 
 a writer belonging to the first half of the seventh century ; when the Chaldeans 
 became once more powerful and soon after founded a new dominion in Babylon 
 by Nabopolassar (see History of Israel IV. p. 254 sq. (III. p. 778 sq.); of causes 
 from the higher regions, from the welkin, the poet brings forward first, ver. 16, 
 a fire of God, or a sudden sultriness and burning heat, which may in a moment, 
 as by a divine blow, slay large masses of animals and men, whether it be a 
 shower of brimstone or the Simoom (the poet makes his picture simply after 
 ancient legends, not according to his own personal observation, comp. Ps. xi. 6 ; 
 Num. xi. 1 — 3 ; xvi. 35; 2 Kings i. 10 sq., also Lev. x. 2 compared with ix. 24) ; 
 then ver. 19, he brings forward a mighty wind coming from the immense 
 Arabian desert, which can easily overthrow a lightly-built house on the fringe of 
 the desert, comp. Matt. vii. 27, Wellsted's Reise zur Stadt der Clialifen p. 211 sq. 
 But in one respect all four calamities must again be alike, that they destroy 
 everything completely in one day, so that from each set of victims only a 
 
90 I- 2.— Ch. i. 6— ii. 10. 
 
 17 only escaped alone to tell it to thee. "While he was yet 
 speaking, there came another and said: The Chaldeans ap- 
 pointed three bands, rushed upon the camels and took them, 
 smiting the manservants at the edge of the sword, and I only 
 
 18 escaped alone to tell it to thee. While he was yet speaking 
 there came another and said : Thy sons and daughters were 
 eating and drinking wine in the house of their first-born 
 
 19 brother, and behold a great wind came from beyond the 
 desert and touched the four corners of the house, so that it 
 fell upon the children and they died; and I only escaped 
 
 20 alone to tell it to thee. — Then Job arose, rent his garment 
 
 21 and shaved his head, fell down and worshipped; and said: 
 
 Naked went I forth from my mother's womb, 
 and naked I return thither: 
 
 Jahve gave and Jahve took away; 
 
 let Jahve's name be blessed! 
 
 22 In all this Job sinned not and gave to God no offence. 
 
 single messenger of evil escapes, and Job is meant to be overwhelmed with 
 surprise and driven to despair by the calamitous tidings which always close with 
 the same terrible refrain. That also increases the surprise, that all this happens 
 during the first day of a festive meeting of his children, ver. 13, accordingly 
 before his children could as he thought need atonement for their sins, vv. 4, 5 ; 
 and with that the poet then found at the same time a good opportunity to 
 describe the destruction of his children all at once, ver. 19. A certain uni- 
 formity in the four repetitions produces a good effect in the description ; hence 
 probably "'J' (Geu. viii. 22) must be read ver. 18, as in the other instances, in- 
 stead of ">?, which shorter word however may also possibly indicate duration, 
 at all events its use is very similar viii. 21; Neh. vii. 3, comp. § 217e. At 
 the edge of the sword, or according to the sharpness of the sword, vv. 15, 17, 
 is an ancient form of expression for to slay murderously after the usages of 
 war. To attack in three hands, or companies, ver. 17, is an ancient war stra- 
 tagem, in order quickly to surround and overpower the enemy. Gen. xiv. 15; 
 Judg. vii. 16, comp. 1 Sam. xi. 11. tVom beyond the desert, v. 19, therefore 
 blowing from the most remote end of the desert over its entire face with in- 
 creasing violence. — i. 20 — 22. The customary signs of mourning are immediately 
 followed by higher reflection and the resignation of all these possessions as 
 merely outward and dispensable, which are to be received with thankfulness to 
 God and to be resigned without murmuring -against Him. Thither, into the 
 mother's womb, but in this case, of course, into the general and the last womb, 
 mother-earth, comp, my note on Ps. cxxxix. 13 — 15; repeated almost verbally 
 
I. 2.— Cii. i. 6— ii. 10. 9;l 
 
 ii. 1 And it came to pass ou the day, that the sons of God came 
 to present themselves before Jahve, and there came also the 
 Adversary in their midst to present himself before Jahve. 
 
 2 Then said Jahve to the Adversary: From whence comest thou! 
 and the Adversary answered Jahve and said: From ranging 
 
 3 through the earth and from going about through it. Then 
 said Jahve to the Adversary: Hast thou set thine attention 
 upon my servant Job? for there is not like him ou the earth 
 a man perfect and upright, godfearing and departing from evil; 
 and still he is holding fast to his integrity, and nevertheless 
 thou hast misled me against him to destroy him without cause! 
 
 4 And the Adversary answered Jahve and said: Skin for skin; 
 
 5 and all that a man hath giveth he for his life: but only 
 stretch out Thine hand and touch his bone and his flesh: 
 
 6 verily, to Thy face will he say to Thee farewell ! Then Jahve 
 said to the Adversary: see thou hast him; but save his life! — 
 
 after this passage Ecc. v. 14. n?En is properly what has a bad smell, or a bad 
 taste, comp. vi. 6, hence disgust and the object or cause of it, offence, xxiv. 12: 
 till then Jahve had found in Job a sweet smell, a delight, and neither now 
 did this cease, since Job thus far did nothing bad to destroy it ; comp, similarly 
 Wxa Ex. V. 21; 1 Sam. xxvii. 12; 2 Sam. x. 6; xvi. 21. 
 
 ii. 1 — 6. Jahve's language, ver. 3, is touchingly compassionate, as if it 
 already repented Him almost thus to have destroyed, i.e., reduced to the most 
 lamentable condition, the hero without any fault of his (loiihout cause). But 
 Satan is not the kind of being to permit himself to be moved by pity to any- 
 thing good : in his cunning he knows how once more to cast suspicion on Job, 
 representing his steadfastness as a thing not to be surprised at, inasmuch as he still 
 has in his physical health a possession which is equal to all outward gifts of 
 fortune and for the sake of which he would gladly resign the latter; but if 
 this last, chief good also should be taken from him so that he had every mo- 
 ment to dread death, he would certainly lose his patience. „Shin for skin' is a 
 proverb which does not occur elsewhere in the Bible, the meaning of which 
 however, as one skin is as much like another as one dead piece is to another, 
 appears on the surface, and is in this connexion sufficiently clear : like for like, 
 the one for the other. It is simply an exchange which Job seems to have 
 made: for as at the time of misery he was obliged to fear that he should lose 
 all his possessions, that one thing has remained to him which alone outweighs 
 all the rest, which the loss of the rest has first taught him to prize so highly 
 that he feels himself fortunate to be able to enjoy this one all the more. 
 Therefore the trial has only been partial, and now is the time when, if directed 
 against the one highest and last possession, it can attain its purpose. — That in 
 
92 I 3.— Ch. ii. 11 — iii. 
 
 7 And the Adversary withdrew from Jahvd's presence and smote 
 
 8 Job with an evil boil from his foot-sole unto his crown ; and 
 he took him a potsherd to scrape himself there with, sitting 
 
 9 in the midst of the ashes. — Then said to him his wife : Dost 
 thou still hold fast to thine integrity? Bid God farewell 
 
 10 and die! But he said to her: as one of the foolish women 
 speaketh speakest thou; the good too we receive from God 
 and the evil shall we not receive? In all this Job sinned 
 not with his lips. 
 
 tlie midst of his profouiidest mourning he must scrape his skin, ii. 7, 8, shows 
 that the poison had worked only too effectually. — The woman appears, ii. 9 — 10, 
 as elsewhere in the O. T., as the more easily seduced half. But she is already 
 so faint-hearted that she scornfully reproaches Job with his patience and faith- 
 fulness. For nothing can be more scornful than the words: Thou who under 
 all the undeserved sufferings which have been inflicted upon thee by thy God 
 hast been faithful to Him, even in fatal sickness, as if He would help or de- 
 sired to help thee who art beyond help, — to thee, fool, I say: Bid God farervell 
 (who will not deliver thee from death as thou believest) — and die ! nothing else 
 remains for thee now than, compelled by death, to say farewell to God, whom 
 thou art so slow to let go, and at the same time to the upper-world! if thou 
 hadst been wise sooner, thou wouldst not have put vain hope in God. But 
 Job only advises her not to speak as one of the foolish women, i.e., the heathen 
 women who live in ignorance of divine things and represent folly itself in mis- 
 conceiving the true God, in that heathen can depart from one God whose power- 
 lessness they have perceived to another, but not the person who has known the 
 true God. Also the good we accept if He send it, although perhaps we did not 
 deserve it; and not the reverse, without which even that premised case could 
 not exist, the evil? S^ is correlative. The more Aramaic verb 'Sf? does not 
 occur elsewhere in this book, although in other respects the language of the 
 prose pieces, as has been partially shown, has the greatest similarity with that 
 of those in verse ; it occurs here for the first time in prose, although it may not 
 be iiiferred from that fact alone that the book is of a very late origin, since 
 it is found as early as Prov. xi.x. 20. 
 
 3. Arrival of Ihe Mentis and the first outbreak of 
 bitter complaint, cb. ii. 11 — iii. 
 
 If Job hitherto, in the accustomed relations of his house 
 and in his consciousness of being nriaster of them, did not sin 
 against God even in word, much less in deed, as the narrator 
 
I. 3.— Ch. ii. 11— iii. 93 
 
 twice so significantly remarks with reference to future com- 
 plications, i. 22 ; ii. 10, he now falls into the danger of this 
 from a quarter from which he least expected it. Three friends 
 come of their own accord to bestow compassion and comfort 
 on the sufferer; and greatly shocked at the first sight of the 
 calamity which they found unexpectedly severe, they mourn with 
 him the customary earlier part of the period of a visit, doing 
 honour by profound silence to his vast grief. In the presence 
 of such sympathetic friends, the wounded heart is opened and 
 gives vent without suspicion to all its bitterness and doubts, 
 really only in order all the more deeply to call forth the comfort 
 after the balsam of which it thirsts. When accordingly the 
 time of the solemn silent visit is past and the matter can be 
 approached more closely. Job is at last overcome by the force 
 of the loud lamentation and breaks out almost against his will 
 into words which only permit the one aspect of his inmost 
 feelings, the dark aspect, to be divined, while he is all the 
 time seeking comfort and light. But therein he takes the first 
 insufficiently considered, dangerous step, which can draw after 
 it serious and bitter consequences. First, because he presup- 
 poses in the case of his friends an insight and disposition 
 such as they probably do not possess, so that his hope to get 
 in this way comfort from thence is frustrated. Secondly, be- 
 cause with the partial, one-sided conception and expression of 
 his trouble and perplexity, he for the first time gives up per- 
 fect self-control and sober reflection, and ventures out into an 
 unknown, stormy sea, where he may easily, from simple despair 
 of life and a faint complaint at the fortunes of an afflicted 
 man, in the end be carried so far as to reject the divine 
 truths and God Himself. He puts himself into the power of 
 despair, which is human and so pardonable, but none the less 
 dangerous.— For when the long repressed pain is able at last 
 to break out freely, it will pour itself forth all the more 
 vehemently and unsparingly; and precisely there where the 
 agonising restraint was first broken, will the ultimate outburst 
 
94 I- 3— Ch. ii. 11— iii. 
 
 be the more terrible. Thus in this speech also, in which the 
 whole accumulated despondency of Job finds for the first time 
 free course, the despair of life only gradually subsides from 
 the utmost vehemence to greater repose, until at length, still 
 with its mystery unrelieved but with its force exhausted, it 
 gives way to grief and his agitation finds an end again in 
 groans. At first, therefore, the accumulated burden of his 
 despair, which can hardly explain its own cause, rushes forth 
 in the mad execration of the day of his birth, iii. 3—10; next, 
 since after all actual birth cannot be undone, his despondency, 
 growing gradually calmer, changes into the desire at least to 
 have died immediately after birth and into the seductive re- 
 flection, how pleasant rest would be to the miserable sufferer 
 in that place which is the end of all pride and all disquiet of 
 the guilty and the innocent alike vv. 11 — 19; finally, inasmuch 
 as this wish is also vain and there remains nothing but the 
 actual burden of unalterable wretchedness, the speech leaves 
 that description of the rest of death, in the attractive picture 
 of which the poor sufferer's imagination revelled in vain, and, 
 becoming somewhat more vehement again, turns to the closing 
 question, for what purpose then, if it must inevitably be ac- 
 cepted, was life given by God to the suffering, who desire 
 nothing more intensely than death, and for what purpose par- 
 ticularly was it given to Job, who suffers he knows not why, 
 can find no rest, and constantly fears and meets with fresh 
 calamities? with which complaints the speech mournfully con- 
 cludes, vv. 20 — 26. Towards the end the agitation which had 
 subsided in the middle again increases, but in such a way 
 that, with the growing reflection upon the true, unalterable con- 
 dition of misery, the languishing complaint gets the upper hand 
 and the boundless despair, which storms at the commencement, 
 only issues in dull groans, remaining without light or relief; 
 for it is in the end explanation and comfort which the complaining 
 sufferer alone seeks to draw from his friends. His despondency 
 is also as yet confined to the misery which he has himself ex- 
 
I. 3— Ch. ii. It^iii. 95 
 
 pei'ienced : at the end vv. 20—22, there is scarcely a glance 
 at more general human misery, previously introduced by vv. 18, 
 19; and as if the despair as yet shrunk from bringing God 
 within the range of its complaints, it is only at the end ver. 20, 
 that it barely ventures to hint that He himself is the cause 
 of the misery. Thus timidly does the despair make its first 
 appearance : it scarcely permits us to divine how much it con- 
 ceals within its abysses; it still has a dread of its own dark 
 consequences, and nevertheless presents a sufficiently dangerous 
 first appearance which is really more dangerous than the 
 reality. 
 
 1 1 Then the three friends of Job heard all this evil which had 
 come upon him, and they came each one from his place, 
 Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the 
 ISTaamathite; and they agreed together to go to compassionate 
 
 12 and to comfort him. And lifting up their eyes from afar but not 
 knowing him, they lifted up their voice and wept, rent every 
 one his garment and strewed dust upon their heads towards 
 heaven; and they sat down with him on the earth seven days 
 and seven nights, whilst none spake to him a word, because 
 
 iii. 1 they saw that his grief was very great. After this Job opened 
 his mouth and cursed his day; so that Job answered and 
 paid: 
 
 ii. 11 — iii. 2. After receiving the tidings, they first go to seek each other, 
 probably foUowing the action of Eliphaz, and then agree to visit him in com- 
 pany. On their arrival they see him, it is true, in the distance, because as a 
 matter of course and as the LXX add in explanation at ver. 8, he was carried 
 as a leper from the house into the open air, Lev. xiii. 46: but they do not 
 recognise him, because his appearance had been so completely changed ; hence 
 the first violent expression of the first vehement mourning, ver. 12. But good 
 manners required then, in the first instance, that they should sit mourning in 
 silence the first week of their visit by the side of the mourner, because accord- 
 ing to ancient custom the friend that came on a visit from a distance had fir.st 
 to make himself perfectly familiar with the family, rejoicing or mourning witl» 
 it for a week. Gen. xxix. 14; Ezek. iii. 15. In all this therefore the friends 
 acted quite irreproachably. "JV iii. 2, to reply, generally to speak upon any 
 definite solicitation, cxKOxptSet;, Matth. xi. 25. 
 
96 I. 3.— Ch. ii. 11— iii. 
 
 Let the day perish on which I came to be, 
 
 The night which said: a boy is born! 
 Let that day be darkness: 
 
 let not God seek it from above, 
 nor a ray beam upon it; 
 5 let darkness and gloom redeem it, 
 
 let cloud encamp over it, 
 
 let terrors of a day scare it! 
 That night — dimness take it hence! 
 
 let it not rejoice among the days of the year, 
 come not into the number of the moons! 
 Yes, that night let it be unfruitful, 
 
 come into it no rejoicing; 
 let them ban it the day-cursers, 
 
 those that are skilled to stir up the dragon! 
 
 1. vv. 3 — 10. The whole day, the vu^^JJ-^pov, or the light day in parti- 
 cular and still more the night following, as the real time of his birth (for this 
 the poet could suppose without difficulty), is the object of the curse, day and 
 night being at first thus named together, ver. 3, then in the detailed description 
 the day is cursed vv. 4 — 5, and with twofold vehemence the night, vv. 6, 7 — 9 : 
 for the agitation the cause of such a horrible curse cannot be somewhat more 
 plainly mentioned until the end, ver. 10. The indignation desires to have the 
 day wholly annihilated, ver. 3 ; yet inasmuch as it nevertheless returns annu- 
 ally as a birth-day, the indignation, explaining itself more fully, demands only 
 a total darkening of it, so that to that intent it appears wholly to perish and 
 is marked as a black unlucky day and goes by dreaded, empty, desolate and 
 joyless, as though it were not (dies ater, nefastusj i ; let also the night be barren 
 and without the joy of birth, lest another should again be made by it as un- 
 fortunate as Job, ver. 7 (comp. vv. 3, 10): even the enchanters shall make 
 that night a disastrous, black unfruitful one, ver. 8, in accordance with the use 
 of sucli magic spells met with elsewhere. Num. xxii — xxiv. However, the 
 blackest darkness, which is the chief thing in the detailed description, cannot 
 be painted strongly enough: while the special cursing of the day keeps to the 
 darkness, vv. 4, 5, the longer curse of the night passes in the middle of it to 
 other thoughts, while it begins and ends with the idea of darkness, vv. 6, 9 ; 
 and as from the very commencement the first ray of dawn shall be wanting to 
 
 * It is well known that the Romans had this superstition in a strong de- 
 gree : and a direct consequence of it is the custom, which is still, or was till 
 quite recently, found in Madagascar, e.g., of killing at once children born on 
 certain unlucky days of the year. 
 
I. 3.— Ch. ii. 11— iii. 97 
 
 dark be the stars of its twilight 
 let it wait for light — in vain, 
 
 let it not behold the eyelids of the dawn : — 
 10 — because it shut not the doors of my belly 
 
 and hid not trouble from mine eyes! 
 
 Why died I not from the womb 
 
 had I escaped from the belly — and departed? 
 
 wherefore hastened the knees to meet me, 
 and why breasts, that I should suck? 
 
 For then should I, having sunk down, be at rest, 
 
 having fallen asleep, then were there rest for me — 
 
 the day, as if God did not concern Himself at all in His bright elevation about 
 it and let it perish in unpitied gloom, ver. 4, so at last the black, starless night 
 shall wander for ever without being enlightened by morning stars or scattered 
 by morning-dawn, ver. 9 : on the contrary, darkness shall take possession of 
 day and night as their property, vv. 5 a, 6 a, the darkest most fatal clouds and 
 other horrors {e.g., eclipses of the sun) that can ever terrify a day, shall over- 
 take it, ver. 5 b. c. The unusual word "'"I'^tos, ver. 5, the first letter of which 
 Massorites and ancient translators mistook for a preposition, must be pointed as 
 a substantive of colour "'l^"''?*?? § 157a: ""23, Heb. and Aram, denotes not only 
 to scorch, but also to hum, to get blach, (X^^S^ (" = ^ == '') as well as 
 
 .^ t»^ being related. When the execrators of the day, ver. 8, are described 
 
 as possessing the daring and skill to arouse even the dragon, this additional 
 clause must have a meaning which accords with the chief clause ; and since 
 ■jn«"!? occurs always (except xl. 25, as will there appear) in a mythological 
 sense, we are thereby induced to suppose, that we have here a myth similar to 
 the Hindoo myth of the Rähu, according to which the eclipse of the sun and 
 of the moon comes from a dragon which has coiled round them, which there- 
 fore magicians are able to rouse or again ban and drive away. — It appears from 
 the case itself and from the transition to vv. 11 sq., that the night is here al- 
 ways not that of the conception but of the birth ; and the immediate addition 
 of a hoy of itself proves that "^n is in poetry the same as ~^"3. 
 
 2. If he must then be born, wherefore did he not die immediately after 
 his birth, but was born alive and received and preserved with affection vv. 11, 
 12. For had he died at once, he would now have rest at the hand of death, 
 no less than the mighty ones of the earth who were once so rich and proud, 
 whom nevertheless all the laboriously gained marks of their pride and splen- 
 dour now profit nothing ; or rather, since after all he desired not to have been 
 brought up but to have been at first born dead, he would now be as those 
 abortions which come not at all to the light of day, but are forthwith sent 
 down into the darkness, vv. 13—16; it is only in the lower-world that all toil 
 
 7 
 
98 I. 3.— ch. ii. 11— iii. 
 
 with kings and councillors of the earth, 
 
 who built for themselves Pyramids, 
 15 or also with princes, rich in gold, 
 
 who filled their houses with silver; 
 or, as a hidden abortion I should not be, 
 
 like children who have never seen the light. 
 There the wicked cease from raging, 
 
 and there rest those exhausted of strength; 
 altogether the prisoners cease from toil, 
 
 never hearing the voice of the slave-driver: 
 small and great is there the same, 
 
 the slave free from his lord. 
 
 and torture cease, both in the case of the violent and slave-holders who torture 
 others on the earth, and of those who are tortured (to whom Job belongs), 
 vv. 17 — 19. The longing for death which springs from weariness of life, which 
 can here be expressed at length in the speech as it gets gradually calmer, and 
 the attractive picture of the rest of the underworld, coincide here in an unusual 
 way and form in combination the most melancholy conception of terrestrial things : 
 those which are on the earth most widely separated, the proud mighty ones, 
 who seek in vain to cling fast to the earth by splendid buildings and treasures, 
 and such despairing wretches as Job are there equal ; and in the end those 
 who torment others and the greater host ("'"'2 ver. 18) of all classes of tormented 
 ones, there find rest together. It is as if the tormented Job himself found al- 
 leviation in contemplating this picture and pursued it with eager pleasure. As 
 now the end of this middle strophe is connected with the third by the mention 
 of the tortured, so the beginning, ver. 11, starts directly from the end of the 
 first, ver. 10, in that the most impossible thing of all is given up — the not 
 having been born — and the question is put, why then did not death follow im- 
 mediately on birth, e.g., by miscarriage (ver. 16), but father and mother, or 
 nurse, met him with protection and nourishment: for the knees, ver. 12, can 
 in this connexion only be those of the father to whom the child is first pre- 
 sented to be acknowledged. As regards Hpy, ver. 13, »io?r, if the case were 
 as has been said, accordingly = then, comp. viii. 6; xiii. 19 with xi. 15. The 
 word ma"in ver. 14, was explained by ancient translators as l^^^'^'ü sicords, by 
 the Massorites apparently more passably as '^". ndns ; but neither explanation 
 meets the case: to huild nmis would mean to restore ruined places, which would 
 not be suitable here, the ironical explanation to build erections which would 
 after all become ruins again at last, is not suggested either in the words or 
 in the sense of the passage, since here it is only the splendour, that is to no 
 purpose in tlie underworld, which must be described, a splendour which the 
 powerful in possessions of the earth get with much toil, and which they may 
 really possess in this life, only that death forcibly separates them from it, so 
 tliat in the end it is useless to tliem, comp. ver. 15. There is therefore not 
 mucli room to doubt tliat tlie word is not Hebrew and is derived from the 
 
I. 3.— Ch. ii. 11— iii. 99 
 
 20 Wherefore giveth He to the sufferer light, 
 
 life to the bitterly troubled, 
 who wait for death — in vain, 
 
 search for it more than for treasures, 
 who rejoice unto exaltation, 
 
 leap that they find a grave? — 
 to that man whose way is hid, 
 
 who is hedged round about by God ? 
 Surely for my daily bread cometh my sighing, 
 and as water flowed my complaints : 
 25 for before somewhat I trembled — forthwith it overtook me, 
 
 and that which I dreaded, it cometh to me; 
 never have I rest, never quiet, never peace, 
 nevertheless raging cometh. 
 Egyptian word pyramid, hyrama (hyraba) having a softer first letter than 
 pyrama, comp. *|w$0 and de Sacy's AbdoUatif, p. 292 sq.; 1^»^?, on the other 
 
 hand, a word which does not occur in the Book of Job, appears to have an 
 entirely difi"erent origin, see History of Israel II. p. 6 (II. p. 4), III. p. 486 
 (IV. p. 36). Vv. 17 — 19 is pervaded by the antithesis of tlie tormentors and the 
 tormented in such a way that the first alone are described ver. 17 a, and then 
 the latter separately ver. 17 5, ver. 18 a, and finally both together ver. 18 5 and 
 ver. 19, but in general and particularly towards the end the tormented and 
 their happiness is made more prominent. Everything is thus explained recip- 
 rocally, especially the raging of the powerful wicked ones, ver. 17 «, by ver. 
 18 5; it is true that the torture with which they in their lawless raging torment 
 others, ceases again for themselves to be a toil only in death : only the anti- 
 thesis in this place requires us primarily to think of the tormenting aspect of 
 this raging as it afflicts the vast number of miserable victims. It is otherwise 
 with the raging, ver. 26, which comes upon the unfortunate suflFerer against his 
 will, not originating in his will, like that of the wicked. With regard to Sin, 
 ver. 19 a, comp. § 314 5 and Jakrbb. der JBibl. iViss. III. p. 221. 
 
 3. Vv. 20 — 26. The last strophe reverts to the question why life is given 
 to the suffering, who prefer to search for death as for hidden treasures (vv. 22 5, 
 comp. ver. 15; death like treasures coming from the bosom of the earth, Pluto 
 god of both), and who finding a grave are filled with exultation : the question 
 here repeated is confined to Job, who is so involved in calamity that he cannot 
 see his way, ver. 23 (comp. xix. 8), to whom sighs and tears arc instead of eating 
 and drinking, ver. 24 (comp. Pss. xlii. 4; Ixxx. 6), because he is in constant 
 dread of fresh calamity, vv. 25, 26. On "'S?? for, instead of, = like, see § 217 5, 
 History of Israel IV. 27 (III. 472).— Comp, with vv. 3—9 Abulf. Ann. Moal. 
 torn. I. p. 236 not. ad torn. I. p. 131, torn. III. p. 7.')8. tom. IV. p. 560, Schol. 
 Hariri p. 310, JJschami's Jusuf und Suleika p. 137, llosenzweig's edition. 
 
 7* 
 
IQQ IL— Ch. iv— xiv. 
 
 II. SECOND STAGE OF THE DRAMA. 
 
 FIRST ADVANCE IN THE CONTENTION. 
 CH. IV — XIV. 
 
 But the friends do not comprehend these sighs after con- 
 solation, still less the apparently disconsolate despondency and 
 the rising storm of despair. On the contrary, as they from 
 the beginning presuppose in their hearts that Job is not in- 
 nocent, this open expression of his complaint, which in a sub- 
 dued form is already directed against God even, is to them 
 plain witness against him and his guilt. They therefore begin 
 their well-meant warnings, and in this first advance of the con- 
 tention, where they have the full advantage, they proceed boldly 
 and rapidly in the declaration of their three principles, driven 
 to it the more by the to them incomprehensible resistance of 
 Job. Eliphaz seeks to show him, that neither he nor any man 
 may speak against God ; Bildad already insists more pointedly 
 upon the divine righteousness in opposition to him; Zophar 
 finally, thus early desiring openly the judgment of God, lets 
 drop with little concealment his conviction, that Job suffers 
 much less than his sins deserve: yet herein they all agree, not- 
 withstanding this increasing warmth of feeling and severity of 
 language, that they still cherish the best hopes of Job's de- 
 liverance, as soon as ever he exhibits sorrow and repentance 
 instead of such inconsiderate, godless specche%s. Therefore they 
 all conclude their speeches with the most attractive pictures 
 of the salvation which was still certainly to be expected on 
 repentance. Thus at the end they sweeten the serious and 
 bitter exhortations which they believe it their duty to make, 
 in order to entice their friend by flattering and consoling pic- 
 tures also to that acknowledgment of guilt which they desire: 
 
II. — Ch. iv— xiv. JQJ 
 
 this position, first taken up by Eliphaz, is maintained faithfully 
 by both those who follow him. 
 
 Yet such an ingredient of moderation, which is easy to the 
 fortunate friends, is much more difficult for Job. He has been 
 painfully deceived in his hopes of his friends; and, moreover, 
 constrained by their opposition to hold fast and defend the 
 despair into whose power he has now once surrendered him- 
 self. Thus the danger which he had summoned up in his former 
 speech, now first bursts upon him with overwhelming force. 
 A vast region of sore confusion, doubt, despair, and unbelief 
 opens up before him. Will he not wholly lose himself in that 
 dark, unknown land? It is true he succeeds in preserving at 
 the beginning a degree of composure which must astonish us 
 in his situation. As if himself foreseeing that the contest pro- 
 voked might have the worst consequences through heat and 
 bitterness on both sides (vi. 28—30), and moreover neither being 
 in a mood nor deeming it necessary to defend expressly his 
 innocence, he is satisfied at first with simply showing the ne- 
 cessity of his complaint and pointing out the cruelty of his 
 friends (vi. 2—30). When he is a second time and more 
 sharply attacked, he constrains himself again not quite to attack 
 the friends, though he seeks to measure himself with them; 
 and as he considers the divine righteousness which they magnify, 
 he is profoundly moved and at last incapable of being terrified 
 by the terrors which they depict (ix. 2— x. 2). But when the 
 youngest of the friends, making almost too dashing an onslaught, 
 not only lets fall an unveiled reference to Job's sins, but also 
 desires thus early an appearance of God and His judgment, he 
 then at last, unable longer to endure such growingly unfeeling 
 attacks, himself assumes the offensive. He confidently measures 
 himself with them, wresting from them, in the exultant con- 
 sciousness of his integrity, their appeal to God's judgment, and 
 using it with overwhelming force to his own advantage. In- 
 deed, he now challenges and vehemently desires the divine 
 judgment, even much more boldly than they, xii. 2 — xiii. 22. 
 
IQ2 IL— Ch. iv— xiv. 
 
 And because the friends say nothing which could really ame- 
 liorate or put an end to the complaint and the despair to 
 which he had given utterance before this contention, he again 
 at the end of his speeches, as the power of his despair is still 
 so unbroken and only increases by the confusion of the con- 
 tention, falls back into it again and again, and so makes wider 
 and deeper the abyss of sorrow and depression the more the 
 friends seek to cover it up by the wrong means. The end of 
 his speeches is therefore generally still more than the other 
 parts of them the exact opposite of the notions of the friends. 
 Whilst they endeavour to close each speech with joyous pro- 
 spects, his discourse issues again and again in a gloomy elegy 
 which stirs to indignation, and closes with the prospect of 
 certain death. Thus both parties involuntarily get farther and 
 farther from each other, even before the attack which Job at 
 last makes, in the third reply, completely annihilates this first 
 position of the friends. 
 
 Accordingly this first advance in the contention serves to 
 bring out all the turbid and the transparent parts, all the powers 
 and truths of this contention, in order to lead them all, against 
 the will of the contending parties and yet necessarily, to 
 successive higher stages of development. It is true that both 
 parties at the commencement of their contention still see more 
 clearly than they do subsequently in the climax of its con- 
 fusion; as, indeed, both parties open the contention without 
 any evil intention. The friends anticipate at the beginning, 
 that the issue of the matter will be glorious through the 
 mercy of God, as they have hitherto heard nothing but good 
 of Job, and cannot, therefore, as long as they look at everything 
 with modei'ation and without prejudice, properly presuppose a 
 very serious, mortal offence, v. 8, 17 — 26; viii. 7, 21, comp. iv. 
 3, 4. And Job quite properly anticipates that he shall stand 
 as innocent before God and put the friends to shame, xiii. 
 7 — 17, comp. vi. 10 c. The true anticipations of both sides arc 
 confirmed by the result, xlii. 7 — Ü, 12: whereby the poet obtains 
 
IL— Ch. iv— xiv. 2Q3 
 
 a fine opportunity to permit an inliling of the issue of the 
 whole drama to appear remotely at the very commencement, 
 and to connect more closely all the scattered threads of his 
 extended fabric just where they tend to separate. But this 
 partial clearness on both sides at the beginning is soon dim- 
 med by the much stronger tormenting obscurities, is soon over- 
 come by the rising passions. The absence of the higher truth 
 brings both into constantly increasing misunderstandings and 
 perplexity, which at last become so great that the contention 
 cannot be further continued in this way and in this position 
 of the friends. The evil consequences for Job are in the end 
 as follows: in the first instance, increased provocation of the 
 friends who are openly attacked, and in their first position 
 damaged and beaten; more remotely and more seriously, the 
 degree of actual temerity by which he suff'ered himself to be 
 overtaken, in that, after he had already, ch. ix., held a perilous 
 soliloquy regarding the divine righteousness, he at length, ch.xiii., 
 boldly, and almost presuming upon his imagined right, chal- 
 lenges God to judgment, by which he acts against his better 
 feeling and commits an offence against the divine majesty. It 
 is true that he now reaps the unexpected advantage, that he 
 ameliorates his own melancholy depression by the outpouring 
 of his complaint and brings forth his gloomy ideas in order 
 that they may appear in their true light, but especially that 
 he is compelled more and more to call to mind the forgotten 
 treasure of his integrity and is by force thereby driven to a hope 
 which cannot be lost, whilst ch. iii. he did not as yet at all 
 call it to mind, vi. 10c; vii. 20, 21; ix. 15-22, 30-35; x. 7; 
 xii. 4; xiii. 3 — 23. However, even this solitary support to which 
 Job can cling, by the aid of which he remains even uncon- 
 sciously strong, is at last greatly weakened thereby, that when 
 he for the first time grasps fully and warmly the thought of 
 his integrity he is at the same time, in consequence of the 
 remaining darkness which still enfolds him, carried away by 
 the thought itself so as almost defiantly to challenge God to 
 
104 11 i. a — Ch. iv., V. 
 
 judgment, ch. xiii. So that at last, with a dim recollection 
 that after all God will not appear on such a challenge, he is 
 overtaken by unutterable despair; and for the first time, let- 
 ting go all present and temporal things, he is surprised by 
 the thought of a desirable deliverance that may be possible 
 for him even after death, xiv. 13—15. With the last thought 
 the prospect of a wholly new consideration is opened, the con- 
 sideration of the immortality of the soul and its certainty, the 
 addition of which to the consciousness of integrity is the only 
 way by which true patience can be prepared for and the final 
 victory obtained. 
 
 1. ELIPHAZ AND JOB. 
 a. ELIPHAZ. CH. IV., V. 
 
 In the sense above explained Eliphaz here first undertakes 
 to correct Job according to his best notions. He is, it is true, 
 already fully convinced of Job's guilt, and speaks to him as a 
 teacher with superior assurance, like a friend of acknowledged 
 large experience, as to one who is in error. Still, he speaks, 
 particularly at the beginning and at the close with great caution 
 and forethought, in order to say what is necessary with as much 
 tenderness and consideration as possible. This first speech, 
 therefore, embraces many and various points, quietly exhausts 
 its matter, and is arranged with unusual art. It is so put 
 that the zeal of the cautions man of years to quench at the 
 very beginning the kindling fire of defiance of God and to 
 show the necessity of repentance, by a kindly yet serious and 
 severe treatment, is perceivable. In that the most earnest ad- 
 monitions are reserved for the middle of the discourse, the 
 first part of it leads up to them with superior tact: with a 
 tentative and gentle touch, it compares cautiously Job's former 
 conduct with his present state of mind, and as it were repels 
 the unfavourable suspicion which the comparison suggests while 
 permitting it nevertheless to appear; it appeals to Job's own 
 
II. 1. a— Ch. iv., V. 105 
 
 knowledge, until insensibly the speaker's boldness grows, and 
 at last when he has become vehement, like a storm which has 
 grown out of a gentle wind, he thunders forth the truth, that 
 according to his experience it is only the wicked that ir- 
 remediably perish as overtaken by God's wrath, iv. 2—11. 
 The full weight of the earnest revelation and higher insight, 
 which the speaker presents as his principle in opposition to 
 Job, having been thus prepared for, comes iv, 12— v. 7, the 
 principle, that weak man, as impure before God and therefore 
 destined to suffer, ought on no account, unless he will involve 
 himself in the most grievous sin and punishment, to get angry 
 with God. And after Job has been severely chastised by the 
 application of this principle, though in a veiled and cautious 
 manner, Eliphaz finally in the third part, v. 8—27, makes the 
 transition to a gentle, kindly conclusion, hoping from the divine 
 grace and miraculous deliverance the best for Job, who has 
 been chastised by God for his good, who may be delivered by 
 Him from all evils so as yet to find the happiest end. The 
 more bitter the medicine of the middle of the speech was, the 
 sweeter and more pleasant is the effect which this conclusion, 
 with its promises of possible deliverance, endeavours to produce ; 
 however, not so as wholly to conceal the most serious admoni- 
 tions which form its basis. 
 
 iv. 1 Then answered Eliphaz of Tscman and spake: 
 
 1. 
 Will it vex thee should one venture a word to thee? 
 yet to restrain speech who is able ! 
 
 1. iv. 2 — 11, in two strophes. In these strophes the growing assurance 
 of the speaker must be noted, increasing from the most gentle manner as he at 
 first makes his appearance until it becomes at the end the boldest and most 
 outspoken utterance, beginning as the soft breathing of the wind and ending as 
 an overwhelming tempest; the intermediate stages are very skilfully arranged. 
 At first the most diffident commencement, undertaken at the call of duty, ver. 2 ; 
 then the surprised comparison of the previous endeavour of Job to comfort all 
 the despairing with his present inconsolability when his turn comes; with which 
 
106 II- 1- a.— Ch. iv., V. 
 
 Surely thou hast put many right, 
 
 and slack hands thou wast wont to strengthen, 
 the stumbling thy words upheld, 
 
 and bowing knees didst thou confirm: 
 5 now that it cometh indeed unto thee — and it vexeth thee, 
 
 it reacheth unto thee, and thou art dismayed? 
 is not thy religion thy confidence, 
 
 thy hope — the integrity of thy ways? — 
 
 Remember now, who ever being innocent perished? 
 
 and where have the upright been destroyed? 
 as far as I have seen, they who plough iniquity 
 
 and sow disaster, reap the same; 
 at the breath of God they vanish, 
 
 at the storm of His wrath they pass away: 
 10 the lion's roar and the growler's voice 
 
 and the teeth of the young lions — are struck out; 
 the old lion perisheth without prey, 
 
 while the grown-cubs of the lioness are scattered. 
 
 comparison the unhappy question can with difficulty be repressed, whether then 
 religion (ns'n;', comp. xv. 4) and innocence (in case he possess it, as is to be 
 desired) is not bis confidence ? vv. 3 — 6 ; finally, as the boldness of the speech 
 has rapidly grown with this surprising question and its scarcely repressed ex- 
 pression of suspicion, the admonition to Job, to remember the ancient truth 
 which has been forgotten only in the perplexity of the present moment, that 
 righteous men were never destroyed (therefore neither has Job any thing to fear 
 in case lie is righteous), but on the contrary, at least according to the ex- 
 perience of Eliphaz, the guilty only suffer for their sin, vanishing without re- 
 medy before God's anger and losing all their previous rage, the sad picture of 
 an old lion perishing miserably, deprived of his own vigour and even of his child- 
 ren's assistance, wliile his roaring and teeth lose their terror! vv. 7 — 11. Tims 
 the discourse constantly grows most energetic when the certainty of the over- 
 throw of the wicked is touched on, to set which in a terrible light is its object, 
 in order thus to terrify Job at first, in case he also, as Eliphaz simply shrinks 
 at present from openly saying, should in some way belong to the guilty. Ver. 2, 
 ?1B3 is another orthography for NB3 : but it is very remarkable that even after 
 the weak "H of interrogation the clause with the perf. can be parenthetically 
 inserted in such a way that the principal verb, to which the interrogation im- 
 mediately belongs, does not follow before the end in the imperf., strictly: 
 ickether, supposing a word to thee has been raised (ventured) = if a word — thou 
 wilt take it amiss f a construction which is somewhat easier with the stronger 
 
II. 1. a.— Cu. iv., V. 1Q7 
 
 2. 
 But unto me a word stealeth, 
 
 and mine ear caught a light sound thereof, 
 when visions of the night bring dream-thoughts 
 
 when deep sleep is fallen upon men; 
 a terror had come over me and trembling, 
 and thrilled with terror all my bones — 
 15 and before me a spirit presseth 
 
 — the hairs of my body grow stiff 
 it standeth still — I discern not its appearance 
 an image before mine eyes! 
 
 a whispering voice I hear saying: 
 
 combination S?in, ver. 21, comp. iii. 11; and if the imperf. presupposes simple 
 possibility, the perf. before it may insert parenthetically the action which must 
 necessarily be conceived as having already taken place, which must have hap- 
 pened if the action of the imperf. should occur, iii. 13; xxiii. 3, 10, comp. 
 § 357 h 1 . — Ver. 5 "s denotes the surprised application : how strange that thou, 
 when once thy turn comes, art too weak and exhausted! Ver. 6 the li in nri 
 is the vav co7iseq.; because contrary to the customary order of the first member 
 the predicate was placed first, the subject is thus more emphatically connected 
 and is itself made more prominent: thy hope — with regard to it — it now, is it 
 then not thy innocence f comp, similar uses of the i xv. 17; xxiii. 12; 2 Sam. 
 xxii. 41. § 348 a. Vv. 10, 11 translate the hearer as by magic to the scene 
 and moment when the old lion which has become superannuated and weak 
 (perf. ver. 10), deprived of his voice, whose roar was so terrible, and of his 
 young sharp teeth, now perishes in want, whilst his children also abandon him, 
 scattering themselves and founding their own houses. 
 
 2. iv. 12 — V. 7. As Eliphaz believes that he has obtained his superior in- 
 sight even by means of an oracle (for as the ancient tradition, which must 
 shortly be referred to, itself teaches, that which man cherishes latently and 
 dimly in his heart, may in light and sound come to him from without, at cer- 
 tain moments taking more palpable and firmer shapes), he first prepares suitably 
 
 ' In the "additions and emendations" which the author placed at the end of the 
 second edition of his work, the following withdrawal of the interpretation given 
 in the text occurs. "The similar case ver. 5 is in favour of this treatment of 
 ?i8?n as the verb of the principal clause ; and the word does not occur any- 
 where else. Since, however, according to v. 27 also, Eliphaz begins in the 
 name of all his friends, it is after all better to take ~0: simply as follows: 
 'shall loe venture a word to thee qtcod aegre feras, which thou takest amiss f ' " Tr. 
 
108 II. 1. a.— Ch. iv., V. 
 
 "Is man before God righteous, 
 
 or before his Maker a man pure? 
 Surely even in His servants He trustcth not, 
 
 in His messengers placeth error : 
 how then they who dwell in houses of clay, 
 
 whose foundation is in the dust, 
 who are destructible as the moth, 
 
 for the great importance of the oracle itself by a solemn description of the 
 awful moment of its revelation. This is done in order to translate Job before- 
 hand into the mood of extreme awe and expectation in which he himself had 
 received and been deeply impressed by it, and in which Job must again hear 
 and receive it, vv. 12 — 16. He then quotes the oracle itself, vv. 17 — 21, and 
 draws from it inferences with regard to Job's situation, v. 1 — 7. The intro- 
 ductory historical delineation, vv. 12 — 16, is really executed with a master-hand 
 for the production of the designed effect. It is meant to be a dream-oracle, 
 because such oracles {e.g., according to the Book of Genesis) were most frequent 
 in the patriarchal age, and because the poet is unable here to give to Eliphaz 
 a clear, luminous oracle from the highest God in broad daylight, such as he 
 must reserve for the end of the book, xxxviii. 1 sq. For the truth which Eli- 
 phaz communicates is much less extensive and significant: to him steals in the 
 night merely an individual spirit, although it may also reveal some true things. 
 Nevertheless precisely the limited, mysterious, semiopaque nature of such an 
 isolated, partial revelation possesses the greatest charm for the man that has not 
 yet made the acquaintance of a higher one. Just as for Eliphaz the bit of 
 truth of which he has been the recipient must have the highest importance, 
 only that he, who has as yet so imperfectly penetrated the outward covering of 
 the pure truth, is also very dependent on the covering and begins with the 
 description of it. Accordingly he delineates with awe-struck recollection the 
 picture of the profound repose of mysterious night, when the gentle celestial 
 voice can make itself more audible to man as he has withdrawn within himself 
 but has been aroused by dream-visions; how in that hour a spirit appeared to 
 him, already at a distance making him tremble at its approach, then coming 
 nearer with an increase of his awe, at last standing still as if it desired to 
 speak (comp. 1 Sam. iii. 10;, yet all along not directly recognisable, hovering 
 before the eye of his mind like an image, until its gentle spirit-word is heard 
 as if borne by sighing breezes. In this description everything is most effectively 
 managed ; particularly fine is the description of the impalpable form of the 
 spirit, which is plainly noticed and yet again remains unknown, inasmuch as 
 it is the characteristic of spirit that it makes itself felt, as if it had a fixed, 
 palpable form and irresistible outward existence, while again it cannot be seized 
 and grasped as a material body, but flees as soon as the attempt is made to 
 sensibly lay hold of it, just as finally also it disappears again without leaving 
 behind any outward sensible traces. And this most vivid picture is sketched 
 
II. 1. a — Ch. iv., V. 109 
 
 20 from morning to evening they can be beaten in pieces, 
 without intelligence they perish eternally, 
 their inward sinew is torn asunder, 
 
 yea! they die away at once — without understanding!" — 
 
 by the poet with a few grand strokes. For it is quite obvious that with 
 vv. 12, 13, the same thing has ab-eady been briefly said that is then, vv. 14 — 16, 
 further worked out; and fov, ver. 12, the soft, gentle word which came as by 
 stealth (33s) to Eliphaz, is explained ver. 16 by '"p|!"'^^^: & whispering, as of 
 the gentlest zephyr, a revelation of the subtle spirit, 1 Kings xix. 12, and a 
 voice, at the same time audible, accordingly a subtle whispering spirit-voice. 
 The word 1*>3», difficult as regards its root, occurs here and xxvi. 14 only, and 
 its meaning in both passages is evident from the context: it appears originally 
 to signify a whispei-ing, ^|näupia|Jia Sym., with which n^':'^ Ex. xxxii. 25, mali- 
 cious joy ("Schadenfreude"^ derision, imy^a.piJ.'x LXX, is very well associated 
 as the secret whispered suggestion of the evil which is desired. To this cor- 
 responds ^^y,,^ to feel a malicious joy in another's calamity, the primitive 
 root seems to be therefore a_^.u»av to hasten, to be hasty, then (jo^Xm to 
 
 speak hastily, with which a whispering is easily connected. But after the intro- 
 duction ver. 12, the next verse, ver. 13, at first describes simply the mysterious 
 working-time of the spirits : when wandering thoughts arising from night-visions, 
 i.e., when thoughts and imaginations become active tlirough dream-visions in 
 deeply sleeping man. In what more particular time Eliphaz received tliis oracle, 
 whether some years, or only some days before, he leaves unmeutioned as super- 
 fluous : for it is at the present moment as vividly before his mind as if he 
 were just now hearing it, so that he begins in the present tense : but unto me 
 a word stealeth, but in this uncertain state of mind I hear a decisive word, 
 which must here be explained just as I have received it — The real assertion of 
 the oracle is made quite at the commencement, ver. 17, to the eflfect, tliat a man 
 cannot on any account regard himself as more righteous and blameless tliau 
 God, which he nevertheless does when, more openly or more secretly, he makes 
 accusations against God: the rest, vv. 18—21, is simply a subsidiary proof of 
 the main assertion based upon a comparison of the superior spirits and weak 
 man. If the celestial servants (angels) do not appear as quite pure before God, 
 so that He does not absolutely trust in them in His commissions to them, but 
 
 presupposes error C^^^"!!; from Vnr = r!5», Arab. Joö, also J^') as possible 
 
 in them, how much less (S)?, ver. 19, § 354 c) can weak, frail men appear as 
 pure and deem themselves so, who inhabit earthen bodies like fragile houses 
 of clay, having their roots in the dust itself as their foundation (Gen. ii. 7 ; 
 iii. 19); who are therefore as easily even as the moth to be destroyed (d''S3Ti 
 
110 "• 1 a.— Ch. iv., V. 
 
 V. 1 Call then! will auy one answer thee? 
 
 and to which of the holy ones wilt thou turn? 
 but the fool resentment slayeth, 
 
 and the hasty indignation only killeth! 
 / myself saw a fool take root — 
 
 yet I cursed his pasture forthwith; 
 his sons are far from weal, 
 
 and put down in the gate, without a deliverer: 
 
 "which men crush, or can crush", are able to be crushed), those miserable 
 creatures who are smitten to death (must die) from morning to evening, i.e., 
 often in the course of a single day (comp. Isa. xxxviii. 12. 13), in the morning 
 alive and well, at evening a corpse ["morgen roth, am abend todt"], and as 
 soon as the weak, hidden sinew, or the thread of life, is rent (ver. 21a, vi. 9; 
 xxvii. 8, comp. Ecc. xii. 6 ; Isa. xxxviii. 12), are immediately surprised by 
 death — without wisdom, inasmuch as the mass of men are overtaken also by 
 death in the same stupidity, unintelligence and folly in which they had lived. 
 The last point serves almost involuntarily to give Job a strong reminder, as 
 if the spirit led the speaker precisely to close the mournful description of proud 
 man, who is yet so weak, in such a manner as would make it most suitable as 
 an admonition to Job, to the effect, that he must see to it that he does not die 
 like the multitude without wisdom. With emphasis, therefore, this thought is 
 expressed twice at the end of the last two verses, B'^'iöö "'Vatt "without any 
 one giving heed", no one paying attention, is equivalent to Jl^sri? sVl, "and 
 not with wisdom", without it ; comp, further in explanation and confirmation 
 xxxvi. 12; Pro*-, x. 21 ; v. 23. The last three verses, therefore, without a break 
 all describe man, and in this case intentionally only from his weaker and lower 
 side, which exclusively engages the attention of this speaker. — The inference 
 from this oracle, v. 1 — 7, how infatuated it is for frail man to murmur against 
 God, warmly passes, therefore, immediately with great boldness to an application 
 to Job, though nevertheless soon cautiously resorting again to general truths 
 and experiences and closing with calm earnestness. How infatuated, therefore, 
 to complain against God, since the angels also, if Job should think of appealing 
 to one of them, would with the consciousness of their position as regards the 
 Highest One not receive a complaint of this kind ; on the contrary, such mur- 
 muring and complaining as this, by which the fool simply wears himself out, 
 is of so little use that it can only be regarded as a mark of a wrong state of 
 mind, of a sin, and it can only be said, that discontent and heart-burning [Groll 
 lind Eifern] slay the unreflecting fool, vv. 1, 2. A fool may very well seem 
 for a time prosperous and even firmly established, but without fail his desert 
 overtakes him and his whole house : as Eliphaz formerly, when he made the 
 acquaintance of such a man, was not deceived by his outward prosperity but 
 immediately (öNrs here as Num. xii. 4) foretold witli abomination his final 
 
II. 1. a. — Ch. iv., V. ][2J^ 
 
 5 he whose harvest the hungry eateth 
 
 and taketh it even out of the thorns, 
 after whose possessions the thirsty pant! 
 
 For there groweth not out of the dust disaster, 
 and from the field there springeth not suffering: 
 
 but man is born to suffering, 
 as the sparks fly up on high! 
 
 punishment, which has now come terribly enough, inasmuch as his sons, still 
 suflfering for their father, are unable to obtain any justice, since the men who 
 were long oppressed by the father now, after the overthrow of this tyrant, rob 
 and destroy, as in hunger and thirst, his and his sons' property, restrained by 
 nothing, even should they have to get the corn, which had been vainly stored, 
 from the midst of prickly thorns and thorn-fences (C?^ appears to be a sing. 
 adj. from as = SöS, if a-WS = [a-X^sa § 73 e] is not rather to be read ; the 
 suflf. Q- in a5«n refers directly to the sons, or the whole family, of the tyrant, 
 comp, the contrary xxxi. 38 sq.). This example also, although Eliphaz had 
 really met with this experience elsewhere, is so put that, like the corresponding 
 former one, iv. 8 — 11, comp. xx. 10, it can have reference to Job, vv. 3 — 5. — 
 For, considering the matter quite generally in conclusion, let not man proudly 
 exalt himself nor deceive himself as to his own nature ; since calamities together 
 with their cause, sin and evil, do not originate without man, as herbs spring 
 from the earth, so that man might be able to annihilate by his own will that 
 which accidentally originated without, just as he could extirpate weeds in a 
 garden ; but, on the contrary, they spring up within himself and are most in- 
 timately connected with his entire nature, so that he is as necessarily born to 
 bear suffering as it is the nature of sparks to fly upwards. In this way the 
 speech returns in the assertion of the weak and humble nature of man to iv. 
 19 — 21, but in such a way that Job is plainly given to understand how greatly 
 lie sins against the order of the world and the proper nature of man when he 
 murmurs and repines. The language is here undoubtedly very brief, yet the 
 strophe is probably as the last intentionally abbreviated ; and the brief addition 
 of the comparison ver. 7 6 by the simple and, which is elsewhere rare in this 
 book, xii. 11 ; xiv. 19, comp, xxxiv. 3, is thereby explained [§ 340 a]. * 
 
 1 In his last work Gott und die Bibel, Vol. II. p. 293 note, the author gives 
 the following addition to v. 7. "According to all indications f]'??!?. ".?? belong 
 to the primitive and well-known mythological figures of the ancient world wliich 
 a poet might use. After it has now been shown (comp, the Göttingische Nach- 
 richten 1872, p. 572 — 586), that si»" or Cis;i existed as the Pha^nician Apollo, 
 the most suitable sense of these words seems to me to be, "But Sons of Plia^bus 
 fly too high and then fall all the lower", with an allusion to the reckless (light 
 and corresponding lower fall of Pliaethon and others of that kind." Tr. 
 
112 "• 1- a-— Cn. iv., v. 
 
 Nevertheless, I will turn unto God, 
 
 and upon the Highest set my expectation : 
 Who doeth great things, unsearchable, 
 
 and wonderful things, not to be counted; 
 10 Who giveth rain over all the earth 
 
 and sendeth water over all the pastures, 
 to raise the abased on high, 
 
 that the mourners may rise to weal; 
 Who breaketh the plots of the crafty 
 
 that their hands do nothing wise, 
 Who taketh the wise in their craftiness 
 
 so that the counsel of the artful is precipitous, 
 — in the day they grope in darkness, 
 
 as if it were night, they feel about at midday — : 
 15 so He rescueth the destroyed out of their mouth, 
 
 and out of the hand of the strong the helpless, 
 and hope cometh to the bowed-down, 
 
 wickedness shutteth her mouth. 
 
 3. But after Eliphaz has thus overthrown every earthly hope and all human 
 pride, he rises all the more freely and eloquently to the higher necessity by resort 
 to which man can overcome the lower physical one. That higher necessity is 
 the divine power and mercy, which, as working marvellously but everywhere 
 bringing forth that which is good, even chastises simply in order to bless. 
 And as Eliphaz himself has hope from it for Job still, so he endeavours to 
 inspire him with the same confidence. After he has, therefore, at first lauded 
 it in general, as the divine grace and power which helps the bowed-down and 
 is absolutely wonderful, vv. 8 — 16, he passes with a surprising effect to Job, 
 who also is really only chastised by it in love, and by suffering liimself, there- 
 fore, to be warned by divine chastisement and returning to the divine life (by 
 repentance), may hope that having been constantly delivered from all dangers, 
 he will yet enjoy the most prosperous and delightful life, vv. 17, 18 — 26. Eli- 
 phaz then leaves all this, as the well-considered judgment of the friends, to 
 Job's most serious consideration, ver. 27. The praise of the divine work, 
 vv. 9 — 16, is first established in general, ver. 9, then in detail from both the 
 world, vv. 10, 11, and human life, vv. 12 — 16. But in connexion with human 
 life it is not without a purpose mentioned, that all human craft and cunning 
 are put to shame before the severity and the light of the divine management 
 of affairs, and they who suppose themselves to be the most astute suddenly 
 grope about helpless at midday as if it were dark : an example which Job with 
 
n. 1. a. — Ch. iv., V. 113 
 
 Tea happy is the man whom God chasteneth: 
 
 the correction of the Mighty One despise not! 
 For He woundeth and bindeth up, 
 
 He smiteth and His hands heal. 
 In six straits He will deliver thee, 
 
 in seven also evil will not touch thee : 
 20 in hunger He redeemeth thee from death, 
 
 in war from the power of the sword ; 
 when the tongue scourgeth thou art hidden, 
 
 and fearest not desolation when it cometh, 
 at desolation and famine wilt thou laugh, 
 
 at wild beasts fear thou not: 
 for with the stones of the field is thy covenant, 
 
 the beasts of the field are at peace with thee. 
 So thou wilt find that thy tent is secure, 
 
 and surveying thy pasture miss nothing, 
 25 and find that thy seed is numerous, 
 
 and thy offshoots like the herbage of the earth; 
 thou wilt come to the grave with white hair, 
 
 as a ripe shock is carried home in its season. — 
 
 his fancied wisdom will do well to lay to heart! But in both spheres, the 
 world and human life, the divine activity, marvellous and perpetually new as 
 it is, follows simply the object of alleviating calamity and delivering innocence 
 from the persecutor (since the rain, e.^., prepares fruitful crops for those in famine, 
 the craftiness of the violent, which involves and destroys itself, must in the 
 end always give way to the victory of innocence); so that the simple sufferer 
 (who is neither quite innocent nor yet completely lost), whom the purifying, 
 correcting, but not as yet the destroying, power of God touches, is rather to 
 be pronounced happy, because precisely as warned thereby and casting off the 
 evil, he may again be healed by Him who wounded, vv. 17, 18. Ver. 15 -'v^*? 
 must undoubtedly be read instead of ^Ül]!)*, which is here quite out of place ; 
 the former is a rare word which the Massorites did not understand : the figure 
 is taken from the prey of wild beasts which a good shepherd rescues from 
 them (1 Sam. xvii. 35). As "six" or "seven", ver. 19, is only a round number, 
 precisely the same number of evils are not named vv. 20 — 23 ; instead of the 
 pestilence, which is usually named as a fourth calamity with famine, war, and 
 wild beasts (Rev. vi. 8), there appears here an evil which becomes very danger- 
 ous only in countries that have outgrown a simple state of things, namely, 
 secret defamation, called here the scourging of the tongue, of which, however, 
 there is much said in the Psalms and Proverbs. So far is thy conditiap from 
 
114 II 1- b.— Ch. vi., vii. 
 
 Behold, this we have searched out: thus it is; 
 hear it, and thou — consider it for thyself! 
 
 being hopeless that then even the stones which render the field unfruitful, and 
 still more easily, the wild animals which burrow in and turn it up, appear to be 
 kept away as by a covenant of peace with them, that they may not hurt thee, 
 comp. Hos. ii. 20. The word n^3, ver. 26, and xxx. 2, is what is overripe, 
 shriveled up, dried, accordingly the most advanced age, to be compared with 
 
 jV^xJLs, d^^^'s (and jvüJ)' iX-gJ', d^, Koran, Sur. iii. 41; v. 109, 
 
 in Ethiopic ii, ^, comp. 3 b^ tc, belongs to the same root; hence it is 
 appropriately connected in a simile with the shock of overripe corn, which is 
 carried to rest at the right season into the garner. — Strophes of considerable 
 length, consisting of 9 verses each, are here quite obvious, as ver. 27 forms 
 simply the conclusion; but between these two large strophes there is a single 
 verse, ver. 17, at the rapid transition of the thought, such a verse not being 
 infrequent in the book subsequently. 
 
 b. JOB. CH. vi., vii. 
 And what shall Job now say definitely in reply to this 
 speech, the partly open and partly concealed meaning of which 
 he at once plainly enough perceives and follows? Shall he at 
 once defend himself against the accusations hinted at? But 
 it is precisely the man who is conscious of being most free 
 from such charges that makes least haste to vindicate his in- 
 nocence ; who indeed feels a deep repugnance against meddling 
 with such unpleasant things, which he does not even altogether 
 understand. Accordingly Job is still too conscious of his 
 dignity and his moral elevation to expressly defend himself, 
 or even in any way to take up the contention. Only incident- 
 ally there escapes him, with a certain emphasis, the recollec- 
 tion that he has never resisted God, vi. 10 c. On the other 
 hand, in proportion as Job feels bitterly this unexpected con- 
 duct of the friends as the disappointment of his hope and as 
 unfaithfulness towards himself, and in proportion as he feels 
 that thereby the measure of his calamities has got full, do 
 his pain and despondency rapidly grow. His despair, cruelly 
 
II. 1. b.— Ch. vi., vii. ]^ J5 
 
 thrown back upon itself and compelled to justify itself to it- 
 self and the world just when it sought relief, recovers from 
 the hard blow only to become, with new energy, all the more 
 dark and gloomy. It is true that higher wisdom and reflection 
 still occasionally flash through this assault of fresh despair. 
 Having a presentiment that the storm of gloomy feeling may 
 easily lead him to still more inconsiderate words (the only sin 
 of which he is conscious, and of that only as the product of 
 his suff'ering), he desires to keep down the contention while it is 
 still only rising, modifying the few hard words of melancholy, 
 which he is compelled to utter to shame the friends, by a 
 kindness which condescends to requests and the expression of 
 readiness to repent. But the despair, which is as unseemly 
 as it is vainly resisted, has already become too powerful not 
 to increase and be carried to greater lengths, although it may 
 fear further steps. This anxious suspense, this wavering between 
 reflection and the desire to return and repent, on the one hand, 
 and an unmanageable, growing despondency, on the other, with 
 the victory of the latter, constitutes the chief peculiarity of 
 this speech, which in its position at the head of the planned 
 conflict produces a decisive eff"ect on all that follows. The 
 overwhelming power of despair, to which Job succumbs al- 
 though he resists it in the presentiment of its mournful con- 
 sequences, obviously pervades the speech. And since the des- 
 pair from which Job had started, ch. iii., must accordingly 
 maintain first its own justification only against itself and the 
 friends, in order to advance still further when it has retired into 
 itself, the speech falls into three parts:— (1) the first look 
 round after such a painful blow, as if the unrestrained utter- 
 ance of complaint and repining, having met with opposition 
 from without, must first be justified again to itself by recalling 
 the tremendous calamities which no one could patiently bear, 
 vi. 2—13; (2) the word to the friends themselves which could 
 not be wholly avoided, mournful, beginning severely but at 
 the same time beseechingly, not in order to refute or to dc- 
 
2j^g II. 1. b. — Ch. vi., vii. 
 
 fend, but simply seeking to avoid further contention of this 
 kind, growing almost against the speaker's will somewhat bitter 
 but immediately changing again to the tone in which it com- 
 menced; lastly, since what had to be said to others is finished, 
 (3) a recurrence to the soliloquy of despair, or the undisturbed 
 advance of it in its own territory, in that now particularly 
 the toil and moil of weak, shortlived man is lamented, whom, 
 surely, God, as the kind and gracious One, ought rather to for- 
 give than to punish so severely even an actually committed 
 mistake, vii. 1—21. The three parts are not therefore of equal 
 length and proportions: but, as the way to the speaker's own 
 situation is with vehemence made through opposition, they 
 gradually increase in extent and fulness, so that the third is 
 the longest and the calmest, the first the shortest and most 
 full of effort and agitation. 
 
 vi. 1 Aud Job answered and said : 
 
 1. 
 Would that iveighed were my resentment, 
 
 and that my suffering were together therewith raised with 
 
 the scales! 
 for now — heavier is it than the sand of the sea; 
 
 — therefore my words prattle amiss! — 
 For the arrows of the Most High I endure, 
 the heat of which my spirit drinketh up; 
 the terrors of God beleaguer me. 
 
 1. vi. 2 — 13. This commencement rises slowly but irresistibly from a 
 heavy, oppressive burden to the greatest agitation and vehemence, the more the 
 despair is compelled to bring forward its own justification. At first, vv. 2, 3, 
 the weary desire scarcely gets expression, to see the suffering, which has now 
 become quite unendurable, only measured in its whole extent in comparison with 
 the angry discontent which has now been expressed, ending in a brief presenta- 
 tion of the true state of the case as far as he knows it and as he regards it, 
 that is, in a severe reminder as to the nature and origin of these suflferings: 
 it is from God that he sufi'ers the most terrible, hardly endurable calamities! 
 ver. 4. Must not therefore his complaints be correspondingly terrible, and 
 with indignation cast oflF the sufl'ering which is presented to him as the result 
 of sin, though he knows he is innocent V vv. 5 — 7. Indeed, he desires rather 
 
II. 1. b.— Ch. vi., vü. 117 
 
 5 Doth the wild asB then bray over grass? 
 
 or doth the ox low over his fodder? 
 is then tasteless food eaten without salt! 
 
 or is there flavour in the white of an egg? 
 my soul refuseth to touch it: 
 
 they are as nauseousness on my food! — 
 
 that my request might come, 
 
 that God would grant my hope, 
 that God would — and He crushed me, 
 let go His hand — and cut me off! 
 10 in order that my comfort might yet arise, 
 I leaped up in unspared pain! 
 
 — for I never denied the words of the Holy One! 
 
 at once to die, regarding the granting by God of this one wish as a pledge of 
 the divine mercy towards the innocent, vv. 8 — 10, inasmuch as he is deprived of 
 all power of further endurance, vv. 11 — 13; at which point his despair rapidly 
 increases almost to madness. — (1) The desire that his suffering might only be 
 toeighed (»v: to lift = to weigh, answering to Vp», jzjjaio a balance from the 
 same root, ^B3 Isa. xl. 15) together with his angry resentment (with re- 
 ference to v. 2), forces itself first upon him who alone knows the immense 
 weight of his calamities ; on which account it is not so inexcusable if he, 
 as he himself fears, should in the excess of his pain and resentment speak 
 inconsiderately, as he had done ch. iii., and is against his will about to do 
 again ; hence the passing incidental remark ver. 3 6 is very appropriately in- 
 serted here at the beginning, comp. ver. 26 5. ^5^ as if from S'l'', yet this 
 would have to be equivalent to ^y^, [j(J ii to prattle, hence to speak 
 
 as a child, inconsiderately, LXX iari 9aijXa, only too general; comp. Prov. xx. 
 25. — For, briefly to express the terrible nature of his suffering, from God 
 Himself he endures inevitable, fatal inflictions, marks of a guilt of which he 
 is nevertheless unconscious, horrible things which are presented to him he does 
 not understand why, ver. 4 : can it therefore (2) be required of him patiently 
 to accept such things, and must he not be horrified at them, vv. 5 — 7? Every 
 living creature, animal and man, perceives the difference when pleasant or ob- 
 noxious things are offered to it, and expresses itself differently accordingly ; 
 the animal that is just in the midst of abundance and satisfaction will not 
 make complaint, ver. 5: but will it be expected of anyone that he should 
 accept tasteless things patiently as if they were good, pleasant food, ver. 6 ? 
 no, Job, at all events, is from his inmost feeling as little able to accept and 
 swallow these loathsome, horrible things patiently as the unwholesome parts of 
 his food, ver. 7. Thus the figure of presented food runs through vv. 5 — 7 : for 
 
118 n 1. b— Ch. vi., vii. 
 
 What is my strength that I still hope, 
 
 what my end that I hold out? 
 or is the strength of stones mine? 
 
 or is my body of brass ? 
 is not my inward help gone, 
 
 sure salvation driven from me? 
 
 calamity, pain and misery appears to force itself upon man from without, that he 
 may accept it and appropriate it, absorbing it into his own life, and endeavour 
 no more to shun it as bitter and loathsome. With regard to mttbn i'^"i the 
 most probable conclusion is, that it signifies the fluid part, the slime (spittle) 
 
 surrounding the firmer central mass (D^n means firm, sound, comp. ^^^JLä» ^^^ 
 marrow of certain things) of the egg, that is, the white of egg which is nearly 
 tasteless and to many loathsome, the meaning given to the words by the Tar- 
 gum. The pron. iTf^], ver. 7, refers to the subject at the beginning, ver. 4, 
 that is, to his sufferings: they, the sufferings, which I must swallow, are as 
 nausea (^in from ""l^^ §§ 147, 213 c sickness, pestilence, and the nausea which 
 results therefrom) of my food, as a pestilence that cleaves to the food presented 
 to me, which I cannot be expected surely to take patiently! comp. Isa. xxx. 22. — 
 (3) Would that instead death, which has so long been desired by me, might 
 come, vv. 8 — 10, since (4) all power of further endurance has already been 
 taken from me! vv. 11 — 13. At this thought his despair becomes vehement 
 to the degree of mad exultation ; after the disappearance of all others, the 
 one hope was left, that a near, certain death would end all sufferings, but the 
 last eager desire has remained unfulfilled: o that it might now please God to 
 send him quick death not as punishment and terror but as a boon, and so 
 without delay cut off the thread of his life in an entirely different sense than 
 Eliphaz, iv. 21, had indicated, like one cruelly and yet mercifully crushing him 
 with uplifted hand ! in order that he may, surely (§ 347 a), enjoy amidst all 
 Iiis calamities the one consolation of knowing their early cessation, not feeling 
 any more dismay and terror at certain death as other men do, but rather doing 
 that which is incredible — leaping and exulting in the very midst of full, un- 
 spared pain of death ; for he is not conscious of being so bad as that he ought 
 not to ask for further mercy and expect consolation from God, whose words 
 he has never denied, were it only the mercy of a speedy death, the only thing 
 that is now left! with ver. 10 c comp. xii. 4; xxvii. 3, 4. The pain of sublime 
 suffering, rising to scornful laughter, can hardly be greater than we find here. 
 "-D ace. to LXX, Targ. and Arab. jJLiO comp. vi>JLo and JaJl to move 
 violently with stamping, to leap, to rejoice most tumultuously ; V«n^ iih must 
 be a relative clause to 'nh'^r,, ace. § 332 a : pain which He (God) does not 
 spare, but causes to come in full measure, comp. xx. 13. Job believes, ace. 
 ver. 11, he has neither strength for further patience nor to anticipate an end 
 of such long sufferings which would bring the reward of patience, since ho sees 
 
II. 1. b.— Cn. vi., vii. HQ 
 
 2. 
 
 To the despairing love is due from his friend, 
 
 [Jrom the brother compassion to him who is afflicted by God, 
 
 lest he succumb to his grief] 
 
 and abandon the fear of the Almighty : 
 15 but my brethren deceived like a brook, 
 like the bed of overflowing brooks, 
 
 death only, if it should be somewhat more distant, at the close of such long 
 and severe suflerings; why then should not death come at once? Therefore 
 ver. 12 answers to ver. 11 a, ver. 13 to ver. 116; with regard to DK" see 
 § 356 a. 
 
 2. vi. 14 — 30. After the speech has reached this extreme agitation, it 
 becomes somewhat more collected and composed as it passes to the friends. 
 At first the calmest description of the unfaithfulness of the friends, who surely 
 ought most of all to bestow love and consideration upon him that is despairing 
 and exposed to the greatest spiritual peril, vv. 14 — 21; then, it is true, as Job 
 has realised vividly the ungenerous deed of the friends who have so bitterly 
 disappointed every hope placed in them and he does not now scruple to use 
 deservedly severer language towards them, a violent attack, as in self-defence, 
 cannot be avoided, in order somewhat to alarm the hardened conscience of the 
 friends, vv. 22 — 27; but nevertheless immediately the most conciliatory, touch- 
 ing and supplicatory language, as of one who really still desires to avoid all 
 contention, recurs, vv. 28 — 30. The entire passage is accordingly simply de- 
 precatory, dwelling upon the nature of the disappointment which the friends 
 have caused him, as if he were still wholly unable to believe that their accu- 
 sation was seriously intended. But for the rapid course which the proof now 
 takes short strophes of three verses each are here most appropriate, as in the 
 previous part of the speech. — At the commencement Job places the proposition, 
 that in the nature of things love and consideration ("'ö'^) is due from one friend 
 to another in calamity, who despairs and is thereby even in danger under its 
 influence of forsaking the fear of God, of not thinking and speaking of God so 
 reverently as he ought; a danger to which Job feels himself exposed contrary 
 to his intention, as he had already ver. 3 c said and still everywhere in this part 
 of his speech preserves that degree of reflection, comp. vv. 26, 29, 30 (and the 
 imperf. ats^ does not signify that he has already wholly let it go). For what 
 is the service which a friend renders but to approve himself precisely in the 
 greatest peril and to bestow the more love in proportion as the miserable man 
 he befriends supposes in the darkness of divine providence that he receives 
 little love from God Himself; and love enters into the state of mind of the 
 sufferer and helps without provocation and display of opposition. Appropriate 
 as this meaning is here, and plainly as the form of the clause ver. 14 « is the 
 same as that of xii. 5, the member b does not tit in according to the present 
 
120 I'f- 1 b— Ch. vi., vii. 
 
 Which are muddy and dark from ice, 
 
 down upon which cometh snow hidden: 
 suddenly drying up they have vanished, 
 
 when it groweth hot they are consumed from their place, 
 caravans turn aside their way, 
 
 go up into the desert-country — and perish; 
 
 The caravans of Taema look out, 
 
 the travellers of Sheba inwardly hope : 
 20 they are put to shame that one trusted, 
 
 they came unto them — and were deceived. — 
 Thus have ye now become — unto me; 
 
 ye behold the terror — and ye fear! 
 
 reading; if the reading were retained, we should have to take 3'*'' — 1 ace. to 
 
 § 350 6 as a continuation of 0»5 to him that desjaäireth and /orsaketh, 
 
 but this would be too hard and unusual even in the strained language of this 
 poet, on account of the intervening words ~ön Ifiyiö ; we may therefore sup- 
 pose, for the reasons explained in the Jahrbb. der B. W. III. 120 sq., that two 
 halves of a verse have here been left out by an early mistake. — But, on the 
 contrary, Job's friends have, as it must seem to him, bitterly disappointed the 
 just hope of the unfortunate sufferer, depriving him of his last human comfort; 
 like deceptive mountain streams, which at one moment are quite full of water 
 and cause great joy and raise the fairest hope also for the future, but then 
 suddenly dry up without a trace and most terribly deceive the poor travellers, 
 who recalling in their need the former abundance go in search of them by long 
 detours and mustering their last energies, while they nevertheless die of thirst 
 in the barren desert deceived of their last hope. Hence Job paints this ex- 
 pressive picture with special pleasure, thus representing somewhat under a veil 
 most exactly the absolute weakness of the position of the friends. At first, 
 vv. 16, 17, the sharp contrast of the double, deceptive appearance of the 
 Wadis: at one time their water is quite turbid and dark from the mass of dis- 
 solved ice and snow which pours itself down upon them from the mountains as 
 in a blackish stream, but through the heat they are suddenly as if burnt up and 
 vanished to such an extent that they cannot be recognized; hence the perf. ver. 17, 
 in order to represent the rapidly eflfected transformation, § 135 a, 343 a ''■^7^'? 
 must be : at the time when = as soon as, they were burned, touched by the 
 heat, a'^T = ci"i5J, a'^s, *w«o to scorch, corresponding to 'i*"?, lohen it becomes 
 
 hot (the suflF. as neut. § 295 a). According to the Massorites' opinion, ver. 18 
 would be the continuation of the preceding : the paths of their loay turn aside, 
 no more running connectedly in a full stream, they ascend into the desert and 
 perish ; yet this is of itself expressed not very suitably : better, therefore, 
 
II. 1. b.— Ch. vi., vii. 121 
 
 Is it that I said: "Make gifts to me, 
 
 and from your means make presents for mo; 
 
 and deliver me from the oppressor's hand, 
 
 and from the hand of the tyrants redeem me"? 
 
 Teach me, then I will be silent, 
 wherein I erred, declare unto me! 
 
 25 How very sweet are straight-forward words! 
 
 but what reproveth the reproving of yours? 
 to reprove words even do ye think ? 
 
 but into the wind go the words of the despairing! 
 even over an orphan ye would cast lots, 
 
 and bargain over your friend! — 
 
 ^S^'1S 'in? 57 caravans turn aside their 7cay, make a wide detour in order in 
 their want of water to get to the longed-for abundant streams, but ascend into 
 the desert land. Thus what was at first briefly expressed is described graphically 
 in detail with a fresh commencement, vv. 19, 20, the rich caravans of the most 
 important Arabic trading tribes being brought forward ; on account of the sharp 
 antithesis of the acts the copula is not required before ^^"3 ; ntsa he, in the 
 first instance the guide, had confidence. Generally comp. Hamäsa p. 174. 16; 
 Wellsted's Travels in Arabia 1. p. 89. — As if himself surprised by the sad 
 truth of this illustration. Job cannot longer refrain from calling his friends to 
 account, as to the ungenerous character of their conduct, nor from making a 
 serious attempt to end by bitter scorn further contention. To go no further, 
 how ignoble is it to tremble just when danger threatens the friend, and to rather 
 part with friendship than shameful fear! ver. 21. (But "3 = yes, surely, does 
 not alone suit the context, and probably TS should be read instead ; »' would 
 have to be taken as nothing, worthless, ace. § 296 <f, but as this would after all 
 yield no proper meaning in this connexion, it is better to read "'•: instead of 
 it). Poor friends thus retreat when it is suggested to them to really sacrifice 
 a portion of their material wealth, e.g., to liberate by a ransom a friend who 
 has been unjustly cast into prison: but has Job demanded anything of that 
 kind from them, he who suffers not from a mortal but from a divine infliction, 
 and therefore requires from friends nothing more than cheap sympathy? vv. 22, 
 23: he desires from them comfort simply and, as far as he may have gone astray, 
 kindly correction, ver. 24. But if they are prepared really, as it seems, to in- 
 struct him, he will gladly, inasmuch as he can value an honest word, submit 
 to their correction ; only so severely to correct and pitilessly to persecute simple 
 inoffensive words, particularly when uttered so rapidly and inconsiderately at a 
 moment of unhappy despair, displays a degraded habit of mind which may 
 easily change even into active cruelty towards the defenceless and friends, 
 
122 ■ n. 1. b.— Ch. vi., vii. 
 
 And now, may it please you to look upon me! 
 
 to your face will I, verily, not lie! 
 return now, let not wrong be done! 
 
 and return — I am still right as to it! 
 30 is there then wrong in my tongue? 
 
 or doth not my palate distinguish faults? 
 
 3. 
 vii.l Hath not man slave-service on the earth, 
 
 and as the days of a hireling are not his ? 
 as a slave panteth after shade, 
 as a labourer awaiteth his wages: 
 
 vv. 25 — 27. As winged as his indignation, is here the language of the sufferer; 
 and equally compactly is everything concatenated in the arrangement of the 
 thoughts. T^'^J, ver. 25, must be another orthography for y?>33 to be smeet, from 
 the meaning of being smooth, slippery, which is implied in y"»», ta^tt ; by another 
 way the meaning of being sich is also derived from that of being smooth, soft, 
 xvi. 3. But iohat does the correction which you give correct f evil deeds? but 
 they are not to be found; therefore mere words? (ö"'?ü in contrast with deeds 
 xi. 2) do ye mean to reprove them? but the words of a despairing man, such 
 as mine are, go into the wind (viii. 2; xv. 2; xvi. 3), do not at all need re- 
 proof. With ver. 27 a comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 42; Amos ii. 8; Nah. iii. 10; Ps. 
 xxii. 19; Prov. i. 14; with b xl. 30 (A.V. xli. 6). — After the worst has thus 
 been said, at last, vv. 28 — 30, wise reflection returns with loftier repose and 
 the wish for reconciliation. Just as if he had a foreboding of the lamentable 
 complication of the contention and increase of heated feeling, on his part also, 
 if the friends continue in this way, he requests them beseechingly only to look 
 upon him without prejudice, since he as an honourable man will surely not 
 lie to their faces when he protests his innocence, and believes that he has thus 
 far committed no injustice even in speech, indeed, believes also that he has 
 sufficient taste left to avoid what is unseemly (xii. 11; xxxi. 30). "TiJ», ver. 29 S, 
 must, contrary to the accents, be connected with the following words. 
 
 3. vii. 1 — 21. But defended against outward attack, the despair only sinks 
 inwardly to lower depths, advancing with rapid strides. While previously, 
 ch. iii., as in the passage to which this joins on. Job had complained al- 
 most solely of his own calamities, he now includes within the scope of his 
 consideration the whole human race, finding its misfortune to arise from its 
 weakness and misery. Thus proceeding from the condition of the race generally 
 and feeling himself involved in its misery, he lingers now by the consideration 
 of the weary toilsomeness of the short-lived, weak child of earth, who after 
 death never returns again to the sunny Upper World, and the comparison of 
 this brief toilsome life and its end with the divine grace and power arouses 
 bitter melancholy uo less than indignation and profound pain. First, therefore, 
 
II. 1. b— Ch. vi., vii. 123 
 
 SO had I to inherit moons of wretchedness, 
 
 nights of weariness have been apportioned to me. 
 If I lie down, then I say: "when shall I arise?" 
 and the evening is made long, 
 
 I am full of restlessness until morning; 
 5 my body rottenness covereth and earth-crust, 
 my skin waxeth rigid and runneth again. 
 
 a melanclioly glance at this misery of man generally and particularly of him- 
 self, vv. 1 — 5 : but this of itself issues in the agonising prayer that God may 
 take pity on his life before it is lost beyond recovery, vv. 6 — 10. However, 
 again, this hope has but to be clearly conceived by the hopelessly lost sufferer 
 to immediately vanish from his gaze and give place to absolute despair, yea, 
 to indignation ; to what end are prayers and tears ? if he is in any case already 
 lost, he will put no restraint upon himself but give free course to the most open 
 speech against God, desiring death instead of such unendurable, endless sufter- 
 ings of a weak harmless man, and only demanding a moment's rest beforehand ! 
 vv. 11, 12—16; but even if he had been guilty of some inadvertences with 
 regard to God as the strict Watcher of men, how weak after all is man and 
 particularly Job as compared with God, that he should not rather expect in- 
 dulgence from Him, before it is too late, as unhappily in this instance, by cer- 
 tain death, vv. 17 — 21. Thus this soliloquy, which is most agitated in the se- 
 cond member of it, dies away at last once more in heavy sighs and profound 
 pain, without any other hope than dark death : no other goal is gained by the 
 despair which always increases by its utterance. But precisely in the middle 
 of the long speech the thought takes a sudden turn : accordingly the sudden, 
 spasmodic exclamation, ver. 11, outside the series of the four strophes, each of 
 which has five verses. And this sudden, violent change into the manner of the 
 first speech of extreme boldness introduces into the contention something which is 
 not less new than pregnant with consequences in the comparison of human sin 
 with God's forgiveness ; a point which cannot be at once fully worked out, simply 
 because it is here too new, but is subsequently taken up again, x. 2 sq. That 
 is, when the matter is more closely considered, there are in general really but 
 two fundamentally different reflections with which an unfortunate sufferer can 
 occupy himself, either so as to raise himself above his calamities, if he discerns 
 properly the consolation and encouragement which they contain, or so as to 
 sink into despair, if he discerns merely their dark side. These reflections are, 
 first, on the earthly, temporal consideration of the brevity and wearisomeness of 
 human life and the powerlessness of man, and, secondly, the divine consideration 
 of the impossibility that a man can be quite pure in relation to God and of 
 the necessary love of the Creator for the creature notwithstanding. The first 
 reflection still prevails here, as that which is most natural, as it was at first, 
 ch. iii., without the mixture of any other: the second gradually plays a more 
 important part as the whole contention growingly gathers around the question 
 
124 ir. 1. b.— Ch. vi., vii. 
 
 More fleeting than the weaver's shuttle is my life, 
 
 and is spent without hope. 
 remember, a breath is my life, 
 
 never again will mine eye see prosperity; 
 the eye of my friend will not behold me, 
 
 Thine eyes seek me — in vain! 
 gone is the cloud and vanished, 
 
 so he that went down into the underworld cometh not up, 
 10 returneth not any more to his house, 
 
 and not any more doth his place know him. — 
 
 So then neither will / refrain my mouth, 
 will speak in the anguish of my spirit, 
 complain in the grief of my soul! 
 
 of Job's guilt or innocence ; here for the first time it occurs almost incidentally, 
 by way of additional remark, but quite differently x. 2 sq. — (1) A calm descrip- 
 tion both of human hardship and toil in general and in particular of the con- 
 stant grievous restlessness lasting through the whole night, ver. 4, of the body 
 as covered which boils, ver. 5 ; hence (2) a description of the end of this hope- 
 less life, which is so certain and sure to come, if not immediately, ver. 6, comp. 
 ix. 25, which last thought, surely, most naturally starts the mournful prayer to 
 God, to remember the brevity of his life before it is too late, vv. 7 — 10. The 
 description of the restlessness, ver. 4, is graphic : as early as the evening, on 
 lying down, he cannot get the morning to come early enough, all his wishing 
 for it is in vain ! to the sleepless, restless sufferer the evening draws itself out 
 to a terrible length, yea, the whole night is spent in the most agitated rest- 
 lessness. His skin, ver. 5, is completely covered with putrefying boils, and is 
 nevertheless at the same time rigid and hard, like an earthen crust (comp. 1^^^^. 
 
 to be hard, dry, with VM clod, >fV , ,,. ^y hard earth, it being, as the second 
 
 member explains, sometimes rigid (»Ji as in the Arab, and Eth.) and sometimes 
 running again when the old boils gather: comp. Tod's Rajasthan tom. II. p. 327. 
 In the representation of the hopelessness of a return from the Underworld the 
 most touching feature is ver. 8, that then neither the eye of any man now be- 
 holding him would see him again, nor would even God Himself, if He would, as 
 Job continues firmly to believe, at some future time (alas, too late !) judge his 
 cause and on that account seek for him, seek for him among the living other 
 than in vain; hence the language also ver. 8 5 is particularly agitated, comp, 
 ver. 21 d. — (3) As the uselessness of the prayer to God is brought home all 
 the more painfully to the sufferer by precisely this expression of it, his despair, 
 which has become complete, now grows vehement and bursts all restraints. 
 If there is no deliverance to be hoped for from God, the sufferer also on his part 
 
II. 1. b.— Ch. vi., vü. 125 
 
 Am I a sea, or a sea-mouster, 
 
 that Thou settest over me a watch; 
 if I think, 'my bed shall comfort me, 
 
 my couch shall lighten my complaint', 
 then also Thou scarest me with dreams, 
 
 terrifiest me by visions? 
 15 No, strangling my soul chooseth, 
 
 death rather than these bones; 
 I despise them: I will not live always! 
 
 cease from me, for a breath are my days! — 
 
 What is man, that Thou magnifiest him, 
 
 that Thou settest upon him Thy heart 
 and visitest him every morning, 
 
 every moment triest him! 
 
 (d5 comp, my notes on Ps. lii. 7) will boldly and unrestrainedly let loose the 
 dark thoughts which intensify his trouble; that which is contradictory and tor- 
 menting in the thought of God shall be fearlessly uttered! ver. 11. To judge 
 from the incessant, violent pains which prostrate Job, it must be supposed that 
 he is something in the highest degree dangerous, which cannot be sufficiently 
 kept down or closely enough watched, something to which not a moment's rest 
 may be granted, if it shall not do immense injury on getting free. But is he 
 then really such a creature, a sea, or a living monster of the sea, that he is 
 so keenly and violently plagued by God and as it were guarded (comp. xiii. 27), 
 yea, does not even find rest in sleep, — he who is so absolutely weak and harm- 
 less? vv. 12 — 14. No, rather than continue to carry about longer this wretched 
 skeleton, this body which has been reduced to bones (comp. xix. 20), he will 
 seek strangling or death in any form; this body he despises (ix. 21), does not 
 at all desire to live always, as he has already lived too long; therefore at last 
 the wild demand, which he has in vain resisted, escapes him, that God may at 
 least now grant him a moment's rest, as in any case his life is already forfeited 
 and he has no desire to retain it! vv. 15, 16 (comp, with ver. 16 6 ver. 19, 
 ix. 34; X. 20). — (4) After such a storm the speech at last, vv. 17 — 21, again 
 stoops to somewhat calmer reflections, as if in justification of such wild despair. 
 Reference to the hidden cause of his calamities — guilt, which had hitherto been 
 passed over unnoticed by Job, is introduced for the first time, as it was the 
 possible dangerousness of a weak man which was just spoken of. The com- 
 parison of the possibility of guilt in some form, of the divine goodness and the 
 vast burden of his calamities, conducts him to the following reflection : It may 
 be necessary that God should punish man on account of error, but if this is to 
 hold so rigorously that every smallest mistake is immediately most rigidly 
 
126 II 2. a.— Cu. viii. 
 
 when at length wilt Thou look away from me, 
 let me alone, till I take breath? 
 20 If I sinned in what I do unto Thee, Thou "Watcher of men, 
 wherefore didst Thou make me as a butt for Thee, 
 so that I am become a burden to myself? 
 and wherefore dost Thou not forgive my sin, 
 
 dost Thou not overlook my guilt? 
 for — now I will lay me in the dust, 
 
 Thou wilt seek me — and I am no more! 
 
 punished by the God who always torments with his severe inspection, surely, 
 man seems neither sufficiently strong and armed against error, nor sufficiently 
 dangerous, to be always treated with such severity and suspicion, vv. 17, 18; 
 and how long will God not look away from Job in particular, fix his severe 
 eye of punishment upon him, leave him not a moment's rest ? {until he sioallovj 
 his spittle, i.e., recover his breath, ix. 18, de Sacy's Chrest. Arab. tom. III. 
 p. 259, 2nd ed.), ver. 19. But suppose Job had sinned in his treatment of 
 God and demeanour towards Him (5 s na is the accusative to ''^Xü^)J the 
 possibility of which he grants, it being also so easy to be caught in a fault by 
 the strict, constant Watcher over men : but in that case why did God let go 
 all his arrows (vi. 4) at him, as a wanton hunter at an object, or a hated point 
 
 of attack 2?;£a, comp. xvi. 12 and JL}»t> Ham. p. 60, ver. 2) lying in his path, 
 
 setting him up as it were for a butt even, and heaping upon him so many 
 calamities that he is unable to bear himself; and why does He not rather 
 forgive instead of inflicting such terrible punishments which are out of propor- 
 tion to his strength, before it is too late, as alas it now appears to be, since 
 Job sees nothing before him but the grave! vv. 20, 21. 
 
 2. BILD AD AND JOB. 
 a. BILDAD. CH. VIII. 
 
 In the last part of the previous speech Job had almost 
 charged God directly with injustice, at least in his own 
 matter. But thereby he had put into the hands of the 
 friends a fresh and dangerous argument against himself, 
 which Bildad at once uses, since it appears shocking, and, 
 indeed, blasphemous, to suppose that God can be unjust. This 
 is Bildad's only new thought. God cannot do injustice, 
 nor accordingly, if human calamities are the divine punish- 
 ments of the special sins of the sufferer, as Bildad believes. 
 
II. 2. a.— Ch. viii. 127 
 
 ever punish a man who is wholly innocent: let Job, therefore, 
 take heed in time, that being purified again he may by the 
 divine mercy be delivered, before certain destruction befall him 
 like all those fools who imagine they can flourish without the 
 divine grace as the sap and energy of life. This is Bildad's 
 meaning here, which he, although already speaking more plainly 
 than Eliphaz, presents as yet only in a considerate manner 
 and hoping the best for Job, particularly guarding against the 
 conclusion that he and his friends wished in any way ill to 
 Job and considered themselves as his enemies. And since from 
 want of personal experience he must borrow the best con- 
 firmations of his speech from ancient pithy proverbs, he first 
 presents his own view as briefly as may be, vv. 2 — 7, but then 
 finds in the wise sayings of hoar antiquity the proof of his 
 principal truth, that every wicked man is on the road to his 
 certain sudden ruin, vv. 8 — 19, and returns in a brief con- 
 clusion to his view of the present case and the hope of Job, 
 vv. 20—22. The solemn, serious, weighty voice of antiquity, 
 which is explained in the second part, is therefore in reality 
 the main portion of this speech; and whilst Bildad hardly as 
 yet ventures to speak more severely to Job, there lies con- 
 cealed in this primitive pithy utterance of wisdom much se- 
 rious and stern admonition for Job no less than others, which 
 he has to discover and apply; moreover, in respect of its more 
 artistic, florid and yet compressed language, this passage is 
 the climax of the whole speech. 
 
 viii. 1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said : 
 
 How long wilt thou speak such things, 
 
 are a mighty wind the words of thy mouth? — 
 
 1. vv. 2 — 7. After a brief expression of astonishment at such improper, 
 passionate speeches, ver. 2 (like a violent tvind, very stormy it is true, yet 
 empty as aU winds), Bildad immediately asserts, ver. 3, the main truth which 
 he supposes Job liad denied, and shows its application to Job. if God does 
 
128 II- 2. a.— Ch. viii. 
 
 Will God then pervert justice? 
 
 ■will the Almighty pervert righteousness? 
 If thy sons sinned against Him, 
 
 He handed them over to their own guilt. 
 5 But if thou wilt seek unto God 
 
 and unto the Almighty make entreaty; 
 if thou art spotless and upright — 
 
 surely then will He always watch over thee, 
 and give peace to thy pasture of righteousness; 
 so that what thou wast formerly will be a small thing, 
 
 and what thou wilt be later, an exceedingly great thing. 
 
 2. 
 
 For ask now of the former generation, 
 
 and attend to the mind of its fathers! 
 — since of yesterday are we and without wisdom, 
 a shadow surely are our days upon the earth — 
 10 certainly, they will teach thee, tell thee, 
 
 bringing forth words from their heart : 
 
 not make crooked the right, but the divine righteousness, as is presupposed, chas- 
 tises every man according to the measure of his own sins, the destruction of 
 Job's sons, which has already been carried out, shows just as clearly that they 
 had committed a grievous mortal sin as the present calamities of Job that 
 neither is he wholly pure and can be saved only by humble repentance; and 
 Job will do well to take warning from the example of his sons. Bildad ex- 
 presses this only in a considerate and hopeful tone : if, as thou, surely, wilt not 
 deny, thy sons sinned against Him, then He gave them up, as justice itself required, 
 into the po^ver of their guilt and puvAshmcnt, and let everyone see therein an 
 example, particularly whoever is near destnictiou like Job ; if thou, on the con- 
 trary, turnest to God, He will, supposing thou art pure (which is at present hardly 
 the case) watch over thee, that no calamity (again) befall thee, and no more 
 show Himself hostile to thy house, comp. v. 17 — 24, so that even thy pros- 
 perous past will appear as a small thing when compared with the much more 
 prosperous future: as also actually happens at last, xlii. 12, though by quite 
 another course of events than Bildad here anticipates. The masc. "^^p.l is, ace. 
 § 174 c, construed with the fem. n^ins. 
 
 2. Vv. 8 — 19. Bildad first formally introduces the wise sayings of others, 
 vv. 8 — 10: they contain the wisdom, based upon deeper experience, of the 
 fathers of the former generation, of the earliest patriarchs, who on account of 
 the greater length of their lives alone might be able much more surely to per- 
 ceive the laws of life, whilst the short-lived moderns are people of yesterday 
 
IL 2. a.— Ch. viii. 129 
 
 "Groweth then the papyrus aloft without bog, 
 
 shooteth-up Nile-grass without water? 
 it is yet there in its freshness, not yet to be cut off — 
 
 and nevertheless it withereth before any grass: 
 so is the path of all that forget God, 
 
 the hope of the profane perisheth. — 
 He, whose inward strength snappeth asunder, 
 
 whose confidence is a spider's house : 
 15 he leaneth upon his house — and yet standeth not, 
 
 layeth hold on it — and yet endureth not. 
 Fresh is he in spite of the sun, 
 
 over his garden run his shoots; 
 
 (Vian ace. § 296 <Z) and of little wisdom; hence what is based upon profound 
 insight, what flows also from the rich eloquence of inward conviction and love, 
 ver. 10 (bringing forth from their heart, not from an empty heart by mere skill in 
 speech, as xi. 2; xv. 3; xviii. 2, comp. Prov. i. 23). "p.", ver. 8, is that which is 
 within, the hidden basis and reason, properly that which has to be investigated, 
 in this case therefore the deeper mind, the thought, ace. xi. 7 ; xxxviii. 16, 
 npna Ps. xcv. 4. The principal and most pregnant of these ancient utterances 
 itself, vv. 11 — 19, conveys the simple thought, that man at once perishes when 
 the true element of life, the one living principle of the divine grace, is with- 
 held from him after the measure of his sin has been filled up, although he may 
 be externally very powerful and apparently protected, which only makes his 
 fall the greater and more terrible. But this is worked out in an extremely 
 florid manner. The figure of a luxuriant, splendidly verdant plant predominates : 
 as soon as water is withheld from it as its element of life, it suddenly and 
 hopelessly withers away, just while it is flourishing in full vigour. The com- 
 mencement is made with this figure, the most luxuriant plants, those grow- 
 ing in marshes, being taken as examples, vv. 11 — 13; after the baselessness 
 of the ungodly and all his means has been described in distinct figures, vv. 14, 
 15, the first figure is returned to with emphasis, only that this time it is rather 
 a luxuriant garden-plant that serves as an example, the figure also insensibly 
 passing into the thing illustrated, neither being again quite separated, vv. 16 — 19. 
 The division in the whole delineation takes place before ver. 16. First, ver. 11, we 
 are carried by a bold question at once into the very centre of both the figure 
 and the matter: do then papyrus and other rapidly growing Nile-weeds shoot 
 up without water (and man without the divine grace)? let it not be deceived: 
 while it is still in its freshness, shall by no means be yet cut down as ripe, 
 it withereth (if the water is withdrawn from it) even more rapidly than any 
 grass, even the poorest growing in the most unfavourable and driest places : 
 likewise those who forget God suddenly perish hopelessly, that fool who imagines, 
 
 9 
 
J30 ^I- 2- a.— Ch. viii. 
 
 firmly about the hill his roots are wrapped, 
 
 stones he parteth from one another: 
 if He destroy him from his place, 
 
 it disowneth him "I never saw thee!" 
 behold, that is the joy of his way, 
 
 yet from the dust shoot forth others!" 
 
 3. 
 
 20 Behold, God despiseth not blameless men, 
 
 and holdeth not firmly the hand of the evil-doer. 
 He will yet fill with laughter thy mouth, 
 thy lips with loud rejoicing, 
 
 indeed, that he has strength and courage enough, but is forsaken of all inner 
 strength ('Os), precisely in danger, when he must put his baseless and empty 
 inward character to the test, so that it is with him as if the rotten web of his 
 imagination snapped asunder at the slightest touch like a spider's house, instead 
 of sustaining him when he will hold by it to keep from sinking. Just as a 
 green shrub, which spreads over the garden, firmly entwining itself even in 
 the stoney ground and proudly dominating it, before the sun with its burning 
 heat, that is, in spite of it, he may for a time defiantly hold out, but then 
 when he is most defiant, there is inwardly the greatest danger, and as soon as 
 he (who, is left undetermined, in the end God, for vv. 18, 19 the thing itself, 
 more without figure, comes to the front) has withdrawn from him the water as 
 his element of life, he falls, without even being commiserated by the home 
 which he had honoured with his splendour, disowned and abandoned by his 
 own place, if he desired to rely upon it (comp. vv. 14, 15, to which the dis- 
 course recurs), ver. 18 &, comp. vii. 10; Ps. ciii. 16; that is the joy of his way, 
 thus changed into profoundest wretchedness! Yet from the dust of a ruined 
 sinner others spring forth, like shoot? from a tree destroyed by storm or drought: 
 let therefore every man of a later time take good heed that he is not like the 
 sinners of earlier days who are here described, as if shooting forth from their 
 ruins ! which Job may attend to ; although Bildad prefers to show, 
 
 3. vv. 20 — 22, the application with some tender consideration. Therefore 
 God does not despise the afflicted innocent man (neither thee, if thou prayest 
 to Him when thus afflicted, vv. 5, 6), just as on the other hand He does not 
 preserve the wicked (nor thee, if thou resolvest to be of their number). But 
 I hope He will yet so bless thee that thy enemies (to whom we do not belong) 
 will behold with shame thy prosperity : nevertheless, it must once more be 
 repeated with earnestness, the house of the wicked is as good as annihilated 
 for ever, comp. xi. 20. As to ""y, ver. 21, see the note on i. 18. ^T^i '^^^- 14, 
 ace. § 162 o; but if the meaning mentioned in Ewald-Dukes' Beiträge I. 89, 
 should be further substantiated, the clause he whose best strength are shimmer- 
 
II. 2. b— Ch. ix., X. 131 
 
 with shame will thine enemies be covered; 
 yet the tent of the wicked — it is gone! 
 
 threads (gossamer-threads) would still better suit the structure of tlie verse-mem- 
 bers ; modern Arabs call them devil's webs {Zeitschrift der Deutsch. Morgenl. 
 Gesellsch., 1851, p. 98), and the word might seem to be connected with Y"p 
 Jäxä summer. With regard to r^'3, ver. 17, see § 217 g: ~7n is then used in 
 this construction with "3 in its primary meaning of to divide and separate quite 
 in the local sense. 
 
 b. JOB. CH. IX., X. 
 
 In vain, therefore, has Job endeavoured to bring the friends 
 to his own way of thinking, in vain has he refused to enter 
 into their manner of regarding his calaniities. They proceed 
 siniply in their own way with greater persistency, just as if 
 he had not made this endeavour at all. He is unable, there- 
 fore, longer wholly to hold back, as he has been repeatedly 
 hard pressed to deal with the meaning of the words of the 
 friends: however, he is still disinclined directly to attack his 
 opponents, the previous shrinking from this step still remaining 
 too powerful. Accordingly, he now goes only so far as to take 
 up the general fundamental thoughts of his opponents for the 
 first time as it were by their extreme points, to take out the 
 truth in their words which he cannot contradict, in order to 
 try how it suits his case. This he does at first without any 
 reference to the bad inferences and imputations of his op- 
 ponents, and still without the feeling that he must defend his 
 innocence before men; in fact, without retaliating upon them 
 by similar recriminations and provoking them by express di- 
 rect address and controversy, still preserving more the form 
 of an audible soliloquy. It is, moreover, very appropriate that 
 in doing this he now takes into consideration the speech of 
 Eliphaz alone, partly because he must esteem him much more 
 highly as the older and wiser opponent, partly in order to 
 show that he has from the beginning marked and not for- 
 gotten any of the words of the opponents, as may have seemed 
 
 9* 
 
132 II- 2- b— Ch, ix., X. 
 
 to be the case. As he thus for the first time, as if compelled 
 to do it, ventures the perilous attempt to enter more par- 
 ticularly into the meaning of his opponents' words and to come 
 down as far as he can from the heights of the matter to their 
 mode of thinking, he must naturally grant what was correct 
 in their words — the truth of the divine omnipotence and of 
 human weakness before God, as indeed he himself knew this 
 as well and can probably describe it better and more eloquently 
 than the friends. But that bald, cold way of regarding this 
 antithesis of divine omnipotence and human weakness, which 
 the friends had broached, admits, in fact, of exactly the op- 
 posite inference, namely, that God precisely as the Almighty 
 One cannot afflict a weak man to the very uttermost, while 
 the man is unable in any effective way to resist. This terrible 
 experience is just now made by Job, as he believes, since his 
 pains and calamities are only increased by complaint and 
 rebellion at his undeserved and inexplicable misery, and God 
 seems to correct and humble him the more severely, yea, to 
 threaten him with the terror of certain death, in proportion 
 as he threatens to grow more rebellious against the unjust 
 inflictions. So that, according to a low human way of reason- 
 ing, he ought, if he will not further increase the burden of 
 his sufferings, instead of rebelling patiently to expose himself 
 to every humiliation, although he is convinced of his innocence 
 (and of the divine injustice). As, therefore, he experiences 
 most plainly and terribly in his own person the divine omni- 
 potence, which is quite well known to him, precisely in this 
 aspect of it and in this sense of it with which his opponents 
 are not acquainted, he is compelled, instead of fleeing with de- 
 light to the thought of the divine omnipotence and human 
 weakness, rather to find in it from the first the deepest pain 
 and bitterest mockery. That which ought to be his help and 
 comfort, becomes the most alarming idea just when he is com- 
 pelled to consider it; and without intending it, he flings back 
 with scorn and mockery the wisdom which is not simply use- 
 
II. 2. b.— Ch. ix., X. 133 
 
 less in his case but has been experienced in his own terrible 
 pain : the bitter scorn lies in the situation itself.— But if, from 
 this standpoint, to which his opponents had conducted him, on 
 remembering the bad consequences of further resistance and 
 provocation of the divine wrath, Job ought thereby to be per- 
 suaded to bear in simple, silent, unthinking patience his un- 
 avoidable, mysterious sufferings, on the other hand, he is com- 
 pelled by the greater strength of his good conscience again 
 boldly, in spite of all evil consequences, to rise to free un- 
 sparing language regarding that which is not to be understood 
 and is contradictory in God. Scarcely has he, under compul- 
 sion from without, clearly realised to himself the weakness of 
 even the innocent in a contention with God, scarcely has he 
 looked into the inference, that he would do better to give heed 
 to human fear and hold his peace, when immediately, starting 
 back from the inference and obeying simply the voice of his 
 conscience, he prepares with all the greater vehemence for the 
 most reckless speech against God, and forgetting all outward 
 things sinks back into mad despair. Whilst in the beginning 
 he seemed to tremble at the thought of speaking freely to God 
 (but simply led by his opponents, for a moment giving way 
 to lower considerations, and restraining the mightier voice of 
 his integrity), at the end, when it has become impossible to 
 restrain the pure voice within, he returns with all the more 
 vehemence to it; and whilst at first, without evil intention, he 
 strikes down the whole view of his opponents with a sword 
 torn from them, in biting and yet only righteous and mourn- 
 ful scorn, without openly attacking them, he soon marches as 
 conqueror in his own territory with none to disturb him. Ac- 
 cordingly this speech, which proceeds stormily in tremendous 
 antitheses, is simply contemplative and theoretic, and yet deals 
 hard blows at the opponents whom it does not even once mention, 
 falls into three parts, the second of which acts as a mediator 
 between the other two, which would otherwise be irreconcilable : 
 (1) the scornful admission of the divine omnipotence, as Job 
 
134 "• 2. b Ch. ix., X. 
 
 had long been acquainted with it and as he describes it in 
 rivalry with his opponents, but also as he experiences it in 
 its terrors precisely for a sufferer, ix. 2 — 20 ; (2) the rebellion 
 of the good conscience against the terror of this omnipotence 
 and the reasons for unrestrained speech against God, ix. 21 — 
 X. 2 ; (3) this speech itself, x. 2—22. 
 
 ix. 1 And Job answered and said : 
 
 1. 
 Verily, I know that it is so! 
 
 and how should man be just before God? 
 if he desired to contend with Him, 
 
 he would not answer Him one of a thousand! 
 
 1. ix. 2 — 20. After the absolute power of God in comparison witli tliat 
 of men has been conceded at once in a brief, scornful word, vv. 2, 3, Job 
 describes that power further in emphatic and eloquent terms, as if in rivalry 
 with his opponents, and in such a way that gives most prominence to that side 
 of it which appears in the outward world, vv. 4 — 10. But as Job himself con- 
 ceives the nature of this omnipotence as it is brought to bear upon weak man, 
 God appears simply as a Being who when once He becomes angry can ra- 
 pidly and irresistibly subdue and destroy even the strongest who may oppose 
 Him. So that much less can Job, the most miserable of men, although suffer- 
 ing from no fault of his own, have any desire to resist Him who, when made 
 angry at his resistance, has the power, as supreme lord and judge, to torment 
 him most terribly, yea, by His terrors to change his just cause into an ap- 
 parently unjust one! vv. 11 — 20. Thus with an apparently calm commence- 
 ment, the speech rises at the end to the wildest commotion and most painful 
 agitation, in proportion as the reference to his own dismal history finds free 
 course. — (1) Vv. 2, 3 : that therefore is the decisive point, that God is omni- 
 potent? well, doubtless (Ü3ttx, scornfully, like nimirum, xii. 2) I know that my- 
 self! and how could weak man, incapable of resistance, get justice in a contest 
 with the omnipotent God? Truly, in that matter Eliphaz has seen the truth, 
 iv. 17! If even man really desired to contend with God (but the desire would 
 probably vanish on reflection ! at all events Job is not now clearly conscious 
 of it, but comp. xiii. 3), he would nevertheless be unable to answer one of the 
 thousand questions with which the infinitely wise and powerful God would over- 
 whelm him, in case therefore he should be right, would still not be able to 
 prove and maintain his cause ! The first expectation turns out in the end to be 
 really justified, xxxviii. 1 sq., only it has no such bad ending as he now fears. — 
 (2) Vv. 4 — 10. The elaborate description of the omnipotence of God begins 
 
II, 2. b— Cu. ix., X. 135 
 
 Wise of heart is He and mighty in strength: 
 
 who hath defied Him and escaped whole ? 
 5 He who removeth mountains — they know not 
 
 that He overturneth them in his wrath, 
 He who startleth the earth from her place, 
 
 so that her pillars are shaken; 
 He who commandeth the sun — it riseth not, 
 
 around the stars putteth a seal, 
 Who boweth the heavens quite alone, 
 
 and walketh over the heights of the sea; 
 
 with the general remark, that it is accompanied by the highest wisdom and skill, 
 so that hitherto no one has provoked God without suffering for it, ver. 4 ; but 
 then the description remains at first quite unexpectedly by the consideration 
 simply of the external world, vv. 5 — 10, as if Job were so absorbed in this 
 representation of the Infinite One that he forgot for the time all human affairs 
 and also himself and his sufferings : whilst on other occasions he always speaks 
 primarily only of himself and of the relation of all human affairs to God. But 
 undoubtedly this representation of the omnipotence of God would not have been 
 thus confined to the universe without reference to man, nor have been so mar- 
 vellously calm, eloquent, and extensive, if it had not at the same time been 
 spoken in rivalry with Eliphaz, v. 9 sq. Hence this passage, in which Job 
 shows that he is in no respect inferior to Eliphaz as regards knowledge and 
 the ability to speak on divine things, forms also a small distinct section of seven 
 verses, closing intentionally ver. 10 as Eliphaz began v. 9. At the same time, 
 it is quite in harmony with Job's present state of feeling and his reflections, 
 that of all the wonders of the universe he selects rather the shocking and 
 terrible ones which reveal the divine wrath, and only quite at the end briefly 
 refers to the others. First, the terror of the earth, the sinking of entire mountains 
 in a moment {they know not = unawares) and the earthquake vv. 5, 6 ; then 
 the terror of the heavens, eclipse of the sun and tempests, vv. 7, 8; lastly, of 
 a more general nature, the wonders of the stars and the innumerable host of 
 other wonders, vv. 9, 10. This appears to be the most correct way of regarding 
 the details, naa properly to stretch along, to bow down, ver. 8, is accordingly, 
 as Ps. xviii. 8 — 15, to be understood of the apparent bowing, stooping, of the 
 heavens in a heavy tempest; after He alone has let down the immense weight 
 of heavy clouds from their elevation. He marches as the Mighty One, wrapped 
 in the clouds, over the heights, calming or rousing the billows of the sea which is 
 agitated from beneath ; Am. iv. 13 ; Mic. i. 3 describe similarly Jahve's march in 
 the heaving tempest hanging over the heights of the earth. If "Ü3 were taken in 
 the sense of to stretch out, expand, ace. "Isa." xl. 22, it is true that the word "alone" 
 would suit that meaning very well: we should then see Him stretch out alone the 
 great, wide tent of heaven. But the figure of stretching out would have to be 
 
136 II. 2. b.-CH. ix., X. 
 
 who created the Bear, Orion and Pleiades, 
 with the chambers of the south; 
 10 who createth great things, wholly unsearchable, 
 wonderful things, not to be numbered! 
 
 Lo He goeth by me — I see Him not, 
 
 presseth through — and I observe Him not! 
 
 lo He seizeth — who will stay Him? 
 
 who will say unto Him, "what doest Thou?" 
 
 Crod stayeth not his wrath, 
 
 under Him stooped Eahab's helpers! — 
 How then should 1 answer Him, 
 
 choose my words against Him! 
 
 more definitely indicated, and the second member is too unfavourable to that 
 meaning. Ver. 9 the figure of a tempest might be carried still further, if TWS 
 were understood not of making, properly to thicken, condense, but of darkening 
 (which is also really a thickening), comp. ntäS and ^ciw£ : yet in that case it 
 
 would be used with ?y, as xv. 27, and the chambers of the south, containing 
 the hidden constellations of the southern heavens, are already covered and do 
 not require to have this done ; moreover, it is rather to be expected that some- 
 thing of a more general nature concerning the divine omnipotence should follow 
 here, preparatory to the very similar close in view, ver. 10. As regards the 
 Great Bear, Orion and Pleiades, see below on xxxviii. 31, 32. — But from this 
 almost too discursive description the speech now returns (3), with the greater haste, 
 in increasing agitation and most rapid turns of thought (hence in five small 
 strophes of two verses each), to its main object, and at first, vv. 11, 12, passes 
 by the easiest transition from the description of the universe to that of man, 
 indeed, of the speaker himself, in liis relation to this omnipotence. As with 
 fear everyone in distress that knows Him thus must every moment expect and 
 bear all things from his omnipotence ; and as if Job felt Him as in the wind 
 coming upon and passing through him, invisibly and yet through dread and 
 terror sensibly enough, he exclaims, making himself an example of all unhappy 
 sufferers, with a terrified voice: there! He passeth by me and I see Him not! 
 yea, more than this, thus coming up he can seize a poor creature and cause 
 his quick death (e.<j. by sudden terror, by lightning, by a rapidly fatal disease), 
 no one being able to call Him to account. In brief, therefore, ver. 13, God 
 carries out with a strong hand what he has once in anger determined upon. 
 He under whose mighty hand the most powerful defiant creatures submitted in 
 former times, discovering too late the vanity of resistance. It follows from 
 this connexion that 3'ni "'nty are not merely helpers in general, but notorious 
 ones from experience and story ; and since Kahab is everywhere a mythological 
 
II. 2. b.— Ch. ix., X. ;137 
 
 15 I -vnrho, if I were right, I should not answer, 
 no, to my opponent I should supplicate, 
 if I called and He answered, 
 
 I should not believe that He heard my voice: 
 
 He who in the storm would set upon me, 
 
 increase my wounds without cause, 
 would not suifer me to take breath, 
 
 but fill me with bitterness! 
 
 Is the matter of the strength of the mighty? — "behold!" 
 or is it of justice? — "who will summon Me?" 
 20 if I am right, my mouth will condemn me! 
 am I blameless — He maketh me crooked! 
 
 name of a sea-monster (even when it is used of Egypt), we must suppose an 
 allusion to an ancient tradition, according to which a monster, which had once 
 with all its allies been overcome by God, was by way of example fastened as a 
 constellation in the heavens, where it now shines for ever proclaiming to the 
 world its vain resistance of God; the LXX have here and xxvi. 12 quite cor- 
 rectly XY)Ta Tti \JTt' oupavdv; K'^to;, npiari?, Balena, Bellua, Pistrix, are con- 
 stellations (see Eichhorn's BihUoth. der Bill. Lit., VII. 593). Similar things were 
 told of several constellations, of Orion also ; and as just before, ver. 9, other 
 constellations were mentioned, it was natural to refer here to something of the 
 kind. — If therefore (the speech continues, ver. 14, with increasing haste ad- 
 vancing to its chief object) not even the superhuman, mightest beings could 
 withstand Him, how much less shall / (supposing even it should come to a 
 judicial conflict between us as regards my guilt or innocence) be able in judg- 
 ment to reply to Him, carefully and anxiously selecting (because in great danger 
 the choice is the more difficult) my words against Him! I, vv. 15, 16, the 
 weakest of mortals, I, who if it came really to a trial, should after all from fear 
 not defend my undoubted right, but should supplicate to my own opponent (since 
 He is at the same time my Supreme Lord) that I might be spared any defence 
 of myself; even supposing the case that He answered to my call and came to 
 judgment, I should for fear scarcely believe that He really heard and answered^ 
 it! vv. 15, 16; against Him, vv. 17, 18, that infinitely powerful One of marvel- 
 lously unerring aim, who if I attempted to contradict Him would as invisible 
 in the storm (vv. 11, 12) charge upon me (snort upon, n"W comp. ?**»), so 
 that I should be compelled to tremble and feel new pains, although for no fault 
 of mine own ; He who would not suffer me to have a moment's rest, but would 
 heap upon me bitter experiences enough (such as I have already in sufficient 
 abundance)! And generally, finally, vv. 19, 20, since in Him the highest 
 Potentate and Judge meet in one person, how can even the most innocent meet 
 
138 n. 2. b — Ch. ix., X. 
 
 2. 
 Blameless am I! I will not know myself, 
 
 will despise my own life ! 
 it is all one! therefore I say: 
 
 the blameless and the wicked He destroyeth! 
 If a scourge slayeth unexpectedly, 
 
 He mocketh at the despair of the innocent; 
 the earth is given into the hand of the wicked, 
 
 the faces of their judges He veileth: 
 if not, — well then who is it? 
 
 Him? if the point is the possession of strength, in that case He cries, Behold! 
 I am here, what wilt thou do ? (comp, the equally short and abrupt '^.'^*$ v;here — ? 
 XV. 23) ; or of right, in that case he cries, who will summon Me, call me before 
 the tribunal? since surely He must be more powerful than I. Accordingly Job 
 foresees that if (which he does not doubt) he were in the right, still his own 
 intimidated, tied tongue would instead of defending him rather confuse and re- 
 present him as guilty, that though innocent he would still be perverted and put 
 in the wrong by Him! 
 
 2. ix. 21 — X. 2. But scarcely has this picture, that he would from terror 
 deny his innocence, presented itself clearly before his mind, than with indignation 
 he starts back from it and now before all things holds fast his integrity and 
 fearlessly maintains it even against God (whom he now plainly enough regards 
 as its opponent), looking beyond all the evil consequences of the free and 
 bold confession. The consciousness of integrity, even when it does not clearly) 
 feel God on its side, is still more powerful than all fear of the future, since 
 it is the most certain and the most immediate blessing: it has the strength 
 even to turn against Heaven, if it appears hostile. When from a low human 
 view of things, it ought to keep silence from fear of the wrath of God, it turns 
 precisely then all the more boldly and recklessly against him that will cast 
 doubt upon it, even were it Heaven itself, despising even the most evident mortal 
 peril. Thus in this case Job, who has, after brief reflection, fallen into the 
 most violent state of agitation and indignation, maintains, shrinking from no 
 peril were it even that of losing his life, his innocence and consequently the 
 injustice of God, which he believes he sees in the world also, as he here for 
 the first time throws out rapidly this terrible thought of the general perversion 
 of right upon the earth, vv. 21 — 24. Becoming somewhat calmer, he enumerates 
 to himself the reasons, borrowed from his own outward condition, which can 
 compel him, even according to a lower way of thinking, to unrestrained speak- 
 ing against God, vv. 25 — 28. Then as he is just about really to speak against 
 God the thought flashes upon him like lightning, that by such an outspoken 
 charge against God he would really be committing a grievous sin, but this hesita- 
 tion he rejects with still greater rapidity, because an attempt to obtain justice 
 
II. 2. b— Ch. ix., X. 139 
 
 25 And my days are fleeter than a runner, 
 
 they arc already fled, not haA-ing scon any good, 
 have glided away like ships of reed, 
 
 like the eagle which darteth upon prey. 
 If I think: "I will forget my complaint, 
 
 will let go my looks and seem bright!" 
 then I am horrified at all my pains, 
 
 — I know that Thou acquittest me not. 
 
 in the ordinary course would (according to what was said in the first part of 
 this speech) after all be fruitless, vv. 29 — 33. So that, therefore, regarded 
 from this moral aspect of it even, the reason which seemed previously to re- 
 commend to him fear and silence, becomes now on the contrary a reason for 
 reckless speaking (for what then has he left to lose? does not he who is al- 
 ready past hope do best to exercise as long as he lives the one act of a free 
 conscience, fearlessly to reveal one truth ?) ; and finally he desires, at last once 
 more as a man looking round him before he actually speaks against God, at 
 least meanwhile not to be overtaken by the punishment of the God who is 
 perhaps thereby suddenly made angry, not to be hindered by the divine terrors, 
 vv. 34 — X. 2 (as then in fact he is not hindered, and accordingly God does not 
 after all proceed so cruelly as he feared). So terribly does the whole meaning 
 of the first part of this speech become reversed in the second: and spasmodic 
 as is the very commencement, ver. 21, once more precisely in the middle, 
 ver. 29, this hindered stream rises in vain to a gentle outpouring, so that ver. 29 
 (like the verse above vii. 11) stands as a single disconnected verse between 
 two strophes of four verses each.— (1) Vv. 21—24. With the most vehement 
 fervour Job exclaims at the beginning in contrast with ver. 20: innocent am I! 
 this truth, this feeling, I will not let go, boldly I assert it regardless of my 
 life even ; it is all one, it is a matter of indifference, whether I live or die, the 
 innocent not less than the guilty He destroys, who is here not further named 
 from dread and also from wild despair; ver. 216 corresponds therefore to 
 ver. 22 a, and reversely. If this severe utterance appears too hard, Job proves 
 it, besides from his own example, also from the world around. First, ver. 23, 
 thereby, that a suddenly occurring public calamity, e.g., a pestilence, does not 
 spare even the innocent in the midst of their despair (~S>3, comp. vi. 14), but 
 mocks at their sufferings, which is at least as clear as what Job's opponents 
 said — that no outward calamities befall the innocent, v. 20 sq. Second, ver. 24, 
 by pointing to the extensive sway of a powerful sinner and of the judges of 
 the earth who are as if smitten with blindness by God Himself, examples of 
 which may be very general in certain times i, and the truth of %vhich none can 
 really deny. As this experience hurls to the ground the whole of the wisdom 
 
 Comp, my Commentary on Ps. xxi. 
 
140 II 2. b.- Ch. ix., X. 
 
 I, I wish to be guilty! 
 
 wherefore then do I weary myself in vain? 
 
 30 If I wash myself even in snow, 
 
 and cleansed with soap my hands, 
 yet Thou wouldst plunge me into the pit, 
 
 so that my clothes would make me loathsome. 
 For not a man is He like me, whom I could speak with, 
 
 that we should come together in judgment; 
 no daysman is between us, 
 
 who might lay his hand upon us both. — 
 
 of liis opponents, Job might pursue it still further to their disadvantage : but 
 now, as his purpose is rather to maintain his own innocence, he lets this ready 
 argument go again, closing rapidly, if not, as has just been said, if God docs 
 not do that, rocll then %cho is it? can it be denied that this puzzling, shocking 
 phenomenon must ultimately come from Him?— (2) Vv. 25 — 28. After such a 
 hasty, bold utterance regarding the great wrong which comes from God Him- 
 self, the speech becomes somewhat calmer, in the contemplation of his own 
 personal condition: only that this very thing also soon leads once more to the 
 same daring resolve to speak freely against God. Surely, my young life has 
 already hopelessly passed away, without my having seen happiness, flown as 
 rapidly as a ship which is seen most quickly passing by and soon disappearing, 
 or like an eagle which darts in a moment upon its prey, vv. 25, 26 C^?** is 
 undoubtedly a reed, out of which the lightest, quickest boats were made parti- 
 cularly for the Nile, see my note on Isa. xviii. 2 i {Prophets of the Old Testa- 
 ment Vol. II. p. 247) ; and it is really so absolutely useless to determine to 
 console myself with the future, since as often as I purpose to keep still, to 
 give up my complaint and wretched looks (B'3B in this sense of bad looks 
 1 Sam. i. 18, comp. ver. 6), I am immediately reduced to terror again by the 
 force of my pains, yea, to the terrible certainty of never finding mercy before 
 the omnipotent God, vv. 27, 28. — (3) But if I speak thus shall I not be guilty 
 of a sin? Away with such a scruple, for this reason amongst others, that pre- 
 cisely this reflection upon guilt or innocence must moreover make me wholly 
 hopeless ! I, precisely as an innocent man, should like to become guilty by 
 speaking freely against God, to make myself guilty, as it is considered, in the 
 defence of innocence ! (ver. 29 o) for what purpose then is the vain endeavour to 
 defend myself in the regular course, say, with cautious, humble words? If I most 
 
 * Upon the Euphrates and Tigris also boats made of woven bulrushes were 
 used, see Layard's Discoveries p. 552. The word itself, it is true, is still ob- 
 scure as to its origin, like the corresponding jj^LjI. 
 
II. 2. b— Ch. ix., x. 141 
 
 Let Him remove His rod from me, 
 and let not His fear terrify me! 
 35 then will I speak, not fearing Him! 
 
 for of such things I am wholly unconscious. 
 X. 1 My soul is weary of life : 
 
 I leave my complaint free course, 
 speak in the trouble of my soul! 
 sav unto God : 
 
 plainly set forth my innocence, washed myself perfectly clean from all charges 
 (ver. 30, comp. Isa. i. 18, 19; xliii. 26), He would nevertheless (precisely in 
 consequence of His omnipotence) so confound and terrify me again that instead 
 of appearing clean I should seem to myself and others the most filthy, to be 
 covered to loathing with apparent spots and sins, as if He had plunged me 
 into such a foul pit that my clothes, my impure exterior, made me an object of 
 universal loathing, vv. 30, 31 (see the contrary xiix. 14, and comp. vv. 30, 31 
 with ver. 20), because He is at the same time the supreme lord and umpire, 
 and the struggle would be so unequal that I could not after all answer his 
 reproaches and incriminations, although innocent of them, could not therefore 
 purify myself from black spots ; as is here, vv. 32, 33, briefly repeated from 
 vv. 2 — 20, but with quite another purpose. — (4) Prepared on such grounds for 
 free, reckless speaking against God, but at the same time still fearing in the 
 terrible commencement or in the course of such speaking either an unendurable 
 intensification of his sufferings, or even a sudden shock of terror, a sudden 
 overwhelmingly alarming appearance from God on account of fresh provocation 
 to wrath (as in reality growing, unmanageable despair easily increases simply 
 the terror and misery), he still desires at first rest, at least during his speech, 
 and desires this with a vehemence proportioned to his sense of the injustice of 
 the treatment which he, the weak, innocent mortal suflFers from Omnipotence 
 (and as a fact he afterwards soon overcomes the feeling of terror, finding God 
 more gentle than he feared). Accordingly with fresh emphasis, and yet con- 
 nected with vv. 32, 33, Let Him remove from me His rod, the burden of His 
 pains, and let not His terror, i.e., a terrible manifestation of Himself, confound 
 me! (a demand which recurs in a milder form in the same connexion xiii. 21), 
 then I will speak without fear, since I am not so (that I ought to fear Him 
 from a bad conscience) toith myself, know myself, x. 13 ; xv. 9, comp. vi. 10, 
 on the contrary, am certainly conscious of my innocence, ver. 21; I am really, 
 moreover, quite tired of my life under such an ignoring of my integrity, x. 1 a, 
 as had been said at greater length shortly before, ix. 21, 22, 25 — 28, and as 
 is here only briefly reiterated as belonging to this connexion. Therefore, follow 
 what may, I will now lighten my profound grief by means of free, uncontrollable 
 utterance against God (comp. vii. 11), x. 2 a. 
 
142 11- 2. b.— Ch. ix., X. 
 
 3. 
 Condemn me not, 
 show me -wherefore Thou contendest with me ! 
 Doth it become Thee to oppress, 
 to despise the toil of Thy hands, 
 
 whilst Thou shinest upon the counsel of the wicked ? 
 Eyes of flesh hast Thou then, 
 or dost Thou see as men see? 
 5 are then Thy days like men's days, 
 
 or Thy years like those of a man? 
 that Thou inquirest after my guilt, 
 
 and searchest after my sin, 
 although Thou knowest that I am not guilty, 
 and none delivereth from Thy hand? — 
 
 3. X. 2 — 22. The discourse with God alone thus introduced is occupied, 
 in accordance with the previous subject-matter of this entire speech and the 
 end of the foregoing special speech against God, vii. 17 — 21, principally with 
 the thought of guilt, which Job cannot discover in himself, but which, as it 
 seems to him, he must, under torture and compulsion from God, nevertheless 
 confess, whether true or not, the case being as if a powerful earthly tyrant 
 should from some cause seek to compel an unfortunate creature by tortures 
 and sufferings of all kinds to make a confession. But against this idea of God, 
 the profounder conception of Him, as not merely the absolutely omnipotent but 
 also the all-wise and all-good, who cannot proceed so cruelly with his own 
 creature, makes an indignant protest : accordingly in the conflict of these 
 various feelings, now of strong indignation and then of calmer grief and mourn- 
 ing, there arises a despair in the whirl of which Job sinks continually deeper. 
 At first, after a vehement beginning and brief exposition of the whole enigma, 
 the question, how the hard treatment of Job harmonises with the divine omni- 
 science and exaltation ? vv. 2 — 7 ; then the melancholy reflection, how the 
 Creator can be so enraged against His own noble work, so determined under 
 all circumstances, whether it is guilty or innocent, to destroy it, an entirely 
 new thought of great force here, which is dwelt upon at greatest length, 
 vv. 8 — 17; finally, as the possibility of a remedy nowhere appears, a fresh, 
 stronger outbreak of despair with the repetition of the demand of vii. IG, that 
 at least a short period of repose may be granted to the hopeless one who is so 
 soon to go down into the Underworld never to return! vv. 18 — 22. The new 
 and the magnificent aspect of this speech appears in the middle portion of it : 
 hence of the four strophes (each of five verses, for half of ver. 2 belongs to 
 the previous part) it occupies two. — First, the unqualified demand, condemn me 
 not! since I am not conscious of guilt; mahe me to know wherefore Tliou con- 
 
IT. 2. b.— Ch. ix.. X. 143 
 
 Thy hands formed and made me, 
 
 round about together — and shouldst Thou destroy me! 
 remember now that Thou hast formed me like clay, 
 
 and unto dust wilt Thou make me again? 
 10 Dost Thou not cause me to flow like milk 
 
 and curdle me like whey, 
 clothest me with skin and flesh 
 
 and interweavest me with bones and sinews? 
 Life, favour hast Thou shown unto me, 
 
 Thy care hath preserved my spirit: 
 
 tendest so severely against me without any cause ! Then the exposition of the 
 whole case, ver. 3 : is it iveU in Thee (the force of 3"I3 xiii. 9 also), does it 
 become Thee as God, to oppress, yea, to despise by destroying without any 
 cause Thine own worh, whilst Thou ("'?^ is a circumstantial clause, ace. § 341 a) 
 sendest Thy light and salvation vpon the wicked, as experience has shown, ix. 
 22 — 24. The first of those two acts which seem unworthy of a God, the op- 
 pression of the innocent and weak from whom the stronger will force the con- 
 fession of some guilt by means of tortures of all kinds, is then, vv. 4 — 7, 
 further considered. Such a way of acting is expected, it is true, from either 
 a short-sighted and ignorant being, who needs the aid of torture to extort the 
 confession of what he does not know but only suspects ; or from a being who 
 lives but a limited period, and must therefore hasten to revenge on the sus- 
 pected oflTender the wrong which he supposes he has suflTered, and at all events, 
 if he has not yet confessed, to keep him a prisoner under still severer torture. 
 But is God then so short-sighted and ignorant, or as short-lived as a man. He 
 who surely knows everything, accordingly Job's innocence, the Eternal whose 
 power and punishment none can escape? — (2) Can the Creator destroy without 
 cause His own work, formed with such skill and toil, man, as the potter his 
 work of clay? This is said at first in general terms, vv. 8, 9 [together round 
 abmit, the whole body therefore with all its numerous members on all sides); 
 then the contrast is brought out more sharply, vv. 10 — 12. On the one hand, 
 the most marvellous and gracious care in the creation, vivification, and pre- 
 servation of the human body, from the time of its most secret origin, with 
 its wonderful growth and artistic structure, vv. 10, 11 (comp. Ps. cxxxix. 13 — 15, 
 Koran, sur. Ixxxvi. 5 sq. ; because the wonder of this is now so vividly present 
 to Job's mind, he uses here the present tense) unto the special gift of life and 
 its preservation through the numerous dangers of youth to the present, ver. 12. 
 On the other hand— (3) that which wholly contradicts this, together with all 
 this an incomprehensible purpose of a merciless, absolutely certain, destruction 
 of this work, a purpose which has only so lately been plainly revealed, but 
 wliich must have always been secretly in the divine mind, and now first appears 
 to Job as too certain, ver. 13. This divine determination to destroy him, from 
 
\44i "• 2- b.— Ch. ix., X. 
 
 And yet Thou didst hide t/iis in Thy heart, 
 
 — alas, I know that t/iis is Thy mind : 
 if I sinned. Thou wouldest watch me 
 and not acquit me of my guilt; 
 15 if I were in the wrong, then — woe to me! 
 
 if I were in the right, I must not lift up my head, 
 filled with disgrace and seeing my shame! 
 and if it would raise itself, then Thou wouldest hunt me as a lion, 
 
 wouldest show repeatedly on me Thj»^ wonders, 
 wouldest bring new witnesses against me, 
 wouldest increase Thy displeasure with me ! 
 changes and hosts against me! — 
 
 which he sees no escape, he now depicts, vv. 14—17, most vividly in a picture 
 without a ray of comfort, dwelling in it upon his whole relation to God. God 
 appears to him as a cruel tetralemma, a merciless fourfold net, by which a 
 man must in any case in one way or another be involved; for he believes 
 that God, (1) if he should commit by mistake a small offence (the possibility 
 of which he does not wish to deny vii. 20; xiii. 26), has in that case determined 
 to watch him as closely as possible, in order not to let even the smallest mis- 
 take escape unnoticed, but to torment him until he should perish, ver. 14, comp, 
 as regards "i»« vii. 12 ; xiii. 27 ; (2) if he had done wrong (which he must 
 solemnly deny to have done before these sufferings came upon him), then he 
 must, as is due, be punished, but also (3) if he were right, he must appear as 
 a guilty man, not dare proudly to lift up his head, although in the midst of 
 undeserved disgrace, although satiated with shame (comp. vii. 4 ; ix. 18) and 
 with his own eyes beholding his humiliation (accordingly nsn as part, must be 
 read instead of ns"! ; the Massor. appear to have regarded it with 5-*?'^ as an 
 imper. in an abrupt appeal to God, satiate Thyself vnth shame and behold my 
 suffering! cease to treat me so shamefully! But this is against the context, 
 since the cii-cumstances in which he must not hold up his head have to be 
 described) ; and if nevertheless (4) this so profoundly insulted, innocent head, 
 unable any longer to endure the insult, should raise itself proudly, as is the case 
 now when Job speaks. He would, angry at his resistance, send afresh the most 
 severe and bitter afflictions upon the weak, innocent creature (just as Job now 
 feels the attack of new pains after this rash speech), hunt him as a lion, reveal 
 Himself in His wonders repeatedly upon him by new and marvellous suflferings 
 (ix. 10), bring up against him new afflictions as constantly fresh witnesses of 
 the divine wrath, like the constantly fresh relays of forces in the siege of a 
 fortress! (comp. xvi. 8, and particularly xix. 12, 13; '^^^, is voluntative in the 
 protasis, all the following verbs voluntative in the apodosis, in which way a more 
 passionate conditional sentence is produced, comp. § 557 h, and my Gramm. Arab. 
 
II. 3. a.— Ch. xi. J^45 
 
 And wherefore didst Thou take me from the womb? 
 
 I ought to have died, seen by no eye, 
 have become as if I had not been, 
 
 have been carried from the womb to the grave! — 
 20 Are not few my days? let Him cease! 
 
 get from me! that I may be bright a little! 
 before I go and return not, 
 
 into the land of darkness and gloom, 
 the land of thick-darkness like midnight, 
 
 gloom and disorder, 
 
 so that it getteth light as at midnight! 
 
 II. § 750). The last member of the four alternatives he elaborates the more, 
 as he feels most painfully precisely this dilemma. But if thus in all con- 
 ceivable cases of behaviour there is not one which brings any benefit, and least 
 of all precisely that one which is most worthy of a noble, innocent man, what 
 remains? in that state of things must not — (4) the most uncontrolled execration 
 of life once more get the upper-hand (vv. 18, 19 briefly repeated from iii. 11 sq., 
 the imperfects express that which ought to have happened, ace. § 136/; isjsa 
 
 '^'n^^Tt S5 is exactly like 1^*^.5 Lo ^i[S^ as if thou hadst not heen thou wilt 
 vanish, Humbert Chrest. Arab. p. 39 last line), and the vehement desire yet in 
 his few remaining days of life to enjoy at least a little repose, getting free 
 from the incessant torment, ver. 20, comp. vii. 16 (contrary to the view of the 
 Massora, which recommends the imper., the third person !^""<f?", ^~\'. is here 
 more appropriate when used of God, because towards the end the direct address 
 to God gradually ceases), before he goes down for ever into the Underworld, 
 with the horrible picture of which this speech also closes. Inasmuch as it is 
 the land of darkness, it is also the land of disorder and confusion, where no 
 one who is accustomed to light, order, and a clear outlook can feel at home; 
 and although there may be there also a slight alternation of day and night, it 
 is nevertheless when it gets light there as dark as midnight on the earth : how 
 great therefore is the darkness of the midnight there! "')'? '"1""*?, ver. 19, comp, 
 iv. 20; vii. 19, properly to tttrn his attention from some one. 
 
 3. ZOPHAR AND JOB. 
 a. ZOPHAE. CH. XI. 
 
 As Job's speeches thus become increasingly unadvised 
 towards God and exasperating, and also increasingly confident 
 and lengthy, so that it already appears as if all men must 
 
146 n. 3. a.— Ch. xi. 
 
 hold their peace before him, the youngest of th e friends, who, 
 according to the good manners of those times, would have 
 done better to remain silent, ventures under the provocation 
 of such speeches to come forward against Job, in order, in 
 his bold and tumultuous manner, with one blow to end by a 
 wholly unexpected, authoritative word the entire contention. 
 He has not at his command like Eliphaz a personally received 
 oracle, nor like Bildad the wisdom of the ancients: all the 
 more, as the most youthful of the three, he relies upon his 
 own perception and skill quickly to check the conflict which 
 has already grown so hot. If in the previous speech Job had 
 thrown out the idea of appealing to the judgment of God, 
 but had immediately relinquished it, Zophar may now imagine 
 that he will not a little surprise him with the direct expression 
 of the wish, that God may appear to rebuke and correct the 
 man whom men seem unable to bring to an admission of his 
 guilt and to modest silence. And this is the important and 
 only original thought in this speech. So confused and beyond 
 human management is the contention already, that thus early 
 the decision of God, which follows indeed at last, though 
 quite in another form than men expect, is desired. It is, how- 
 ever, first desired by that party in the contention which is in 
 general the weaker and now for the first time shows its own 
 weakness and helpless perplexity. But in the appeal to God 
 it must also for the first time be briefly but openly expressed, 
 that Job has actual sin upon him, and, as Zophar imagines 
 he has correctly observed, still more hidden than open sin, 
 so that he is as yet leniently punished by God, ver. 6 c. Quite 
 at the beginning, after an expression of brief astonishment at 
 Job's speeches, he comes out with his new wish, vv. 2—6, 
 then, in order to warn Job the more emphatically by means 
 of the suggested idea of the divine judgment, he sketches an 
 eloquent description, in a calmer tone, of the impossibility 
 that a man should be able to stand successfully a conflict 
 with the divine wisdom and power, vv. 7 — 12, and returns 
 
II. 3. a — Ch. xi. 147 
 
 finally, after the manner of his predecessors, to the expression 
 of hope for Job, which is, however, already very conditional 
 and reserved, bringing forward once more the guilt of Job 
 and appending still more seriously than Bildad a brief earnest 
 word regarding the hopelessness of the wicked, vv. 13 — 20. 
 Thus even the closing word promising hope in the speeches 
 of the friends gets gradually more and more ambiguous: Eli- 
 phaz appends scarcely a slight warning, v. 27, Bildad already 
 briefly introduces into it the opposite of hope, viii. 206, 22h, 
 Zophar appends a word, ver. 20, which already appears as an 
 outpost of the host of similar hard threatening words, ch. xv.. 
 
 xi. 1 Then answered Zophar of Naama and said: 
 
 1. 
 Shall the flood of words not be answered, 
 
 or a man of talk be in the right? 
 Thy boasting putteth men to silence, 
 
 so that thou mockest, put to shame by none, 
 and saidst: "pure is my doctrine, 
 and I was spotless in Thine eyes!" 
 
 1. The words which are put into Job's mouth, ver. 4, give rather Zophar's 
 brief summary of all the previous speeches of Job : since he, the person at- 
 tacked, spoke more like a teacher than a repentant learner, it seems to Zophar 
 as if he considered both his doctrine and his life were quite impeachable be- 
 fore God. Both assumptions, particularly the first, incense him, so that he 
 immediately desires the revelation of God, to convince Job by the display of 
 perfect wisdom and knowledge, that God still causeth much of his guilt to be 
 forgotten^ i,e., punishes him far less than he deserves according to strict justice. 
 For it is true enough that his whole misery consists as regards its source in 
 defective knowledge, inasmuch as the man that has but half knowledge only 
 too easily applies wrongly the few and imperfect things which he really per- 
 ceives, and believing that he is in possession of all the wisdom he requires is 
 led astray into confusion and passion, because the outward facts do not cor- 
 respond with his erroneous view. To this extent Job actually suflfers from 
 half-knowledge. But Zophar, presupposing wickedness in Job, does not simply 
 recognise this fact, but goes on falsely to suppose that Job suffers himself by 
 this half-knowledge to be misled to discover simply his innocence and to over- 
 
 10* 
 
148 n. 3. a— Ch. xi. 
 
 5 But that God would but speak, 
 
 that He would open His lips against thee, 
 and make known to thee the secrets of wisdom, 
 how doubly strong it is in understanding: 
 
 then know thou, that God overlooketh to thee much 
 
 iniquity! 
 2. 
 Wilt thou sound the depth of God, 
 
 or mount to the height of the Almighty? 
 high as heaven! — what wilt thou do? 
 
 deeper than the Underworld — what dost thou know? 
 longer than the earth in measure, 
 broader is it than the sea! 
 
 look his numerous hidden and serious sins. So at the end, ch. xxxviii sq., God 
 does really reveal the secrets of his wisdom, and Job learns to perceive the 
 imperfection of his knowledge, but not that he is a sinner. The clause 
 rr^ioin? a"'?S5 '^3, ver. 6, contains an explanation of the predicate of ritosn Wtols:»^, 
 ace. § 336 b: He rtvealeth to thee the secrets of imsdom, how, namely, it is double, 
 as strong again, in best understanding, as all thy present wisdom which lets 
 thee suppose thyself innocent: what Job therefore at present knows can only 
 be half-knowledge, and accordingly confusion and perplexity. As regards the 
 clause '^21 mpN ']?T^ '^»3, see § 329 c ; with regard to the imper. consec. yi, 
 which might be called the imptr. futuri, see § 3i7 a. 
 
 2. Vv. 7 — 12. Or wilt thou really contend with God's wisdom and power, 
 and make thyself acquainted with Him as judge ? but wilt thou, consider it now, 
 attain to His wisdom, sound the depth (on ^pM see the note on viii. 8) of God 
 or scale His highest summit, i.e., disfover His perfect, unsurpassable wisdom 
 which is as deep as it is high ? that wisdom which is like God Himself all- 
 embracing, as high as the inaccessible heavens (heights of heaven is only a 
 concise accusative of measure, but in this place is also according to the con- 
 text a predicate, so that it is allowable to say instead heaven-high, as in the 
 similar instance xxii. 12) and deeper than the dark Underworld (xxvi. 6), just 
 as it also embraces the whole earth and extends beyond it, longer than the 
 outstretching land, broader than the vast sea, so that before it nothing is too 
 high, too dark, too distant, since it consists in the constant, unwavering com- 
 prehension and knowledge of everything, vv. 7 — 9. Ver. 8 and ver. 9, there- 
 fore, the predicates refer back to the last thing which is here described, wis- 
 dom, ver. 6, inasmuch as it is implied ver. 7 in ipn and again particularly in 
 the fem. M"'?3ri ; for ver. 9 it is undoubtedly more correct to read ?^ij'3, ace. 
 § 288 c, instead of niö which would have to be derived from a form "», 
 
II. 3. a — Ch. xi. 149 
 
 10 He presseth past and shutteth up, 
 
 holdeth court: — and who will hinder Him? 
 
 for He knoweth well the sinful people, 
 
 He hath seen the wickedness, before it perceiveth it — 
 
 and so a silly man is made sensible, 
 a wild ass born afresh as a man! 
 
 If thou wilt raise up thine heart 
 
 and spreadest out to Him thine hands: 
 — hideth thine hand iniquity, put it away, 
 
 let not wickedness dwell in thy tents! — 
 
 with the suflf., which does not occur. Therefore, since the highest power is 
 also associated with the highest wisdom, and the latter receives its truth only 
 by means of the former, it is obvious, that if He comes to judgment attended 
 by this wisdom and power, the sinner who is suddenly overtaken by Him with 
 irresistible might, be he never so stupid and determined to hear nothing of 
 his own guilt, becomes by the revelation of the highest wisdom at once wise, 
 and docile and well-behaved, although he may be as impetuous and wild as a 
 wild ass (xxxix. 2 — 8, comp. Gen. xvi. 12), through the power which accompanies 
 that wisdom : a single moment in this case transforms the whole man into 
 another being ; which is manifestly said not without reference to the restive 
 folly of Job, vv. 10 — 12. In such a manner Zophar seeks here at the same 
 time to turn what Job had said ix. 11 sq. into the exact opposite of its proper 
 meaning. The arrival of the judge for judgment is in this case a driving past 
 in a rapid storm, pressing through, as Job had already said ix. 14 ; the arrival 
 of the judge is followed by the shutting up of the person accused of a serious 
 offence, that he may not escape during the trial ; then the V-^nprij or admission 
 and summons of the people to hear the trial, since the proceedings were always 
 public, therefore the actual opening and holding of the court, Ezek. xvi. 40 ; 
 xxiii. 46. The apodosis begins plainly only with ver. 12, since '^Ja^iO'" ^'o^ with 
 ver. 11 form parenthetical clauses. The paronomasia 33^"' 3133 might be rendered 
 the headless (hollow) man becometh heedful, intelligent.' 
 
 3. Vv. 13 — 20. The condition, sincere repentance and confession, ver. 13, 
 must be immediately, ver. 14, afresh more emphatically conditioned by another 
 one which is in point of fact earlier, the removal of all previous unrighteous- 
 ness. As the happy consequences of the fulfilment of these conditions appears 
 (1) a new, cheerful, confident courage, ver. 15, so that Job will no more be 
 compelled to bow down his head in humiliation on account of anything un- 
 
 * Ewald's German representations of this paronomasia are : "so wird leicht 
 ein leerer Mann gelehrt", and "der hohle Mensch wird heü." Tr. 
 
150 !!• 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 15 then indeed thou liftest up thy face without spot, 
 wilt be firmly established and without fear! 
 but thou wilt forget the trouble, 
 
 as waters gone by wilt remember it. 
 
 And brighter than the noonday riseth prosperity, 
 
 the darkness will be as the morning: 
 thou hast confidence then, because there is hope, 
 
 thou wilt, looking round, still lie down securely, 
 take repose alarmed by no one, 
 
 and many will flatter thee! 
 20 But the eyes of the wicked fail, 
 
 refuge hath perished from them; 
 and their hope is — to breathe out the soul! 
 
 worthy, as he had complained x. 15; but his confident courage will only be 
 completely possible (2) by a constantly increasing prosperity which will inspire 
 confidence, vv. 16, 17, a prosperity so great that on account of it his calamities 
 will be forgotten like something that never returns, just as water which has 
 once flowed past cannot flow back again, a time of great splendour when even 
 the darkness should it come, will be comparatively bright like the morning 
 (the opposite x. 22) ; and thus (3) there comes a rest not to be disturbed by 
 any danger, vv. 18, 29, in that on examining his affairs he can always cherish 
 hope, ver. 18, and no one dares to disturb him in this peace, since on the 
 contrary all flatter him, ver. 19. '^'??'7 cannot here come from ^EH = i«n 
 to be ashamed, vi. 20, as this yields no meaning which suits the context; but 
 it is from ^EH in the signification to spy, to examine, which is very frequent 
 precisely in this book, iii. 21 ; xxxix. 21, 29: for though the prosperous man 
 pries into, and examines his circumstances, he can, inasmuch as he misses 
 nothing, always lie down in calm security, as a similar idea occurs v. 24 ; the 
 copula is left out before 33ton ntaa?, in order to give greater emphasis to the 
 apodosis. The phrase ver. 19 a originates from such ancient figures as Gen. 
 xlix. 9. But in contrast with all this there comes at last, ver. 20, the dark 
 picture of the opposite, how the wicked man with the same necessity perishes 
 irremediably, how to no purpose his eyes fail with longing and grief (Ps. vi. 8) 
 and he has no hope but death ! xxxi. 39. 
 
 b. JOB. CH. XII— XIV. 
 
 But that which was intended, according to Zophar's cal- 
 culation, to surprise and subdue Job, touches him so little 
 that it can be at once employed as a victorious weapon against 
 
II. 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. 151 
 
 Zophar himself und all the other opponents of Job, and in- 
 stead of humbling him serves to raise him for the first time 
 above his melancholy and perplexity. In reality, why does 
 he who can to some purpose boast of his innocency, and in- 
 deed of his acquaintance with God, vi. 10 ; ix. 21 ; xii. 4 ; xiii. 
 16, require to submit to the charge, that he is still punished 
 far less than he deserves according to his guilt, or to the 
 charge, that he suffers at all on account of his sins? and to 
 the charge from these men who are about more and more to 
 ignore the truth of his case and to harass the poor sufferer 
 almost without any more mercy. Indeed, in his present state 
 of confusion, in which he now still firmly believes that God 
 treats him at present in any case unfairly, just as amongst 
 men a tyrant may oppress the powerless, he is compelled even 
 to suppose that the friends falsely imputed sin to him simply 
 in order to flatter the tyrant, just as men are often unfair 
 towards the unfortunate in partiality for one whose power and 
 splendour dazzle them, xiii. 8. But, on the other hand, he 
 cannot really think that God would forever take injustice 
 under His protection, because this would be opposed to the 
 idea of God, neither, therefore, the mysterious wrong under 
 which he seems to suffer, nor the evident wrong which the 
 friends are guilty of. Accordingly, scarcely have the opponents 
 carried their suspicion of Job's integrity to its extreme point, 
 and imagine that they will prevent his escape precisely through 
 theii* appeal to a divine judgment and their desire for its ap- 
 proach, when the hardly pressed man, now on closer reflection, 
 without regard to his previous, vague shrinking from the step 
 of an appeal to God, ix. 2—20, immediately without hesitation 
 seizes the one resource open to him, namely, to appeal to God 
 on his own account and to retaliate upon his opponents as 
 they deserve with their own accusation; and this resource he 
 avails himself of with all the boldness and energy which come 
 from a good conscience. This constitutes a step of decisive 
 moment, which must bring the entire contention another stage 
 
152 II- 3- l>— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 onwards as regards all who take part in it. But the con- 
 sequences of it are most immediate and perceptible in the 
 case of the opponents. Whilst Job has hitherto made no di- 
 rect attack upon them as regards their arguments, and seemed 
 even to be unable openly to contend with them, he now wrests 
 their own sharp weapons from their hands in an open attack 
 upon them, and having become in self-defence an assailant he 
 makes up with one blow for all past deficiencies. For as he 
 now takes up for the first time openly and with full intent 
 the oifensive, he brings to light the entire character of his 
 oijpouents, their professedly superior wisdom no less than their 
 false accusations. He finds the former is by no means great, 
 but only very ordinary and low, and that the latter must 
 bring down the stern chastisement of God in judgment upon 
 them instead of upon him. This line of attack is managed 
 with such scornful superiority of knowledge and rebuke, that 
 the opponents, beaten on all hands and seriously wounded, 
 perplexed and astonished, are compelled to give up their pre- 
 vious position. For the moment, a less obvious but far more 
 important advantage which Job derives against his will from 
 the simple progress of the conflict is, that he comes by it to 
 consider more closely his invaluable possession — his integrity, 
 and for the first time with growing consciousness, sometimes 
 sad (xii. 4), sometimes proud (xiii. 16), defends himself by it 
 against dangerous attacks, yea, rises above his former self and 
 his despondency,' hoping for the victory of his good cause. 
 While just before, ix. 2 sq., he had still not ventured to assert 
 his good conscience before God, except in vague fear or des- 
 pair, he now surveys everything more calmly and already be- 
 gins faintly to cast off the old blind fear. Notwithstanding, 
 the reason for this act of challenging God is still wholly per- 
 verse, and Job permits himself to be led astray into passion 
 by a dangerous experiment which is contrary to the majesty 
 of God. For the danger, which is here latent from the be- 
 ginning, of openly speaking against God, is at this point, where 
 
IL 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. ]^53 
 
 He is violently, and with a certain degree of defiance, chal- 
 lenged to appear, where an open, bolcnin accusation is directed 
 against Iliin, xiii. 23 —28, brought completely out, and so far the 
 friends were certainly right in warning Job to beware of greater 
 recklessness. Hence this speech, which as far as it is directed 
 against the friends is a true model of lucidity and quiet force, 
 contains nevertheless from the very first some expressions of 
 troubled despondency, xii. 4 6, is then, the nearer the chal- 
 lenge to God draws, more and more pervaded by the old des- 
 pair, xiii. 14, 15, 20, 21, and at last, since after all, as Job 
 soon perceives, God does not appear at his summons, falls 
 back into the same despair with which all the previous 
 speeches had closed, xiv. 1 — 22. Still, the consciousness of 
 innocence cannot have been so powerfully stirred permanently 
 in vain for Job, and already at the close, when all earthly 
 hopes disappear, he is surprised by the question regarding the 
 eternal duration of innocence and of the soul, by that question 
 which, when more closely pursued, opens up a wholly new 
 realm of hope and which points at this place with infinite 
 significance to what has to follow subsequently. — As there- 
 fore the challenge to God must be the centre of this speech, 
 it having been prepared for by the attack upon the friends, 
 and issuing in complaints and despair, it falls into the three 
 parts: (1) the attack upon the supposed wisdom of the friends, 
 which is useless to Job, ch. xii.; so that he determines (2) to 
 turn to God instead of to them, to whom they cannot turn, 
 xiii. 1—22; (3) the complaint to God, xiii. 23 — xiv. 22. 
 
 xii. 1 And Job answered and said : 
 
 1. 
 Yes undoubtedly ! ye are people ! 
 and with you will wisdom die! 
 
 1. Ch. xii. Attack upon the knowledge of the friends : for the attack upon 
 their accusation, if presented at the commencement, would hardly be successful 
 on account of their infatuation; neither could Job make it, since his innocence 
 
154 II 3. b.— Ch. xü— xiv. 
 
 / also have a head as well as you, 
 I do not fall below you: 
 
 and who doth not know such things? — 
 
 A laughing-stock to his friend must I be, 
 one who called to God and was heard: 
 
 a laughing-stock is the just, the godly man! 
 
 is not a thing which can be outwardly demonstrated. The attack upon their 
 wisdom, however, can be perfectly well made ; and if the friends are represented 
 as people without such tremendous wisdom in comparison with Job, there is 
 thereby a shadow cast upon their accusation also, since the ignorant most easily 
 make false charges. And with regard to his guilt or innocence, if Job then 
 determines to turn immediately to God Himself, he is excused, indeed, he is 
 entitled to do so. Relying upon some general propositions regarding the divine 
 power and wisdom, they had attacked him with increasing vehemence, par- 
 ticularly had Zophar just done this, xi. 6 — 12 : this basis of reliance he now 
 wrests from them, by showing that he knows such propositions much better 
 than they, in order that he may then, himself relying upon them, call for God's 
 judgment with greater propriety than they. The proposition concerning the 
 righteousness of God, which the friends had previously touched on, ch. viii., he still 
 passes over in his refutation, because they have not as yet driven him to ex- 
 tremities, and just now the thought of being able to come off victorious against 
 them by this very righteousness of God flashes through him as a sudden light. 
 But the opinionated use which the friends make of the power and hidden wis- 
 dom of God he here puts to shame with a proud superiority, by showing that 
 as regards a knowledge of that wisdom and power he is probably able to com- 
 pete with each of them ; and after the first scornful expression on this point, 
 vv. 2, 3, he is, it is true, somewhat overwhelmed by gloomy displeasure at the 
 unworthy treatment which he has to bear and at the lot of the whole world, 
 which now so naturally appears to him as horribly dark, vv. 4 — 6 ; but re- 
 membering the whole purpose of this speech, he returns immediately, with 
 prevailing calmness, to the matter with which he had commenced, and shows, 
 after the proper introduction, yv. 7 — 12,.^ in a magnificent oration, how well he 
 can rival the friends, yea, surpass them, in point of knowledge, vv. 13 — 25. 
 
 1. Vv. 2, 3. Scornful from displeasure: Verily, I must really suppose 
 that ye are people, and that beside you there is nobody else, because you 
 make it appear as if you knew more than everybody else and as if when you 
 die wisdom will die with you: you fools, to whom I have no need to yield in 
 any respect, and who have no right to boast of your knowledge in comparison 
 with mine! "'I'? 'C3 to fall, on examination to become smaller than — , only 
 here and xiii. 2. 
 
 2. Vv. 4 — 6. But before he sets about producing the proof of this, the 
 profoundest displeasure threatens to seize him in consideration of this wholly 
 
II. 3. b — Cu. xii— xiv. 155 
 
 To misfortune scorn in the secure man's thought! 
 
 scorn waiteth for those whose foot is tottering; 
 peaceful tents are to the devastators 
 
 and security to them' who make God tremble, 
 to him who bringeth God in his hand. 
 
 Yet ask but the beasts, that they should teach thee, 
 the birds of heaven, that they should tell thee; 
 
 or think to the earth, that it should teach thee, 
 and let the fish of the sea recount to thee: 
 
 unworthy treatment which must be borne from friends by a man who hitherto, on 
 the ground of his upright blameless life, stood as a brave godly person in 
 intimate, wellsped intercourse with God, when he prayed found a hearing, but 
 now must hear God appealed to against himself, ver. 4 (although what is at 
 this point a mournful memory soon becomes, after somewhat freer reflection, a 
 happy assistance, since surely, if Job had formerly such successful and bene- 
 ficial intercourse with God, he may still expect a similar result from an appeal to 
 Him (xiii. 3 — 16). And inasmuch as Job looking upon the past of his life ap- 
 pears to himself to be as it were a historical character, the first person changes 
 in his speech involuntarily into the third; with regard to pT'J?, see § 150 6. — 
 And this gloomy displeasure when once excited easily leads to the terrible con- 
 sideration of the wrong state of things which is likewise found to prevail 
 throughout the entire human world, vv. 5, 6. To fatal misfoHune (TB a word 
 which is almost peculiar to this book, xxx. 24; xxxi. 29) contempt (as ver. 21, 
 xxxi. 34) ! expressed almost as an exclamation, contempt is due accordinQ to the 
 thoughts of him vho lives tcithout care in secure prosperity, it must be allowed 
 that is the way of the world; it, this contempt, is 2>repa'red, waits beforehand 
 (as XV. 23 ; xviii. 12) for those ivith tottering foot, near to a complete fall, and 
 who can prevent that? scarcely does any appear to stumble without any one to 
 save him, when he is already generally overwhelmed with scorn. But, on the 
 other hand, peaceful dwellings and in their conduct confident security have de- 
 vastators, even the most desperate, who by word and deed defy God Himself 
 and think to cause Him to tremble, as men are terrified ; yea, even the most 
 insolent, barbarous soldier, who acknowledges no right and no power beyond 
 his own arm, so that he imagines that where his arm extends and rules thither 
 God's power extends and rules and all must submit to it as to God, and who 
 thus bi-ings to people God in his hand (power); like Ilab. i. 11, 16, and as 
 the contemptor Deiim exclaims dextra mihi Deus, Virg. Mn. X. 773. 
 
 3. Vv. 7 — 12. But (thus Job, before it is too late, here makes an effort 
 to escape from such gloomy considerations by a return to the thought with 
 which he began), if it is desired to know how ordinary is that wisdom of the 
 friends, let, in the first instance, vv. 7 — 10, only the living creatures of the 
 
156 - II 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 who of all these doth not know, 
 
 that Jahvc's hand hath made these things? 
 10 He in whose hand is the soul of all living creatures, 
 and the spirit of all bodies of men. 
 
 Doth not then the ear try words, 
 
 and doth not the palate taste food for itself? 
 
 in old men is wisdom, 
 
 and length of days equals understanding. 
 
 earth be asked: even of the irrational, dumb animals (~3 '^>3, ver. 9, as 
 "Isa." 1. 10) every one knows, experiences, and feels at least plainly enough 
 the power of the Creator also when He sends (as in my case now) suffering, 
 since, in fact, every living thing lives and enjoys its life only by the power of 
 the Creator, kuows therefore in so far that the hand (power) of God has done 
 this which Job just now most feels, the infliction of profound suffering and 
 pain, which the friends constantly describe as done by God as if he did not 
 know that and could not learn it quite as well from every sensitive animal. ^ 
 It is quite true that in a certain sense even the animals feel through their life 
 or sufferings the omnipotence of the Creator, Ps. civ. 26 — 30, and the man that 
 will deny this omnipotence may be pointed even to the feelings and experiences 
 of animals to be taught by them, t^''^, ver. 8, cannot therefore in this con- 
 nexion signify shrub as a noun, as the trees do not live in this sense like the 
 animals. Earth, therefore, ver. 8, points only in contrast with heaven, ver. 7, 
 to the small creeping things. — And, secondly, the same knowledge of the 
 wonderful power of God may be easily, and certainly much more distinctly and 
 particularly, learnt from the discourses of all experienced men ; indeed, every man 
 who is not wholly deaf and obtuse will know how to select and retain the best 
 and truest things from such discourses which he has heard from the days of his 
 youth, just as the palate distinguishes and retains the foot which suits it; for 
 thus Job also always prized the wisdom of the aged men, and knows that to 
 have lived long is generally equivalent to having much intelligence, vv. 11, 12. 
 But at this point there fail manifestly two verses which ought to state that Job 
 had himself by his own personal experience in his sufficiently long life learnt 
 
 1 It might be thought that the short this was meant to point to all the 
 visible universe, as idam, Manu i. 5, Bhagavad-Gita iii. 38 ; and as the expres- 
 sion all this points in a suitable connexion to the whole world not only "Isa." 
 Ixvi. 2, comp. ver. 1, but also Jer. xiv. 22. But, first, the reference to suffering 
 is here as everywhere most immediately present to Job's mind; and, secondly, 
 it cannot very well be said that the animals knoiv that God is the creator of 
 the world, since such knowledge is beyond them : but they do know and feel 
 by their sufferings that there is a higher power beyond them. 
 
II. 3. b.— Cn. xii — xiv. 157 
 
 [Thus to me also much of life was given, 
 
 the number of years will already bow niy head, 
 
 I saw many marvels of God's aets, 
 
 I heard the instructive word of the ancients.'] 
 
 "He hath wisdom and might, 
 
 to Him belougeth counsel and understanding: 
 lo, He breaketh down — it will not be built up, 
 
 shutteth up the man — he will not get free again; 
 15 lo. He holdeth back waters — they dry up, 
 
 letteth them go — they lay waste the land. 
 
 the same lessons as he had heard by questioning older men : for this is presup- 
 posed xiii. 1 a, comp. xv. 10; xxx. 1, since the personal seeing of the wonders of 
 God as they are enumerated vv. 13 — 25 cannot be referred, for instance, to what 
 is said vv. 7 — 10; moreover, two verses are wanting to complete the strophe 
 according to its proper structure, and the transition from ver. 12 to ver. 13 is 
 at present too abrupt, particularly in a speech such as this. The general scope 
 of the words is indicated in the translation of the text. 
 
 4. Vv. 13 — 25. Thus introduced, a very eloquent description of the divine 
 power and wisdom begins to flow from the lips of the afflicted man, in four 
 strophes, each of three verses, the last strophe being lengthened to four verses. 
 However, he makes this description not in mere rivalry with the friends, but 
 manifestly with far superior power and wealth of ideas ; and if even his first 
 essay of this kind, ix. 4 — 10, could rival those of the opponents, this far sui-- 
 passes in point of wealth and copiousness his earlier description. Nor does 
 he here repeat the fine illustrations which he had used in his previous speech, 
 ch. ix., but applies with extreme skill the details of his description precisely to 
 the present case, doing this without any express indication of it but yet quite 
 perceptibly. For while he could have described the power of God and his 
 wisdom, which according to the feeling of the ancients displayed itself more 
 particularly in enigmas and marvels, in very various ways, dwelling very much 
 upon most various things in which the ancient world felt the mysterious, hidden 
 wisdom and power of God, he takes another course and designedly brings for- 
 ward partly the great vicissitudes in human affairs, according to which God sends 
 both weal and woe, prosperity and disaster, and partly the experience, that 
 even the wisest of the earth may easily become fools before God and get into 
 helpless perplexity. That first phenomenon the opponents will do well to give 
 heed to, inasmuch as they see in the vicissitudes of Job's fortunes nothing but 
 his guilt, since the cause may after all be another one hidden from men ; the 
 latter phenomenon let them apply to themselves, and at the same time re- 
 member, ace. ver. 22, that at last God can bring all hidden things into the 
 light, the beginnings of them also, xiii. 10, and that the misled and the mis- 
 
158 II- 3. b.— Ch. xü— xiv. 
 
 He hath strength as well as true weal, 
 
 to Him belongeth the misled and the misleader: 
 
 He who causeth counsellors to go barefoot, 
 and maketh judges fools, 
 
 fetters looseth from kings, 
 
 and fasteneth a bond on their loins; 
 
 He who maketh priests go barefoot, 
 
 and overturneth established things, 
 20 who taketh speech from the approved, 
 
 and withdraweth judgment from the old men; 
 He who poureth contempt upon nobles, 
 
 slackeneth the girdle of the mightiest; 
 
 leader, the oppressed and the prosperous oppressor, both alike really depend 
 upon God, ver. 16 5, which two particulars do in fact introduce something of a 
 more cheerful nature into this long description which is otherwise so mournful. 
 Of the objects of nature which were more referred to ch. ix., there is here but 
 little mention, and those which are mentioned are also by preference of a 
 gloomy and injurious nature, ver. 15. Thus this description, which can scarcely 
 come to an end, advances, after a double commencement of a more general 
 nature at the head of the first two stroplies, in such a way, that the strange 
 infatuation, even of the wisest, is expressly touched upon in the second and 
 third strophes, is brought more prominently forward in the last, and closes the 
 speech with great emphasis. Ver. 14 : He shutteth uj) ?y_ over the man, as 
 usually a cistern closing at the top served as a prison. Gen. xxxvii. sq. ; Ex. 
 xii. 29; Jer. xxxvii., as Job here says with reference to xi. 10, but evidently 
 in a figurative sense, and as he so often complains regarding himself that he 
 is as it were shut up by his sufferings, without help or exit (see ante p. 4) ; 
 therefore this instance manifestly occurs to him involuntarily at the very com- 
 mencement of the long description. Judges and priests who must go barefoot 
 into imprisonment, vv. 17, 19, are, according to an ancient mode of speaking, 
 examples of the most powerful and honoured men of the earth and are thus 
 placed by the side of counsellors kings and nobles, vv. 17, 18, 21; on an 
 equality with all these the jiroved ex2)erts, who can always speak and ad- 
 vise, e.g., the ancient prophets, are placed, ver. 20 : but the course of events 
 brings something so new and obscure that all prophets and wise men and 
 ancients are put to silence or even misled and act unwisely. "^Ol^s, ver. 18, 
 must come from ''Ditt fetter, ace. § 213c, on account of the antithesis alone: 
 He unfetters and fetters kings, fastening on their loins again a close band, a 
 chain; whilst reversely the loosened girdle, ver. 21, is, ace. Isa. v. 27, sign and 
 symbol of failing courage, ^"^p, ver. 23, used without an accusative and with 
 "V of the indirect object exactly like PE^, Gen. ix. 27 ; led them away, ver. 23, into 
 
II. 3. b.— Cn. xii— xiv, J59 
 
 He who layeth bare deep things from the darkness, 
 
 and bringeth to the light black-gloom; 
 He who giveth growth to nations — and destroyeth them, 
 
 to the nations enlargement — and leadeth them away; 
 taketh away the mind of the chiefs of the nations of the earth 
 
 and causeth them to wander trackless in a wilderness, 
 without light they grope in darkness, 
 
 and He causeth them to wander like the drunken." 
 
 xiii. 2. 
 
 1 Lo, all hath mine eye seen, 
 
 mine ear heard and observed for itself: 
 as much as ye know I know also, 
 
 / do not fall below you. 
 But I will speak to the Highest, 
 
 and to argue my case with God I desire. — 
 
 imprisonment, which had already, vv. 17, 19, been mentioned. With the two 
 last verses Job evidently intends to surpass the description of Eliphaz, v. 
 13, 14. 
 
 11. xiii. 1 — 22. With such superiority in the knowledge of divine things. 
 Job has no need to be threatened by his opponents with the appearance of 
 God: but, on the contrary, he can openly, and with all the force derived from 
 a good conscience, himself appeal to God, representing to Him his good cause 
 and expecting, indeed requiring. His judgment. If any one shall be threatened 
 with this appearance, it is the friends, who in this difficult contention speak 
 (as Job justly thinks, comp, xiii 7) against their better knowledge, whom there- 
 fore Job rather must most earnestly warn, if it is necessary that he should at 
 last speak against them. Thus the direct and natural course of his thought 
 soon conducts him to this second and still more resentful correction of the 
 friends, vv. 1 — 12. But as he now, suddenly turning from them as victor, and 
 yet aloud in their hearing, sets about directing his complaint to God and chal- 
 lenging the divine judgment with vehemence, by force putting down all doubts 
 which were multiplying against this at the very last moment, his discourse, whicli 
 had hitherto been on the whole collected on account of the superiority of his 
 wisdom, becomes immediately more violently agitated again and driven hither 
 and thither by the waves of an almost uncontrolled despair, vv. 13—22. To 
 the haste which prevails through this very comprehensive speech, corresponds 
 its arrangement in short strophes of three verses each; whilst in the middle, 
 where occurs the sudden and complete turning away from the friends and tlie 
 decided turning to God in spite of all remaining doubts, a solitary verse is 
 introduced, ver. 13. 
 
IQQ II. 3. b— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 But ye are only lie-patchers, 
 
 stitchers of nothingness are ye all. 
 5 that ye would only keep silence, 
 
 that it might be unto you as wisdom! 
 
 Hear ye then my reproof, 
 
 and unto the rebukes of my lips give heed : 
 
 For God will ye speak — wrong, 
 
 and for Him will ye speak — deceit? 
 
 will ye be partial for Him, 
 or for God will ye contend? 
 
 is it seemly that He should search you through? 
 or as men are deceived will ye deceive Him? 
 
 1 Vv. 1 — 12. The first strophe, vv. 1 — 3, is occupied with the transition: 
 seen and heard^ ace. xii. 11. 12 and what was remarked upon those verses: 
 ver. 3 6 in this case in express difference from ix. 3. — But before he carries 
 out the intention which he has just expressed of defending his just cause before 
 God, he must still, as he thinks, speak a last word with the friends, vv. 3 — 12: 
 precisely because they endeavoured to terrify him by that very thing which he 
 has now determined to seize as his last resource — the appeal to God. Hence 
 the most severely pointed word against them becomes now inevitable. For if 
 he must of necessity speak of his guilt or innocence, as the friends have con- 
 ceived it, the only course open to him is really to wholly forbid their inter- 
 ference, since they infatuatedly enough only allege vain, and indeed false, 
 things concerning him, and would do better to wholly hold their peace; so that 
 he himself must rather correct them, instead of their correcting him, vv. 4 — G. 
 Vsts signifies properly to besmear, stick-together, join, hence like the related 
 ^fp to sew (with Vs over a thing, seio-uj) xiv. 17); but is used here figuratively 
 of the toilsome putting together and connecting of invented lies. — As he must 
 therefore in self-defence begin to correct them, it is easy for him to throw at 
 them the most righteous censure, vv. 7 — 9, and threat, vv. 10 — 12, in place of 
 the unjust censure and threat with which they had persecuted him, and this 
 just reproof they must necessarily now hear from him whether they will or not. 
 For now, indeed, as long as God has not yet appeared, they may allege against 
 better knowledge the most false things regarding Job's case and God's purposes 
 with regard to him, only imputing guilt to the sufferer in order to flatter the 
 Almighty: but will they then when He actually appears (as Job is now about 
 to demand His appearance), dare to speak regarding Him as if He required 
 their lying voices, just as an earthly magnate likes to find partiality /o»- him- 
 self? do they wish to have the shame of being more narrowly examined and 
 seen through and through by Him who cannot be deceived or endure partiality 
 
IL 3. b.— Cn. xii— xiv. lQ-[ 
 
 10 He will correct, correct you, 
 
 if iu secret ye are partial! 
 will not His majesty terrify j'ou, 
 
 His dread fall upon you? 
 your sayings become ashen-proverbs, 
 
 shields of clay your shields' bosses. — 
 
 — Hold your peace from me, that / may speak, 
 let come upon me what may! — 
 
 Wherefore do I carry my body with my teeth, 
 and risk my soul iu my fist? 
 
 for Himself? vv. 7—9, comp. Prov. xxviii. 11; the "^ is for, on behalf of both 
 ver. 7 and ver. 8, comp. Judges vi. 31. — No, for the secret partiality against 
 the suflferer He will chastise them (as Job now at last, vv. 10 — 12, adds with 
 the confidence of the victor); and if He appears, his majesty, terrifying all the 
 profane, will immediately confound them as sinners, so that all the fine me- 
 morial sayings and other arguments with which they now defend themselves 
 dissolve at once into their native nothingness ! Inasmuch as they appeal so 
 gladly to ancient doctrines and wise proverbs, Job here ironically calls their 
 glib words memoi-ial sayings. 
 
 2. Ver. 13, vv. 14 — 22. With this sudden resolve, turning from the van- 
 quished opponents with whom he is determined not to speak further, and col- 
 lecting his thoughts alone for the arguing of his case with God, which had 
 already been announced, ver. 3, he is, it is true, seized by a vague fear as to 
 what will be the issue, as soon as he more closely considers the tremendous risk 
 to which he exposes himself. For according to the ancient belief, a man had 
 cause to fear immediate death if God by sudden appearance should approach too 
 close to him, how much more if he challenges Him almost defiantly (Ex. xxxiii. 
 20; Judg. xiii. 22 ; Gen. xviii. 23 sq.) : and such religious feelings and fears 
 come upon Job all the more powerfully at this moment since he previously believed 
 he was suffering under the divine wrath. But still more quickly does he cast 
 them off with the brief, abrupt, and vehement exclamation ver. 13. — Indeed, 
 when he reflects more calmly, sufficient reasons present themselves which can 
 encourage him to run this risk, or at all events to a certain extent excuse 
 him: of these there is particularly the desperate situation in which he finds 
 himself. For in any case he already supposes that he cannot escape impending 
 death: for what purpose therefore is vain labour and planning to save his life, 
 in some such way as a wild beast carries off in his teeth with great toil his 
 threatened prey (a sufficiently intelligible figure), or as one, already wholly lost, 
 who seeks to fight a way of escape with his fist, at once perishes if the power 
 of arm forsakes him (Judg. xii. 3; 1 Sam. xix. 5; x.wiii. 21 ; Ps. cxix. 109; i* iu 
 
 II 
 
152 II- 3- b.— Ch. xii— xiv, 
 
 15 He will nevertheless slay me! I have no hope; 
 only my ways will I maintain before Him! 
 that is also for my weal, 
 
 that no profane man cometh before Him. 
 
 Hear ye, hear attentively my words, 
 
 what I explain, [hear] with your ears! 
 behold now, I have ordered the case: 
 
 I know that / shall be in the right; 
 who is it that will contend with me? 
 
 for then would I hold my peace and expire! 
 
 such a case, is it not after all a consolation to be able freely to utter his 
 most sacred conviction at least before his death? vv. 14, 15. With this, it is 
 true, there ovei-takes him here too a feeling of the former despair (vii. 11, 16; 
 ix. 21, 25, 35; x. 1), threatening wholly to overcome him. But as quickly he 
 remembers, on the other hand, that his innocence must really in the end serve 
 to promote his weal, inasmuch as no profane man may come before God, and 
 he is not conscious of unholy inclinations, ver. 16 : a thought which is ex- 
 pressed here much more reassuringly than vi. 10 c and far less vehemently 
 than ix. 21. — Thus prepared and thus undaunted, just about to begin his case 
 against God, he then, with lofty courage and as if already assured of victory, 
 calls upon his opponents themselves to listen attentively to his accusation, ad- 
 dressing them once more: in the full consciousness of his innocence, he really 
 trusts firmly that not even anyone will be able to appear (not God Himself 
 even) as a decided opponent and counter-plaintiff, since in case such an one 
 should appear and refute him, he would as a punishment prefer at once to hold 
 his peace and die, vv. 17 — 19, comp. xxxi. 22. — But now in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of God and at the last decisive moment overtaken afresh in- 
 voluntarily by that vague fear, he ventures, already beginning to address God, 
 first to make two requests to Him that he may be able calmly to present his 
 case : the two requests being, that He do not so intensify his pains during his 
 speech that he must sink under them (to remove His hand from him), and 
 then, by His sudden appearance, for instance, not confound him by His terror 
 (comp. ver. 11). These are the same two requests which he had already made 
 as preliminaries of his open complaint in a similar connexion in the previous 
 speech, ix. 34, only that here, where he prepares a plaintiff''s charge with set 
 purpose, he offers them much more distinctly : just as before human judges 
 guarantees of unrestrained speech may be requested as preliminary to the trial. 
 Under these conditions, therefore, let the contention begin, God Himself begin- 
 ning by calling him to account, or Job beginning to speak, the latter of which, 
 since God does not call upon him, he does on his own responsibility, vv. 20 — 22. 
 Thus this entire section, vv. 11 — 22, which is in the highest degree agitated 
 between hope and fear, shows what self-conquest and hard inward struggles 
 
ir 3. b.— Cr xii— xiv. J63 
 
 20 Only two things do not with me, 
 
 then from Thy face will I not hide me : 
 the weight of Thy hand withdraw far from me, 
 
 and let not Thy fear terrify me! 
 then call, and / will answer, 
 
 or I speak, and answer Thou me ! 
 
 3. 
 
 How many iniquities, misdeeds, have I? 
 
 my transgression and misdeed cause Thou me to know! 
 
 this step cost Job, precisely because he ventures upon it before he is suf- 
 ficiently purified and prepared, since he does not yet possess the complete 
 clearness and repose without which no man can see the Lord : how totally 
 different is it subsequently, ch. xxix — xxxi. 
 
 III. xiii. 23 — ch. xiv. The speech against God, thus introduced and proudly 
 commenced in the presence of his opponents, begins like an actual plaintifl's 
 accusation with the appropriate question, xiii. 23, 24, as only an unfortunate 
 defendant can complain before a superior lord and judge whom he considers 
 as also his prosecutor. But as God, although so distinctly appealed to, indeed, 
 challenged, delays to appear, the speech is further continued, issues in other 
 considerations, and thus once more becomes like the conclusions of the two 
 previous speeches, ch. vii., x. ; indeed at last, xiv. 13 sq., as the feeling of the 
 uselessness of this effort also can no longer be overcome and gets the complete 
 mastery, the speech comes back once more to despair of all present things. 
 Inasmuch, therefore, as it becomes the third similar speech of this kind, 
 although beginning quite differently, it gathers up in a firmer and more forcible 
 form what had been twice before indicated and hastily uttered, giving equal 
 prominence both to the moral aspects of the case, from which the complaint 
 must start, and to the natural aspects of it, but carrying both to an extreme. 
 If previously the moral aspects of the contention, vii. 17 — 21, were only just 
 touched upon, but then x. 2 — 17, solely brought forward with passionate 
 vehemence, here the question is at once proposed, how much then he has really 
 sinned who is himself not conscious of any great transgression, and wherefore 
 he suffers? and the natural aspects, which were forcibly enough referred to 
 vii. 1 — 16, but scarcely at all ch. x., are here treated once more, as if for the 
 last time, with great emphasis and agonising grief. But just because the 
 plaintiff here gathers up all that he had hitherto felt of this kind and exhausts 
 it with the utmost effort, there arises in him irresistibly at last the foreboding 
 of the vanity of all such endeavours, and involuntarily the first dim outlook 
 into a new world forces itself upon him: gradually the complaint becomes more 
 collected, the speech quieter, more resigned in its melancholy, and thereby most 
 dissimilar to its predecessors. First, the short, severe complaint of the wrong 
 
 II * 
 
164 II- 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, 
 considerest me Thine enemy! 
 
 25 A driven leaf — that wilt Thou scare, 
 and the dry stubble still pursue, 
 that Thou prescribest for me bitter punishments 
 
 and causest me to inherit youthful sins, 
 puttest my feet in the block 
 and watchest all my paths, 
 
 of the soles of my feet makest Thyself sure? 
 although like a rotten thing he falleth away, 
 like a garment devoured by the moth! — 
 
 which he believes he endures although so weak and harmless, xiii. 23 — 28 ; 
 then the reflection becomes of a more general nature, pervaded by profound 
 melancholy, regarding the physical as well as moral weakness and imperfection 
 of man in comparison with God, of man who when once he has died appears 
 to have the most mournful lot, which is wholly out of proportion to his de- 
 serts, of never being permitted again to enjoy life, xiv. 1 — 12: O that a return 
 into life were possible, that at least after his death his innocence might be re- 
 cognised, since in the present life this seems, on account of the certainty of 
 impending death, impossible to be attained (this is the new and logical but 
 infinitely important inference by which Job returns to himself and his case) ! 
 xiv. 13 — 22. Thus this long speech, which deals with such a great number of 
 thoughts, requires five long strophes to exhaust it, the first three having six, 
 the last two five verses each. 
 
 1. xiii. 23 — 28. Vv. 23, 24 the complaint in the strict sense finds brief 
 expression, in a dififerent way from x. 2. How many sins — ? it would seem 
 from such severe punishments that I must have many : but I do not know of 
 any, save that perhaps, ver. 26, Thou must desire so severely to charge upon 
 me and not forgive the slight, pardonable transgressions of my youth, Ps. xxv. 7. 
 But inasmuch as the natural consideration is here immediately brought into 
 the moral one, he also asks bitterly, ver. 25 (as vii. 12): wilt Thou, the Al- 
 mighty, scare, persecute a driven leaf or the dry stubble? me who am already 
 become wholly weak and helpless. Thou with all Thy terrible power? that 
 Thou on that account, as if I must not yield to every gust of wind even, 
 writest (dictatest as judge) such bitter punishments for me, and as if I could 
 escape boldest me so strictly and severely, as into the worst prison * settest 
 
 » The block, or log of wood, in which the feet were put, or which had to 
 be dragged along on the foot, Lat. codex, Russ. dybys, Turk. •iyjoj^ tumruq, 
 
 Acts xvi. 24, Abdias' Hist. Apost. iii. 2, Burckhardt's Notes on the Bed. p. 302; 
 Aristoph. Eqidt. 367, 707, 1054, Lysistr. 679, Pint. 276, Journ. asiat. 1852, 
 I. p. 373. 
 
II. 3. b— Ch. xii— xiv lß5 
 
 xiv. 
 
 1 Man boru of woman 
 
 is short-lived and full of restlessness ; 
 like the flower he springeth up and — is withered, 
 
 and fled as a shadow, never staying : 
 and upon such an one hast Thou fixed Thine eye, 
 and me bringest Thou into judgment with Thee? 
 that but a pure man might come from an impure, 
 were it only one! 
 
 my feet and vatchcst all my mays (vii. 12; x. 14), yea, makest thyself sure^ 
 of the soles of my feet, where they may be and where they shall be forced to 
 continue without any movement, just as certainly a strict guard must know how 
 far he will grant freedom to them : although in reality this weak man Job al- 
 ready perishes like a rotten thing, and, inwardly ruined and wasted, will soon 
 fall away like a moth-eaten garment. The conclusion, ver. 28, thus reverts in 
 sense to what was already indicated ver. 25 : but as Job both here and there 
 looks upon himself more as suffering under the common lot of human weak- 
 ness, this general reflection can now easily become, 
 
 2 and 3, xiv. 1 — 12, exclusively prevalent. But in this general reflection 
 still more than the simple toil and moil of human life, which had previously 
 been strongly dwelt upon, iii. 17, vii. 1 — 5, is the brief life of the frail son of 
 woman brought forward, even much more emphatically than vii. 6 — 10 : for it 
 is precisely around this terrible thought, that man, and with him his innocence, 
 must perish by death for ever, that in the end all the sorrow, complaint and 
 despair gather, since Job can very easily let go his life but not his innocence. 
 If with this natural, physical weakness of man there is strictly compared his 
 spiritual, or moral, weakness, according to which no one (much as this were to 
 be desired)^ can really be quite pure before God, how unjust does it then appear 
 that God should so strictly judge him and persecute him so incessantly with 
 punishment and suffering (as had been previously said xiii. 26, 27), since surely 
 
 * This is the most probable signification of "i;f!r"7, ver. 27, formed from pn> 
 ace. § 121 o, like < öJirSVJ' with _JLt to certify oneself of a thing, as 
 
 similarly -X^ ^ V-5^ '' to make oneself arbitrarily judge concerning a matter, 
 to dispose of it arbitrarily. The interpretation of the Vulg. and the Pesh., 
 vestigia pedum meorum considerasti, may also be tolerably well combined with 
 this, though it is too general and indefinite. 
 
 2 The «^, ver. 4 J, must ace. § 358 J be equivalent to '^i and if this 
 member contains properly an interjected wish, as it were a sigh, its unusual 
 brevity is also explained. 
 
IQQ IL 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 5 If his days are determined, 
 
 the number of his moons with Thee, 
 
 bounds Thou hast set, not to be i)assed: 
 then look away from him that he may rest, 
 at least enjoy as a hireling his day! 
 
 For the tree even hath hope : 
 if it is hewn, it sprouteth again, 
 and its young shoot faileth not; 
 if in the earth its root wax old, 
 
 or in the dust its stock die, 
 — from the scent of water it bursteth forth again, 
 and maketh boughs like young plants: 
 10 but a man, he dieth — and is cut off, 
 and when men die — they are gone! 
 Flowed away is the water from the sea, 
 
 and the stream is parched away, dried up : 
 so when men have lain down, they never arise, 
 until the heavens vanish, they never awake, 
 they are not aroused from their sleep. — 
 
 even a man like Job can easily at some time sin although (as was indicated 
 xiii. 25) it is only in smaller and pardonable matters, vv. 1 — 4. So that it 
 must be thence inferred, if life is really so brief and it is determined on God's 
 part that there shall be no possibility of prolonging it, surely God ought all 
 the more to grant man rest in this brief space, in order that he may at least 
 (■y) endure the weariness of his life as the hireling willingly bears the toil of 
 his in hope of the remunerative evening, vv. 5, 6, comp. vii. 19; x. 20: the 
 hireling finds the present hard and weary, but it is brightened by hope for the 
 future ; the man who, with the vain wish to be permitted longer life, looks 
 with terror into the future, and who is nevertheless in the present incessantly 
 tortured, can have no enjoyment at all, neither in the present nor the future: 
 thus the picture vii. 1 is here still darker. — For, alas, it is a mournful truth, 
 that man has no hope of ever living again after death, vv. 7 — 12: so far even 
 tlie tree seems better off than man, since if above the earth it is hewn down 
 it has still hidden roots below, which are able to strike out afresh, ver. 7 ; or 
 if from its own debility it is about to die in the dry ground, still as soon as it 
 even from a distance scents the reviving water and feels it near, it is at once 
 made young again, vv. 8, 9. In the case of the tree, therefore, the possibility 
 of a new life is not excluded, but it is wholly different in the case of a deceased 
 man : as the diied-up water leaves behind it no trace in the lake or stream 
 
II. 3. b.—CH. xii— xiv. JßY 
 
 — Would that in the Underworld Thou didst hide me, 
 didst conceal me till Thy wrath turned, 
 
 didst set me a term — and rememberedst me! 
 
 / If a man die, doth he live again? 
 
 all my service-time would 1 hope, 
 until my relief came; 
 
 and never returns (vii. 9), so man wlien dead returnetb not until the heaven 
 is no more, and that is eternal (Ps. Ixxxix. 30, 38, 39; not as "Isa." li. 6), 
 therefore cometh never again from his motionless sleep in Hades into this life 
 in the Upper-world ! 
 
 4 and 5, xiv. 13 — 22. But i)recisely that which is unsatisfactory and com- 
 fortless in this general belief of antiquity leads at last, when Job, reverting 
 from it to himself and his innocence, is about to draw his conclusion, unex- 
 pectedly and yet logically to a new thought. That thought, which here first 
 suddenly comes to light, takes its place in the imagination as merely a distant 
 wish, there to be fully recognised and realised in the first place. In this its 
 first conception in the imagination it does not attain to full certainty. The 
 speaker who is surprised by it, at first simply considers how beautiful and 
 glorious the case would be if it were a reality. But inasmuch as the thought 
 contains a truth which has really its proper place here, it can never be lost 
 again, but when more closely followed must become increasingly certain. Pre- 
 viously, on the consciousness that his innocence could not be for ever over- 
 looked by God, Job in view of death cherished the profoundly painful, perfectly 
 comfortless idea, that God would some day, when He would desire to acknow- 
 ledge the justice of his cause and restore to him his due, seek in vain for him 
 on the earth, in vain, therefore, desire to declare perceptibly to him his inno- 
 cence, vii. 8, 21. But now, after the consciousness of his innocence has already 
 in the course of the contention become much more distinct, suddenly an entirely 
 different idea, full of comfort and opening up to him an infinite hope, forces 
 itself upon his mind. It is the idea, whether his innocence may not possibly 
 be acknowledged in a new life after death ? And now he rapidly surveys with 
 a clear glance both the presupposed conditions and the exceedingly glorious 
 consequences of the truth of this idea. The heart of the man, who thinks ho 
 must despair as regards the present and was only just now feeling that he was 
 wholly without outlook in his utter darkness, swells with the thoughts and pro- 
 spects which thus crowd upon him: a bright light comes suddenly to divide by 
 its flash tliis darkness. First, the desire to be hidden, it is true, in the Under- 
 world, whither he must soon come, as in a dark place of refuge from the 
 divine wrath which is determined to pursue him at present until death is passed, 
 but to be hidden only for a set time, then to be judged! vcr. 13. But if the 
 last thing is to take place, a new life must be granted, since the judgment can 
 be held over the living only : but is a new life possible ? a previous question 
 which had been almost forgotten in the fervour and suddenness of the wish, 
 
168 . li 3. b,— Ch. xii— xiv. 
 
 15 Thou wouldcst call, I answer Thee, 
 
 Thou wouldest long for the work of Thy hands ! — 
 For now Thou numberest my steps, 
 
 passest not by my sin : 
 my transgression is sealed up in a bag. 
 
 Thou hast sewed up my punishment. 
 
 ver. 14 a. If it were possible, O bow would he patiently wait all bis time of 
 forced labour, i.e.., as long as bis innocence shall be unrecognised and he shall 
 thereby be most profoundly tortured and alarmed, on the earth and in the 
 Underworld, until his relief from this hard forced-service should come by the 
 divine appearing, quickening, and redemption! and bow marvellously glorious 
 would be the issue of this! how would he with expectation and joy answer the 
 call of God (whilst God's call to him to the defence of his innocence, xiii. 22, 
 is now in vain expected), and how would the Creator long after his creature, 
 from whom He cannot surely for ever turn away, because His creature is a 
 part of Himself, He who now overlooks the child which is profoundly longing 
 after Him! ver. 15, more briefly reechoed from x. 8 — 12. For noio, indeed 
 (thus he falls back, vv. 16, 17, from the bright picture, which had suddenly come 
 as from another world and suddenly vanished again, into the dark reality), he 
 thinks that he can expect nothing else than a continuance of the wrong: now 
 God seems to count his steps, i.e., not to grant him the least liberty or rest, 
 xiii. 27, and not to overlook his transgression.'^ On the contrary, the guilt of 
 Job, in the sense of his condemnation to death, appears to be already un- 
 alterably determined, solemnly written down and sealed like a judicial sentence, 
 yea, to lie preserved with other recorded resolutions in the carefully sewed-up 
 bag, to be brought forth and carried out at the convenient time! This figure, 
 which is worked out so completely, ver. 17, is often used by other poets and 
 speakers of those centuries, Hos. xiii. 12; Deut. xxxii. 34; on 'S* hsi'O, see ante 
 on xiii. 4, and comp, also Beiträge zur Geschichte der ältesten Auslegimg des 
 
 1 In the text of the second as well as of the first edition Ewald followed 
 the Mass. reading '? '"?''?, translating hast not regard to my transgression, with the 
 comment, "whether it deserves to be so severely punished as it actually is, or 
 whether the contrary is not the case according to xiii, 23, 26; as an earthly 
 ruler often punishes without himself paying much regard to the measure of the 
 transgression, «or even to the guilt or innocence." In a foot-note he said: 
 "Although this meaning of V^ ^'a'ii is unusual, the reading of the LXX ''3?'.'ü 
 ~l-y, understood according to vii. 21 b, appears to be still less suitable in this 
 connection." But in the addenda et corrigenda of the second edition, he partly 
 adopted the reading of the LXX (which is substituted for that of the Mass. 
 in this translation of the text) M'ith the remark : "If, on the other hand, simply 
 i3J>n is adopted from the LXX, the reading really suits xiii. 23 — 26 ; xiv. 4 ; 
 vii. 21 also so completely that we must after all prefer it." Tr. 
 
II. 3. b.— Ch. xii— xiv. Iß9 
 
 But even a mountain fallcth crumbling uwuy, 
 
 and a rock moveth from its place; 
 Stones are hollowed by water, 
 
 its floods wash away the dust of the earth: 
 — and the hope of man hast Thou destroyed! 
 20 Thou fallest upon him continually — he vauisheth away, 
 
 with his face disfigured — Thou sendest him forth: 
 are his sons honoured — he knoweth it not, 
 
 unhonourcd — he heedeth it not: 
 only /lis own body giveth him pain, 
 
 his soul grieveth him. 
 
 Ä. T., by Ewald and Dukes, Vol. I. p. 94. — But if Job has long borne the in- 
 cessant attacks, calamities, and tortures of all kinds, he cannot surely stand 
 against them for ever; even the most steadfast and strongest things succumb 
 at last to the incessant, secret or open attack of hostile forces, no less mountains 
 and rocks by internal dissolution than hard stones gradually worn away and 
 hollowed out by perpetually dropping water, and as an extensive, heavy mass 
 of earth is at last entirely washed away by floods : how much more must the 
 body of weak man in the end succumb, yea, the hope of this man Job God 
 has already destroyed! ver. 18; the ~) before the last member connects with 
 inimitable brevity and point what has already been sufficiently proved as 
 analogous, still more pointedly than v. 7, xii. 11. To the incessant attacks of 
 the Almighty this man Job must yield and he yields already: yea, as the su- 
 perior antagonist often does not let go the weaker opponent, who tries somewhat 
 to defend himself, until alter he has disfigured his face and put upon him a mark 
 of his superiority, so He does not release Job before death, when all beauty of 
 form has departed from him and simply the horrible image of death remains 
 (irnVttjm corresponds to l^"'"i, naoJa is a circumstantial clause to insprr) ; 
 there, in the Underworld, he then knows nothing more of the things of the 
 earth, joyous or sorrowful, so his departure from the earth affects Job thus pain- 
 fully because he must fear that his children (see ante, p. 73) may have after 
 him a sad lot upon the earth without his being able to help them : for in the 
 underworld the dead man, without further knowledge of the Upperworld, witli- 
 out activity or movement, simply endures his own physical and mental pain in 
 desolate retirement. Thus this speech also closes with the same dark outlook 
 into the Underworld as all the former ones, since the cheering picture, 
 vv. 13 — 15, which suddenly suggested itself, is too little fixed and certain to be 
 able to remain : still, it has great emphasis and important consequences, that 
 Job, after all, here also at last, vy. 19 — 22, just as xiii. 28, causes in this com- 
 plaint the general human lot involuntarily to take precedence of his own 
 feelings, inasmuch as his own personal case is so pure and so great that it can 
 become that of mankind generally and in reality docs become that more and 
 more. 
 
170 m- — ^^- iv— xxi. 
 
 THIRD STAGE OF THE DRAMA: 
 UTMOST INTEICACY. 
 
 SECOND ADVANCE IN THE CONTENTION. 
 CH. XV — XXI. 
 
 The last speech of Job's and the failure of God to appear 
 have altered the past position of the contending parties en- 
 tirely. The friends, seeing not only their endeavours frustrated 
 but also themselves so painfully attacked, are compelled to 
 transfer the contention to another point, if they intend to 
 continue it (and as at the commencement men of purely bene- 
 volent intentions, they desire this). As their first position has 
 been rendered useless, indeed, has at last been stormed and 
 taken by Job, they must take up a second and more decisive 
 one. How can they continue to show consideration and kind- 
 ness if Job spurns all their words with indignation and scorn ; 
 if while they supposed that they deserved a reward from 
 him and from God, he threatens them with even divine 
 punishment? How can they continue to intersperse comfort 
 and hope, if he meets all their consolatory words with out- 
 breaks of hopeless, indeed, wild despair? And (which was 
 the chief thing in their attitude hitherto) how can they con- 
 tinue to endeavour to keep from unconsidered, profane words 
 against God the man who at last dared, in a to them incom- 
 prehensible manner, to challenge God even on his own behalf 
 and against them? Their first gentler weapon has thereby 
 been now completely wrested from them. Forced by this turn 
 of the contention, they seek a sharper one which shall pierce 
 deeper ; and they find it in the exposure of himself which Job 
 had just plainly enough made precisely when he drove his 
 opponents from their position. For whether he was misled to 
 
Ill— Cu. XV— xxi. 171 
 
 it by his opponents or not, Job's defiant challenge of God to 
 appear, which has already been punished by its futility, being 
 incontestably an act of grievous rashness, must serve in the view 
 of his opponents as a plain proof, that the man who can now 
 speak so perversely has serious past sin upon him. And this 
 inference conducts them to the thought, that when Job appeals 
 to God against them, he intends simply in his despair to shield 
 himself from the mournful but unavoidable consequences of his 
 previous sins, just as cunning criminals, whose guilt cannot be 
 immediately plainly proved, audaciously pervert the accusation 
 into a charge against the accusers, xv. 5 h. But as they con- 
 sider the prove of Job's guilt just mentioned as certain, they 
 are determined not to be deceived by his daring cunning: 
 they now direct their second main principle, which is here 
 most appropriate, the principle of the inviolable universal di- 
 vine righteousness, against the man who is about by openly 
 speaking against God to intrench upon divine righteousness 
 generally. They do this with great emphasis, and draw the 
 longest, most terrible descriptions of the certain shocking de- 
 struction of the wicked, in order to place before their friend, 
 as manifestly an oftender, a mirror in which he may see his 
 own present and future lot. That which Bildad, ch. viii., had 
 in this respect begun in a distant way, is now carried to the 
 greatest extreme: and the bitterness and indignation of the 
 friends have already reached such a pitch, that an under- 
 standing or reconciliation becomes impossible, since they who 
 desired to advise, help and comfort are unable sufficiently to 
 express their unmeasured horror at Job's entire attitude and 
 life. Still, a secret weakness and inability is already observ- 
 able in the opponents. They permit the clue to the under- 
 standing of Job's case to be entirely snatched from them, and 
 in the special matter from which the whole contention arose, 
 they get more and more into confusion. Tliey now seek to 
 make their strong point really simply the horrible descriptions 
 of the overthrow of the wicked, to which they are driven by 
 
172 III- — t!H. XV — xxi. 
 
 the progress of the contention, without clearly knowing that the 
 descriptions completely meet Job's case. So two of them — the 
 second and the third — repeat in the main section of their 
 speeches, with but little variation, the terrible pictures which 
 Eliphaz first draws. But Bildad, notwithstanding his great 
 indignation, is able to utter little more than most obvious 
 generalities with regard to Job's case, xviii. 2—4, and Zophar 
 speaks already simply because he supposes that his honour 
 demands that he should speak against Job, xx. 2—3. Thus 
 gradually the opponents already lose their strength, and a 
 prolix expansion of their few thoughts must at last, at this 
 height of the contention even, in their case conceal the want 
 of an intrinsic progress. But although Eliphaz regards the 
 suHcrer especially as a crafty perverter, xv. 5&, and Bildad 
 regards him as mad xviii. 4, while Zophar deems him person- 
 ally insulting, xx. 3, all such untrue reproaches can have no 
 other effect than to bring the contention into increasing con- 
 fusion. 
 
 But it is not alone this extremely hostile attitude of the 
 friends which now comes upon Job as the first evil consequence 
 of his futile challenge of the divine judgment: a second, a 
 more righteous, and far more severe punishment of that pre- 
 sumptuous rashness, follows the first immediately. The more 
 boldly, in consequence of having perceived the unfaithfulness 
 of the friends, he had referred his complaint to God and ex- 
 pected deliverance and victory from Him, ch. xiii., the more 
 painfully does the disappointment of this last earthly hope 
 affect him, around which his whole thought and endeavour 
 liad really at last gathered more cheeringly if spasmodically. 
 It is now, therefore, that he first feels himself completely 
 abandoned of everything on which his love and his confidence 
 had previously depended, not merely of all men without ex- 
 ception, but of the God of the outward world Himself, as he 
 had hitherto known and revered Him. And still more than 
 by the unfaithfulness and want of feeling of the dearest human 
 
Ill— Ch. XV— xxi. 173 
 
 friends is he grieved and perplexed by the wholly unexpected 
 inditierence and withdrawal of the God who intentionally, as 
 it seems, declines to attend to his most urgent petition and 
 his clearest right : with the thought that God fails him all in- 
 telligible thinking ceases, and instead of it an infinite trouble, 
 or illimitable confusion and boundless despair take possession 
 of him. 
 
 Here therefore the climax of complication, the greatest in- 
 tricacy, of the entire action begins; the suffering (pathos) at- 
 tains a degree of intensity which cannot be surpassed, the 
 language of the sufterer a measure of sadness which cannot be 
 increased. If in the first stage of the contention each of his 
 speeches issued in reflections which after all sought for the 
 indispensable bases of the divine mercy, and secretly served to 
 sustain, though with waning brightness, the fire of hope, thereby 
 that the weak mortal believed he might perhaps be still able 
 to obtain the divine compassion by the most yearning longing 
 and the most touching complaint ^ he must now, having at- 
 tained the certainty that God has nevertheless not appeared, 
 nor will appear in answer to mortal effort of this kind, give 
 up every glimmer of a like hope. As far as this mode of ap- 
 proaching Him is concerned, the God whom he has hitherto 
 known is for ever lost to him, and the mortal who is thus 
 bitterly disappointed can only bitterly complain over the dis- 
 appointment of his hope, xvii. 15, 16; xix. 4, 5. 
 
 It is true, that it is precisely here that the immea- 
 surable power of the good conscience and the invincible 
 strength of innocence are most splendidly and surprisingly 
 displayed. If everything on earth is lost and all present 
 things are destroyed, if even the ancient God of the outward 
 world appears to fail and must be given up, nevertheless in- 
 nocence, with its clear conscience, can neither give up itself 
 nor the eternal, necessary God. On the contrary, surveying 
 all the future, it rises all the more boldly with unexpected 
 
 1 As in Ps. xxxix., Ixxxviii., see ante p. 9 sq. 
 
174 III.— Cn. XV— xxi. 
 
 might the more men seek to deprive it of the true possessions — 
 its consciousness of being bound up with the eternally divine 
 itself and its infinite assurance based thereon. Having been 
 disappointed with regard to all past earthly hope, it recovers 
 itself with all the greater intensity, purity, and clearness of 
 conviction in the eternal hope ; it gets all the more profoundly 
 absorbed in the things which when all else has failed are 
 eternally certain; and reveals with victorious power the most 
 marvellous surmisiugs and truths in the midst of the most 
 extreme calamity and distress. Thus in the most perilous 
 hour, when he seems to be wholly lost, Job saves himself 
 thereby that, by becoming clearly conscious for the first time 
 of the immortality of the soul and of the indestructibility of 
 innocence before God, he triumphs over death and life and 
 all the vicissitudes of time in a pure intuition of the future. 
 That which at the end of the first advance of the contention 
 surprised him at first as a sudden, happy desire, xiv. 13, 14, 
 now presses itself upon him with growing certainty as true 
 and necessary, xvi. 18, 19; xvii. 3, 9; xix. 25— 29. And this 
 first pure gain of the contention and the sufferings must be 
 attended by unending consequences, since the new truth, which 
 has been brought out so powerfully, necessarily and logically, 
 can never be wholly lost again. Indeed, the great, true, de- 
 cisive turning-point of the entire contention as between these 
 men, and, in fact, the favourable turning-point in the life and 
 the cause of Job, is this, that while he in the present and in 
 this life despairs of everything, even of the God who had 
 hitherto been regarded as the true one, he nevertheless holds 
 fast to the eternal, hidden God of the future, and with the 
 assured faith in the immortality of his soul and of his cause 
 marvellously rises just when, according to human conceptions, 
 lie seems to be about inevitably to perish. 
 
 Notwithstanding, as far as the present is concerned, with its 
 terrors and constantly fresh trials, he is unable to discern im- 
 mediately any fresh light beyond that frustrated hope. In elevated 
 
III.— Cn XV— xxi. 175 
 
 moments, it is true, he secures the truth of the divine righteous- 
 ness by escaping into the future after his death, and thus by 
 the aid of it maintains and refreshes himself against the at- 
 tacks of the opponents; but precisely as regards the present, 
 he does not see it realised. He considers that he is tormented 
 to certain death, xvii. 1, 11 — 16; he goes unwillingly to die, 
 because he beholds his innocence completely disbelieved on 
 earth, xvii. 2, 4; and he specially regards God as all along 
 hostile to him, and is unable to comprehend the reason why 
 He does not appear and why He does not deliver him. All 
 along therefore the most gloomy disconsolateness and melancholy 
 prevails within him, through which at times only, particularly 
 when reference to the foolish charges of his opponents urge 
 him to it, the above-mentioned inspired glance into the future 
 pierces. In this melancholy the danger is always present of 
 charging God with witholding, at all events for the present, 
 the right, of injustice therefore in this matter, xix. 7, xxi. 4. 
 And since when he considers the world around under the light 
 of this personal experience, he finds, with his dull eye for the 
 present, confirmed in it simply what corresponds to his sad 
 mood, he may in the end be easily misled to deny the general 
 divine justice in the earth and to lose himself in confusion 
 and perplexity as regards all human and divine concerns. 
 Whilst therefore the opponents are constantly threatening with 
 the divine righteousness and the hard lot of the wicked, Job 
 is, on the other hand, from the first more inclined to doubt 
 both in relation to the present and the existing world; and 
 the unintelligent and weak resistance of his opponents more 
 and more provokes him to develop with force and precision 
 his dark thoughts, which are wholly onesided though, according 
 to the assumptions of the opponents, they are correct. \V(j 
 have had this progress in the contention in the first advance 
 on a smaller scale, ch. viii. and ch. ix. 21 — 35. The first two 
 tittws when he must speak, he is, after the hard blow which 
 he sutiered at the end of the first advance, still too depressed 
 
176 III.— Ch. XV — xxi. 
 
 and absorbed in himself, and must first get accustomed to his 
 new situation, to be able at once to advance to the full attack 
 of the opponents with their new weapons : he contents himself 
 with representing his true, vastly miserable condition, and as 
 against the terrors of his opponents, to threaten them with the 
 hidden judge of his own future which reaches beyond death. 
 Observing generally that there is here a superhuman enigma, 
 a terribly dark fatality, which men vainly strive to illuminate, 
 he speaks against men only under compulsion, mocking bit- 
 terly at their vain endeavours, xvi. 2 — 5; xvii. 10 — 16, once 
 seeking, even in the climax of the complication, although in 
 vain, as he soon observes, to excite the pity of his opponents, 
 ch. xix., at last distinctly declaring that really he is only 
 complaining against God, xxi. 2—5. Thus the first two times 
 he really simply in self-defence wards off the blows of the 
 opponents, a hero contending with the greatest conceivable 
 pain, truly deserving of all pity and exciting the compassion 
 of every noble breast, nevertheless strong and borne up, in 
 spite of all persistent troubles and unintelligible problems, by 
 inward strength and assurance, indeed, looking forth beyond 
 death triumphantly into the future. But if ch. xvi., xvii. he 
 finds it difficult at first to get accustomed to his new situation, 
 putting an end to all previous thoughts and endeavours, he 
 has attained ch. xix. the climax of the tragical pathos of his 
 case. At this point is reached the profoundest melancholy on 
 account of the awful abyss of life which is now first fully per- 
 ceived; his pain outbids even his feeling of indignation and 
 seeks to rouse the friends to pity; and yet at the same time 
 the greatest strength of his good conscience is put forth, and 
 marvellously assails the opponents ! Truly, it is now or never 
 that the opponents must have learnt wisdom and compassion. 
 But as the third opponent nevertheless begins once more the 
 same old story unsparingly against Job, at last the latter, as 
 he now considers exclusively this second weapon of the op- 
 ponents, namely, the general divine righteousness, enters almost 
 
III.— Ch. x^ — xxi. 177 
 
 against his will upon the offensive, and shows, that he is com- 
 pelled to doubt the existence of that righteousness which his 
 opponents are perpetually magnifying, ch. xxi. By this means 
 he drives the opponents also from this position of theirs, but 
 permits himself once more to be led astray by the want of 
 clearness and the confusion, in which he still continues, but 
 which he must himself reject on calmer reflection. 
 
 There accordingly hangs over this second advance the most 
 oppressive sultriness of midday. The human combatants bring 
 each other into the greatest confusion and perplexity, and the 
 divine truth appears to be more and more lost in the dark- 
 ness. The speeches become more agitated, more at variance, 
 more forced and unwieldly, and therefore to some extent also 
 shorter and more uniform. If in the first advance all the 
 speeches of the friends conclude with hope, all Job's with per- 
 sonal reflections, now all those of the friends issue in terrible 
 pictures, all Job's in a brief, pointed repulse of the friends. 
 They had really at the end of the previous advance been fin- 
 ally repulsed by him, and by these recurring sharp repudiations, 
 although he really desires to cease speaking altogether, he 
 continues no less to show his own mental superiority and the 
 hollowness of the opposition than to give fresh provocation and 
 renew the contention. To the former ofi'ence against God Job 
 adds now a second, in that he not only complains of His not 
 coming to mediate, but also doubts His righteousness in the 
 present history of the world generally. Yet while outwardly 
 everything appears in confusion, beneath the surface the true 
 possibility of the solution is germinating. Whilst Job is des- 
 pairing of the ancient God, he is beginning all the more feel- 
 ingly to embrace the true God of the future, and in the midst 
 of the profoundest misery is borne up by a new immortal 
 hope. 
 
178 III. 
 
 1. ELIPHAZ AND JOB. 
 
 a. ELIPHAZ. CH. XV. 
 
 Eliphaz by virtue of his reputation and of his experience 
 and wisdom first prepares the way for the new position to be 
 assumed against Job. Being prepared openly to censure Job's 
 attitude and to infer the worst from it, he must at first, in 
 order to obtain again with reference to Job the position of an 
 admonisher, endeavour to put down and humiliate the reckless 
 speaker who sought so proudly to magnify himself. This he 
 accomplishes with great dexterity. Starting from just doubts 
 of Job's wisdom, and, indeed, from proofs of his guilt which 
 have now been made quite clear, he comes with scornful 
 seriousness to place before him his false position. He repre- 
 sents to him that he has no reason whatever to proudly exalt 
 himself, neither as an individual beyond other men— he of a 
 recent generation, of little knowledge, agitated by passion, — 
 nor as a member of the human race against God, before whom 
 no man is righteous; and thus having come back to his fa- 
 vourite proposition (comp. iv. 17 sq.), on the basis of it he 
 assumes again the position of a teacher of Job, as if urged by 
 the greatness of the thought and the ancient truth. The wise 
 sentiment itself which he has thus introduced consists, how- 
 ever, simply of a long, terrible exposition of the general truth, 
 that the sinner, because by living merely for himself he des- 
 pises God and man, will be tormented as long as he lives and 
 all his possessions will be insecure. Whence Job may himself 
 make the application to his own case! The discourse, there- 
 fore, falls into two equal halves; the first half consisting of 
 the proof in three stages of increasing force, vv. 2—19, the 
 second containing the calm, pregnant, sententious declaration 
 of wisdom, vv. 20 — 35. The first simply shows that Eliphaz 
 is entitled to deliver such a serious lecture upon the divine 
 righteousness against the sinner; and thus this long, laboured 
 
III. 1. a.— Ch. XV. ]^79 
 
 discourse nevertheless falls perceptibly behind the former one 
 of this opponent of Job's as regards substance, wealth and 
 calm exposition. 
 
 XV. 1 Then answered Eliphaz the Taemanite and said: 
 
 Both a wise man answer windy knowledge, 
 
 and fill out with the blast his belly? 
 correcting with words — doth not serve, 
 
 and with speeches — therewith he doeth no good! 
 
 And thou indeed annullest religion 
 
 and lessenest devotion before God! 
 5 no, thine own mouth teacheth thy guilt, 
 
 and thou choosest the language of the crafty; 
 thy mouth condemneth thee — not /, 
 
 and thy lips witness against thee! 
 
 1. Vv. 2 — 19, answering to the rapid treatment, there are six short strophes 
 of three verses each, the first, indeed, having but two; in the middle only, 
 after Job has been corrected and Eliphaz comes back to his own previous 
 speech, is there a somewhat longer pause, so that the third strophe is lengthened 
 to four verses, while this part of the whole speech is divided into two halves 
 of nine verses each. — The introduction, vv. 2 — 6, touches at once the main 
 point: not only may just doubts be raised as to Job's wisdom, vv. 2, 3, since 
 a truly wise man would not deliver speeches which are both windy, i.e., empty, 
 and still worse-stormy, i.e., passionate, . speeches which proceed from the belly, 
 the seat of unruly passion, not even from the heart (viii. 10), and since gener- 
 ally in fact, correction by means of mere words is of no use without corresponding 
 deeds; but also in the very deeds of Job there lie clear proofs of his guilt, 
 w. 4 — 6, since he utters even godless, shocking speeches, outraging and dimi- 
 nishing the religion (iv. 6) of others also (ver. 4 S^J to take something from a 
 thing, therefore to lessen it) ; which he could not do unless he were already 
 wholly depraved inwardly, so that this language itself betrays his guilt, as Eli- 
 phaz imagines himself also to be astute enough to perceive that Job by seeking 
 to throw his own guilt upon others only uses the language of crafty thieves, 
 who when accused seek to cast suspicion on their accusers. — How little reason 
 Job has to do this, is shown him first, vv. 7 — 13, from the human aspect of 
 the case, with cutting severity. He who will be wiser than all other men, 
 does he perhaps occupy a place at the head of the whole human race (like the 
 Logos), the first in point of age as well as of dignity and nearness to God? 
 
 12* 
 
IgO III. 1. a.— Cii. XV. 
 
 Wast thou born as the first man? 
 
 and before the hills wast thou already in being? 
 hearest thou in God's secret council, 
 
 or dost thou suck in wisdom to thee in full draught? 
 "What dost thou know — and we knew it not, 
 
 understandest thou — and we lacked it? 
 10 the hoary man also, the old man also is in our midst, 
 
 greater than thy father in years! 
 
 ■^Too poor for thee then are God's consolations, 
 
 the word which dealt mildly with thee? 
 Why doth thine heart carry thee away 
 
 and why roll thine eyes, 
 that thou turnest against God thy fury, 
 
 drawest words out of thy mouth! 
 
 What is man that he should be pure, 
 
 and that the son of a woman should be righteous! 
 15 lo, in His holy ones He putteth no trust, 
 
 and the heavens are not pure in His eyes: 
 
 how then the abominable one, he that hath turned sour, 
 the man who drinketh iniquity like water! 
 
 (comp, similar ideas Ezek. xxviii. 12 sq.; in reality the figures vv. 7, 8 appear 
 lo be almost borrowed from the subsequent Logos doctrine, so natural is this 
 doctrine as regards its constituent elements). Or does he really know anything 
 unknown to the friends, who have after all in their midst a man of years and 
 experience, vv. 9, 10, whereby Eliphaz manifestly refers in modest, veiled lan- 
 guage to himself, in order to refute what Job had said of his experience xii. 
 11, 12; xiii. 1, 2; the force of the two words hoary man also is repeated in 
 the following old man also simply for the sake of the great emphasis which is 
 conveyed by it. — And in order to get closer to the matter itself and to set upon 
 him still more violently, it is forthwith, as Eliphaz himself and the meaning of 
 his previous speech, therefore, have been insensibly approached, further asked, 
 whether the divine consolations, which had at first been granted to him so gently 
 and considerately (precisely by Eliphaz), iv. 12 sq.; v. 8 — 26, were too poor, that 
 carried away by his passion he should direct his wild words even (not merely 
 against his friends but) against God Himself? vv. 11 — 13; with BTl comp, -^j^^ 
 
 the most emphatic word ^"^N. in the 13* verse is referred back to by the 
 second member of the verse. Having come thus to the consideration of divine 
 relations, he presents the second, the divine, aspect of the case, according to 
 
III. 1. a.— Cn. XV. IQl 
 
 Let me instruct thee, hearken unto me, 
 
 what I have experienced let me narrate! 
 the things which wise men declare, 
 
 without concealment, from their fathers, 
 unto whom alone the laud was given, 
 
 and among whom no foreigner had entered: — 
 
 2. 
 20 As long as the wicked liveth is he tormented, 
 
 however many years are granted to the tyrant: 
 alarms sound in his ears, 
 
 in peace the devastator cometh upon him; 
 he believeth that he shall never escape the darkness, 
 
 and he is only reserved for the sword, 
 he wandereth abroad after bread — where — ? 
 
 knoweth that the day of darkness is before him! 
 distress and anguish overwhelm him, 
 
 it terrifieth him as a king prepared for the attack: 
 
 which Job can have no right to rebel against God, before whom no man is 
 pure; and already he is in a position to repeat, with stronger assurance, his 
 previous main principle, vv. 14 — 16, from iv. 17 — v. 7, only that now the pic- 
 ture of the sinfulness of man is still more strongly drawn than before : he is 
 said to be, ver. 16, one who is like disgusting food to be abominated, gone sour, 
 wholly depraved within, since he commits iniquity as eagerly as a thirsty man 
 drinks as much water as he can (Prov. xxvi. 6), as if sin were his natural ele- 
 ment. And thus impressed by a superior displeasure and regret towards a 
 sinner offending against this fundamental truth, he demands, vv. 17 — 19, an 
 attentive hearing for the compassionate instruction which he is obliged to give 
 him, and which he can give him with all the more confidence as it contains 
 the certain, genuine wisdom of the fathers of old, to whom the freshest spring 
 of true, uncontaminated wisdom flowed, inasmuch as they still dwelt unmi.xed 
 with and unsubjugated by foreign peoples. Ver. 19 the feeling of the later 
 contemporaries of the poet makes itself plainly perceptible; see a7ite, p. 75. 
 
 2. Vv. 20 — 35. The sinner is assailed his life long by the most terrible 
 tortures, vv. 20 — 24, because as he wishes to live simply for himself he really 
 rebels against God, vv. 25, 26: though therefore he may have destroyed the 
 well-being of many men for the sake of the immoderate welfare of his own 
 body, vv. 27, 28, all his earthly possessions, which he has amassed with such 
 vast, unhappy pains, are nevertheless insecure and injurious, vv. 29 — 33 : how 
 foolish therefore is his whole life and endeavour when regarded from the hor- 
 rible end ! The description accordingly follows in two lengthy strophes of seven 
 
182 III. 1. a.— Ch. XV. 
 
 25 because he stretched out against God his hand, 
 against the Almighty setteth himself, 
 runneth against Him with proud neck, 
 with the thick bosses of his shields. 
 
 Though he hath covered his face with fat, 
 
 filled up his loins with fatness, 
 and inhabiteth wholly wasted cities, 
 houses which are no more habitable, 
 which when rebuilt — became ruins : 
 still he groweth not rich, his treasure remaineth not, 
 and his power doth not extend into the earth; 
 30 still he will not get away from the darkness, 
 — his shoots heat drieth up — 
 
 — he will be put away in the breath of His mouth! 
 
 verses each, closing rapidly with a brief concluding word, vv. 34, 35. In 
 general therefore we find here the usual course of a brave denunciation such as 
 would then be delivered against a sinner who had become powerful and attained 
 the position of a ruler, and in the form in which such speeches would perfectly 
 suit the circumstances of the eighth or the seventh century ; they suit Job's case 
 here, because he had previously been powerful, like a small prince, yet thoughts 
 such as ver. 28 must admit of another reference than Job's previously limited 
 power ; at all events the views of the author of the affairs of his own time 
 make themselves felt. On "? I?^, as to lay by, ver. 20, comp. xxi. 10 ; xxiv. 1 ; 
 XX. 26; the second member ver. 20 is only a further definition of the time: 
 however long he may live, and in any case only a certain, often brief period 
 is reserved for him, he will be always tortured; see xxi. 21. The detailed de- 
 scription, vv. 21 — 24, is very graphic! how the sinner, though in peace or out- 
 ward tranquility, is nevertheless continually wasted, besieged, and stormed by 
 a powerful enemy suddenly advancing, being all the time impressed by the 
 true presentiment, that he will at last not escape the danger which is every- 
 where in ambush, the divine sword of vengeance; it is then as if, impelled by 
 a ravenous hunger, he strayed wildly about (a figure which is further worked 
 out xviii. 12, 13), this haste being then forcibly described in the broken, abrupt 
 language (comp. ix. 19 ; it is accordingly not necessary to read with the LXX 
 njs or;^.^, he fleeth, it is true, but simply to the food of the vulture, xxviii. 7, 
 to be devoured by the vulture as carrion, which would be here too strong); 
 IBS, § 14951, is watched = kept, reserved for ha the stoord, namely, of God, 
 as xix. 29, "Zech." xiii. 7 sq.; i^a, ver. 23, at his hand, at his side, lying in 
 secret ambush close by, as xviii. 12 i similarly; comp. i. 14; with 24 J comp. 
 Prov. vi. 11. And he must be thus tormented, thus assailed, because the fool 
 
III. 1. a— Ch. XV. -[33 
 
 Let him not trust vanity, the deceived man! 
 
 for vanity will be his exchange: 
 before his day it is passed, 
 
 his palm never becometh green, 
 his unripe grapes he casteth pitilessly like the vine, 
 
 flingeth them down, as the olive its blossom. 
 
 For the band of the profane is unfruitful, 
 fire devoureth the tents of bribery; 
 
 attacked God Himself, revolting so insolently against Him and His ordinances, 
 vv. 25, 26 (comp. Ps. Ixxv. 6; on ver. 26 5 comp. § 293 c). — But although (the 
 second strophe begins again, ver. 27, with somewhat increased emphasis, "s in 
 the protasis ace. § 362 J), caring for himself alone, he may have tortured hosts 
 of weaker men, depopulated populous, flourishing cities, in order to dwell in 
 them alone, as if the fool could not find dwelling room enough for his body, 
 and preferred to dwell alone in the midst of extended ruin rather than peace- 
 fully amongst happy multitudes (comp. Isa. v. 8; Hab. ii. 5, 12, 17; TiZ'V is prob- 
 ably not be explained in the sense in which it is used of plants xiv. 9, but is 
 used, in accordance with its primary signification, as equivalent to ~5S, comp, 
 the note on is. 9, ante p. 136); although therefore he may by such cruelty have 
 gained vast earthly possessions, they do not nevertheless remain, but come with 
 himself to a mournful end. This pointed antithesis is conveyed by the very 
 position of the words and thoughts, ver. 29. It is true he might seem entitled 
 to expect from his pains and anxieties splendid fruit at last: but the tree of 
 his labours is from the very beginning not less inwardly corrupt than out- 
 wardly imperilled, his roots do not go down deep into the earth, so that every 
 external misfortune becomes to him extremely dangerous, and he casts off all 
 his bloom and fruit unripe before the harvest, a mournful example of dis- 
 appointed hope! This, as the most expressive figure, pervades the entire de- 
 scription vv. 29 — 33, mainly ver. 29 5, ver. 30 5, vv. 32, 33 ('^V.?'? appears to 
 signify that which has been gained, from "53 = h'i j\j to attain; '<^fp fem. 
 as neut., it fulfils itself, goes by, comes to an end) ; the figure of an exchange 
 is also by no means far-fetched, ver. 31 : he believes, indeed, that in place of 
 the scornfully rejected integrity he has made a splendid gain of possessions 
 and enjoyments, but let him not trust the vain exchange! Along with these 
 figures that of darkness occurs again from vv. 20 — 24, which he escapes from 
 only to get into the breath of the mouth, or the hot wrath-blast, of God (iv. 9) 
 ver. 30 a. c. — But a difi'erent end is in no way possible ; because the native soil 
 of the whole tribe of the profane is barren and unfruitful, upon which no lasting 
 fruits can grow; the time of ripeness and harvest must be a manifestation of 
 corruption and ruin, just as the woman that has conceived an abortive birth 
 may long remain deceived, but must at last, at the birth, painfully perceive 
 
184 III- 1- t.— Ch. xvi., xvii. 
 
 conceiving sin, bearing vanity! 
 and their belly ripeneth — deceit! 
 
 the nature of the manifested vanity, as is added with great emphasis, vv. 34, 
 35 ; the treatment and the end correspond to the thought and the position of 
 the case! comp. Ps. vii. 14 — 17; Isa. xxxiii. 11. 
 
 b. JOB. CH. XVI., XVII. 
 
 Job's answer is very far from coming at once to a definite 
 refutation of this new manner of speaking on the part of the 
 opponents. He is too profoundly depressed by the unexpected 
 situation in which he finds himself, and must first of all most 
 earnestly summon up all his energies to familiarise himself 
 with it. For it is only now that he first discovers that all 
 conceivable calamities are arrayed against him: and the com- 
 plete change of the friends into cruel persecutors even now for 
 the first time comes fully home to him as one of the last of 
 the many evil consequences of the mysterious wrath of God, 
 who appears to be implacably hostile to him even to death. 
 When he compares this excessive measure of calamity with 
 the consciousness of his innocence, which has now become so 
 clear and strong, the incomprehensibility, indeed, the unreason- 
 ableness of the proportion, must fill him with infinite pain. 
 But he is not less filled with indignation at the victory of the 
 opponents which now seems to be complete, who are able to 
 draw precisely from this unmerited, extreme suffering of which 
 he complains the conclusion, that he is burdened with the 
 greatest guilt. Against that conclusion his inmost knowledge 
 and purpose convulsively revolt; with marvellously heightened 
 energy he demands, beseeches, establishes the necessity of a 
 complete acknowledgment, at least after his martyr's death, of 
 his innocence by the God who is as yet hidden, and he wrest- 
 les with a hero's strength against the abyss of moral de- 
 gradation and misrepresentation which is about to open before 
 him, against the fear of the eternal destruction of the best 
 
Ill, 1. b.— Ch. xvi., xvii. 185 
 
 part of his being which threatens to get possession of him. 
 He has already, on calm reflection, completely renounced all 
 earthly hope, and is on the point of making himself in thought 
 quite familiar with the horror of death and the Underworld, 
 resigned and patient even to the uttermost, xvi. 20; xvii. 1, 
 10 — 16: it is only the doubt lest his innocence, at his death 
 unrecognised, should remain after death also for ever under a 
 cloud (since among men the idea of the deceased so naturally 
 remains in memory as it was when he departed from the 
 earth), which causes him still profound disquiet and compels 
 him, because he is least able to conceive precisely this most 
 horrible thought at the point when he is called upon to con- 
 ceive it, to rise up against it with all his powers of indigna- 
 tion and rebellion, and to contend with thoughts and reasons 
 which can set forth the impossibility of the realisation of that 
 which is impossible in God. To God, therefore, as the final 
 judge of the dead and the living he must after all again turn, 
 in spite of the terrible darkness of the present; indeed, there 
 occurs again from ch. xiii. something approaching to an in- 
 vocation of God, though certainly in a suppressed form and 
 with the resignation of all earthly hope, xvi. 20, 21 ; xvii. 3, 
 since he finds it so difficult to convince himself that God will on 
 no account hear him. The first consciousness of the complete 
 ruin of all his earthly hopes this side death, and the first in- 
 dignant revolt from the thought of an eternal ruin of the soul 
 also and of its treasure of innocence, as well as the first up- 
 lifting of the aspiring glance into the certainty of an eternal 
 recompense beyond death,— these two tremendous antitheses 
 form the heart of this highly pathetic speech. In some re- 
 spects of style the speech is similar to the previous ones, but 
 it prepares a way to a completely new outlook, hope, and 
 assurance by means of the final eff"orts of the most tremendous 
 despair, and bringing everything which had gone before to a 
 conclusion, enters, still wrestling and in pain, a new and 
 glorious territory not without secured results. It also confirms 
 
186 III- 1- b— Ch. xvi., xvii. 
 
 Job in his new position, just as the first speech, ch. vi., vii., 
 had in the first advance served this purpose. There is but 
 little in the speech against the friends : nothing directly against 
 their fearful representations of the ruin of sinners, although 
 more closely considered the entire character of Job's speech 
 refutes the application of these representations to him; there 
 are a few words of bitter scorn at the beginning and in the 
 review of the whole at the end against the useless and wrong 
 speeches, in order to reply to the reproaches of Eliphaz on 
 account of ingratitude, xv. 11, just enough not to fall into mere 
 self-inspection, but to show to the opponent the speaker's 
 spiritual superiority and to provoke him afresh. Thus after a 
 short angrily scornful word of defence against the friends, xvi. 
 2—5, first the melancholy absorption in the consideration of 
 the misery which had now reached its full measure — in spite 
 of all his innocence, xvi. 6 — 17, till, in a sudden revulsion 
 against it, the higher consciousness arouses itself with irresist- 
 ible force, wrestling with all its reasons, xvi. 18— xvii. 9, and 
 finally a word against the friends follows, lest they should 
 suppose that he is afraid of them, while, on the contrary, it is 
 only now that from the position of his higher inward experience 
 he can take a full view of the perversity of their extolled 
 speeches, xvii. 10 — 16. Four parts therefore, but so that the 
 two middle ones are the most important and in antithesis to 
 each other, the fourth although prepared for by the third re- 
 fers back to the first in order to complete it. The first two 
 bring gloomy despair to its extreme pitch, until at the opening 
 of the third resolution and self-consciousness arise and con- 
 tinue in considerable strength to the end of the whole speech ; 
 in the middle these antitheses come into most direct col- 
 lision. 
 
III. 1. b.— Ch. xvi., xvii. 187 
 
 xvi. 1 And Job answered and said : 
 
 1. 
 I have heard many such things, 
 
 distressing comforters are ye all! 
 is there an end to the windy words? 
 
 or what afflicteth thee that thou repliest? 
 / also should speak like you 
 
 if my soul were in the place of yours; 
 should be a wiseacre concerning you — with words, 
 
 and shake over you — my head, 
 5 I should strengthen you — with my mouth, 
 
 the pity of the lips should put a check! — 
 
 2. 
 
 If I will speak, — no check is put to my grief, 
 and if I will forbear — what goeth from me? — 
 
 1. xvi. 2—5. Brief repudiation of such useless speeches, which often 
 passes from deep displeasure into scorn. It is true they propose to administer 
 comfort, and Eliphaz has just resentfully reminded Job of this, xv. 11: but 
 their perfectly common-place thoughts and arguments are in reality the vainest 
 and most useless words, which instead of giving comfort cause trouble and 
 pain, which had better at once cease, since nobody really desires such replies 
 and Job does not at all know what offends Eliphaz particularly and led him to 
 make such merciless speeches, vv. 2, 3. If the point were merely to console a 
 sufferer on account of his helplessness with useless words and empty condolences 
 instead of with acts and real sympathy, then he also could (as regards the 
 possibility, though not as regards feeling) easily, if the relation of the persons 
 concerned were reversed, speak just as they do, be mighty wise concerning 
 them — with mere words, with no wisdom beneath them, and shake over them 
 full of scornful pity — the head (Ps. xxii. 7, 8 ; Isa. xxxvii. 22), as if that could 
 help at all, strengthen them — with the mouth merely, as if the thing required 
 for strengthening were not acts, and mere lip-pity could put a check on calamity, 
 as if this could in the least diminish the calamity! vv. 4, 5. "'^^'ri, which 
 occurs here only, ver. 4, is most probably, according to this context, equivalent 
 to to act shrewdly, ^cisely, from »j^ä. '" learn by experience, to know, with 
 which "^3" magician, properly wise man, is connected. 
 
 2. xvi. 6 — 17. Reflection: Certainly, by loud speaking a healthy man can 
 get rid of what oppresses him, as the friends appear to find pleasure in this 
 way, whilst the vast pain of Job is not stayed by speaking, and it might there- 
 fore seem that he would do better to remain silent; yet even supposing he 
 
188 III. 1. b.— Ch. xvi., xvii. 
 
 Certainly, now He hath wearied me out! 
 
 — Thou hast laid waste my whole circle, 
 and as a witness calamity layeth hold on me, 
 
 sickness rising up against me witnesseth to my face! 
 
 Wrath from Him teareth maketh war upon me, 
 He guasheth upon me with His teeth, 
 
 as mine adversary He whetteth the eyes against me: 
 10 they revile me with open mouth, 
 with insult smite my cheeks, 
 
 band themselves together against me: 
 to sinners God delivereth me over, 
 
 casteth me into the hands of the wicked! 
 
 were to hold his peace, tuhat would go from him of his pain and calamity, 
 what would be taken frona him? nothing at all! accordingly, whether he speaks 
 or not, his deep pain and illimitable woe remain the same ! ver. 6. Thus on 
 the point of speaking further, though with much inward conflict, he is com- 
 pelled, when he reviews his calamities generally, to say this at least (TJs), 
 that He (God) has now exhausted him, driven him to the utmost distress, so 
 that he scarcely knows how to hold up in any way ! ver. 7 a, comp. vi. 3. 
 And now completely absorbed in the gloomy contemplation of all the calamities 
 of his present situation, he sketches the terrible picture of them, how he suc- 
 cumbs to the most violent attack of all possible calamities, vv. 7 h — 14, in the 
 profoundest humiliation and grief, vv. 15, 16, — although quite innocent in deed 
 and word before God! which said thus briefly at the end, after the long mourn- 
 ful description, is emphatic and produces the effect of surprise, ver. 17. The 
 description of his sufferings is only completed in four short strophes of three 
 verses each. First, that which is here the most immediate calamity, how God, 
 in sending his calamities, has also brought upon him the new one of a com- 
 plete desolation of his dwelling-place, which was visited formerly by so many 
 happy sympathetic friends, but now beholds not a single true friend (further 
 xix. 13 — 19), and here the discourse is almost broken off by pain, and agitated 
 iu the highest degree turns to God in direct address, whilst elsewhere He is 
 always spoken of in the third person, vv. 7 — 17; how therefore outward misery 
 and wasting sickness, these things which he has least deserved, thus come for- 
 ward as witnesses of the divine wrath, both in order to deceive men who do 
 not know him and also specially to seize upon him even openly and boldly as 
 divine punishments against his better knowledge and to conduct him to death, 
 ver. 8 ; accordingly fljn calamity must be read instead of '^^J^, corresponding 
 to wns, Ps. cix. 24, according to vi. 2; xxx. 13 also; the present reading would 
 signify, and Thou (O God) laidest hold on me— for a witness this became, but 
 it would be far less suitable, because it is here an outwardly visible thing, the 
 
Ill 1. b.— Cn. xvi., xvii. ]89 
 
 At ease was I — then He dashed me to shivers, 
 seizing me by the neck, dashed me to shatters, 
 set me up for His mark : 
 around me His arrows fall, 
 
 He cleaveth my reins without sparing, 
 poureth to the earth my gall; 
 breaketh me, breach upon breach, 
 runneth as a warrior against me! 
 
 15 Sackcloth I sewed upon my skin, 
 
 thrust my horn into the dust; 
 burning is my face from weeping, 
 
 upon my eyelids hangeth darkness : — 
 although wrong is not in my hands, 
 
 and my prayer also is pure. 
 
 calamity and the sickness themselves, which must be introduced as witnesses. 
 When now he contemplates both, the hostility of men and his suSerings, as 
 the consequence of the divine anger, it seems to him as if upon the terrible, 
 angry attack of a great ravening beast of prey (comp, ante p. 4, Hos. xiii. 7, 8), 
 now a multitude of smaller, shameless, but not less blood-thirsty beasts of prey 
 band themselves against him (comp. «'»J Isa. xxxi. 4), the most cruel men, that 
 is, who fall upon the man with mad outrage who has been given into their 
 power by the great enemy (just as the smaller, cowardly, shameless animals 
 collect in troops around the prey of a great and nobler beast of prey), vv. 
 9 — 11. — Second, the attack was the more terrible that Job was as innocent 
 living quite without anxiety and had reason not to expect anything of a hostile 
 nature, when an overpowering enemy, suddenly arriving, dashed him to pieces 
 with an irresistible hand, and, as if it were not enough to hurl him down, 
 even cruelly cast repeatedly his arrows at him as his mark, piercing him more 
 and more deeply and mortally wounding him (comp. vi. 4 ; a'] is correctly ex- 
 plained by the ancient translators as missiles), indeed, as if he were a fortress, 
 like a warrior storming him, slowly but surely breaks in the walls of his body, 
 and must soon force his way completely into the shattered, desolated fortress 
 (a figure further worked out xix. 12) vv. 12 — 14. Then the noble, dignified 
 hero must surely succumb in shame and sorrow, fix a close, prickly mourning- 
 garment of coarse hair upon his bare skin and thrust his horn, i.e., his noble, 
 honoured head, in humiliation in the dust (after ii. 8, 13), most painfully over- 
 whelmed by sorrow and almost blinded by incessant weeping, vv. 13, 16, with 
 which the description refers back to the commencement ver. 7 o. 
 
190 I"- 1- b.— Ch. xvi., XVÜ. 
 
 3. 
 
 ^/^ earth, cover not my blood, 
 
 and let there be no place for my cry! — 
 And now also, behold in heaven is my witness, 
 
 and my testifier in the heights! 
 20 My friends are my scorners only : 
 
 unto God mine eye sheddeth tears, 
 that He would accord justice to the man before God, 
 
 and justify the man against his friend! — 
 For a few years will come, 
 
 the path with no return I shall go; 
 
 3. xvi. 18 — xvii. 9. Scarcely has he brought the truth of his innocence, 
 ver. 17, into conjunction with the terrible picture of his suflferings, the further 
 pursuance of which course of reflection must logically lead to the belief of the 
 final denial of his innocence, when he starts back with horror from this thought : 
 he is in the greatest alarm, but in the midst of his greatest distress is suddenly 
 made conscious of a power within which he had hitherto not suspected ; by an 
 unlooked for inspiration he flees to the diametrically opposite thought ; in the 
 wildest pain he agonises to become conscious of the certainty and the bases of 
 the impossibility of the true ruin of innocence in physical death ; despairing of 
 all earthly hopes, he gains all the more strength by means of the eternal God 
 and the inward, ineradicable energy of his good conscience. At the beginning 
 this sudden opposite thought comes into violent and direct collision with the 
 previous despair, in that the new thought breaks forth with all the force of new 
 life, vv. 18 — 21, until, precisely by the backward glance of despair at the brief 
 period which is yet reserved for life and suffering, a moderation of the anti- 
 thesis is commenced but is rendered vain by a glance at the friends, vv. 22 
 — xvii. 2 : so that in spite of all terrible reflections, a sad, supplicating glance 
 of hope to God is all that remains, xxvii. 3 — 9. Thus this portion of the 
 speech, which amid the wildest agitation seeks and with difficulty finds repose, 
 falls into two strophes, of seven verses each. 
 
 xvi. 18 — xvii. 2. If he must, as now seems inevitable, die for no fault of 
 his own, he must also boldly exclaim, Earth, cover not my innocently shed 
 hlood, but let it openly lie there, unabsorbed and unremoved, as a witness 
 fmartyriumj of the innocent victim, just as according to the belief of antiquity 
 no rain or dew which fell upon the blood-stains of a man who had been un- 
 justly slain would wash them away or change the horrible appearance of the 
 place by covering it with smiling verdure ; and let there be no place for my 
 cry, but being by nothing detained and weakened, let it sound through the 
 whole world and rise aloud even to the furthest heavens, as the last cry for 
 help of such an one is restrained at first by the distraction and diversion oc- 
 
m. 1. b— Ch. xvi., xvii. 191 
 
 xvii. 
 
 1 my spirit is destroyed, my day extinct, 
 
 graves are mine: 
 would that mockery were not practised with me, 
 
 and that mine eye took not offence at their provocation! 
 
 enter a pledge, be Thou surety for me with Thyself, 
 who is he that would pledge himself for my hand ? — 
 
 casioned by the thirst for revenge. These are, it is true, phrases taken from the 
 ancient sacred duty of blood vengeance (Gen. iv. 10, 11, comp. Isa. xxvi. 21 ; 2 Sam. 
 i. 21); but the circumstances in which the desire not to die for ever unrevenged 
 here occurs, are quite diflferent from those which were previously common amongst 
 men, since here one, who is not merely persecuted by men, but still more, as 
 he believes, by God, maintains as he is evidently near to death his innocence 
 against both God and men. But if he will still entertain hope beyond death, 
 he must flee to the hidden God of the future and refer to Him as the only 
 witness (although from unknown causes He does not at present show Himself) ; 
 therefore already more calmly, ver. 19: also now still, when I am wholly be- 
 trayed by men and by the external, visible God (ver. 21), and lost, I say, 
 there in heaven invisible is my icitness and testifier! My friends, instead of 
 being my true comforters and mediators, are only my scomers : from them there 
 is nothing to hope, therefore to God I call u-ith veeping eyes, that He, ace. 
 ver. 18, at least after my death may appear and at the same time hold a two- 
 fold judgment, first, avarding justice to the man before God, declaring, that is, 
 that the weak and now deceased man Job was just before God though he was 
 regarded as guilty, and, secondly, which then follows of itself, judging the son 
 of man Job against his persecuting friend ; accordingly the construction of H2T1 
 in the second verse-member is twice varied. This is actually fulfilled xlii. 7, 
 even before death, whilst here Job is resolved to let life go but not the 
 conviction of his innocence, ver. 20. — After such violent agitation, a certain 
 measure of calmness is about to be recovered, even by means of the despairing 
 glance at the present and the short space of life which seems still to remain 
 to him. As one who is inv-ardly already completely destroyed, belonging to the 
 graves, he must, although perhaps after some years (since the Elephantiasis is 
 a slow disease), certainly and early enough resign the present life, and would 
 gladly do it, having made up his mind to this last act of earthly resignation, 
 if only the deceptive mockery (xiii. 9) of the friends did not surround him (S5 OS, 
 here used to express a desire, if only — not, ace. § 329 b) and if only his 
 eye were not offended at their incessant cruel provocation! Thus these brief 
 words, which are uttered as in broken sighs, are clear, vv. 22 — xvii. 2; and 
 I^P, ver. 2, can here be most correctly understood in the sense of to rebel 
 against, as its construction with "3 in this sense is not impossible. 
 
 xvii. 3 — 9. Therefore, since he cannot bear to think of dying in this terrible 
 
 »f 
 
192 I"- 1 b.— Ch. xvi., xvii. 
 
 Their heart hast Thou hidden from understanding: 
 
 therefore there is no improvement! 
 5 to the lot even friends are betrayed, 
 
 whilst the eyes of his sons fail; 
 and I am set as a byword of the people, 
 
 an open abomination must I become, 
 
 uncertainty, and of having his innocence for ever unrecognised, indeed, as it 
 seems to be a divine concern that such things should not happen, he is after 
 all once more impelled to turn with mournful supplication to God. He asks, 
 since there is absolutely no one amongst men who will take his part in his- 
 last moments, as a friend and guarantor giving a promise and deposing a pledge 
 with regard to his innocence to be revenged after his death, that God Himself 
 instead of men may become a surety for him, give him the pledge with the 
 hand (EandscMag) and depose a pledge, were it merely one single clear word 
 from heaven, a small and easily given sign, which could the more easily be 
 given by Him as in this case the surety and the persecutor of the sufferer are 
 one and the same person, He would, therefore, only have to declare, that though 
 He continued the calamities and the wrath to the utmost destruction, yet in the 
 future, after Job's death, He would certainly vindicate his innocence! vv. 3^). 
 Thus the contemplation, getting again absorbed in the troubles of the present, 
 endeavours to become fully convinced of that which the inspired glance up- 
 wards had just before, xvi. 18, 19, demanded as necessary in its agonising 
 desire. Yet in that this entirely new outlook and higher demand does not as 
 yet remain sufficiently steadfast, particularly as soon as the glance is again 
 turned to the terrors and the whole confusion of the present, that inspiration also 
 tends more and more to decline, and the previous despair, xvi. 7 — 17, almost 
 threatens completely to return when he once more brings the behaviour of his 
 friends into close comparison with all his sufferings. At first, ver. 4, he con- 
 tinues, more in the previous melancholy tone, to explain how he is compelled 
 to utter that wish to God, because God has in fact so completely darkened the 
 mind of his friends and deprived them of perception (xvi. 9 — 11), that no im- 
 provement 2) and no success in his matter is to be expected from them. But 
 then a general review of his hard lot forces itself upon him, primarily with 
 reference to his friends : to the lot, that the lot may be cast over them as over 
 prisoners, one tells of or betrays (the third pers. sing., vv. 5, 6, like xv. 3, 
 
 1 Comp. Antiquities of Israel p. 184 (p. 211). 
 
 2 Dto'iin from Hithpael, formed ace. § 161c, and after the sense of the 
 figure Hos. xi. 7. This is at all events the most probable explanation: the 
 supposition is also possible, that the word is thus vocalised, ace. § 81 a, for 
 Dttttinn therefore tvilt Thou not cause them to triumph; but Job by no means 
 foresees in this connection the defeat of his friends so distinctly. 
 
10 
 
 III. 1. b. — Ch. xvi., XVÜ. 293 
 
 SO that for grief mine eye is quenched, 
 
 and my limbs are all like a shadow. 
 The upright are amazed at this, 
 
 the pure rouseth himself against the profane : 
 yet the righteous holdeth fast his way, 
 
 he of pure hands will only wax stronger! 
 
 4. 
 But all of you may return ! come now, 
 and 
 
 used indefinitely ace. § 294 J, although from the underlying meaning the real 
 persons intended, but intentionally left unnamed, are plain enough, namely ver. 5 
 men, ver. 6 God) friends who are persecuted by cruel power, instead of granting 
 protection to them in their misery betraying them to their persecutor, and with- 
 out any further compassion, whilst the children, still minors, of the persecuted 
 and betrayed man languish and perish without the unhappy father: thus Job 
 now, together with his children that have not yet grown up, over whose lot 
 he had previously lamented, xiv. 21, seems to himself to have been faithlessly 
 misunderstood and betrayed by the friends, as he had previously vi. 27 fore- 
 seen that it would come to this ; and because in the end he means himself by 
 the faithlessly betrayed friends, the plur. Q""^ then insensibly changes in the 
 following member in the case of 1"33 into the sing. ; "3*yi etc. is a circum- 
 stantial clause, § 341 a. The further calamity is God's matter, who alone can 
 make him by such immense suflferings an object of the mockery of people 
 generally, in that now far and wide in the earth his history and his name be- 
 come an evil proverb, and many do not scruple to express their disgust openly 
 and actively to his face, as is further explained xxx. 9 sq. ; as also the ultimate 
 consequence of all that is for him a complete exhaustion of all the energies of 
 his body, ver. 7. — But terrible as all this may be, particularly as an evil ex- 
 ample for the small number of the faithful, who are amazed, or even made 
 violently indignant, at such endless punishments of an innocent man, after all 
 the truly innocent will by all such hindrances and terrors find his inward strength 
 only intensified and increased, because a latent infinite capacity within him has 
 thereby been aroused and called into activity ! Thus Job here, vv. 8, 9, shakes 
 himself free in time from complete despair, just when it threatened again to 
 overpower him : the great pregnant utterance, ver. 9, is itself the fruit of that 
 outburst of inspiration xvi. 19; we get a profound glance into this great soul 
 with its conflicts and possible victories, and feel that it is hardly possible that 
 it should wholly perish after it has been made conscious of its own infinite 
 strength! In ver. 8, however, there is a clear reflection of the prevailing tone 
 of feeling of the author's contemporaries, see antt p. 75. 
 
 4. xvii. 10 — 16. Thus having become more collected and calmer even 
 under the worst circumstances, he might close the speech. But still feels at 
 
 13 
 
 i , 
 
194 "I- 1- b.— Ch. xvi., xvii. 
 
 My days have gone by, 
 
 my plans are broken off, 
 
 they the bands of my heart: 
 nevertheless night they make into day, 
 
 light is nearer than the plain darkness! 
 If I hope for the Underworld as my house, 
 
 if in the darkness I spread out my couch, 
 if to corruption I exclaim "my father thou", 
 
 "mother, sister" to putrefaction: 
 15 then, where is my hope? 
 
 and my hope — who will behold it? 
 
 the close strong enough to make this speech the answer to an entirely new 
 position of his antagonists ; and precisely from this newly gained higher calm 
 and perception of the complete hopelessness of earthly life, he reviews the ab- 
 solute perversity of all the earlier and later speeches of the friends under a 
 brighter light than ever before, since under certain requirements they desired 
 to hold out to him hopes where so far as men could can see the direct opposite 
 might be easily discerned, v. 8 — 27 ; viii. 21, 22 ; xi. 15 — 20, and as Eliphaz had 
 at last, XV. 11, reproached him with having neglected such words of hope, and 
 had based further and worse reproaches upon this one, he is here at the end unable, 
 without intending to deal with the latter, to leave the first reproach upon which 
 the later ones are based without somewhat closer consideration. If he is com- 
 pelled in this respect to give prominence to the complete destruction of all his 
 earthly hopes, this addition to his speech changes involuntarily into a severe 
 word of censure against the friends, who are about to base new and worse re- 
 proaches upon a groundless one ; and this closing word of righteous displeasure 
 with such friends, spoken with the higher courage which has been gathered in 
 the course of the speech, serves to supply what was wanting in the word of 
 displeasure which was too briefly uttered at the beginning, xvi. 2 — 5 ; only that 
 thus at last, as the picture of this hopelessness is dwelt upon, once more a 
 touch of dark despair is introduced, and this speech also closes with the same 
 dark outlook beyond death like all the earlier ones, as if Job felt urged thus 
 to confirm once more all his earlier speeches. Like the whole speech, this con- 
 clusion is also in the highest degree agitated. First, lest he should seem to be 
 flagging in opposition to the friends, since in the main portions of this speech 
 he has really pursued his own reflections only, the stinging challenge to speak 
 as foolishly again in the future if they like, he will only afresh behold their 
 ignorance! ver. 10. The proof of this more briefly vv. 11, 12: whilst his life 
 is already as good as past, his dearest plans and schemes with regard to it, to 
 which his heart was formerly so firmly attached, have been violently broken 
 off by death, so surely close at hand, they reverse everything and promise 
 happy prospects, as if they meant to change the plainest darkness, in which 
 
III. 2. a.— Ch. xviii. 195 
 
 — into the bars of the Underworld it goeth down, 
 if also upon the dust there is rest! 
 
 he already finds himself, in to bright, joyous day ! ^ And further the same proof, 
 vv. 13 — 16 : if he reposes all his hope as yet simply — upon the Underworld as 
 the ultimate resting-place after such long tormenting sufferings, and, difficult as 
 that may have been to him, seeks to make himself quite at home and familiar 
 with the things of the Underworld (with ver. 14 comp. Prov. vii. 4), where in 
 that case is his earthly hope of which these friends have so much to say ? (the 
 ~i before "".>? is illative, § 353 a) and what wise man will perceive it even in 
 the distance ? — No, into the bars of the Underworld (for it has gates) will my 
 hope go down to remain shut up there for ever — if at the same time as this 
 descent Job himself at last finds rest in the grave ! for on the earth he remains 
 without it. This is the last melancholy ending of this kind, but it is at the 
 same time only as a final most painful conclusion, as it were a sigh con- 
 vulsively brought to a close. 
 
 2. BILDAD Am) JOB. 
 
 a. BILDAD. CH. XVIII. 
 
 Almost without intending it, Job has just now, in the first 
 speech of the second advance (as above in the first speech of 
 the first advance, ch. vi., vii.), spoken severely against the 
 friends, comparing them, in the spasms of the pain which they 
 more and more aggravate, with the profane and fools, xvi. 10, 
 11; xvii. 4, 5, 10 — 16; for too much of the violence against the 
 friends, which first broke out ch. xii., xiii., was reechoed here 
 from the end of the previous advance. By this Bildad ac- 
 cordingly is deeply offended, and he finds in the terrible rash- 
 ness and agonising despair of Job, which he fails to under- 
 stand, the madness of a bad conscience, which while it turns in 
 frantic rage against everything in the world after all only reacts 
 to its own destruction. After a brief, bitter introduction, vv. 
 2 — 4, he passes, therefore, at once to the general truth, that 
 
 ' »^"'3, ver. lie, is in this connection, since it is required to complete the 
 figure of breaking-oflf, plainly equivalent to "'^"'2, or more briefly "n?. a bond, 
 nasmuch as lO"^ and "J]* are originally related roots. With H'^sT comp, '■^'i«!'^, 
 xxi. 27, and n^T^s xlii. 2: ""st has everywhere (xxxi. 11 also) a bad meaning' 
 in ^the sing. only. 
 
 13* 
 
196 III- 2. a.— Ch. xviii. 
 
 the wicked man, however much he may resist, goes down in 
 an exceedingly horrible, endless destruction, without any hope 
 of a happy future even in the case of his descendants; which 
 is here intentionally insisted upon vv. 5 — 21, as Job in his 
 speech pointed to the future. But eloquently as he seeks to 
 expound this thought and correctly as it is here, apart from 
 its application, worked out with telling effect, the commencing 
 helplessness of Job's opponents is betrayed by the simple fact, 
 that Bildad is able to do scarcely anything more than bring 
 forward this general truth. 
 
 xviii. 1 Then answered Bildad the Shuite and said : 
 
 How long yet will ye give chase — rafter words? 
 
 have but understanding, and afterwards let us speak! 
 "Wherefore are we counted as cattle, 
 
 are impure even in your eyes? — 
 Thou that teareth himself in his anger: 
 
 for thy sake then shall the earth be forsaken, 
 and a rock move from its place? 
 
 Vv. 2 — 4. The word ''5J3p, ver. 2, which occurs here only, is as regards 
 its more definite force somewhat obscure, but most probably signifies, as derived 
 from (jtÄÄJ) (Wäqid. Aeg. p. 9. 6 and elsewhere) instruments of the chase } as 
 venari, aucupari verba. The commencement therefore is like viii. 2 : just as it 
 may generally be remarked, that the poet likes to make the same persons appear 
 with some uniformity in difi"erent speeches, as far as the connection permits. 
 Inasmuch as it seems to Bildad as if in his extreme despair. Job was simply 
 hunting for words in order to find something to say, he requires, previous to 
 any further discourse, understanding on the part of the opponent, who quite 
 incomprehensibly so far forgets himself, that he can speak of him and his 
 friends as base, impure men (he the impure thus describe them the pure ! i) : 
 in connection wherewith Bildad on his part cannot sufficiently express his con- 
 tempt, as if he were determined at first not even to address Job individually 
 at all, but only him and the like of him, the company of the impure (xv. 34): 
 
 1 There is no reason whatever to give to ^s^^t?? the merely conjectural 
 signification, we are shut up, stupid, foolish, which would here be much too weak 
 and generally inappropriate. 
 
III. 2. a— Ch. xviii. 197 
 
 5 Nevertheless the light of the wicked will go out, 
 
 and the brightness of his fire will not shine; 
 the light is darkened in his tent, 
 
 his lamp over him goeth out! 
 his strong steps are straitened, 
 
 so that his own counsel casteth him down: 
 for into the net his feet urge him, 
 
 and over network he walketh, 
 a snare seizeth fast the heel, 
 
 nooses seize hold upon him, 
 10 in the ground his toil is hidden, 
 
 his trap upon the way; 
 round about mortal terrors confound him, 
 
 and scare him wherever he goeth. 
 
 as then in reality the contention with Job tends gradually to assume a more 
 general character and to become the struggle between two sections of the whole 
 human race. — Yet (to bring the attack closer home to Job), does this madman 
 who complained xvi. 9 that God's wrath tore him, but who, on the contrary, 
 sufficiently betrays his own bad conscience by tearing himself in his auger, 
 then really demand that on his account, i.e., however, that his will may be 
 done and he may be justified though he is absolutely wrong, the earth may be 
 desolated (since really if God Himself should, according to the desire of this 
 madman, pervert justice, order, and peace, accordingly the blessings of the happy 
 occupation of the earth could not subsist), and also that which is firmest, the 
 divine order of the world, should be removed from its place (xiv. 18)? O, the 
 fool, who simply from his own perversity and confused ideas rebels against the 
 everlasting order of the universe! 
 
 Vv. 5 — 21. But however much he may rebel against it, nevertheless (DJ 
 as Ps. cxxix. 2, see § 354 a) the eternal divine order with regard to the destruc- 
 tion of every sinner will remain unchanged, as Bildad now, like Eliphaz xv. 
 20 — 35, describes it in two long strophes of seven verses each, with half a 
 one as the conclusion. The light of the wicked goes out as suddenly and as 
 horribly as when the lamp which is fastened at the top of the tent of the 
 traveller suddenly goes out at midnight in the midst of the horrible wilderness, 
 xxix. 3 : so that he with all his belongings comes into the darkness of death, 
 no more relieved by a ray of divine mercy ! Upon the basis of this thought 
 and figure, vv. 5, 6, there is first, vv. 7 — 11, the manner in which the sudden 
 overthrow of such a sinner of itself takes place further expanded, how the 
 powerful sinner, who was just before advancing with such strong proud strides, 
 finds himself suddenly as straitened and everywhere as insecure as if he walked 
 
198 III 2. a.— Ch. xviii. 
 
 Famished his strength then becometh, 
 
 calamity standeth always at his side; 
 he devoureth the members of his skin, 
 
 devoureth his members, he the firstborn of death! 
 from his tent confidence is torn from him, 
 
 and to the king of terrors it marcheth him. — 
 15 that which is no more his dwelleth in his tent, 
 
 upon his pasture brimstone is scattered; 
 beneath his roots dry up, 
 
 and above his branch withereth: 
 his remembrance hath perished from the earth, 
 
 and there is no name to him in the wide field, 
 he is hunted from light into darkness, 
 
 and from the round earth he is chased. 
 
 upon innumerable secret nets and traps of all kinds, inasmuch as the destruc- 
 tive counsel of his own heart must thus cast him down and everywhere lead 
 him to his death. The construction ver. 8 a is exactly like Judg. v. 15, comp, 
 below XXX. 12 ; the ?? with p''fnn, ver. 9, expresses the overwhelming nature 
 of the grasp, from which he cannot defend himself; pE^ as Hab. iii. 14, l^^sJ^V, 
 ver. 11, also as Hab. iii. 5; "Isa." xli. 2. — The second strophe in the first in- 
 stance, vv. 12 — 14, resumes this description in order to finish it with still more 
 powerful figures, namely, how he is at last driven by this terror and helpless- 
 ness to such great madness and rage, that like a famished vagabond he devours 
 his own arm (Isa. ix. 19 [A. V. 20]), he the first-born of death, who before all 
 others belongs to death and deserves it (formed after the simpler phrase 1 Sam. 
 XX. 31), and who precisely at the time of danger is so far from finding pro- 
 tection and confidence in his own house (tent) that it casteth him out as a 
 stranger and, just as a criminal is solemnly led to the place of execution, it 
 causeth him to march to the dark king of terrors {i.e., to Abaddon, Rev. ix. 11, 
 or the Hindoo Jamas) and not to the celestial king; as regards the fem. 
 i-'ysn see § 174 (?. But it is further, vv. 15—18, equally important that after 
 this his terrible overthrow his family also perishes for ever, branded by divine 
 retribution, desolate and forsaken, a horribly warning example for all the world, 
 as Sodom once was (to which the word brimstone, ver. 15, alludes, after Gen. 
 xix. 24; Ps. xi. 6): so that he becomes like a tree which is wholly dried up from 
 root to branch, ver. 16, comp. viii. 16 — 18; Amos ii. 9, and his name, once so 
 honoured, finds nowhere any more respect, but wherever he seeks to come into 
 the light again he is immediately chased away into his deserved darkness, 
 vv. 17, 18. VS'ip, ver. 15, belongs probably as neut. to 'i^ '^^»? which has 
 the force of the subject of the clause, ace. § 294 a. — The short closing strophe 
 once more, ver. 19, insists on what had been so emphatically said at the end 
 
III. 2. b.— Ch. xix. 199 
 
 Offspring and offshoot ho lacketh among his people, 
 
 uo fugitive is in his hamlets. 
 20 At his day they of the west are amazed, 
 
 them of the east horror seizeth. — 
 Only this are the dwellings of the sinner, 
 
 this the place of him that knoweth not God! 
 
 of the second strophe, in order by a backward reference, ver. 20, once more to 
 pourtray with a new figure the terrible character of the day, i.e., the day of 
 punishment which is becoming notorious, of such a man, as it had been de- 
 scribed at greater length vv. 11 — 14, and thus to close the whole speech by a 
 reference to the beginning, ver. 21. Offspring and offshoot, ver. 19, are ap- 
 proximate renderings of the assonance of "j"? and "'".3, i-e., descendants of all 
 kinds, after an old proverb ; it need hardly be remarked that those from West 
 and East, ver. 20, comp. vv. 17, 18, means the inhabitants of the whole earth. 
 
 b. JOB. CH. XIX. 
 
 If the last speech of Job's was pervaded by a repressed 
 prayer for at least a pledge of the future acknowledgment of 
 his innocence, xvii. 3, he now sees by its uselessness even this 
 last atom of earthly hope and this most modest desire frustrated. 
 It is now, therefore, that for the first time he feels himself totally 
 deceived with regard to all his past ideas and hopes of God 
 and divine righteousness. The God of the present, as he had 
 hitherto with the rest of the world regarded Him as the true 
 one, has been for him destroyed beyond recovery, and thereby 
 he finds himself cast into an abyss of despair and helplessness 
 which could not be deeper, so that the profoundest lamentation 
 which was commenced xvi. 7—16, here vv. 7 — 20, reaches the 
 most extreme point possible in the contention. But all the 
 time he sees the attacks of the friends most unsparingly con- 
 tinued, indeed, carried to a pitch of rage which can hardly be 
 worse; and this precisely with regard to the question of the 
 divine righteousness. But on this question, according to his 
 present opinion, they as well as himself and the rest of the 
 world have been so greatly mistaken, only that he alone, but 
 jiot they, is in a position by his most personal and irrefutable 
 
200 III- 2. b.— Ch. xix. 
 
 experiences in the first instance to perceive and to confess this 
 error, indeed, is compelled even by the past results of the 
 discussion of his case to do this. He now stands therefore 
 between two fires, either of which burns him more severely 
 than the other if he comes nearer to it: injustice, the most 
 cruel and worst conceivable, he meets with from his friends, 
 and he believes that he likewise, and in the same highest 
 matter, the matter of his innocence and his life, meets with it 
 from God. It is here that he first finds the last conceivable 
 extremity of suffering and an inexpressible torture, which could 
 not in this life be worse for a good man and more likely to 
 lead him into temptation. 
 
 As the suffering is at this stage the most extreme con- 
 ceivable and the torture the most full of temptation, we cannot 
 be surprised that the wildest storm of diametrically opposite 
 feelings, temptations, and resolutions now sweeps over the 
 struggling hero, lashing him from one extreme to the other, 
 and causing him to attempt most impossible things, to wish 
 and think what had never been wished or thought, to behold 
 and hope for what had never been beheld or hoped for. 
 Placed between two angry mortal enemies, to whom shall he 
 turn in this hour, whom shall he supplicate, as one already 
 seized by the angel of death, for compassion ? Here confronts 
 him a strange Being, whom he had hitherto looked upon as 
 the true, just God, and revered above everything, and who has 
 now so completely disappointed all his hopes; there confront 
 him men who were once his best friends. O he himself is also 
 a man, and ought not man to take pity on man? and does 
 not the deepest misery urge even the open enemy to plead 
 for protection ? or does the enemy who is thus supplicated by 
 his humbled enemy reject his last most agonising pleas for 
 life? Thus after some desponding words of displeasure at the 
 want of feeling of the friends, vv. 2, 3, the thought flashes 
 through his tortured soul, whether in his profoundest grief on 
 account of God's dealings with him he may not be able to 
 
III. 2. b.— Ch. xix. 201 
 
 excite the human pity of his enemies to sympathise with him 
 in a lot darker and more cruel than ever man had borne? 
 And, see, he is at this moment prepared to attempt this, over- 
 comes his natural indignation at the past conduct of the friends, 
 and prays for their compassion. He accordingly confesses to 
 them without reserve the error in which he had hitherto been 
 regarding God, places before them his bitterest complaint 
 against Him openly with the most agonising pain, and closes, 
 like one persecuted to death, with the most heart-rending plea 
 for pity and protection against his persecutor, vv. 4 — 22. In- 
 deed, the grievous inequality of the relations subsisting between 
 himself and God, appears to be a calamity which concerns 
 all mankind, and Job is brought by it in the greatest depth 
 of his troubles simply back to the same complaint with which 
 he formerly began, ch. iii. 
 
 But in vain does he attempt this also under most violent 
 emotion; in vain does he humble himself before men to sup- 
 plicate help from them: they are too immovable and blinded 
 to comprehend this despairing agony of innocence and to take 
 pity on the pains of this most miserable of men. Accordingly 
 in the end there remains nothing for him but to resign even 
 this last attempt to get comfort and help, and once more to 
 seek salvation alone from the future and the eternal God. 
 Slowly, like one feeling for the right way, he turns from the 
 most unhelpful of men to the highest God, until at last the 
 full certainty dawns upon his soul, that it is the eternal, true 
 God who is also the one deliverer of innocence, and that the 
 indestructible spirit will after the death of the body behold 
 the divine revelation in infinite joy, whereby he finds unex- 
 pectedly the proper weapons against the terrible threats of the 
 friends who have wholly lost all compassion, vv. 23—29. So 
 that he who appeared at the beginning of the speech wholly 
 lost and in despair, yea, humiliated himself so far as to make 
 -humble entreaties to mean and remorseless enemies, is at the 
 end for the first time filled with the enthusiasm of the most 
 
202 HI. 2. b.— ch. xix. 
 
 assured and happy hope; while he holds fast simply to this 
 hope he is able to rise against his enemies with the most 
 triumphant courage and the most righteous threat ; and whilst 
 in the first advance he deferred the necessary attack upon 
 them until the last speech, in this case he inflicts a mortal 
 wound upon them as early as the close of the second, though 
 this was not at all his intention when he began it. 
 
 Thus this profoundly pathetic speech combines the lowest 
 human humiliation and the highest divine exaltation, the ut- 
 most despair and the most enthusiastic hope and most en- 
 raptured certainty. It occupies not only the highest central 
 point of the contention and of the action of the whole drama, 
 but it also effects the first real and decisive change in favour 
 of Job : because it is in it that the two most pointed issues of 
 all Job's thoughts and aims— the unbelief which springs from 
 the old superstition and the genuine, higher faith which has 
 to' be produced— come into such sharp and effective contact 
 that this higher faith is called forth from non-existence with 
 irresistible might, and is afterwards, although without recon- 
 ciliation with its antithesis, maintained, gradually gains greater 
 victories, and finally remains alone triumphant. At this point 
 Job would either have to perish wholly, or the pure truth 
 must at last rise brightly and powerfully before him in the 
 sharpest conflict with its opposites. But it is only in a soul 
 like that of Job's, which remains in such pure innocence faith- 
 ful to the uttermost, that the fire of truth at last springs forth 
 with overwhelming force and far-shining brightness from the 
 strongest friction of all past principles and counter-principles. 
 For the sparks of the eternal hope that is raised above all 
 time and vicissitudes of time, which at first faintly glimmered, 
 ch. xiv., then sprang forth more brightly, ch. xvi., xvii., here 
 burst into a clear fire, warming and sustaining the man who 
 would otherwise have now perished in the ancient superstition 
 and in the dark abyss of unbelief. Accordingly this speech 
 consists^^of two parts only, the beginning and end of which are 
 
III. 2. b.— Ch. xix. 203 
 
 diametrically opposed, as if at the beginning in the violent 
 storm Job had not fully known whither he should turn the 
 helm at the end, until an unexpected wind, which nevertheless 
 came at the right moment as already prepared for, drives 
 him into the right haven. Moreover, these two parts (and this 
 is the first time that an answer of Job's consists of merely 
 two parts) are externally quite unequal: for the marvellous 
 weight of the thought of the second part far outweighs any 
 outward size. 
 
 xix. 1 And Job answered and said : 
 
 1. 
 How long will ye grieve my soul, 
 
 and crush me completely with words? 
 ten times already ye make me ashamed, 
 
 ye are without blushing unfeeling towards me! 
 
 1. Vv. 2 — 22. The extreme agitation which prevails in the first part, is 
 also reflected clearly in the rapid variations and great inequality of the strophes. 
 At first, in the somewhat difficult and as it were tentative beginning, two 
 strophes, quite short, of two verses each ; then the complaint, growing somewhat 
 calmer, is poured forth in two longer strophes of seven verses each, until a 
 third, which has only just been begun, is rapidly finished in one verse, as if 
 interrupted by uncontrollable sobs, and in greatest agitation the discourse returns 
 with a similarly short strophe of two verses to the two strophes at the begin- 
 ning. — The first word, vv. 2, 3, is in this case already somewhat more subdued, 
 as if the speaker did not yet realise his latent intense agitation. Ashamed, 
 ver. 3, by the most painful reproaches, which a man must blush to answer ; 
 "■3" is most probably, according to this context, equivalent to impudent, un- 
 feeling, to be compared therefore with ^ ^ ^ . nor can the word be otherwise 
 
 understood Isa. iii. 9.» — The transition is formed by vv. 4, 5. What does it 
 avail to attack the friends, inasmuch as he has himself in his former faith in 
 the divine righteousness and in God's appearance for judgment been fundament- 
 ally in error, and the rage of the friends has after all some excuse in this 
 very failure of God to appear ; they may really believe that God will not ap- 
 pear because of Job's sins. Would it not therefore be possible if, now that he 
 is completely disappointed as regards God, he should declare his whole situation 
 to the friends and how in reality his complaint was not against them but against 
 
 ) 1 Comp. Ewald und Duke's Beiträge etc. I. p. 99. 
 
 (' 
 
 [ 
 
204 III 2. b.— Ch. xix. 
 
 And truly too I have erred, 
 well known to me is my error! 
 5 Or — will ye then really disdain me, 
 
 and reproach me — with my disgrace? 
 
 Know then that God hath wronged me, 
 
 and cast over me His net round about! 
 Lo, of wrong I cry out — without being heard, 
 
 cry for help — there is no judgment! 
 My path He hath hedged up — impassably, 
 
 placeth darkness upon my footways; 
 of my glory hath He stripped me, 
 
 taken away the crown of my head, 
 10 He pulleth me down round about — and I depart, 
 
 plucketh up like a tree my hope, 
 
 God, that they might then show compassion instead of such severity to the 
 innocent sufferer ? This reflection is implied in ver. 4 ; and based upon this 
 honest confession, that he had hitherto been in error as to his hope of right- 
 eousness and judgment on God's part, he immediately adds in a friendly con- 
 fidential tone, Ter. 5, or (B^f) loill ye really (as has hitherto been the case, yet 
 he would like to think not deliberately) act grandly against me, as dishonour- 
 able, base men treat me scornfully simply because I suffer severely from an 
 irresistible persecutor, and reproach me with my shame which I must, although 
 innocent, endure from this cruel persecutor, as if I had deserved it? Perhaps they 
 do not know who is intended by this cruel persecutor, against whom he will now, 
 as a supplicating client of antiquity, entreat their help, bowing down before 
 them, embracing their knees in supplication? If they do not know, then he 
 will tell them: it is God Himself ! — Therewith the complaint against God begins, 
 how He has tioisted him, i.e., treated him wrongly and unjustly, and cast His 
 net over him round about, so that he cannot escape from the calamities and 
 wrongs which he has to endure (iii. 23; xiii. 27), and how, though repeatedly 
 entreated by the persecuted man to grant him justice, He has nevertheless re- 
 fused to grant it, vv. 6, 7. From this commencement the complaint is now 
 continued further, in order, in the first instance as far as the end of the first 
 strophe, to describe his innumerable sufferings generally with a few great telling 
 strokes, vv. 8 — 12: namely, the oppressive feeling of darkness and hindrances 
 on all hands, in that he sees neither way nor light that he may escape from 
 the vortex in which he is now caught, ver. 8 after the figure which was com- 
 menced ver. 6 J; then, vv. 9, 10, how he feels his outward dignity (xvi. 15; 
 xxix. 8 ; Gen. xxiii. 6) as well as all his earthly hope (xiv. 20) completely des- 
 troyed, as if a great, splendid tree were totally shattered ; yea, how, to indicate 
 
in. 2. b.— ch. xix. 205 
 
 and causeth His wrath to burn against me, 
 
 counteth mo like His true enemies: 
 altogether His troops come, 
 
 and cast up their way against me, 
 encamp round about my tent. 
 
 My brethren hath He removed far from me, 
 
 and mine acquaintances — they are only strangers to me, 
 my kinsfolk fail, 
 
 familiar friends have forgotten me; 
 15 dependents in my house and maids deem me a stranger, 
 
 an alien am I in their eyes, 
 to my man-servant I call — without getting an answer,. 
 
 with mine own mouth must I entreat him : 
 
 the worst with one figure, as it were a whole army of pains and calamities, 
 aroused and conducted by the divine wrath, charge against him to take his 
 fortress, vv. 11, 12, comp. vii. 20; x. 17; xiii. 24; xvl. 9 — 14. — Still, amongst 
 all the innumerable pains and woes which beset him, there is one especially 
 which he feels most deeply precisely at this time, and describes therefore with 
 greatest sadness in the course of the whole of the second strophe : namely, the 
 woe of having to bear the unfaithfulness, the contempt, and the reviling of all 
 men, from his relatives, ver. 13 a, ver. 14 a, as well as from the dearest ac- 
 quaintances, ver. 13 5, ver. 14 5, who were formerly in the habit of visiting him 
 with affection and respect (xlii. 11, Vstt, inasmuch as V» can be used of the 
 person who is about anyone with affection and kindly services) ; then vv. 15, 
 16, from the more subordinate people, dependant clients, maids, and man-ser- 
 vants, who formerly attended to every sign of their lord, but now flee from 
 him and even refuse to answer him as he entreats them mournfully on account 
 of a physical necessity ; lastly, even from his wife and the children of his body, 
 who flee from his stinking breath, ver. 17, just as also all the other children 
 ridicule him, e.g., when he tries to rise but is not strong enough to do so, and 
 precisely his dearest and most familiar friends also have now all the more 
 turned against him, vv. 18, 19.^ — Yet when Job comes now, thirdly, ver. 20, 
 
 1 "Tiian, ver. 17 5, must be compared with .,v^, \ '■^.^ which again are 
 ultimately the same as ^ ''■^ and ^ ^,. and signify a corrupt, bad smell, origin- 
 ally probably the corruption, or wasting away, itself, so that ..»La. to deceive 
 (lit. to withdraw, take away, comp, vn) is connected with these roots. BlV^^.j 
 ver. 18, is not from V^iy, xvi. 11, but from a ">"? = Vy, xxi. 11. 
 
206 "I 2. b.— Ch. xix. 
 
 my breath is loathsome to my wife, 
 
 I stink to the sons of my body, 
 children even despise me, 
 
 if I will rise — they revile me : 
 all my close friends abhor me, 
 
 those whom I loved are turned against me. 
 
 20 To skin and flesh cleaveth my bone, 
 
 so that I hardly escaped with the flesh of my teeth .... 
 
 have pity, have pity on me, ye my friends! 
 
 for God's hand — it hath touched me; 
 wherefore persecute ye me as God, 
 
 and are never satisfied with my flesh? 
 
 to describe the inexpressibly sad state of his body, suddenly his language fails 
 him in the midst of the new beginning, fatigued and exhausted from infinite 
 pain; so that he only says that his bone cleaves to his shin and flesh, from the 
 lack of all humours in his completely emaciated body, Ps. xxii. 16, 18; cii. 6; 
 and he has barely saved himself with his tooth-flesh, gums, it is only the meager 
 flesh of the gums which he feels as not already consumed by the fatal corruption, 
 as the elephantiasis in reality attacks last of all the tongue and gums and 
 thereby makes speech even impossible. — And scarcely can he find strength for 
 the cry which he meant from the beginning to raise and simply to justify by 
 this speech of complaint, the cry to the friends for human mercy and help 
 against the persecutor; and if like clings more closely to like precisely in 
 danger, it might be supposed that all men must now take the part of one who 
 is persecuted with such incomprehensible severity, in order to protect human 
 rights generally, if from no other motive, ver. 21 ; imperceptibly, however, 
 ver. 22, there is introduced, as if ii could not be wholly repressed, a censure 
 of the friends in the question, wherefore they desired then to persecute him as 
 inexorably as God, incessantly devouring, as in ravenous rage, his flesh, not 
 indeed by physical mistreatment, but (which wounds and kills none the less) by 
 injurious, cutting and slanderous words (Dan. iii. 8). 
 
 2. Vv. 23 — 29. Pause: the friends are silent and remain unmoved. With 
 that the entire position of the action is changed : this last earthly hope also, 
 which it is true Job could have conceived only in a final, convulsive moment 
 of deepest despair, is absolutely destroyed ; he knows at last as certainly as 
 possible that neither the friends or any men, nor the God of the present, will 
 listen to his complaints or his protestations ; and accordingly he must at thiM 
 point wholly perish if help did not come to him just at this pause. At thit- 
 moment a glance is opened to his spirit, which is all along conscious of its in- 
 nocence and unable to rest and be silent, into the distant future after death—- 
 
in. 2. b.— Ch. xix. 207 
 
 2. 
 
 that then my words were written down, 
 in the book — that they were imprinted; 
 
 with iron graver and with lead 
 
 that they were for ever hewn in rock! — 
 
 a future as yet open to it alone. This glance surprises him in his condition, 
 by its own necessity, truth, and righteousness, it at once raises him marvellously 
 higher and higher from stage to stage, and opens for him an outlook by which 
 he is able for the first time in this deepest despair nevertheless to hold his 
 ground, indeed, to find the most wonderful, divine courage hitherto unknown to 
 him. As by an inward necessity he is conducted to this new point of view : 
 imperceptibly at first and with profound modesty the wish arises, that after 
 all his speeches and the solemn protestations of his innocence, as they have 
 now been heard but have died away without eflfect, might at least be preserved 
 for future times, written down in a book, or rather (for it is only the most 
 distant future which he can now be thinking of) engraved in stone with an 
 iron graver and with lead (which is poured into the fissures cut by the graver), 
 for an eternal memorial! vv. 23, 24, comp. Isa. viii. 1 ; xxx. 8; Ex. xxxi. 18; 
 Deut. xxvii. 8; Josh. viii. 32; Layard's Nineveh II. p. 188. As a fact this wish 
 is on Job's part nothing exorbitant : for we now know quite well that iu those 
 countries people endeavoured not only to immortalise in rock and stone in- 
 scriptions, short laws, but also somewhat longer historical memorials, public 
 desires, prayers, etc. ; and if such costly works could be executed only by 
 princes and kings, it must be remembered that Job was also a great man in 
 his time who might very well express such a desire. Nevertheless, another 
 moment of brief reflection must convince this most miserable of men how useless 
 it was for him to express this desire with the view of testifying the certainty of 
 his innocence at all events for the time after his death, and of seeing it per- 
 haps acknowledged by future generations : he sees no one who would be pre- 
 pared to execute this wish, or even so much as to listen willingly to it. — Thus 
 then this wish only serves to conduct the glance of the sufferer, which is now 
 directed with the most intense energy to the future alone, towards that one 
 thing which can come to him thence with strength and assurance. But as soon 
 as that one needful truth rises once more before him, which had twice pre- 
 viously forced itself upon him in the last two speeches, but had been again 
 lost sight of, it then fills his longing heart, which can be revived again by it 
 alone, immediately with that marvellous, blessed certainty which is always its 
 peculiar gift when it finds the prepared heart. And thus spring forth, vv. 25 — 
 27, as from a purer, celestial air, borne by the spirit, those few but infinitely 
 weighty, sublime words which constitute the crown of the whole contention, 
 words of the purest splendour of divine truth, without anything to dim them, 
 which suddenly make the speaker an inspired prophet, so that he here at once 
 
208 % in. 2. b.— Ch. xix. 
 
 25 But I know it, my redeemer liveth, 
 
 a successor will arise upon the dust; 
 after my skin, which they hack off, this, [skin] 
 and free from the body shall I behold — God : 
 
 begins quite unexpectedly with higher certainty. But (to what purpose further 
 thoughts?) / hnoio, my Redeemer liveth, although I die unredeemed, misunder- 
 stood, persecuted, he does not die and will become my Redeemer after my 
 death ; and a successor, a survivor who lives and remains after me, a successor 
 in my just cause and its advocacy, will arise upon the dust, the grave (xvii. 16 ; 
 XX. 11 ; xxi. 26), as in purely human relations the surviving afterman and suc- 
 cessor in all the rights and duties of the deceased, redeeming ('5<j) all his 
 rights and having particularly the duty of revenging the innocently murdered, 
 visiting the grave of the slain man and rising from it with courage and strength 
 against the slayer*, comp. xvi. 18. But although this utterance is borrowed 
 from the ancient sacred duty of avenging blood, as this duty had at least 
 originated in the thought of an unchanging righteousness and necessary retribu- 
 tion, everything here appears at the same time in quite new relations, because 
 it is not a man but God alone who can be thought as the revenger, or restorer, 
 of the innocence of the man who dies from no sin of his own, comp. xvi. 19. 
 But it would hardly be a partial restoration if merely men of a later generation 
 but not the spirit of the innocent victim himself had knowledge of it, the spirit 
 which is here the central interest. If this thought is more closely followed up, 
 it becomes clear that the spirit of the deceased must behold its own justification 
 even after the destruction of the body. And when thus the idea of the in- 
 destructibility of the pure spirit comes clearly out, the words are added in com- 
 pletion of the whole tliought: and after my shin, after my skin, or according 
 to xviii. 13 my body, is no more, yet as this is expressed too briefly it is 
 added, which they (who is here unimportant) have heicn off, as when a tree is 
 lopped and thereby pitilessly destroyed according to the figure xiv. 7, comp. 
 Isa. X. 34 2, this very skin which ye here see already in such a pitiable con- 
 dition, as is further remarked with great sadness, and without my flesh (on 1>3 
 see § 217 3, without having this, which words together with the previous verse- 
 member therefore complete the sentence, "after I shall have lost skin and flesh, 
 my whole body as far as it is sensitive and mortal, this body which has been 
 so much tortured", / shall nevertheless behold — God, shall then still feel the 
 joy of the appearance and immediate presence of God also as the judge and 
 defender of my innocence, which I cannot enjoy before the death of the body! 
 and then, as follows of itself, with spiritual eyes, not with my present ones, 
 and yet as certainly and as clearly and sensibly as possible. Whoever beholds 
 God becomes conscious of the pure light, the clear truth, and the eternal life, 
 
 1 Exoriare alicßiis nostris ex ossibus ultor. 
 
 2 Comp. 3 2 ^, used of leaves and trees Enoch iii. 1. 
 
III. 2. b — Ch. xix. g()9 
 
 Him whom / shall behold for myself, 
 
 shall have seen by tyiine own eyes and no one else's! 
 — my reins are consumed in my bosom! 
 
 feeling no separation and no disagreement at all between himself and God, ac- 
 cordingly no alarm, no fear nor punishment: of being able to do this in this 
 bodily life Job has long ago completely despaired, but he now knows that he 
 can and certainly will do it spiritually after physical death. Full of joyful 
 exultation, here at last his heart leaps at the surprisingly dear picture of this 
 awful future moment which is now so certain to him, and as if foretasting this 
 long-desired highest joy, and the more the present will deprive him of this hope 
 and depress him with the terrors of the divine wrath, the more boldly and 
 exultingly he exclaims here in conclusion: Uitii whom I shall behold for myself, 
 for m y joy, because He will acknowledge my right, my innocence, and m y eyes 
 vill then have seen Him ("X^ in this connection perf. fut), not a stranger, another 
 than myself, no without doubt I myself so deeply does he feel this joy as al- 
 ready by anticipation his, as if, wholly absorbed in himself and with the out- 
 ward world forgotten, he could not sufficiently satiate himself with it, nor suf- 
 ficiently convince himself that precisely he himself will enjoy it, so that at last 
 as if fainting in the highest rapture he exclaims 0, / die almost from joyous 
 agitation and liighest longing! Ps. Ixxxiv. 3; cxix. 81. 
 
 If the opponents could still be in uncertainty at the first sentence of this 
 utterance, ver. 25, which came upon them as unexpectedly as spirit-words, as 
 to whom Job really meant by the avenger who was to rise upon his grave, and 
 whether he might not, in what seems to them his madness, really mean a man 
 they must be in the highest degree surprised when, after a few further slow 
 solemn words, he names at the end, ver. 26, God Himself as such an avenger. 
 But for the sufferer himself, who had shortly before in vain humbled himself 
 to them, there has now, particularly after the last words, ver. 27 c, of a pas- 
 sionate tendency again, and with reference to the beginning and course of the 
 whole speech, a transition been prepared for to a most emphatic, overwhelming 
 application of this highest certainty to these opponents, who instead of threaten- 
 ing him with the terrors of a divine judgment have themselves need to fear it 
 when it comes, as it most surely will ! Thus the end of the speech is quite 
 different from what was expected from the beginning, and Job's castigating 
 words were never more keen and penetrating than in this short but agitated 
 conclusion, vv. 28, 29. When ye say (xxi. 28), or think, how tcill we gladly 
 persecute him the wholly helpless being! (comp. vv. 5, 22), and the foundation 
 (the root) of the matter, the ultimate and true cause of the matter of this action, 
 of the suflferings, is found in me (accordingly in b, ace. § 328, indirect narration 
 interchanging with direct in a, just as xxii. 17, so that there is no necessity to 
 read *2, with many MSS. and the ancient versions, instead of "3), when ye thus 
 make both perfidious and wholly false speeches, as ye have hitherto done, then 
 be ye afraid for yourselves of the sword, fear ye its threatening strokes, and the 
 sword which is emphatically so called is that great, eternal punishment of the 
 
210 HI. 2. b— Ch. xix. 
 
 — If ye think "how will we persecute him!" 
 
 and the root of the matter is found in me : 
 then fear ye the sword 
 
 for burning are the sword's punishments : 
 
 — in order that ye may know the Almighty!^ 
 
 divine judgment, xv. 22; xxvii. 14; "Zech." xi. 17; xiii. 7: for glowing heat, 
 nothing but glowing heat (§ 296 6) are this sword's pzmishments, devouring at 
 once everyone whom they in the burning of the divine wrath overtake, with 
 which therefore there may be no playing ; but they must, if ye continue, over- 
 take you in order that ye may come to the knowledge of the truth, that your 
 blindness and obduracy may cease were it only by your death. The only dif- 
 ficulty here is the word T^""0, which the Massora with the Targ. (Pesh. Vulg.) 
 explains as T'^ ^"V.^., or "J'^ Q'ri, in order that ye may hnoio that there is judg- 
 ment! This meaning would not be unsuitable: but SJ abbreviated from "«JX is 
 not found in the Book of Job, and the weight of this objection follows from 
 §1815; further, the root 'j"'"', in all the forms derived therefrom, is equally 
 foreign to the vocabulary of the original Book of Job, while it occurs frequently 
 in Elihu's speeches, xxxv. 14; xxxvi. 17 twice, 31. If it is determined not to 
 restore ""'■^J, which is so frequent in our book, it might be conjectured from the 
 surprising translation of the LXX tcoG £cjnv auTWV tq uXy] (or 2ax_u? Cod. Alex.), 
 that the text has been somewhat corrupted here at the end, perhaps B?.'^''?j ""X 
 that ye m,ay know how, of what nature, your violence, or cruelty, is. In any case 
 the meaning of the important passage as a whole does not in the least depend 
 on this last clause. 
 
 As was said above, pp. 16, 56, we have vv. 25 — 27 the undoubted utterance 
 of the truth of the higher hope which looks joyfully beyond physical death into 
 the immortality of the soul. It is true that this hope is as yet without any of 
 the luxuriant developments of it which were often carried beyond all proportion 
 in later times : we see it here quite in its first fresh germination, as a new and 
 certain view just as it springs forth from an inward necessity. Later readers, 
 particularly of Christian times, did not distinguish the stages of the growth of 
 the hope with sufficient precision, and transferred many of the conceptions which 
 arose later into this passage. But the view of perhaps nearly all modern 
 scholars, that Job expresses here an earthly hope and does not at all speak of 
 the time after death, is much worse, and, indeed, totally false. This view is 
 opposed to the words themselves, it is opposed to the connection of the thoughts, 
 it sins against the meaning of the whole book and against the plain advance 
 from xiv. 13 — 15 to xvi. 18 sq., and finally to this passage. Neither is one 
 justified in saying that the poet must then have kept back the thought of im- 
 mortality for the end of the book: on the contrary, we have here the climax 
 of the contention, which can only be triumphantly conducted by means of the 
 certainty of the immortality of the soul, whilst at the end of the book it is not 
 
 1 Or according to another reading, that ye may hnoio what your cruelty is ! 
 
III. 3. a.— Cii. XX. 211 
 
 this but wholly different truths which must be added to the one here declared. 
 To which considerations we must add, that this idea did not come to the poet 
 as one which was current, but as completely new, which he ventured to intro- 
 duce and to expound only briefly and in relation to its first but most inward 
 necessity. If the truth was to the poet more like a germinating surmise and 
 anticipation, he was compelled to put it into Job's mouth as such, and this is 
 precisely the most suitable place where we have the vortex of the greatest 
 despair. 1 
 
 3. ZOPHAR AND JOB. 
 a. ZOPHAR. CH. XX. 
 
 The following speech shows plainly enough how right Job 
 was iu feeling towards the end of his speech, that that last 
 effort in favour of peace with his opponents w^ould be in vain. 
 For of these most profound words of Job's, which must, if any- 
 thing could do so, excite the pity of the opponents, the third 
 friend has really understood nothing but the forcible threats 
 at the end, which appear to him to be the scornful mockery 
 of perfect madness, the sneering defiance of sin, and which 
 vex him the more as he, the youngest of the combatants, has 
 from the beginning taken the most passionate view of the ques- 
 tion concerning Job. As regards the matter itself, he really 
 does not know anything fresh to say: but his personal feeling 
 has been too much mortified to permit him to remain quite 
 silent. Accordingly he attempts to do the best he can. After 
 a brief opening, in which he declares that his profoundly offended, 
 greatly agitated, spirit will not permit him to hold his peace, 
 vv. 2, 3, he begins to preach the truth, that the exultation of 
 the wicked lasts but for a little while, and though he ascend 
 ever so high and lift himself ever so proudly, or however much 
 pleasure he may have in the enjoyment of his evil works, he 
 will nevertheless be cast down to the greatest depth and be 
 
 1 As early as 1843, after the first edition of this work (1836), I defended 
 more definitely and at length this view in the Tübinger theologische Jahrbücher, 
 1843, pp. 718 sq., against the most recent interpreters who sought again to deny 
 the truth in tlii.s important question. 
 
 14* 
 
212 III. 3. a.— Ch. XX. 
 
 compelled to resign his sweetest enjoyment, because he cannot 
 with imiDunity have violated human and divine law, vv. 4 — 29. 
 For the third time, therefore, the same denunciation occurs, 
 and here at greatest length, everything that can be brought 
 into it being handled with utmost effort: at the same time 
 with this advance, that whilst Eliphaz had drawn only in 
 general frightful descriptions of the overthrow of the sinner, 
 and while Bildad had already said more definitely that he 
 would perish in spite of his desperate resistance, this time, 
 because Job had at last so unsparingly appealed to the future, 
 Zophar insists upon even the near end of the mad exul- 
 tation. 
 
 XX. 1. Then answered Zophar the Naamathite and said: 
 
 Therefore my wild thought replieth to me, 
 and thence cometh mine inward eagerness: 
 
 correction which insulteth me I hear, 
 
 and the s'pirit answereth me according to my under- 
 standing: 
 
 Knowest thou how this is from of old, 
 since man was placed upon earth, 
 
 Vv. 2, 3 can hardly be properly understood unless it is remembered that 
 "i^aya corresponds in every respect to "jS^, and is left without any complement 
 simply because this can be easily supplied from the 'i? in "ll?^, comp, the second 
 ?ys Isa. lix. 18, tXxj as adv. without complement Gramm. Arab. I. p. 345, 
 
 further "jy^? even for because Neh. vi. 13 (strangely Chald. p'lta'a Targ. Ps. xi. 3). 
 Thus the two similar members of the highly agitated words ver. 2 refer to 
 ver. 3 a as the moving cause, and ver. 3 b then returns more calmly to the 
 commencement: therefore he feels a reply, which otherwise he would prefer to 
 wholly omit, proclaimed to him by his agitated thoughts, and thence his inward 
 violent eagerness, which gives him no rest ("3 "trnn like Ö3 Diri"', iv. 21 and 
 "3 Tiry vi. 13), because he hears an insulting, deeply wounding correction of 
 himself from Job, not to reply to which is contrary to his inmost nature, so that 
 the spirit which is so profoundly insulted and excited compels him to make the 
 following answer according to his best understanding and wisdom. This answer 
 now follows first briefly, vv. 4, 5 : dost thou know (from thy present behaviour 
 it could not be believed), that this has been so as long as men have been 
 
III. 3. a.— Cn XX. 213 
 
 5 That the loud rejoicing of the wicked is but short, 
 
 and the joy of the impure but for a moment? 
 Although to heaven his excellency ascendeth, 
 
 his head reacheth to the clouds: 
 just as he is great, he perisheth for ever, 
 
 they who saw him say, where is he? 
 as a dream he fleeth away, no more to be found, 
 
 and is chased away as a night-vision, 
 eyes beheld him — they do so no more, 
 
 no longer doth his place look upon him; 
 10 his fists smote down the low: 
 
 his hands restore the power, 
 his bones were filled with his youthful vigour: 
 
 but with him upon the dust they lie down! 
 
 placed on the earth (lit. since the placing (one placed) man, § 304 a), namely, 
 that the exultation of the wicked is shortlived, not extending far into either the 
 past or the future? The construction of ver. 4 a is as concisely contracted as 
 the Lat. construction hoccine sets aetermun esse? All the rest from ver. 6 to 
 the end is but the elaboration of this sentence : it begins with the certainty of 
 the overthrow itself, vv. 6 — 18, and it then proceeds to the causes of it, vv. 19 
 — 28; but the whole, from ver. 5 (ver. 4 forms the transition) is divided into 
 three somewhat long strophes of seven verses each, until at last a shorter one 
 closes the speech in great agitation. — That certainty holds in spite of all ap- 
 pearances to the contrary and of all resistance : for though the wicked man exalt 
 himself to heaven in power or pride, yet his overthrow is certain, vv. 6 — 11, and 
 how terrible an overthrow, mocking all human pride ! according to his greatness 
 he perishes, so that his destruction is the greater in proportion as he himself 
 is great (this appears to be the meaning of 155;3, perhaps to be pointed ^^5?^ ' 
 the Massora, with Vulg. Targ., like his dung, probably too coarse a figure, 
 and here also, since a clearing away, or a trampling, is not spoken of, one 
 that is not very suitable; ver. 18 i is rather to be compared); and this is a 
 sudden and yet eternal ruin, so that his existence in the great world, when the 
 matter is looked at from its end, appears as fleeting as that of a dream or a 
 spectre ; accordingly the fool must by this very overthrow surrender all the 
 power which he cruelly robbed from the helpless, whilst his sons are still suf- 
 fering from the injustice of their father, and then he lies there in the grave in 
 spite of all the well preserved vigour of youth ! This antithesis appears to run 
 through vv. 10, 11, v.:']^ is in that case ace. § 121a from "U-i = ys":, as the 
 phrase is plainly connected with that which recurs ver. 19a; with the sense of 
 ver. 10 comp. vv. 19, 22 J and v. 5, Job also appears to allude below xxi. 19 
 precisely to these words ; between the two rftembers of ver. 10 there is thus no 
 
214 I"- 3. a.— Ch. XX. 
 
 Though wickcducss taste sweet in his mouth, 
 
 though he hide it uuder his tongue, 
 spareth it and letteth it not go, 
 
 keepeth it back in the midst of his palate: 
 nevertheless his bread hath been changed in his bowels, 
 
 venom of snakes is within him, 
 15 power he swallowed — vomiteth it again, 
 
 from his belly God expelleth it, 
 poison of snakes he sucketh, 
 
 the tongue of the adder slayeth him ; 
 he may not enjoy the brooks 
 
 streams floods of honey and milk, 
 he who restoreth earnings, swalloweth not, 
 
 however great his gain, yet he rejoiceth not! — 
 
 For he forsook the weak crushed, 
 
 robbed houses and buildeth them not; 
 20 surely he knew not quietness in his body: 
 and his dearest things he will not save, 
 
 connection, and it cannot be denied that ''''?'^J, xxii. 8; xxxviii. 15, or T*;?", 
 instead of ^"ja, would contribute a very suitable addition to tliis eonuection. 
 It is true he seelis further, vv. 12 — 18, to enjoy as long as possible his wickedly 
 gained possessions ; like dainties he holds them hidden as long as possible by 
 the tongue and fast to the palate, in order to feast on them : but as soon as 
 ever the sweet dainty of sin has entered more deeply into the system, it reacts 
 as a destructive poison, all enjoyment is frustrated with unexpected rapidity 
 (hence the perf. TB^^S, ver. 14), iudeed, really he may not enjoy at all his im- 
 mense treasures — the fool who the more he has gained the more and the more 
 painfully must he give back everything without any quiet enjoyment! Vcr. 17 
 ace. § 289c and Ex. iii. 8, 17; ver. 18 Indian ^^ns must be connected with 
 yj"' 3»ia'o, D^S"i s^l is a collateral adverbial cl.ause to the whole sentence ; >i^^^P 
 exchange, xxviii. 17, can probably denote also gain, or entire possession itself, 
 as people exchange what is their own only for what is better (apparently, xv. 
 31, or really better). — Thus far the causes of such a terrible overthrow have 
 not been intentionally dwelt upon, the third strophe of this description, vv. 19 
 — 25 starts from them particularly, in order to return with greater emphasis to 
 the beginning. And now the two previous thoughts vv. 6 sq., 12 sq. are more 
 concisely reiterated : because he let the helpless lie crushed by proud power and 
 contempt, without concerning himself about them (the copula is intentionally 
 omitted between afS» and VS"i, § 285 6), and because he was insatiable greed and 
 
III. 3. a— Ch. XX. 215 
 
 there hath nothing- escaped his greed: 
 
 therefore his best good endiireth not, 
 in his richest abundance it is strait to him, 
 
 everj' hand of the suffering overtaketh him, 
 in order to fill his belly, must God 
 send into him the heat of His auger, 
 rain upon him what can satisfy him! 
 If he avoideth the armour of iron, 
 
 yet the bow of metal rusheth after him: 
 25 he draweth it out and — it cometh forth from the back, 
 and a gleam goeth out of his gall, 
 over him terrors! 
 
 love of pleasure itself, so that no victim escaped this passion, ver. 20 a, ver. 21 a, 
 therefore will he with his dearest possession, to which his whole soul is at- 
 tached, not escape with his perishable material treasures (ö^* without an ob- 
 ject, as tjVs xxiii. 7 i), ver. 20 6, ver. 2\b, therefore will all people who have 
 been wronged by him at last make him feel their revenge at a most unexpected 
 moment, ver. 22 ; yea, may God, iu order to satisfy for ever the man's greed 
 for material pleasures, send down upon him His burning materials, fire-rain and 
 lightnings, as his food, in order that he may be satiated with it for ever! 
 ver. 23, comp, xviii. 15. This divine punishment he will not escape, vv. 24, 25, 
 for it is as various and endless as it is sharp and deeply penetrating, as when 
 one flees from heavy armour and is from behind unexpectedly overtaken by 
 the distant bow, and drawing out the arrow, in order to try again to save 
 himself, finds the sharpest and most gleaming iron has entered into the very centre 
 of his body, surprised at that moment by the terrors of death — a very graphic 
 description ! — Then at last, vv. 26 — 28, with everything lost, all kinds of dark- 
 ness, all calamity must be stored up for his stored treasures, in order to destroy his 
 many vainly well-preserved treasures, and to frustrate their enjoyment, comp, 
 ver. 28«, a play upon the word and the thought; no ordinary fire, such as is 
 blown by men, but a divine, irresistible fire, must feed away him and all his 
 belongings! Isa. xxxiii. 11 — 14. And thus at last (quite contrary to Job's hope 
 xvi. 19, 20; xix. 25) Heaven and earth must turn with overwhelming power 
 against the insuflferable man whose guilt Heaven itself thus reveals; on the 
 day of the divine punishment all the heaped-up wealth of his house, apparently 
 so firmly founded, must flow away, having now become as liquid and unsteady 
 as water when running away, comp, with the last figure xi. 16; 2 Sam. xiv. 14; 
 instead of ~J^ to be compelled to go into exile, which does not harmonise well 
 
 ^ The translation "sein Liebstes wird er nicht erretten", which Ewald has 
 given above, appears inconsistent with this construction. Tr. 
 
216 HI 3. b— Ch. xxi. 
 
 Let darkness only be stored up for his stores; 
 
 let a fire devour him, not blown, 
 let it feed off the rest in his tent! 
 May the heayens uncover his guilt, 
 
 whilst the earth riseth against him ! 
 let the produce of his house stream away, 
 
 waters running away on the day of His punishment! — 
 This the lot of the wicked man from God, 
 
 and the heritage appointed him from the Highest. 
 
 with the figure of the verse, ^i'^, Amos v. 24, must be read. After the great 
 
 agitation at the beginning, which then gradually increases towards the end of 
 this speech, it is not to be wondered at that in the description the language 
 here and there makes corresponding changes and demands punishment, indeed, 
 that at the end this demand prevails, vv. 17, 23, 26—28; the forms ^'^}.'i^'^ 
 t'ohlehu from W><p, and y]."^ from H^n to feed off, ver. 26, may accordingly be 
 explained as shortened Jussiv forms. Comp. xv. 31. "^T, ver. 23, strangely 
 placed before an abrupt anticipatory clause, as in the instances § 344 b ; on the 
 other hand, "H'^ xviii. 12, xxiv. 14 must be understood ace. § 224 c. 
 
 It may be further observed that these descriptions of the fate of the wicked 
 may start from the idea of an indefinite number of sinners, xviii. 5a; xx. 5« 
 and return to that idea again, xv. 34, 35 : but in the course of the delineation 
 itself, inasmuch as after all everything is intended to refer to Job, the sing, is 
 so predominant that the plur. appears but twice in an unimportant suff. xv. 29 b, 
 XX. 23, in the last passage, as well as in the similar one xxvii. 23, somewhat less 
 certainly ace. xxii. 2 and § 247 d. On the other hand, in the corresponding 
 general descriptions of Job's, the plur. predominates, ch. xxi. it is only in a 
 new sentence that the sing, once, ver. 10, is used, ch. xxiv. somewhat more 
 frequently, at first in a collateral clause, ver. 5 c, then more frequently varying 
 with several verses, or even verse-members, vv. 16 — 24. 
 
 b. JOB. CH. XXI. 
 
 In vain has Job accordingly made a last venture in order 
 to warn the friends against further contention of this kind: 
 they simply make their strong descriptions still more frightful, 
 with the almost unveiled object of holding up a mirror in 
 which Job may see himself. And equally in vain has he en- 
 deavoured to withdraw his gaze from the absolute confusion 
 of the present times and circumstances and direct it to the 
 
J- 
 
 III. 3. b.— Ch. xxi. 217 
 
 bright future and to eternity, as well as to raise the thought of 
 his friends even to the same height. They do not in the least 
 comprehend this elevation, and are always dragging the con- 
 tention down again into the abyss, not to sink into which 
 has hitherto required the exercise of Job's utmost eiforts. 
 They do not observe that by thus attempting to drag Job per 
 force into the abyss, they at the same time give him the power 
 to precipitate themselves. For while they hold before him 
 perpetually the divine righteousness against sinners, and desire 
 to judge him according to the general standard which they 
 have derived from these sinners, they compel him at last, 
 partly from weariness and partly into order to defend himself 
 against their unsparing attacks, to look more closely into this 
 thought. But when he examines it more narrowly, he must 
 from his stand-point deny the matter as the opponents repre- 
 sent it, and destroy the entire basis of this position of the 
 friends. For, indeed, he would gladly accept the principle of 
 the friends; because if it were as they conceive it and as he 
 himself had hitherto believed, then the deliverance of all the 
 innocent, particularly of himself, must at once follow, inasmuch 
 as he knows so clearly that he is innocent. But he does not 
 feel himself merely just now injured, persecuted, destroyed by 
 a dark, incomprehensible lot, but, when called upon to direct 
 his glance to the world around, he observes in the wide world, 
 in the broad daylight of human society, similar monstrous 
 wrong and confusion, the wicked prosperous and innocence 
 suffering. The outward appearance, on which the opponents 
 are wholly dependent, really teaches this reverse side of their 
 view and experience, inasmuch as the innocent is by no means 
 always outwardly prosperous, the guilty is not always out- 
 wardly unprosperous. If some men, like the friends, insist 
 merely upon one aspect of experience, other people, equally or 
 still more experienced, declare the exact contrary, vv. 29 sq. 
 For the man, therefore, who desires to examine this question 
 more closely, simple fairness and strictness of judgment demand 
 
218 III. 3. b.-CH. xxi. 
 
 that he shall look equally at all manifestations and expressions 
 of the divine activity in the world, and not permit merely one 
 aspect of it to hold good, as if one claimed to know better 
 than God Himself, ver. 22. And whoever once gets above the 
 customary opinion, easily discovers its weak points, how it is 
 untrue and cruel towards so many unfortunate sufferers, how 
 it is unable to maintain its position by means of the assertion, 
 that at least the descendants of the prosperous sinner are pun- 
 ished, inasmuch as a punishment which does not fall upon the 
 really guilty person would be both unworthy and to no purpose, 
 vv. 19 — 21. Whoever, now, is compelled so forcibly to look 
 for the first time at the reverse side and its truth, may not 
 he, losing his balance, eagerly follow up so exclusively the 
 picture of this reverse side, so fascinated by its painful and 
 yet certain truth, that he grows incapable in the moment of 
 his grief of seeing anything else? Job is in this state now. 
 The third opponent had set upon him, and exhausted all the 
 strength by which he had endeavoured to preserve a certain 
 degree of self-control; he had been compelled to study the 
 general righteousness of God which had been extolled; and 
 now, straitened on all hands, he is compelled openly to de- 
 clare, that he cannot anywhere find that righteousness as the 
 friends represent it. The earlier, incidental, interrupted, sup- 
 pressed, and, indeed, once (ch. xiii) with difficulty combated 
 doubts of the divine righteousness, and the mournful glances 
 into the perverse condition of things prevailing in the wide 
 world also, ix. 23, 24 ; xii. 6, reach here at last perfect clear- 
 ness and supremacy, and are exclusively put forward. The 
 joyful thought of the future which had just before been ob- 
 tained, disappears again, because the present, into the abyss 
 of which he is again drawn down, had all along remained per- 
 fectly dark, and as yet no bridge from the dark present to 
 the bright future can be discovered. 
 
 Accordingly, straitened by the most painful despondency. 
 Job falls, at the end of an advance of the contention for the 
 
III. 3. b.— Cn. xxi. 219 
 
 second time into the fault of speaking of God as he ought 
 not to speak, and as he would not speak on calmer considera- 
 tion, inasmuch as to call in question the divine righteousness 
 is when strictly considered folly. The speech to which he is 
 here driven, is when taken by itself inexcusable, because it is 
 as onesided as those of the friends, and is at the same time more 
 dangerous than those of the latter; and it will appear below 
 plainly, how he must suffer for having uttered it. During the 
 course of his speech, he himself perceives that it may well do 
 harm, and must add an incidental observation, lest it should 
 be thought, that he describes with personal satisfaction and 
 sympathy the insane thoughts of the prosperous sinner, ver. 16. 
 Nevertheless there is perceptible here a deeper, hidden calm, 
 in that being already fully convinced that a superhuman enigma, 
 a universal, unexplained human lot under which he suffers, is 
 here in operation, he simply brings the dark problem, although 
 horrified at it, honestly and fully into broad daylight, himself 
 most intensely desiring that it may be explained, and yet com- 
 pelled to acknowledge it. By this means the thick, unbroken 
 gloom which oppresses him becomes for the first time less 
 dense and more likely to be dispersed, as if it were about to 
 break up through a higher prophetic longing and the feeling 
 of its own insufficiency. If the error is still too firmly rooted 
 to give way at once, it is nevertheless an advantage that it 
 becomes at least clear to itself and beholds fully its own misery, 
 honestly bringing forth all its doubts : of this we have here the 
 beginning. Therefore this speech is not simply a disputation, 
 although it serves to completely refute the friends, inasmuch 
 as it thus presents exactly the true antithesis to their prin- 
 ciple. Under the feeling that there is here a superhuman 
 enigma, which the friends least of all can solve, this speech, 
 although bitter as following upon such a severe provocation, 
 begins with unexpected repose, as if Job were not at all com- 
 plaining of men, but of a dark, tormenting enigma, far above 
 men, which nmst indeed carry him away to impatience and 
 
220 ni. 3. b.— Ch. xxi. 
 
 fill everyone with gloomy amazement who honestly considers 
 it, as it shall now be expounded, vv. 2 — 5. Thus the calm, 
 self-possessed exposition of the dreadful enigma of the world, 
 to deny which is so frivolous, is begun in the main part of 
 the speech, vv. 6 — 26, until at the end, since in consequence 
 of the increasing warmth of the speech the remembrance of 
 the intentional denial by the friends of the broad universal 
 fact, and of their cruel treatment of the sufferer based on that 
 denial, has grown vivid, the speech without any constraint 
 changes by the natural progress of the thought to a severe 
 castigation of the opponents, vv. 27—34. 
 
 xxi.l. And Job answered and said: 
 
 1. 
 hear ye carefully, hear ye my speech, 
 
 in order that these may be your consolations! 
 bear with me that / may speak : 
 
 after my speaking thou mayst mock! 
 I — is then of man my complaint? 
 or how should I not be impatient? 
 5 look upon me and — be astonished, 
 and lay the hand upon the mouth! 
 
 1. Vv. 2 — 5. The request for a patient hearing, vv. 2, 3, strengthened by 
 the fact that it is not of men that he complains, but of something with regard 
 to which he must be impatient (vi. 11), at which his hearers themselves must 
 be dumb with amazement (v. 16) if they would candidly hear and consider (vi. 
 28) the speaker, the victim of the mysterious enigma, as he now calls upon 
 them to do, vv. 4, 5. But into that request for a hearing there is introduced 
 an element of almost insuppressible bitterness, which though at first kept back 
 at the end vents itself more freely, vv. 27 sq.: it is observable after the mild 
 words ver. 2 a (like xiii. 17) and ver. 3 a as a bitter addition, ver. 2 5 and 
 ver. 3 b : instead of the consolations, which they came to administer but certainly 
 did anything but administer, they might at least comfort him by a patient hearing, 
 comp. ver. 34 ; and if Zophar desires again to mock him as if he were an in- 
 corrigible sinner, let him at least wait till after the enigma now to be ex- 
 pounded has been well considered and see whether he has then still the heart 
 to mock at the man who has no other fault than that he suffers under the 
 most terrible enigma! Thus the wholly unusual address in the second person 
 
III. 3. b.— Ch. xxi. 221 
 
 2. 
 If I think thereon, I am greatly terrified, 
 
 violent trembling laj^eth hold of my body: 
 Wherefore do the wicked live then, 
 
 have grown old, strong even in power? 
 lastingly is their seed before — , with them, 
 
 their offspring under their eyes, 
 their houses prosperous, without fear, 
 
 the rod of God cometh not upon them; 
 10 their bull also gendereth without loathing, 
 
 their cow calveth easily, slippcth not. 
 
 of the last speaker alone in the bitter word 3 i is also explained : it is at the 
 same time evident that it is from pity that Job has hitherto everywhere spoken 
 against the friends collectively only, without pointing to one in particular; when 
 he here for the first time does the opposite, his word is all the more severe 
 upon this individual, indeed, so severe that the opponent thus addressed does 
 not answer again at all in the next advance ; at the right place Job treats 
 Bildad similarly, xxvi. 2 — i ; against Eliphaz, on the contrary, he is unwilling 
 to proceed thus, ch. xxiii., xxiv. 
 
 2. Vv. 6 — 26. Job is, indeed, himself seized by indescribable terror when 
 he reflects more closely upon this enigma, ver. 6. Wherefore, thus must he 
 inquire, do sinners (whilst the godly suffer from no fault of their own) live in 
 all material prosperity without any divine punishment, though they cherish the 
 most shocking and criminal thoughts of God? vv. 7 — 16, and how defective are 
 all the arguments which are produced for the contrary? vv. 17 — 21; is it not 
 rather, in view of such palpable outward proofs, truly insane to deny from a 
 partial view of the case the real state of the matter as regards the lot awarded 
 to men on the earth, as if one claimed to know better than God? vv. 22 — 26. 
 Thus this statement of the enigma, which began so calmly, has already become 
 more agitated and indignant towards the end, in proportion as it comes into 
 collision with the opposite views, although it is still without any direct address 
 to the opponents. This part of the whole speech falls into four somewhat long 
 strophes of five verses each, whilst exactly in the middle, after the first ten 
 verses, a sudden and unusually vehement thought comes in abruptly, ver. 16, 
 and by that means introduces at the proper place a somewhat greater break: 
 exactly as in the following great speech, xxiv. 13, something in every respect 
 very similar occurs, and as essentially the same thing occurred above also, 
 ch. vii., ix., xiii., xv., comp. ch. xix. — The description of the wicked mentions 
 first the general prosperity of their house, particularly how they can lastingly 
 enjoy their children (Job's lost!), vv. 8, 9, then the good condition of their 
 cattle, ver. 10, where for once in the new sentence the sing, is used instead of 
 the generic plur. which is elsewhere adhered to, comp. I's. cxliv. 13, 14, finally, 
 
222 III. 3. b.— Cn. xxi. 
 
 They send forth their little ooes like flocks, 
 
 and their children leap merrily, 
 they sing aloud with timbrel, cithern, 
 
 rejoice to the sound of the pipe, 
 they waste in ease all their days, 
 
 and in a moment they sink down to the Underworld : — 
 yet saying to God: "depart from us! 
 
 Thy ways we desire not to know; 
 15 what is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, 
 
 and what profiteth it us to pray to Him?" 
 
 — Ha, not in their hand is their real good; 
 
 let the counsel of the wicked be far from me! — 
 
 How often then doth the lamp of the wicked go out, 
 doth then the proper calamity come upon them, 
 doth He distribute lots in His wrath, 
 
 l)ow joyously they in general with their numerous children consume their life 
 as a possession (~^? K'thib, comp. "Isa." Ixv. 22), still further favoured with 
 a quick deatli, vv. 11 — 13 C*^"", ver. 13 6 is in any case to go domi, from 
 ^~Ji § 139 c, or from ^~ as equivalent in meaning, whether or not the Mas- 
 sora may by their pointing have explained it as "to be terrified", here an un- 
 suitable meaning). Instead of tjWr, ver. 10, it probably better to read i^'l?^, 
 ace. xxxix. 3, since "52 may like '•^'^l be very well said of the breaking forth 
 of the fruit of the womb. It is true, that the latter passage might seem to 
 require emendation in conformity with the first, because t3V>3, "Isa." xxxiv. 15, 
 appears to have a kindred signification : but in reality the latter verb is not 
 used of quadrupeds. The utterance depart from us, vv. 14, xxii. 17, with the 
 words connected with it, supplies the best explanation of the expression used above, 
 to bid God fareicell, eh. i., ii., as further it becomes here quite plain, that Job 
 even in the most questionable passages never permits himself to be so far car- 
 ried away as the Satan had maliciously suggested ii. 5, but becomes on the 
 contrary more and more firmly convinced of the opposite. Indeed, after quoting 
 the words of the ungodly, which it nevertheless seems they use secretly or 
 openly with impunity, vv. 14, 15, Job feels himself at once, as compelled by 
 his deepest personal revulsion, ver. 16, to declare his own inmost abhorence of 
 them, how he himself is wholly unable to believe that they thus really possess 
 their best weal (3"'J as xx. 21, very different from '^3'iö, see on xxii. 21), and 
 bow he does not in the least justify such language, comp. xxii. 18 J. — The 
 inferences from the general weal of the wicked serve in the first instance, 
 vv. 17—21, to refute some of the pleasing assertions made liy the liolders of 
 
III. 3. b.— Ch. xxl 223 
 
 do they become like stubble before the wind, 
 
 like the chaff, stolen bj- the storm? 
 "God layeth up his punishment for his sons!" 
 
 let Him repay to him that he may feel it, 
 20 that /lis eyes may see his fall, 
 
 from the hot-anger of the Almighty let him drink! 
 for what careth he about his future house, 
 
 if the number of the moons is allotted him? — 
 
 Unto God even will one teach knowledge, 
 
 while He judgeth the Higliest ones? 
 0/ie dieth in his perfection itself, 
 
 wholly at ease and in peace, 
 
 the popular view : if it has been said that the light of the wicked goes out, 
 xviii. 5, 6, that their (deserved) calamity overtakes them, xviii. 12, that He 
 (God) apportions to them in anger lots, or portions in life, xx. 28, 29 (comp. 
 Ps. xvi. 6), Job is, on the contrary, compelled in view of the above facts of 
 experience to ask, hoto often (~^S as Ps. Ixxviii. 40, not koto long vii. 19) then 
 all these hard lots befell the wicked so that they were dispersed like chaff be- 
 fore the wind (xxvii. 20 ; Ps. i. 4) ? since the reverse, surely, is met with, and 
 they are so long and so frequently in the possession of all material prosperity ; 
 and if it is said, for the sons of the wicked at all events God lays up calamity 
 ("i.";^, not 'j'is = ■)'"> *s xviii. 7, 12; xx. 10) and punishment, xviii. 10; v. 5, 
 what is really required is, that the sinner should himself experience the divine 
 retribution and punishment by his own personal suffering ("~" Hos. ix. 7), that 
 he should see his own overthrow and drink from the divine wrath-cup (ver. 17r, 
 Ps. xi. 6 b, Jer^ xxv. 15, 16), inasmuch as he, precisely as a frivolous sinner, 
 would not concern himself should his family meet with calamity after his death, 
 if only his own moons which he has to live through are definitely allotted and 
 fixed, as the opponents themselves had said xv. 20 b, so that he can at least 
 enjoy undisturbed his personal good fortune in the portion of life assigned to 
 him; ver. 21 i is a circumstantial clause § 3415; one might conjecture ^'-i""» 
 after xiv. 5, instead of ^^'^", yet the latter is explained by yiin = la iv , as 
 I remarked long ago in connection with Prov. xxx. 27 and other passages. — 
 Accordingly whoever looks at this from all sides must, in opposition to those 
 who dwell simply upon some one accidental aspect of God's work, rather ask, 
 whether one is insane and reckless enough to think he understands the matter 
 better than God Himself, who, as the friends themselves think, judges even the 
 exalted celestial spirits (iv. 18; xv. 15), and will therefore punish miserable 
 men who judge Him hastily for their intentional misconception of His truth ; 
 Sin 22 b is again a circumstantial clause. The restoration of the true rela- 
 tion of the phenomena is rather as follows : that one man dies in tlic full en- 
 
224 ni. 3. b.— Ch. xxi. 
 
 his pans full of milk, 
 
 the marrow of his bones well moistened; 
 25 but another dieth with a troubled soul, 
 
 not having enjoyed good: 
 alike they lay themselves down upon the dust, 
 aud corruption covereth them both. 
 
 3. 
 See, I know your thoughts, 
 
 what cruel devices ye plot against me! 
 Say ye, "Where is the house of the tyrant, 
 
 and where the tent of the dwellings of the wicked?" 
 have ye then not asked the wayfarers, 
 
 and their signs do ye not know? 
 
 joyment of external prosperity, another in the deepest grief, but nevertheless, 
 as appears from what has been said above, the first may be a sinner and the 
 latter an innocent man {e.g., Job himself), the difference therefore between the 
 two must be something else than their outward lot and common death, vv. 23 
 — 26. "Uy, ver. 24, ace. LXX, Vulg. Pesh. bou-els, in which case s'^.~ fat 
 would have to be read, comp, i ^ p member of the body, for the "i— might be 
 an addition: still, although the second verse-member would in that case more 
 closely accord \vith the first, the verb to be full would with difficulty suit such 
 a meaning : it is better therefore to take the word, after the Chaldee, in 
 the sense of vessel for preserving a store, comp. 8<3"v~, which appears to be 
 derived from the same root; thus there is an appropriate allusion to xx. 17. 
 Ver. 25 a after iii. 20, b after ix. 25. 
 
 3. Vv. 27 — 34. What therefore can the object of the friends be in thus 
 deliberately putting out of sight one aspect of human life? nothing, one must 
 believe, but to deceive the unfortunate sufi'erer by false threats of the divine 
 judgment and wrath, in order that he may take error for truth and do that 
 which is unworthy ! But he now knows, as they perceive, these their thoughts 
 and cruel plots against him (the plots zw irhich ye are cruel = which ye 
 cruelly cherish, is^rr, relative clause, § 332 a) ver. 27 ; and is determined 
 himself now to place clearly before them their deception and injustice. Have 
 they then, as they are constantly holding up to him the certain overthrow of 
 the tyrants (2"~3 as 7ider in the bad sense, Isa. xii. 2), not at any time heard 
 the well-known words of the experienced travellers who have seen the world, 
 how they testify the exact contrary, basing their statements on signs or proofs 
 known to everybody? These travellers speak, it is true, of great judgments 
 inflicted upon whole countries, of days when the outbursts of wrath (ri'-ai' 
 xl. 11; Ps. vii. 7) arrive as in overwhelming floods (comp. xxii. 11; Isa. viii. 
 
III. 3. b — Cn. xxi. 225 
 
 30 that "upon the day of calamity the wicked is spared, 
 upon the day when wrath-outbursts come up." 
 
 Who declareth to Him in His face His way? 
 
 He hath done it: who will repay Him? 
 — "But thai man will be brought to the burying-place, 
 
 and upon the grave-stone he keepeth watch; 
 sweet seem to him the clods of the valley, 
 
 and after him follow all people, 
 
 and before him are countless numbers." — 
 And how can ye comfort me so vainly! 
 
 the remainder of your answers is — treachery ! 
 
 7, 8), but they do not find that tlie guilty man is always overtaken by them. 
 Who, moreover, can rise up against God, even when incomprehensible things 
 happen? ver. 31 (it is clear from ix. 19; xxiii. 13; xxlv. 22, 23 and the wliole 
 thought and connection itself, that both in this speech and elsewhere this some- 
 what timid form of expression, in which the name of God does not openly oc- 
 cur, is nevertheless meant to refer to Him). But while thus no single man can 
 resist the divine decrees, one sees the sinner in death still having honours 
 heaped upon him, attended by men to his burying-place, and in his lofty mo- 
 nument as it were proudly keeping watch over his grave, that no one may come 
 
 irreverently near (»""J comp. ^^ J^.^». Ham. p. 409, ver. 3, ajLw-X^ Koseg. 
 
 Chrest. p. 54, and Abel Remusat's Nouv. Mel. Asiat. I. p. 241); indeed, ap- 
 parently sleeping quite softly and sweetly under the ground, as if the word sit 
 ei terra levis were true of him ; and, moreover, still admired in innumerable 
 successors and imitators, just as, indeed, there were before him sinners in 
 countless numbers (Ecc. iv. 15, 16)! vv. 32, 33. Accordingly if all these truths 
 are subtracted from the talk of the friends who wish to administer comfort, 
 there remains from their consoling answers nothing but — deception ! the intention 
 to deceive tlie suflferer and to precipitate him still lower! — Thus the third part 
 of this speech takes the form of two strophes of four verses each, as if the 
 first part, which was too short with its strophe of the same length, should thereby 
 be completed. It may be further remarked, that it is implied in the meaning 
 of the speech itself, that the words of the travellers who have seen the world, 
 to which Job appeals, must be extended to ver. 30 and vv. 32, 33, because 
 these verses describe the experience of the world which is referred to; whilst 
 ver. 31 at the beginning of the Nccond strophe shows by the form of it that it 
 is spoken directly by Job. 
 
226 IV.- Cn. 
 
 FOURTH STAGE OF THE DRAMA. 
 COMMENCEMENT OF A SETTLEMENT. 
 
 THIllD AND LAST ADVANCE OF THE CONTENTION. 
 CH. XXII — XXVITT. 
 
 However shocking and insufferable the representation of the 
 injustice of the world was which Job at last made in his 
 gloomy melancholy, and however hard the complaint based 
 upon it which he directed against the friends, the accused are 
 nevertlieless able neither to refute the representation, nor to 
 weaken the complaint on the ground of such a refutation. For 
 plainly they had really expected, that Job would be compelled 
 to hold his peace upon their threatening desci'iptions and would 
 not think of adhering so tenaciously to the logical outcome of 
 his case as to maintain the general injustice of the world under 
 which he suffered rather than confess his own guilt. But as 
 Job is nevertheless so unexpectedly reckless and so incompre- 
 hensibly immovable and stubborn, they are the more surprised 
 and amazed in proportion as they find themselves in reality 
 unable easily to deny at the same time the existence of the 
 unhappy enigma which Job had insisted upon. They cannot 
 make this enigma their own or really enter into it, because they 
 have not themselves passed through such mental trials as Job, 
 while they prefer, in the limited range of their opinions, to pass 
 over, or to interpret in a onesided manner, the particular ex- 
 ternal phenomena which in reality contradict their view. 
 Moreover, these hostile phenomena have really be(!n too em- 
 phatically and too generally insisted upon by Job as the last 
 speaker, to encourage them to ventui'e further into this slip- 
 
IV.— Cii. xxii — xxviii. 227 
 
 pery territory. Their most weighty argument against Job has 
 so simply melted away under their hands from the fact that 
 the accused sufferer had confronted them with the harsh 
 and dangerous, yet no less real, reverse of their opinion; and 
 for a second time the spectacle recurs, that an unfortunate 
 sufferer just when he seemed wholly lost and was most vio- 
 lently attacked, rises in a wholly unexpected turn of the con- 
 tention to the position of the victorious assailant by his mar- 
 vellous daring. Now, therefore, when the contention is about 
 to enter upon its third phase, their ranks are in reality from 
 the commencement weakened and pierced: the bold assurance 
 with which they entered upon the second advance has irre- 
 trievably vanished, for their two first and sharpest weapons, 
 which they were able with a good conscience to use against 
 Job— their general warnings not to speak against God nor 
 against the divine righteousness— have been used up and turned 
 against themselves; their third argument only remains, but it 
 is the bluntest and most insulting of all. If they will venture 
 to make one more attempt of importance, they must at last 
 express quite baldly and undisguisedly what they had hitherto 
 been in reality ashamed to utter at length and so wholly 
 without circumlocution: they must reproach him with certain 
 definite and particular sins of great magnitude, which (ac- 
 cording to their opinion) he committed before his calamities, 
 as they in accordance with their presupposition assume as cer- 
 tain but can never prove, were one disposed to interpret strictly 
 the words of helpless confusion which were spoken in the last 
 heat of an expiring struggle. To this depth, therefore, docs 
 the conflict, which has already become quite unequal, bring 
 them, that they are about to descend from the elevation of a 
 contention for principles to personal considerations. It is true 
 that according to their way of looking at things, the last 
 si)eech of Job had entitled them to do this, in which he had 
 as openly called in question the divine justice as if he were 
 himself a sinn(!r, and to that extent Job himsell' compels them 
 
 15* 
 
228 IV.— Ch. xxii — xxviii. 
 
 to this extreme step. But they thus suffer themselves to be 
 misled to make assertions which bring them into complete con- 
 fusion, aurr which must, if they are not proved, prepare for 
 them very soon the most ignominious defeat. Still, these men 
 are, on the other hand, in accordance with ancient manners, 
 too dignified to permit the conflict thus to issue at last me- 
 rely in personal recriminations and reckless altercation (to 
 which Job too would have been indisposed). They prefer, making 
 a last eftbrt, to give the contention at the same time a more 
 conciliatory tone and to recur to the commencement of it, and 
 they choose rather to hold their peace in helplessness than 
 either to sanction Job's speeches against God and divine right- 
 eousness, which in their consciences they cannot do, or to 
 speak in any other other respect unworthily. They very soon 
 get exhausted accordingly in the third advance, being at the 
 same time simply reduced to silence by the great enigma and 
 the vehemence of Job, not conceding to him his position nor 
 making terms with him. 
 
 The attitude which Job has to assume, is, on the other 
 hand, easier to foresee. For he is now on the way to completer 
 victory, and advancing on that road must gain both in confidence 
 and self-possession, while the opponents sink down exhausted 
 and gradually lose courage and clearness of judgment. With re- 
 gard to the few new things which can be further ui-ged against 
 him, especially the open accusations which Elii)haz attempts to 
 make, he has the less need to answer at once, as it would now 
 have been foolish to attach so much import.ance to the last, 
 desperate effort of the opponent. As if he deemed it beneath 
 him at once to answer definitely to these charges, lest it 
 should seem as if it were necessary to be in haste with his 
 self-defence, and, on the other hand, still profoundly weighed 
 down by the burden of that terrible enigma, he prefers to 
 continue in gloomy soliloquy the general consideration of all 
 the enigmatical and in God incomprehensible things, and to 
 present them in their most pointed foim. Thereby he makes, 
 
IV. 1. a.— Ch. xxii. 229 
 
 withuiit expressing" it directly, a cluillciigc to tlie opponents, 
 if they propose to add anything further to the purpose, to tirst 
 of all scatter this lamentable darkness and thereby to refute 
 him, since really all further contention is useless until the pre- 
 liminary questions have been answered, ch. xxiii., xxiv. As 
 now nothing follows from Bildad after this check but an ex- 
 tremely weak, meager speech, which without adding anything 
 new reveals only too plainly the complete inability of the 
 friends to produce anything further of a sound and helpful 
 nature, ch. xxv., he considers it worth his while with a brief, 
 sharp attack, as already conscious of his superiority, to break 
 off if possible the contention now that it had become useless, 
 ch. xxvi. And at last, since the last friend is really unable 
 to speak any more. Job, after some rest and reflection, comes 
 forward for the last time instead of him, with the intention 
 of entirely concluding the contention which had been so vio- 
 lently broken off. This conclusion he makes by gathering up 
 the results of it, both those which are clear and those which 
 are still obscure, with the firm voice of a conqueror and the 
 lucidity of a teacher, and so far as the enigma is concerned, 
 which uuist candidly be acknowledged, submitting himself with 
 calm self-possession to the highest Wispom, ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 1. ELIPHAZ AND JOB. 
 a. ELIPHAZ. CH. xxn. 
 Eliphaz, it is true, undertakes for the third time, relying 
 upon his reputation and his profound wisdom, to take up -a 
 new position against Job, bringing forward the last further 
 principle which remains to the assailants. No less deeply 
 shocked by the last speech of Job's, and fully strengthened in 
 liis suspicion that Job who thus strangely describes the injus- 
 tice of the world must himself be inwardly wrong, than com- 
 pelled by the whole course of the contention, he declares with- 
 out any circumlocution that Job has committed great sins, as 
 
230 IV. 1. a— Ch. xxii. 
 
 if he desired to put into his mouth the confession of sin which 
 he has hitherto always repudiated. At the same time he is 
 unable to do more than infer these severe incriminations as 
 the subjective explanation of Job's present condition and as 
 the not unnatural result of Job's previous position of exposure 
 to temptation: he cannot establish them by producing human 
 witnesses, but can only base them upon the probabilities derived 
 from Job's situation: he simply attempts to prove that Job 
 must have thus sinned, because otherwise his present condition 
 could not be understood. It is at this point, therefore, that 
 we get in the briefest and concisest form the whole view which 
 the friends take of Job's sufferings, as regards its inmost rea- 
 sons and most cogent proof. That which is deepest and most 
 hidden in every respect compels Job by contradiction to seek 
 to be as plain as possible. — But as if in the vague feeling that 
 the incrimination established in such a way would after all 
 produce alone but little effect, and at the same time wearied 
 from the heat of the contention, Eliphaz summons up his last 
 remaining strength and resources in the endeavour at the same 
 time to prepare the way for an honourable cessation of the 
 conflict. This he attempts in the first instance by connecting 
 with the unveiled incrimination a serious warning against un- 
 godly thoughts, such as Job cherishes, and against the further 
 following of the conduct of the sinners of evil repute in an- 
 cient history; next, by calling upon him in a friendly tone to 
 amend his ways, and by closing with the brightest pictures 
 of a noble future calculated to excite hope. But the warning 
 is simply repeated in a weaker form almost unaltered from 
 the second advance of the contention; the excitement of the 
 hope of a better life after repentance simply recurs from the 
 first advance. Accordingly when Eliphaz here makes a last 
 attempt, using his last resources and bringing forward his last 
 new thought, he at the same time calls up afresh all the pre- 
 vious , thoughts and resources and renews the attack for the 
 last time by comprehensively stating all that can be said. He 
 
IV. 1. a.— Ch. xxii. 231 
 
 thus recurs by degrees to the beginning and thereby reveals 
 that the friends have exhausted their resources aud must de- 
 sire to rest. This speech accordingly falls into three equal 
 parts, of which the first only expounds a new thought, the 
 other two gradually go back to the thoughts of the earlier 
 advances: (1) the open incriuiiuation, iu the form in which 
 Eliphaz is able to establish it, vv. 2 — 11; (2) the serious 
 warning, vv. 12—20; (3j the exhortation to hope, vv. 21— 30. 
 
 xxii. 1 Thou answered Eliphaz the Tacmauite and said : 
 
 1. 
 Doth then mau bring profit to God? 
 
 no, to himself only the thoughtful bringeth profit! 
 is it a concern to the Almighty that thou art righteous, 
 or an advantage that thou conductest thyself blamelessly! 
 
 1. Vv. 2—11. Elipliaz is unable (apart from mere conjectures based ou 
 Job's past history which was full of temptations) to bring any other proof of 
 the statement from which he does not now shrink, that Job must be guilty of 
 definite grievous sins, than what he derives from the present condition of Job, 
 which serves him as an external proof, inasmuch as he compares his ideas and 
 truths regarding God with this condition. As he attempts to produce the stric- 
 test proof with perfect calmness, he starts accordingly from the highest truth, 
 that God as absolutely perfect and blessed in reality stands in no need wliat- 
 ever of human duties and virtues, but in His exaltation above them would lose 
 none of His blessedness did they not exist : let no man anywhere ever forget, 
 that when he fulfils the divine will he only secures his own weal, fulfils a per- 
 sonal necessity of his own and attains his own true destination, and let him 
 never imagine that God would not be blessed without him and his good works! 
 Were it otherwise, it could certainly be then thought, that, in order to increase 
 His own blessedness, God inflicted, from motives of necessity or advantage, 
 sufferings without any just cause, i.e., without any guilt in the sufferer, simply 
 iu order that men, being thus humbled and tormented, might the more fear 
 Him, just as when a human lord, who thinks it necessary to make himself 
 feared, arbitrarily torments his subjects. But what an unworthy thought of God ! 
 Therefore if God sends punishments, man must have deserred them; God does 
 not punish on His own account, still less on account of man's piety, but on account 
 of man's sin and thus for the profit of man himself, because the human race 
 could not exist without the reaction of sin in the form of the punisliment of 
 the sinner, punishment is also a warning for living men. Now, Job's suft'erings 
 are such punishments : therefore he must, according to these proofs and evi- 
 
232 IV. 1. a.— Ch. xxii. 
 
 on account of thy religion will He correct thee, 
 will He enter with thee into judgment? 
 5 is then thy wickedness not great, 
 no limit to thy misdeeds? 
 
 For from thy brethren thou takest pledges for nought, 
 
 and strippest off the clothes of the naked; 
 water thou givest not to the weary, 
 
 and from the famished withholdest bread, 
 the man of arm — his is the earth, 
 
 and he that is in honour dwelleth therein! 
 widows thou hast sent away unhelped, 
 
 the arms of the orphans have been crushed! 
 
 denccs, have grievously sinned ! This series of inferences is pointed, conuected, 
 and in itself clear. But at last comes unobserved a tremendous fallacy, occa- 
 sioned by the fundamental error, that sufferings are as such punishments. If 
 one starts from this erroneous principle, one is landed in the alternative, vv. 4, 5, 
 that sufferings are sent either on account of piety (which is impious to suppose) 
 or on account of the sins of the sufferer, and then arrives accordingly at the 
 conclusion, that every sufferer has been a sinner. Yet Eliphaz is so little able 
 to escape from this error that it is here precisely most clearly brought out. 
 
 As to 'i'2 , ver. 2, which is here plainly sing., see § 247 d. 7?f^, ver. 3, as 
 
 xxi. 21, is Studium, desire and zeal, then solicitude and care about a matter, 
 a concern, business ; whence, ver. 3 b, an advantage, profit, can correspond to it. 
 nsji", ver. 4, as iv. 6, xv. 4 : a favourite word with Eliphaz, as the poet gener- 
 ally gives to each speaker certain favourite words and modes of expression ; 
 the opposite of nsT' is TO^, ver. 5. — After thus, vv. 2 — 5, the proof has been 
 supplied (with perfect calmness and stringency, only at last with a little more 
 agitation, when the inference is drawn as to the necessity of Job's guilt), that 
 Job must have grievously sinned, Eliphaz then enumerates to him, by way of 
 more definite incrimination, certain great vices, vv. 6 — 9, and then reverts to 
 the beginning, observing that precisely on their account the present great dangers 
 (snares, xviii. 8 — 10) and unexpected terrors came upon Job ; or does he still 
 mean not to heed and avoid the fatal destruction (darkness, floods of water, both 
 figurative) which is so near and certain V vv. 10, 11, with which question, ver. 11, 
 Eliphaz passes to the warning, vv. 12 sq., and it also appears therefrom that in 
 reality it is only at the dangers and sufferings of Job that the friends are hor- 
 rified. The question arises, from what source Eliphaz obtained his knowledge 
 of the particular sins with which he here charges Job ; did he really overtake 
 him in their commission, and can he produce men even as witnesses of them 'i 
 Impossible : not only is this contradicted by the entire book, but neither does 
 God Himself afterwards refute Job's subsequent protestations, ch. xxxi. Therefore 
 
IV. 1. a.— Ch. xxii. 233 
 
 10 Therefore are snares round about thee, 
 sudden terror coufouudeth thee : 
 or the darkness seest thou not, 
 and water-floods covering thee? 
 
 2. 
 Is not then God high as heaven? 
 
 see, how high the summit of the stars! 
 and yet thou thinkest: "what doth God then know? 
 
 behind dense fogs will He judge? 
 clouds hide Him so that He seeth not, 
 
 and the circle of the heaven He walketh through!" 
 
 simply because Eliphaz has firmly persuaded Limself that Job must have siuued in 
 some such manner, as so many others of his rank and power have done, and 
 as a great man may so easily sin, does he charge Job with these sins. More- 
 over, the instances themselves are really only those of sins which were at that 
 time very generally laid at the door of the potentates of that time, with no 
 proof whatever that Job was personally guilty of them. This was the case 
 with unmerciful taking of pledges, particularly as the most necessary articles of 
 clothing were taken as pledges by the powerful, Ex. xxii. 25, 26 ; Deut. xxiv. 
 6 — 10; cruelty towards necessitous suppliants of all kinds, ver. 7, "Isa." Iviii. 
 10, only in order that the powerful man may flourish alone in the desolate, 
 devastated land! Ver. 8 comp. xv. 28; Isa. v. 8; finally, ver. 9, the very 
 general cruelty against the unprotected members of weaker houses. 
 
 2. Vv. 12—20. The serious warning, introduced by ver. 11, once more 
 mentions first, after the favourite manner of Eliphaz, ver. 12, the greatness of 
 God as compared with men, which is as great, or higher than the heaven and 
 the highest stars, xv. 15 (on "=; see xi. 8): how can Job therefore, iu view of 
 this sublime exaltation, nevertheless think that God, as hidden behind clouds 
 and merely walking through the arch of heaven ("Isa." xl. 22 ; Prov. viii. 27), 
 does not concern Himself about the earth and does not judge it! (which Job, 
 indeed, has never said or thought in this sense, as if God had not the pov;er 
 to judge: but the serious doubts about the divine judgment on the earth, ch. xxi., 
 cause Eliphaz, with his other false opinions, to suppose that Job means really 
 that God is determined to know nothing about the earth). Whoever cherishes 
 such thoughts of God must be inclined to sin and on the road to the same 
 vast destruction which in the primseval world overtook the sinners as a per- 
 petual warning to those who come after them. Gen. vi. 1 — 12; xviii., xix. : 
 wilt thou follow the ancient example of these people, who, seized upon before 
 the time by the omnipotence of the God of punishment, perished without resist- 
 ance (xvi. 8), in that the entire ground and foundation on which tliey rested 
 becoming a stream sank beneath them and became like waters' (there being an 
 
234 IV. 1. a.— Ch. xxii. 
 
 15 The way of oldeu time wilt thou then keep, 
 
 which once sinful people went? 
 who were seized upon before the time; 
 
 as a stream their firm basis was poured away! 
 they who say of God: "depart from us!" 
 
 and the Almighty will do nothing to them, 
 although He filled their houses with good, 
 
 — but may the counsel of the wicked be far from me ! — 
 The godly will see it and rejoice, 
 
 the blameless will mock at them : 
 20 "verily, our adversaries are cut off, 
 
 their remnant the fire hath devoured!" 
 
 3. 
 
 Rely, now, on his covenant, and be at peace ! 
 
 thereby good will befall thee; 
 receive now from His mouth instruction, 
 
 and put His words in thine heart! 
 
 allusion particularly to Gen. xix), vv. 15, 16. As to the ortliography p^'" in- 
 stead of ps^, see § 15 b, note 2, it is Pual ace. § 131 *, with accusat. ace. 
 § 281 e. — And this way of the primaeval sinners continues still to be the way 
 of those people who are determined to know nothing of God, although He has 
 made them rich and powerful (ver. 18 5 is a circumstantial clause, § 341a): 
 but if Job has said of these people that they are prosperous, expressing at the 
 same time his abomination of them, xxi. 14 — 16, Eliphaz likewise protests his 
 abomination of them, ver. 18 6, knowing, however, also that in the future the 
 righteous will witness with rejoicing their complete overthrow, vv. 19, 20, 
 quite unlike Job's expression xvii. 8, 9. Thus Eliphaz simply reverses what 
 appears to him unsafe in Job's speech, without refuting it ! and how carefully 
 he adopts the expression of repudiation, xxi. 16 b, as if by taking it out of 
 Job's mouth he would intimate that Job has no right to use it! ver. 18a ap- 
 pears also to allude intentionally to xxi. 16 a. 
 
 3. Vv. 21 — 30. The exhortation to a return to God, passing gradually 
 into charmftig pictures of the happy consequences of a restored relation of 
 friendship with God: at first the exhortation predominating, vv. 21, 22, then 
 both in equal proportions, vv. 23 — 25, lastly, in a second strophe, the descrip- 
 tion alone prevailing, vv. 26 — 30. In vv. 21, 22 the description of the happy con- 
 sequences is found only in the centre, from D^*", § 347«, to the end of ver. 216; 
 "rsian js according to the connection most appropriately a verb §§ 191 r, 249 c, 
 not a substantive = ^^r?*^^': ; for ns'fü is manifestly intended to allude to the 
 
IV. 1. a.— Ch xxii. 235 
 
 If thou returnest to God humbling thyself, 
 
 puttest iniquity far from thy tents: 
 (and cast away upon the dust the finest gold, 
 
 and into the stones of the streams Ophir's treasure, 
 25 in order that the Almighty may be thy treasure, 
 
 and silver of greatest brightness unto thee !) : 
 
 Surely then in the Almighty thou dclightest thyself, 
 
 and raisest unto God thy face, 
 thou prayest unto Him and He heareth thee, 
 
 what thou hast vowed thou wilt pay; 
 if thou wilt determine a thing, it standeth before thee, 
 
 upon thy ways shineth light; 
 if they go downwards, thou sayest, "elevation!" 
 
 downcast looks He helpeth; 
 
 same word xxi. 25, comp. ix. 25, and "S^ar might according to xxxi. 12 even 
 denote simply material gain and possessions, with which again 3"ü good, adj., 
 would not agree ; and a sentence such as, thereby is thy gain which thou wouldst 
 then have prosperity, would not be sufficiently simple and natural. Ver. 23 
 also, in which the transition is made from inward weal to outward prosperity, 
 the consequence would ^ be indicated only by the last word of the first member, 
 with b comp. xi. 14: but vv. 24, 25 the exhortation and the consequences are 
 perfectly parallel, the picture of outward good being presented: cast away thy 
 pieces of gold (n—sa), even the precious Ophir, i.e., gold of Ophir (xxviii. 16: 
 just as (J J^^jO a city in India signifies also the commodity coming therefrom) 
 as useless things, upon the dust or into the pebbles of the streams, the gain 
 of the true prosperity will make up for all that (Ecc. xi. 1); on rntynr, see my 
 note on Ps. xcv. 4, only that the word is here not used in the local sense. 
 Like this antithesis the entire following description of the prosperity is very 
 admirable, vv. 26 — 30, beginning appropriately with the prospect, that then in- 
 stead of fear and estrangement a no less brightly contented than confident rela- 
 tion of friendship with God will follow, ver. 26, adjusting gradually all that is 
 still involved in darkness and fulfilling all pure desires, vv. 27, 28, so that if 
 even sometime the ways of life go downwards, he praying with a bumble look 
 and having been saved can soon notwithstanding let the cry of triumph again 
 be heard — "elevation" ! ver. 29, yea, so that he himself, having become a saint, 
 will be able to pray to God with efficacy for those who are not wholly blame- 
 less ("K, see § 215 6), as Gen. xviii. 23 sq., xx. 7. This conclusion, ver. 30, is 
 
 * if the Mass. reading were followed, see below. Tr. 
 
236 ^ 1 ^ 
 
 30 He will deliver the 
 
 delivered by the cleanness of thy hands' 
 
 psni«aIariT m ibe nooih of ^^^^'^"'^' exsreseij &ppr3pn.ii:e : n consams lae 
 gcBtle reproaeä duS Job kas mx froa Ae begnnring accepced Ae oSoed ae- 
 «■tio« of EEphn. t. & a^ tkenfiare at &e saae tae Ae sfleafc iti Mi r i iw 
 
 ■nr F* ft« *e saved, yea, h^ tare 
 oAeis. la a saäar. aad jdt after aU 
 iiriiiif xS. 8. 9— If r-sr, T«r. S, b 
 dK canect reaiagi. He ■«* sä^^ aee- x5. 14; xi. 1». Atm 1km «A k 
 yet m Oak case Ae aftiasis warii he ken aa voy skoat a^ 
 Bai if tihe iiiiiaj: af Oe LXX r^sfirilavedl, satihat 
 TT^. 24, 23 fine sia^iy a fgrathnir. «e get kere Ae saae cAlta i uL fim of 
 
 nag xL U— 15, eaapL vSL 5, 6. Ik 
 
 aldM «e^BKh a^Bst ti« veiy 
 
 b. JOB. CH. XXIII>. XXIV. 
 
 XothJBg can nM>Te Job here at once expresslT to answer 
 the open inciiniinati«», as strictly the odIt new thing in the 
 last speech: he has hithexto neTer hastened at the b^gimdng 
 of a new adrance of tiie coBtcBti«» to make his ddenoe, bat 
 has always first tran^ated himsdf into the new sttutm and 
 signified his right as against the attadL Mn^ mwe can 
 he do this in the present instance, iiiasimidi as El^haz in 
 simply recapitidating what had been said bdbre aDeges nothing 
 firesh sare what is wh«^ £dse, whidi needs no pvo^pcr le- 
 fntatioB at aD on John's part, in tiie eoascioiiaess of his in- 
 nocence and as against assailants who haTe now beoime wMIy 
 perplexed. It however, the rdoence to personal guilt which 
 Eli^iaz has so painfiiHj made, stiis in Job hefe at the be- 
 ginning oi the new advance one thonglit and wish, it most 
 espedaOy be, that it may be granted to him to establish his 
 innocoice belwe God Himself, ance he is as firmK ofwrinced 
 on the oae hand of his iMnnrpar»» as on the other of the im- 
 
IV. 1. b.— Ch. xxili.. xxiv. O'iT 
 
 possibility that the friends should ever properly understand 
 his case. This turn of the contention is in reality a very im- 
 portant one: though Job had already despaired of obtaining 
 in this life justice from God, he is nevertheless again drawn 
 by the force of the contention to look to the true source of 
 salvation even in this life, and is surprised by a wish which 
 he had quite let go in the highest confusion of the conflict. 
 Thus, with or without Job's will, the necessity makes itself 
 more and more felt, that the true salvation and the solution 
 of the enigma must come from some other source than the 
 men who have hitherto existed; Job shows this involuntarily 
 here by the desire for a divine decision, which repeatedly grows 
 out of the force of the circumstances. — Still Job feels himself 
 at present, from a multitude of causes, too pei-plexed and too 
 depressed to pursue this passing desire. Reviewing the whole 
 of his situation to the j^resent time and the vicissitudes of the 
 contention, as yet profoundly oppressed particularly by that 
 terrible enigma of life, he sees nothing but what is obstruc- 
 tive, perplexing, and incomprehensible, both as regards the 
 question of the appearance of God to settle the one matter in 
 hand, and as regards the question of the general divine right- 
 eousness on the earth, all the doubts as to which the last 
 speech of Job's, ch. xxi., had only commenced to bring for- 
 ward. These dark things Job here feels compelled, no less 
 by the matter itself and his own grief than by the unwise 
 behaviour of the friends, to call forth in all their extent and 
 in their true connection, and to state them, although with 
 profound pain, fully and candidly. The attitude of the friends 
 is so unintelligent that they are determined merely to suppress 
 and obliterate by empty reproaches and unsatisfactory repre- 
 sentations and not to solve the enigmas which are really plain 
 to all who will see them. But Job is now at last gaining the 
 victory over his opponents, precisely because, having correctly 
 grasped the enigma in one aspect of it, he presses it under 
 their notice, and cannot permit himself to be hindered by vain 
 
238 IV. 1. b.— Cii. xxiii., xxiv. 
 
 accusations and weak consolations from following up both the 
 matter itself and his victory. Accordingly this long gloomy 
 speech, which may more properly be termed a soliloquy, be- 
 comes the sharpest weapon against the opponents simply from 
 the fact that it pursues the enigmas which have been started, 
 particularly the last one, to their extreme consequences, and 
 by implication merely, without any direct address to them, calls 
 upon the opponents first to penetrate the darkness of the 
 matter before continuing the personal contention: thus their 
 whole attack is checked without any direct and formal counter 
 charge, and Job's matter is continued in the same manner as 
 hitherto with the greatest perseverance to its extreme point. 
 The speech falls, in accordance with this twofold division of 
 the subject-matter, into two parts of growing length and 
 weight: (1) the renewed desire for a divine judgment, which 
 is, however, immediately checked by the terrible thought that 
 God will not appear in this matter, ch. xxiii., as, indeed, 
 (2) there are many and strong reasons for generally denying 
 the existence of the divine justice on the earth, ch. xxiv. The 
 first part is in many of its reflections almost a short re-echo 
 of one of the earliest speeches of Job's, ch. ix., only that the 
 reflections here do not any more bear the character of stormy 
 vehemence of the earlier ones, but as already moderated pass 
 over like distant tempests, as if the speaker, urged by an in- 
 ward voice, intentionally restrained their storm; the second 
 part completes what had been commenced ch. xxi. 
 
 xxiii. 1 And Job answered and said: 
 
 1. 
 To-day also of His hand T complain, 
 His hand is heavy upon my sighs, 
 
 1. Ch. xxiii., in stroplies of greater calmness, each of four verses, the se- 
 cond and to a certain extent the last also being somewhat more agitated. "''", 
 ver. 2, my hand would have to signify, ace. i. 15, xix. 21, the blow (hand) of 
 God which I must endure, weighs down my sighing, so that 1 am not able 
 
IV. 1. b.— Cn. xxiii., xxW. 239 
 
 that, having known, I might find Kim, 
 
 might come unto His judgment-seat, 
 might order before Him the cause, 
 
 fill ray mouth with proofs, 
 5 might know what answer He would give me, 
 
 observe what He said to me! 
 
 With mighty power shall He contend with me? 
 
 no, only let Him give heed to me ! 
 then would an upright man litigate with him, 
 
 in order that I might get free for ever from mj' judge! — 
 Behold, I go forwards — He is not there, 
 
 backwards — I perceive Him not; 
 if He turneth aside to the left — I behold Him not, 
 
 if He inclineth to the right — I see Him not! 
 
 even freely to give vent to my sighs and so obtain a little relief. But the 
 word haiid would then be far from clear, and ""o in the first verse-member is 
 neither very intelligible nor found elsewhere in this poet: but if we read in 
 the second member """ with the LXX and in the first ""J'?, where the LXX 
 still read at all events ""J'?, this commencement corresponds admirably to that 
 of the previous speech, xxi. 4, and a repetition of the same weighty word in 
 both members of the verse is very common with our poet. With such diffi- 
 culty, though immediately getting enraptured as it comes to be dwelt upon, 
 does the wish find expression, that he might only, having already learnt what 
 means are necessary for tlie purpose, having become wise and capable (as re- 
 gards the parenthetical perf. "rS"", ver. 3, and similarly "3:n3, ver. 10, see the 
 note on iv. 2) find Him, the author of these pains and calamities, sitting upon 
 His judgment seat, that he might boldly lay before Him all his well-arranged 
 proofs of his case (comp. xiii. 18, xxxi. 35) and might then await the answer, 
 which, surely, unless everything deceives him, cannot possibly give a decision 
 against his innocence ! vv. 3 — 5. Certainly, in this enraptured consideration the 
 fear finds a place, that he will be hindered in his speaking and self-defence by 
 the overwhelming power of God, and the question irresistibly suggests itself: 
 shall lie viih mighty force (xxx. 18) contend with mef as had been previously 
 feared ix. 19, 34; xiii. 21; and he answers, 710! that I do not wish, only let 
 Him pay heed to me! (iv. 20, vi. 28), I can wish notliing further than that He 
 may be a judge that will listen, not a ruler displaying his irresistible strength ! 
 then, if it were so, viill an upright man be at lav iiith Him, in order that I 
 might e$cape for ever from my Judge, as completely acquitted by Him and never 
 again accused, as really my case is such that the just judge must favourably 
 decide it for ever with one sentence. — With ver. 8 sudden, abrupt refiection ; 
 revulsion of feeling. But, alas, with nil my pains, I know not wliere to find 
 
240 I"^- '• b.- Ch. xxiii., xxiv. 
 
 10 For He knoweth my accustomed way: 
 
 if He trieth me, as gold I go forth; 
 to His track my foot held close, 
 
 His way I kept, not deeliniug, 
 the commandment of His lips — I forsook it not, 
 
 more than my claim I treasured His word : 
 but He is as none else ^ : who stoppeth Him ? 
 
 His soul hath desired it — He doeth it! 
 
 Sui'ely, He will accomplish my appointment: 
 and to such things is He greatly accustomed. 
 
 Hhn, vv. 8, 9, because incontestably He is determined not to examine my good 
 case (for some mysterious reasons), having resolved upon my death, vv. 10 — 14 : 
 therefore j)recisely the feeling of horror and dismay at the thought of such an 
 incomprehensible act on the part of God! vv. 1,5 — 17. Tlie fact that he can 
 find God nowhere, he explains to himself by reflecting, that God has the power 
 to make Himself everywhere invisible, as is parenthetically said ver. 9 : if he 
 could not find Him in the East (in the front) or the West, so that He might 
 perhaps be in the North (on the left) or South, He would easily make Himself 
 invisible in any other quarter to which He might by a sudden turn incline ; 
 TiVy must signify here, as used for fltäy, to incline (comp. History of Israel IV. 
 74 (HI. 537), so that it is almost equivalent to the following Sliay ; for this 
 root SltäV, which does not occur elsewhere in the Book of Job, must here, as 
 nowhere else, bear the meaning of the Arab, i oUr . — As a reason, Job is 
 unable to conceive any other than one which is again itself dark and terrible, 
 that God having (for unknown reasons) without doubt resolved upon his death, 
 is determined not now to examine him, knowing that the examination of his 
 case must bring after it his acquittal : but, however greatly Job has reason to 
 rejoice in his own innocence, who can do anything against the omnipotence of 
 the incomparable One? This is, vv. 10 — 14, so explained, that with peculiarly 
 deep satisfaction the strong consciousness of innocence is declared and de- 
 scribed as never before ; as, indeed, this consciousness generally, with its 
 joy, insensibly grows, and thereby at the same time unintentionally the best 
 refutation of the opponents is uttered; ver. 14 first expounds the final cause 
 after vv. 10 — 13. Ver. 12 : the commandment of His lips— with regard to it, 
 / never departed, see iv. 6 ; more' than my own claim, what was due to me, 
 •what I as an influential, wealthy man could have claimed in accordance 
 with my circumstances and rights with relation to other men, have I held 
 sacred the words of His mouth, His clear revelations; on "fisa, ver. 13, see 
 
 1 Germ. Er ist einzig; Grammar § 217/, Er ist ein einziger; Gesenius' The- 
 samnis, p. 62, nniais in suo genere, incomparahilis. Tr. 
 
IV. 1. b.— Ch. xxiii., xxiv. 241 
 
 15 Therefore before Him am I sorelj^ alarmed, 
 
 1 consider it — and tremble at Him; 
 and God maketh m)- heart fearful, 
 
 and the Almighty greatly alarmeth me: 
 for at darkness I am not struck dumb, 
 
 nor at myself, covered by Him with darkness. 
 
 xxiv. 2. 
 
 1 Wherefore hath God not treasured up times, 
 and His friends behold not His days? — 
 Boundaries are removed, 
 herds are stolen and fed, 
 
 §§ 217/, 299 i; ver. 13 Zi like ix. 12. It is said at the end, vv. 15—17, with 
 great truth and force, that the more deeply he reflects by himself upon such 
 incomprehensible things in God (comp. xxi. 6, 7), the more is he terrified and 
 alarmed, and that this is the true reason for his present state of fear, but not 
 the darkness or the calamity itself, nor even his own person, which bears this 
 calamity filling all the world with horror, ace. xix. 13 sq., whilst his opponents 
 are dismayed only at this external misery and its object, indeed, endeavoured 
 to make Job also fear on account of it, xxi. 11. Moreover, ix. 35 is similar, 
 as here generally there is much reechoed from ch. ix. 
 
 2. Ch. xxiv. Already xxiii. 14 b the transition to the univer.sal absence of 
 justice, under which Job also feels himself now a sufferer, was on the point of 
 being made ; but this aspect of the matter was not then pursued, in order that 
 the picture of Job's personal condition might be first completed. Now, however, 
 that aspect is again taken up to be completely worked out. After the difficult 
 question, ver. 1, as a gloomy continuation of the doubts xxi. 7, wherefore the 
 times and days of God, or the times of the revealed, triumphant divine riglit- 
 eousness, promised to the godly, did not come i, examples of all kinds of the 
 shocking injustice , as endless as lamentable, which prevails on the earth, 
 are multiplied in the most striking colours, vv. 2 — 24, with the short conchi- 
 sion, who can deny all this? ver. 25. In order to make this terrible picture 
 complete, not only is the material prosperity of the wicked described, as ch. xxi., 
 but, what is still more painful, the sad, shameful condition of so many suf- 
 ferers whose afflictions come solely from the unpunished cruelties of the wicked, 
 and the insolent impunity of so many kinds of profligates, are depicted. We 
 are here brought into the very midst of all the barbarities and disorders of the age 
 of the poet, the connected picture of which is really so terrible that it might 
 
 * The characteristics of the speech are here, xxiv. 1, quite those of the 
 great prophets of the 9*^ and 8tl> century, who spoke so much of the great 
 coming day of (Jod. 
 
 16 
 
242 IV. 1. b.— Ch. xxiii., xxiv. 
 
 the ass of the orphans is driven away, 
 
 the ox of the widow is taken for a pledge, 
 
 the poor are thrust from the way, 
 
 altogether the oppressed of the earth lie in hiding. 
 
 5 Lo, as wild asses, they go forth into deserts 
 with their work, seeking for victuals: 
 
 the steppe is their bread for the children, 
 in the field they harvest his fodder, 
 
 they glean the vineyard of the sinner; 
 naked they pass the night, unclothed 
 and with no covering in the cold, 
 get soaked from the downpour of the mountains, 
 having embraced the rocks without shelter. 
 
 well give rise to the most perilous despair of many of the thoughtful people 
 of the time. Yet while thus the numerous shocking illustrations of tlie criines 
 committed by men in the very midst of civilised society are produced in suc- 
 cession, the poet avoids representing Job as taking any secret pleasure in such 
 delineations. On the contrary, in the midst of the fearful description he must 
 be seized by a violent feeling of horror, and at tlie same time clearly show, 
 that he, if the point were simply to make pleasing but untrue, sentimental pictures 
 of the opposite, can do this equally as well or better than the friends, since 
 he himself most devoutly desires to see the opposite realised in life, if he were 
 not compelled in loyalty to truth candidly to acknowledge the actual experiences 
 of life. So he presents first cruelties against the unprotected, vv. 2—4, then 
 over against them the lamentable condition of the unfortunate of all classes, 
 where at last his shocked feeling breaks out, vv. 5 — 12, next some more of the 
 worst disgraceful deeds of the most hardened sinners, vv. 14 — 17, at last the 
 false and the true description of the end of the sinner, vv. 18 — 24. Thus .arise 
 four groups of pictures so arranged that the second and fourth form in eacli case 
 the counter-sketch to the previous ones: cruel tyrants — tormented suflerers and 
 unprotected people ; most abominable wickedness — the happy end of those who 
 commit it. Accordingly the long description is unfolded in six strophes of 
 four verses each, but so that it still falls into two equal halves, as evidently 
 we have here again in ver. 13, as in the exactly similar case xxi. 16, a point 
 at which the two halves are separated by a pause. — (1) Vv. 2 — 13. On the 
 one hand, vv. 2 — 4, acts of violence of all kinds against the helpless, comp, 
 with ver. 2 Hos. v. 10; Deut. xix. 14; xxvii. 17; with ver. 4 Judg. v. 6; Isa. 
 xxxiii. 8. On the other hand, vv. 5 — 12, undeserved sufferings of all kinds 
 endured by the unprotected from human violence : botli by those who are not 
 in direct dependence, vv. 5 — 8, and by those who under civil government live in 
 complete dependence on their lords, vv. 9 — 12. The former are most probably 
 
IV. 1. b— Cn. xxiii., xxiv. 243 
 
 The orphan is stolen from the breast, 
 
 and upon the suffering this pledge is laid; 
 10 they creep along naked, unclothed, 
 and famishing they carry sheaves, 
 between the walls of those they press oil, 
 they tread the wine-presses — and thirst; 
 from out cities groan the dying, 
 
 aloud the soul of the wounded crieth: 
 yet God doeth not heed the offence! 
 
 — Those are amongst the bitter enemies of the light, 
 who have never acknowledged His ways, 
 and have never dwelt upon His paths! — 
 
 the remnants of the subjugated aborigines further described xxx. 1 sq., who 
 pushed back into deserts and caves dragged along the most wretched existence, 
 like wild asses roaming through the deserts for themselves and their children 
 and contented if they can get together some sustenance, even from the cattle- 
 fodder or from the vintage-gleaning of the powerful sinner (the sing. suff. in 
 i?'?a refers to the "loi who is immediately more definitely mentioned), moreover, 
 without clothing or shelter abandoned to all forms of misery, which the rich 
 man scarcely knows by hearsay. However, still more sad is the lot of those 
 who are bound in social bonds, slaves, corvees, villains, or dependants in other 
 forms ; who groan under the burden of debts to such an extent that the infant 
 is torn from the mother as a pledge by the debtor, ver. 9 ; who while they 
 work for the superabundance of others are themselves famishing, vv. 10, 11 ; 
 yea, who from the midst of the vast slavery of society, under the tortures of 
 which they suffer, groan in vain to God for help as they die! ver. 12 (D"r"2 
 would have to be connected with I'Va : from the city of people, i.e., from the 
 thickly peopled city, yet the addition of the word would then be superfluous; 
 and B'r^i as some MSS. and the Pesh. read, suits the second member better). 
 To the godly this cry for help from the suflerer, which is not heeded by God 
 even when it comes from the dying, is a true offence and skandalon (i. 22), 
 particularly when the entirely different end of the wicked is compared with it, 
 which is described at the close of the second half, vv. 22 — 24: Job also in 
 conclusion, ver. 13, shocked to madness, cries out, in order to testify his horror: 
 they, the tyrants who have from the first been here described openly vv. 2 — 4, 
 then plainly enough included also in the description of all the following verses, 
 vv. 5 — 10, but not the sufferers like Job, are the people who intentionally rebel 
 against the light in thought and deed, who love confusion and sin only ! — 
 (2) Vv. 14 — 24. Again, one sees on the one hand, vv. 14 — 17, still worse sinners 
 of another kind, men who do not shun simply the celestial light, like those i)re- 
 viously named, but even the light of earth and seek the darkness with its terrors, 
 in order tliat they may the more undisturbed prosecute their villany; e.g., the 
 
 i6» 
 
244 IV- 1 ^- — C"- xxiii., xxiv. 
 
 Towards daylight the murderer riseth, 
 killeth the sufferer and needy, 
 
 and at night doeth like the thief; 
 15 the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight 
 thinking "not an eye will spy tne!" 
 
 and a covering he putteth about the face; 
 in the darkness they break into houses — 
 who by day shut themselves up, 
 do not know the light: 
 because to them morning is at once darkness, 
 because the terrors of darkness are familiar. 
 
 — "Swift is he in his course on the water's face, 
 — a curse overtaketh his lot on the earth — 
 he turneth not towards happy fields: 
 
 notable liigh-wayman, who quite early in the naorning slays the people who are 
 alone and then further uses the night like a thief, ver, 14, comp. ver. 15 ; the 
 adulterer who pays heed to the twilight that he may use it, and with it puts on 
 as it were a covering for his face, a mask, by which he becomes unrecognisable 
 (Prov. vii. 9), ver. 15 ; violent men in the darkness break into houses {e.g., in 
 times of civil commotions when houses are searched), but in the day, as gen- 
 uine enemies of the light in every sense, closely shutting up themselves (and 
 their houses), in order that they may not be recognised and punished, since 
 they, knowing well the district which is favourable to them, and defying every 
 light, always surround themselves with horrible night, make the morning for 
 themselves at once into the darkest night, vv. 16, 17, comp. xxxi. 33, 34. But 
 what, on the other hand, vv. 18 — 24, is the end of these men? When one 
 hears the opponents, one would suppose that they must all in the briefest space 
 of time vanish with all that belongs to them overtaken by the divine punish- 
 ment ; and Job too is master of such speeches and can present this view pro- 
 bably still more forcibly than his opponents (as, indeed, he also formerly be- 
 lieved that this was the state of the case) vv. 18 — 21 : but the case is wholly 
 different when the actual facts are honestly looked at! vv. 22 — 24. Accordingly 
 YV. 18 — 21 contain a representation of the same view as the friends had as- 
 serted which is meant to vie with their efforts, just as Job likes to give such 
 rival pictures when they are appropriate ; only that in this instance the imita- 
 tion, with which the speaker enters so thoroughly into the view of his op- 
 ponents that it is as if he meant to adopt it, suddenly changes by the direct 
 counter presentation of the truth of the matter into the scornful exposure of 
 the opposite opinion (becoming a parody of it) ; it is plain also that the words 
 contain an intentional exaggeration of the representations used by the opponents, 
 which of itself conveys an element of ridicule ; and probably they were words 
 
IV. 1. b.— Ch. xxiii., xxiv. 245 
 
 drought, heat also carry forth snow-waters : 
 the Underworld them that thus sinned; 
 20 the womb forgetteth him, his sweet drink is corruption, 
 never again will he be mentioned, 
 
 so that as a tree wickedness is broken; 
 he who devoureth the barren childless woman, 
 and to the widow doeth not good!" 
 
 — Yet He sustaineth mighty ones by His power, 
 
 they rise up, though despairing of life : 
 He letteth them rest — and they confide, 
 
 and His eyes are upon their ways: 
 they rise high : a little while — they are gone, 
 
 they fall low: like all others they depart 
 and wither like the tops of ears! — 
 
 of a poem tlien well-known which our poet thought it proper to pour some 
 ridicule upon. The tone of ch. ix. was similar, though not so bitter. The 
 passage cannot be taken as a serious utterance of what ought to be but is not, 
 inasmuch as the language shows nothing of the character of a demand and re- 
 quirement. Sii-i/t, fleeting is he in his course upon the face of the vmter, as 
 something swimming on the surface of water is rapidly carried away beyond 
 recovery, with equal rapidity he vanishes (xx. 28 ; Hos. x. 7 ; Ecc. xi. 1), in 
 that when he disappears, his inheritance, his fine landed property in the earth 
 is cursed (paronomasia i) by those beholding his just ruin, comp, xviii. 20, xx. 
 27 ; so he turneth his steps no more towards vineyards, i.e., smiling, fruitful 
 fields, such as his extensive landed possessions were: but into the dark, deso- 
 late underworld sinners are as rapidly and completely carried away as snow- 
 waters soon vanish without a trace on sudden drought or even heat (dry or 
 even hot wind) (vi. 16, 17, ixtsn relative, ace. § 332a): thus gone down into 
 the underworld and drinking in corruption only like his sweet milk (xxi. 33), he 
 will be wholly forgotten on earth even by his nearest friends, by the womb which 
 bore him, and the root of all the wickedness even appears, as by the uprooting 
 of a great tree, to be destroyed with him who was as a devouring fire to all 
 the unprotected, to both the woman that has been cast off and the widow (xx. 
 26), Certainly, all that is very üne'.—and yet, notwithstanding these great ut- 
 terances and fine pictures, after all He (God, who for awe is scarcely indicated) 
 sustains by His power the tyrants, even when at some time they already des- 
 
 ' Ewald reproduces the paronomasia between 'P and h,pr by "Auf Was- 
 sers Fläche er verflief/t, verflucht sein Loos". In English another reproduction 
 of it has had to be attempted. Tr. 
 
246 IV. 2— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 
 
 25 If not — well then who will prove me a liar, 
 and to nothing make my speech? 
 
 pair of life, causeth them to be secure (nü3^) uud calm, taking their ways 
 under His protection (x. 3 c); and moreover their death is enviable, inasmuch as 
 they depart from their elevation in a short period without long suffering (xxi. 
 13 Ö), but if they are cast down from their elevation, they really only gather 
 together their feet like all other men, i.e., die, Gen. xlix. 33^, and that more- 
 over only according to the course of nature at the time of ripeness (in contra- 
 diction of V. 26)! The antithesis cannot be more pointed, or the refutation 
 (even if only certain instances are in Job's favour, others in favour of the op- 
 ponents) more complete. T0>31, ver. 22, can equally as well as P'^*3*<^ xxii. 13, 
 and other instances of the kind, § 345 a, signify, and yet He sustaineth. 
 
 2. BILDAD AND JOB. 
 CH. XXV., XXVI. 
 
 As therefore Job has now himself most emphatically put 
 before the friends, who had reproached him with some atro- 
 cious deed which they had discovered, a much more serious 
 stumbling-block and occasion of offence of an exactly opposite 
 character, to which they, as has already been brought out, are 
 in reality unable to produce any satisfactory reply, and as he, 
 moreover, declines to answer their personal incriminations 
 further than by an appeal to God, it is evident that the op- 
 ponents have come to the end of their materials, as they had long 
 ago become exhausted in insight and force. Bildad, whose turn 
 it is now to speak, can neither continue the useless personal 
 attack, which had been fruitless even when made by Eliphaz 
 whose dignity could command respect, nor can he again begin 
 with the atrocious deed, inasmuch as he would have in that 
 case to first to refute the counter position which Job has been 
 placing before them. Bildad feels therefore that the conten- 
 tion is coming to a stand-still, and can in fact, inasmuch as 
 
 1 yBpj cannot in any case signify in this connection anything which does 
 not take place until after death, such as burial, cannot therefore be brought 
 into connection with Y^^i, Ezek. xxix. 5 ; it can only express, like the cor- 
 responding ivdheriruj in c, an ordinary decease. 
 
IV. 2— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 247 
 
 he would still like to speak, only bring- forward one thing, or 
 rather call something to remembrance once more. He desires, 
 namely, to say, that notwithstanding the immense darkness of 
 the enigma, which now forcibly descends upon the friends and 
 makes them dumb, they must nevertheless hold fast the true 
 feeling that Job has gone too far and ought not to speak as he 
 is now speaking, because his words really offend against the 
 divine majesty, and whatever the issue of the contention may 
 be, they are attended by great danger and can never be com- 
 pletely satisfactory. This, which is all that now remains for 
 the friends to call attention to, Bildad here ventures, with 
 timidity and uncertainty, to bring forward in a few feeble 
 words, in order as far as possible to stop Job from the pro- 
 secution of his exceedingly perilous course, and he thus reverts 
 to the general truth with which Eliphaz had started at first, 
 to the truth of the great distance between God and man, and 
 that this weak creature may never consider himself righteous 
 before that mighty One, iv. 17 sq., xv. 15; which are remarks 
 without any new distinctive meaning or force. 
 
 But if this truth, put in this vague general way, was even 
 at the commencement of the contention, when his opponents 
 had the advantage, rejected by Job as long ago known and of 
 no use to him in this form, how can he now allow it to pass 
 as a satisfactory answer on the part of the opponents, when 
 it only returns as a weak echo from the earlier speeches of 
 P^liphaz, when at this point and in view of the immense 
 enigma, to which Job now directs attention, it is wholly in- 
 appropriate, when as it appears in this form it sufficiently pro- 
 claims the complete perplexity of the exhausted opponents? 
 As if seized by displeasure at the contradiction of men as it has 
 now shown itself to be useless, he resolves to conclude as far 
 as possible, by a short, sharp answer to the weak speech, the 
 contention as between men, having long ago perceived that 
 really men generally will be unable to give in his peculiar case 
 either comfort or enlightenment. Whilst in the previous ad- 
 
248 IV- 2.— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 
 
 varices he had always kept back his attack until the third 
 friend had spoken, in this case the evident fatigue of the op- 
 ponents provokes him to make a merciless attack after the 
 speech of the second; and while previously he had never an- 
 swered merely personally, he is able here, as the opponent pro- 
 duces absolutely nothing new, at once briefly to give a per- 
 sonal reply to his speech. Yet, in order at the same time 
 somewhat further to evince in all calmness his superiority in 
 productive effort, after the brief word of scornful rebuff, xxvi. 
 2—4, he begins, as Bildad had tried to describe the greatness 
 of God, in rivalry with him, but with far superior power, a 
 much more magnificent, complete, and richer description of 
 this greatness, which is at the same time more profoundly 
 modest, xxvi. 5 — 14, whence follows plainly enough, without 
 any application, how unprofitable the opponent's speech had 
 been to him who knows everything touched upon in it incom- 
 parably better and can describe it not only more eloquently 
 but also with deeper human modesty; comp, similar rivalry 
 ix. 4—11, xii. 13—25, xxiv. 18—21. 
 
 XXV. 1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said : 
 
 Dominion and terror is with Him, 
 
 who maketh peace in His heights! 
 have His armies a number.'' 
 
 but whom doth not His light surpass? 
 and how should man be righteous before God, 
 
 and how should one born of woman be pure! 
 
 I. XXV. 2 — 6 : a twofold comparison of God in His infinite power and His 
 transcendent splendour with man in his inferiority, in consequence of which man 
 may particularly never contend with God with respect to justice and injustice ; 
 the first comparison is the most exhaustive, vv. 2 — 4, the second proceeds to 
 insist further more on the transcendent divine splendour, vv. 5 — 6. In the 
 background lies the idea, which prevails elsewhere in the book, of the celestial 
 powers and spirits, visibly represented by the innumerable host of stars, which 
 may, indeed, at some time come into disagreement and conflict, but are always 
 reduced to order and peace again by the superior Power, which shine illus- 
 triously but are nevertheless outshone by the highest radiance of Him that is 
 
IV. 2.— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 249 
 
 5 Behold, even the moon — it shincth not, 
 
 and the stars are not bright before Him : 
 how then mortal man, corruption, 
 and the son of man, the worm ! 
 
 xxvi. 1 And Job answered and said : 
 
 How hast thou helped him who hath no strength, 
 supported the arm of him who hath no power! 
 
 how hast thou counselled him who hath no wisdom, 
 and abundantly made known sure insight! 
 
 whom hast thou taught words, 
 
 and whose breath went from' thee? 
 
 2. 
 
 5 There the shades are made to sorely tremble 
 underneath the sea and its inhabitants; 
 
 invisible to the earth, so that before Him moon and stars do not shine (the 
 sun is not mentioned, just as Ps. viii.). In conformity witli the general sense of 
 the passage and the connection of the particular words, 5'i^s", ver. 5, is un- 
 doubtedly equivalent to Vn^, as some MSS. read and ancient versions explain it, 
 whether this was the original reading, or whether ^n« is to be regarded as = 
 ^^ti or not; the meaning to tent, Gen. xiii. 12, 18, is foreign to the passage. The ■> 
 of h^TiH^ »!sl as iv. 6, ace. § 348«. 
 
 II. xxvi. 2 — 4. An extremely scornful finishing off of the opponent. True, 
 most likely it is so, and I am myself conscious of it, that I am a man without 
 power or intelligence ; but then what kind of help, what kind of abundant wis- 
 dom hast thou lent to the man without either power or wisdom! (thou with 
 thy feeble, meager words of little wisdom !) Or, to speak a little more seriously, 
 to whom hast thou then really spoken instructive words? (to me, dost thou 
 imagine ?) and whose mightily inspiring breath went forth from thee ? (the spirit 
 of God from thee, who hast merely repeated the words and spirit of EliphazV) 
 
 x.\vi. 5 — 14. This description of the power and greatness of God is in va- 
 rious respects superior to that of Bildad: first, in wealth and brilliancy of ma- 
 terial, although Job repeats nothing from the similar pictures which he had 
 previously made : whilst Bildad only' refurbishes the words of Eliphaz in feeble 
 outlines. Second, that lie takes his illustrations not merely from the heavens, 
 as Bildad does, although they supply most opportunity for a description of 
 greatness and splendour, but also from the Underworld and the earth, so that 
 he now starts very suitably, exactly contrary to Bildad, from the Underworld, 
 
250 IV. 2.— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 
 
 naked is the Underworld before Him, 
 
 and no covering hath Destruction! 
 He who stretched the north over emptiness, 
 
 hung the earth over nothing! 
 
 He who shut the waters within His clouds, 
 
 so that the cloud-mass is never rent under them, 
 
 who enclosed the face of His throne, 
 
 spreading round about it His cloud-masses; 
 
 vv. 5, 6, then ascends to the earth, ver. 7, lingering longest certainly over the 
 wonders of the heavens, vv. 8— 13. But, thirdly, the noblest proof of his superiority 
 is this, that at the end, ver. 14, he confesses with great modesty that he is able 
 to do no more than describe the very barest and most distant outlines of the 
 divine wonders ; which is, again, one of the many proofs, that Job is now con- 
 tinually striving after higher knowledge with resignation and diffidence ; for that 
 which is here for the first time, ver. 14, so briefly thrown out, namely, that in God 
 there remains so much that is incomprehensible, is subsequently, ch. xxviii, further 
 worked out with the same modest sincerity, and forms there the sublime conclu- 
 sion and the result of the whole contention as waged between men. So easy would 
 it have been for Job to bring forward thus early the thoughts which are further 
 discussed ch. xxvii., xxviii! — The details are arranged in three small strophes of 
 three verses each, which are then followed by a brief, powerful conclusion, ver. 14. 
 The lowest Underworld even, far beneath the sea and its inhabitants (for the 
 Underworld (Sheol) begins at the confines of the deepest ocean streams (see 
 my note on Ps. xviii. 5), must feel the power of God, in that, e.gr., an earthquake 
 so rends the firmest surface of the earth that the black Underworld for once 
 lies open before God and His light and the Shades, which are at other times 
 quite motionless (iii. 17 — 19; x. 21, 22; xiv. 21, 22), being suddenly convulsed 
 become agitated and terrified ; T^as Destruction = Death, the Underworld here 
 and xxviii. 22; xxxi. 12; Prov. xv. 11; thence quoted later Ps. Ixxxviii. 12. Of 
 the earth is here immediately, ver. 7, mentioned only the one but the greatest 
 wonder, that although as a very heavy disk it rests upon nothing, sus- 
 pended unattached over the dark atmosphere of the Underworld, as if stretched 
 over vacuity and hanging over nothing, and yet remaining firm and not sinking 
 into the abyss (the Underworld); that the North is here first and especially 
 mentioned is probably owing to the fact, that the North was regarded by the 
 ancients as the highest and firmest (and next to the East the most sacred) quarter, 
 just as the South was the lowest and nearest to the Underworld (comp. Sävitri- 
 upakhjänam, v. 8 sq. ; "Isa." xiv. 13), and here precisely the wonderfully strong 
 and firm position of the heavy earth over nothing is intended to be emphasized : 
 the high mountains especially in the north, which are elsewhere called the pil- 
 lars of the earth, constitute the deepest foundation for this disk. — Of the heavens 
 and their relation to the earth there is first, vv. 8, 9, mentioned the wonder of 
 
IV. 2.— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 251 
 
 10 set bounds around upon the face of the sea, 
 most perfectly, of light as of darkness. 
 
 The pillars of heaven are struck with trembling, 
 
 and become amazed at His threat; 
 with His strength He stirreth up the sea: 
 
 by His understanding smote Kahab; 
 His breath maketh the heaven bright 
 
 His hand pierced the fleeing Dragon! 
 
 the formation of the clouds, which although they contain such heavy masses of 
 water do not burst and open themselves at the wrong time, which as reaching 
 into the highest heaven enclose at the divine command like a veiling ornament 
 the outer side of the divine throne, as it is elsewhere said that God builds for 
 Himself His higher cloud-dwelling Amos ix. 6; Ps. civ. 3, 13. Then, ver. 10, 
 the wonder of the heavens as a light-giving dome, which, carrying the sun to 
 the ends of the earth, where the ocean has its circuit, is so stretched out that 
 everything which lies on this side of the round confines is perfectly light, every- 
 thing on the other side is perfectly dark, just as subsequently, as late as into 
 the Middle Ages, the Atlantic Ocean, as lying beyond these limits of the course 
 of the sun and the celestial dome, was considered to be perfectly dark and was 
 called the dark sea simply ^ ; i'" comp, s^n, xxii. 14, ^is< belongs remotely to 
 pn, ace. § 289 c, r^53n -v adverbial as xxviii. 3.— Yet the most magnificent 
 hcene is presented, vv. 11 — 13, by the heavens, as in their most violent commotion 
 affecting the earth, when at the mighty threat of the angry Creator their pil- 
 lars, the highest mountains, which seem also to support the heavens, are struck 
 with trembling and the sea rises in violent agitation : whilst nevertheless a single 
 breath from His elevation is sufficient to make the most stormy heavens calm 
 and bright again, all tempests being chased away, and whilst the constellations 
 which then appear, formerly raging monsters but now captured and fastened by 
 Him to the sky, as Rahab (ix. 13) and the fleeing Dragon (Isa. xxvii. 1, Virg. 
 Georg, i. 244, Sil. iii. 192), sufficiently attest that He has also intelligence in 
 abundance to restore the order of the world in the midst of the greatest con- 
 fusion ! see on ix. 13. TE» is a substantive: by His breath, as soon as He 
 breathes and commands, is the heaven brightness, although it had just been dark. 
 ~'5'~ from V^~ to pierce, but ^^^n, ver. 5, from 'in. The ends of His iraijs, 
 ver. 14, the extreme points, the more easily perceptible outward aspects of his 
 marvellous activity : and even this "limited outward aspect we really discern 
 
 ' Comp. Enoch xvii. 6, xviii. 14, xxi. 1, 2, xxxiii. 2, Abdias's Hist. Apost. viii. 1, 
 Jahrbb. der Bibl. Wiss. III. p. 1 12, Zeitschr. für die Kunde des Morrjenl. vii. 
 J). 334 ; as according to the Greeks, Atlas sustains not only the heaven but also 
 the earth, see Gerhard's Archevwros und die Ilesparidcn, Berliu, 1838. 
 
252 IV. 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 Behold, these are the ends of His ways, 
 aud how gentle is the word we hear! 
 
 but the thunder of His powers -who understaudeth ? 
 
 only by the low, gentle (iv. 12) voice of God, which speaks within and permits 
 itself to be hoard there, or by the divine spirit within us (3>)3U} hero construed 
 with 3, as the verbs of attending to, understanding ; y>2«; is in the const, st. to 
 ■^3": and what a low, soft word is that which we hoar!); more powerfully and 
 loftily God seems to speak in the thunder to the whole world and to proclaim 
 his secrets (Rev. x. 3, 4), yet what mortal understands this language ? In 
 which words there is in fact nothing other expressed than the consciousness, 
 as it was then found amongst the enlightened spirits of the people, that man 
 as he now is does not yet understand many of the awful truths and secrets 
 with regard to God, and must jirostrate himself before His terrible revelation, 
 which is of foixo not merely for the small heart but also for the whole, wide world, 
 if once it vibrates through the world as in thunder-language! 
 
 3. JOB ALONE, AS CONUUEROE. 
 CH. XXVII-, XXVIII. 
 
 After such a crushing rejoinder, in which Job deals scornfully 
 with his opponent and shows his own superiority, the third 
 friend can the less venture a further word, as the entire view 
 of the opponents has now been shaken and upset to its deepest 
 foundation. At this point therefore the contention comes out- 
 wardly also to a stand-still, as already with the last change 
 of speakers no progress was made in the matter itself; the friends 
 hold their peace from perplexity and helplessness, without 
 having arrived at any clearer insight and conviction. How- 
 ever, this forced cessation of the long contention with its many 
 vicissitudes is too severe and abrupt not to make him who in 
 the first instance provoked it, Job himself, feel in the midst of 
 his incontestable victory the necessity of relieving the abrupt- 
 ness of the ending as far as he is able. In reality, under the 
 last convulsions of the dying contention a misplacement of its 
 foundations has taken place as regards Job, a misplacement 
 which he must, on the first opportunity of calmer reflection, 
 consider himself bound to rectify. He has permitted himself 
 
IV. 3.— Cn. xxvii., xxviii. 253 
 
 to be led away to the description of the prosperity of the 
 wicked, greatly as this shocked the friends and strengthened 
 their suspicion against him, as if he took a secret pleasure in 
 this prosperity: and undoubtedly, as long as the opponents, 
 in order to fill him with terror, held up to him in the strongest 
 light the destruction of the wicked, he was compelled to put 
 before them absolutely hostile propositions and to give up the 
 solution of the hard enigma involved in the opposite of their 
 assertion. But now that he has overcome them with this sharp 
 sword, a little reflection suffices to enable him to avoid every- 
 thing that can appear ambiguous, and to take a position upon 
 a much higher elevation. For, first, Job has after all urged 
 those doubts against his own better consciousness, inasmuch as 
 he has through his whole life acted under the conviction, that sin 
 involves its own punishment and destruction, xxxi. 2, 3, comp, 
 here xxvii. 12 sq.: where there is such a firm conviction of an 
 entire fruitful life, doubts may for a moment take possession of 
 the purest man, particularly in the painful circumstances which 
 oppressed Job, but it is impossible that they should become; 
 perpetual and get the upperhand. Secondly, it is just now 
 in the development of the dark lot of Job that the time 
 has come when doubts of this kind, after they have been 
 honestly brought out and made clear in all their strength, must 
 decidedly begin to work their own cure. For it is precisely at 
 this moment when he looks back calml}- upon the whole con- 
 tention, that he feels more strongly than ever before, what an 
 infinite blessing lies in his integrity, since it is, surely, simply 
 through it that he was saved in the utmost peril and now 
 stands with the great gain of a grand experience and inward 
 strength as conqueror on the threshold of a new time. This 
 newly gained certainty, moreover, so reacts upon his view of 
 the regions of life which are still dark that he must perceive, 
 however much both in the world and in God may still be in- 
 comprehensible, and although the sinner often appears outwardly 
 prosperous and the godly sutlers though innocent, that never- 
 
254 IV. 3.-CH. 
 
 XXVll., XXVUl. 
 
 theless in the eternal development of things innocence cannot 
 remain without its fruits nor wickedness for ever go unpunished. 
 By these reflections those doubts are not, indeed, as yet re- 
 moved, but as less dark and more harmless they retreat into 
 the background. Finally, Job now for the first time places himself 
 towards the friends fully in the position of a conqueror, thereby 
 that he now clearly utters what he had really all along pro- 
 phetically felt in his heart and freely declares his highest, 
 purest truths. For he surrenders nothing whatever of his 
 fundamental opinion, since as regards the matter about which 
 the whole contention had been raised, reverting to the point 
 at which he commenced, he maintains firm as a rock his in- 
 nocenöe against all the contrary asseverations and opinions of 
 the friends, and a brief, powerful word on this point from him 
 as conqueror suffices, as a simple inference from all that has 
 been said hitherto, which then becomes at the same time un- 
 intentionally the most dignified answer to the last endeavours 
 of the opponents, xxii. 5 — 11. On the other hand, he gains 
 much, in fact, the last thing which is still possible to be won 
 from the vanquished opponents, in order completely to shame 
 them. For in that he now voluntarily appropriates that part 
 of their views which was true when taken generally, but be- 
 came perpetually false in its application to Job, namely, the 
 certainty that the sinner cannot enjoy true prosperity (which 
 h(! can appropriate inasmuch as in reality he had always even 
 in the midst of the storm of assailing doubt S believed it but 
 has now afresh experienced it so powerfully in his own case), 
 he wrests from them every pretext even for such bad sus- 
 picions, and shows to them their inability to establish any- 
 thing substantial with their own truths, since in fact, their 
 own words even, as far as they are true, speak for Job, who, 
 
 ' Precisely in this respect do such words of Job's as those above which 
 are as if incidentally inserted, xvii. 9, xxi. 16, xxiv. 13, become doubly im- 
 portant now, because he hei'e really only takes up more definitely and pursues 
 deliberately what he had above all along meant iu his heart. 
 
IV. 3.— Cn. xxvii., xxviii. 255 
 
 as experience had already shown and as prophetic anticipation 
 encourages him further tu hope, has not been like a sinner 
 forsaken in his need of true hope and strength. Accordingly 
 everything combines to bring about this last phase of the con- 
 tention as between men, everything urges Job to make this 
 last possible step of progress, and the first fruit of his victory 
 is that here, after a little reflection, he, coming forward with- 
 out contradiction instead of the third opponent, who without 
 a word leaves him in possession of the field, concludes earnestly 
 and benignantly the contention. Emphatically maintaining all 
 the clear results of this contention, in view of the still re- 
 maining obscurities submitting in humility to a higher Wis- 
 dom, he here utters the sublimest words, which must fo less 
 surprise the opponents than exhibit him as not only the power- 
 ful but also as the marvellously thoughtful and modest con- 
 queror. It is first at this point that he bears off the crown 
 of the true triumph by striving after higher clearness of view, 
 as he overcomes himself in the moment of his victory over 
 others. It is here at the close that he expounds to his 
 astonished fellow men the purest conceptions of his inmost 
 soul, that in view of the still unsolved enigmas he is prepared 
 to submit alone to the divine wisdom, and thus turns from 
 men in devout awe to the eternal source of knowledge and 
 salvation. The brilliant conclusion of the contention as between 
 men, which gathers up with a firm hand its results, prepares 
 at the same time the transition to the final development of 
 Job's cause in quite another sphere. — As therefore Job, starting 
 from the incontestable certainty of his innocence, here declares 
 before his opponents really the state of his soul in conformity 
 with that certainty, or the deepest convictions of his heart 
 answering to it, the speech falls into three parts of increasing 
 length and importance: (1) the emphatic assertion of his inalien- 
 able innocence, because he knows what an incalculably precious 
 possession this is, xxvii. 2 — 10; so that (2) he also not less 
 than the friends, but without the false application which they 
 
256 IV. 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 constantly infer from it, and therefore much more absolutely 
 and correctly than they, maintains the outward misery of the 
 godless as really desired by God and as always possible through 
 God's omnipotence, xxvii. 11 — 23; inasmuch as (3) he well knows, 
 notwithstanding many enigmas which still remain to him, that 
 the wisdom of man is never under any circumstances to let 
 go the true fear of God, ch. xxviii., the most characteristic 
 and brilliant portion of this speech. 
 
 xxvii. 1 And Job took up further his utterance and said : 
 
 1. 
 As God liveth, who hath taken from me my right, 
 *the Almighty, who hath grieved my soul: 
 — for wholly is my life-breath still within me 
 
 and God's breath in my nostrils — 
 certainly, my lips do not speak iniquity, 
 and my tongue — it meditateth not deceit! 
 
 1. xxvii. 2 — 10, an address, full of bold strong feeling, yet calm in the 
 consciousness of victory, in three strophes each of three verses. The most 
 solemn oath (and it is the first which Job permits himself) by Him who, as 
 Job harshly but truly as far as the opponents are concerned (reverting as con- 
 queror to ch. iii) maintains, in spite of the assertion of the contrary by the friends, 
 has taken from him as an innocent man (according to the view of the world at 
 that time) his right, or the just acknowledgment of his innocence, and has thus 
 grieved him, is explained as regards the matter sworn, ver. 4 ; but first there is 
 inserted parenthetically, ver. 3, the grounds of such bold language : he still feels 
 within him all divine energy of life and the irresistible impulses of the spirit; 
 instead of finding life and inspiration expiring within, as was to be expected after 
 his vast sufferings and as the opponents imagine, lie feels himself, on the contrary, 
 wonderfully strengthened and still vigorous enough to say the boldest things even 
 swearing by God ; as to 53, see § 289 a. It is true the strong oath declares in 
 general that Job does not in the least speak untruly, wliich would be opposed to 
 the law of his whole life : but this still refers primarily to the great instance with 
 which the contention was started, or to the question of the innocence of Job 
 which the opponents had denied and he himself had all along either expressly 
 or incidentally asserted : hence in the more detailed explanation, vv. 5 — 7, he 
 protests with the most solemn earnestness that he is determined steadfastly to 
 maintain his innocence to his death ; so that the reproach of hostility, cruelty 
 and guilt returns, on the contrary, upon his opponents, who unsparingly per- 
 
IV 3. — Ch, xxvii., xxviii. 257 
 
 5 Far be it from me to grant that you are right: 
 till I depart, will 
 
 I not let my innocence be taken from me! 
 to my right I hold fast and let it not go, 
 
 my heart upbraideth me not as long as I live: 
 let mine enemy appear guilty, 
 mine adversary as a sinner! 
 
 For what is a sinner's hope, when cutteth off, 
 
 when God draweth out his soul? 
 his lamentable cry will God hear, 
 
 when distress cometh upon him? 
 10 or in the Almighty hath he his pleasure, 
 
 doth he call upon God at all times? ji 
 
 2. 
 Let me teach you concerning the hand of God, 
 what is in the Almighty's power not conceal; 
 
 secute the innocent man with false charges, f)"", ver. 6, must as intransitive 
 signify to I/lame oneself, or rather to be torn by inward reproaches, to waver 
 on account of the upbraiding of the conscience, to be in uncertainty. — For how 
 could he belong to those who are justly deemed sinners? He has the most 
 immediate and vivid inward consciousness that a sinner cannot have this im- 
 moveable hope and serenity in God, such as he has now strongly felt even in 
 the most extreme dangers, in the nearness of death, ch. xvi , xvii., xix., and such 
 as must equally pervade the whole life of the godly, as Job knows from his 
 own .experience. There thus shines through the fine description, vv. 8 — 10, the 
 elevating feeling of a newly gained experience of a true inward treasure and 
 happiness: the serene height is observable to which he who has always been 
 a true man of God has now risen with new intensity of feeling, with the gain 
 of purer and larger truth ; and if he no longer, as ch. xvi., xix., feels the dis- 
 tress of death so near at hand, but already the hope for the present life gets 
 firmer the more the darkness of his case is relieved, he could nevertheless not 
 lay hold of this more immediate hope if he had not previously passed through 
 that trying school of the absolute resignation of all earthly things : already at 
 this point the fruits of that brave struggle in extremities show themselves. 
 With the figure of the cutting off, or drawing out, of the soul from the body, 
 ver. 8, comp. vi. 9; xxxiv. 14; Ps. civ. 29; Ecc. xii. C, 7; Dan. vii. l.'i, and 
 the manner in which Jamas is described in the Savitri epic of the Maliäbhri- 
 rata. 
 
 2. But if Job now feels with such wholly new delight and certainty the 
 eternal, inward misery of the godless, it requires but one more step to enable 
 
 17 
 
258 IV. 3.— Ch. xxvü., xxviii. 
 
 ye have, surely, yourselves all beheld it, 
 
 and why then are ye so wholly vain? 
 This is the lot of the wicked man with God, 
 
 the heritage the tyrants receive from the Almighty : 
 
 If his sons are multiplied — for the sword! 
 his offspring have not enough bread, 
 15 death burieth the remnants of his house, 
 
 his widows weep not; 
 
 /■him to feel witli equal certainty, that this inward misery must surely in the 
 end be followed by corresponding outward misery; and that God has the power 
 to bring this about he has, moreover, never doubted. Accordingly it comes upon 
 him as a flash of lightning, that he is so far from being able, or from desiring, 
 to deny Sie outward uncertainty and misery of the godless as a simple matter 
 which the divine omnipotence may bring about, that, on the contrary, he can 
 and must maintain it still more strongly and certainly than tlie opponents ; indeed, 
 that he can speak to them with regard to it as their teacher, since he has really 
 all along intended it, but now feels more clearly than ever before that precisely 
 if this misery is such as the opponents also maintain, then the ultimate lot of 
 the godless cannot overtake him, as they had all along falsely maintained. 
 Thus he reverses this weapon also, being now in the midst of victory, wresting 
 it from them and using it against themselves, as if he already anticipates that 
 God also on His part will not treat him, even as regards external misery, in 
 the same way as the sinner; and the noble displeasure at the perversity of the 
 opponents, who although knowing and frequently describing the sad fate of the 
 godless, yet nevertheless make such a false application of it to Job, as if 
 he belonged to them, urges him now to come forward as their teacher, so 
 long as the question is simply the divine possibility, desirability, and ultimate 
 necessity of the -matter, xxvii. 11 — 13. — And thus is commenced, vv. 14 — 23, 
 a description of the end of the sinner, which Job makes in rivalry with the 
 friends and in which much that they had said reappears in a stronger form : 
 only in such a way, that what the friends used to condemn Job with must now 
 avail for him against them, in that the hope becomes strong in him that he 
 will not rtieet with such a fate, and that when Job alleges this, he does not 
 thereby deny that sinners may nevertheless often be outwardly prosperous for 
 a long time and that the godly may sometimes be in grievous calamity, as his 
 own history, in fact, is now so plainly teaching. When correctly understood, this 
 description accords completely with the present feeling of Job, as he is on the 
 way to anticipate the certainty of his own deliverance, or, which is the same 
 thing, the impossibility that he can perish like the wicked. But the particular 
 illustrations, which are spoken in rivalry with the opponents, must not be too 
 slavishly applied, but taken only as representing the eternal reprobation of sinners 
 before God and the necessity, which is involved therein, that they cannot after 
 
IV. 3. — Cii. xxvii., xxviii. 259 
 
 if he heap silver like dust, 
 
 aud procure clothing like clay : 
 he procureth — but the righteous clotheth himself, 
 
 and the silver the blameless divideth; 
 he hath like the moth built his house, 
 
 as the booth which the watchman maketh. 
 
 He lieth down rich and — he doeth it not again, 
 
 openeth his eyes — he is no more. 
 20 swift terror overtaketh him like floods, 
 
 at night the tempest hath stolen him : 
 the east taketh him up so that he disappeareth, 
 
 carrieth him in storm from his place, 
 casteth upon him without sparing, 
 
 from whose hand he can only Jlee ; 
 
 all be even externally truly and permanently prosperous, but, even wJien tliey 
 appear to be so, their overthrow is to be expected from the divine omnipotence 
 even in the visible world. The introduction, ver. 13, is intentionally like xx. 
 29, XV. 20. Without permanence is the house of the sinner, vv. 14, 15, is his 
 great wealth, vv. 16 — 18, but particularly his own life, vv. 19 — 23; therefore 
 two strophes of considerable length, of five verses each. After his death his 
 house feels the full calamity which he brought upon it, and instead of being 
 able to lament and bewail him, the members of it will be at once buried by death, 
 so that death and burial are one, because no friend, or relative, appears to show 
 them this last respect, Isa. xiv. 19 ; Amos vi. 9, 10. His wealth, silver, e.g., 
 and clothing (Gen. xlv. 22), may be as endless as the grains of dust or clay 
 (ver. 16 a recurs in exactly the same way Zech. ix. 3), yet it will at last pass 
 into the hands of the final conquerors (see subsequently Matt. v. 5), as he has 
 built his whole house from the foundation rotten and frail, as frail as a moth, 
 iv. 19, or as a miserable watchman's booth in a garden, built merely for the 
 summer, Isa. i. 8 ; Mic. i. 6. Indeed, a single night is enough to destroy him 
 and all his wealth, so that, when he has at the last moment of terror and 
 destruction just opened his eyes heavy with sleep, he is carried off, as if he 
 might be allowed only once more to wake for a moment that he might see his 
 destruction ; accordingly PCS" must be read with some MSS. instead of ^O^J", 
 as XX. 9; xl. .ö. The most terrible is the description, thus introduced ver. 19, 
 of the overthrow of the sinner himself, vv. 20 — 23 : sudden mortal terror (xviii. 
 14) overtaketh him like an overwhelming flood (Isa. viii. 7,8; Nah. i. 8), or 
 rather a swift tempest from the east (i. 19) taketh him up and carrieth him 
 away with irresistible force, so that before it, as before tlie missiles of a strong, 
 armed warrior, he can do nothing else than flee, for in this storm the divine 
 power is hidden Ps. xxxv. 5, 6 ; so he flees accordingly still pursued by the 
 
 17* 
 
260 I^^- 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 meu clap their hands over him, 
 hiss him forth from his place! 
 
 xxviii. 3. 
 
 1 For there is to silver a source, 
 
 a place to the gold which has to be refined, 
 
 scorn and ridicule of his own place, which ought to protect him! comp. viii. 18; 
 Nah. iii. 19; Lam. ii. 15. psiü"' and P'^IO"^, ver. 23, have an indefinite subject, so 
 that the suff. in 'i>3"^£5 as plur. can be referred to the implied plur. : but the 
 •iö" in 1»i"'?y must be regarded as in the case xx. 23, ante p. 208. 
 
 3. Ch. xxviii. This being so, the extreme sufferings of a godly man like 
 Job are certainly all the more incomprehensible: yet this is not the place to 
 pursue further this dark aspect of the case, but Job hastens to close with the 
 best that he has to say in the capacity of a teacher of the friends. Just now 
 his deepest feeling is, as it has never been before, that the godly man may not, 
 notwithstanding such enigmas as still remain unsolved, let God go, and this 
 feeling he must declare before the friends didactically with higher confidence. 
 Accordingly his mind remains here in this loftier mood, and from the midst of 
 it he begins to expound the last and highest thought that he has yet to speak 
 before men, and which serves at the same time to further explain the unex- 
 pected boldness of the previous words of this speech. For, although many 
 things may still be dark in the divine allotments, e.g., the sufferings of the 
 godly, the truly godly man does not nevertheless permit himself to be made 
 thereby unstable in his faithfulness and constancy, since he is certain of the general 
 truth that man, as incapable of finding the highest, purest truth anywhere all 
 at once, is, on the contrary, from the creation called to permit the wisdom 
 which has been granted to him as his own to show itself in the acknowledg- 
 ment of the highest divine wisdom, or in the fear of God. This brilliant pas- 
 sage contains in a veiled form the exposition of the highest principle, according 
 to which Job always lived, of which, however, he has now in his calamities 
 become still more clearly conscious after severe conflicts : that is, never on ac- 
 count of any single dark and mysterious things in life and of new enigmas in 
 God to give up religion and faith, since if they remain faithful and operative 
 they present the one possibility of entering into the secrets of God, xvii. 9, 
 xix. 25. It is only because Job has been led, by the force of the contention 
 and the victory, himself to come forward as the teacher of the friends, that he 
 here presents the lofty truth not as his feeling but in its more general form of 
 universal validity, and seeks to establish it with greatest calmness and reflection 
 as of itself necessary. And in reality this principle which is here proved is 
 not merely amongsi the Hebrews one of the highest views to which they attained, 
 but it is also perfectly correct independently of them. For if it is in tlie first 
 instance true that wisdom is the most precious treasure which man can gain (Prov. 
 iii. 14, 15, comp, here with ver. 18 i), then surely wisdom in tlie highest and 
 
IV. 3. — Ch. xzvii., xxviii. 261 
 
 iron is taken from the dust, 
 
 and stones are melted into copper: 
 an end men have made to darkness, 
 
 and most perfectly men seach out 
 
 the stones of darkness and of gloom; 
 
 opened up gangways, far from the sojourner, 
 
 purest seuse, or the wisdom which embraces and permeates everything, must 
 be for man an infinite, highest possession, which can neither be found anywhere 
 like a material possession, nor gained with any amount of toil or with the 
 greatest visible treasures, nor compared with any external possessions, nor can 
 ever be exhausted by individuals. It is, on the contrary, a purely divine pos- 
 session, hidden in God and come forth from him and operative since the crea- 
 tion, a possession which therefore man, as he follows the traces of wisdom as 
 it becomes manifest, can find only in God: So that for man the fear of God, 
 or the bringing of all his thought and action into relation with God, is the true 
 wisdom, because being again truly taken possession of by God, he finds in Him 
 the wisdom of the things of the world. And again, this truth is, on the one 
 band, elevating and inspiring, inasmuch as according to it an endless progress 
 in human wisdom in accordance with the infinity of God can be conceived, 
 while, on the other hand, it exerts a moderating and educating influence, inas- 
 much as in accordance with it man is always conducted to that which is primary 
 and of universal necessity — to devotion to God and faithfulness towards Him — 
 as the true means of being able in tlie new, hard enigmas of life, when the 
 divine wisdom is hidden in the particular case, still to continue in the frame 
 of mind and with the ability really to attain at the favourable moment that 
 divine wisdom if it presents itself for human apprehension. The connection 
 at this point as well as the past course of the contention requires that the 
 principle should be here conceived from the latter point of view: the pointed 
 contrast between divine and human wisdom, between the false and the true way 
 for man to find wisdom, must here be brought forward, and that which is 
 wrong is first described at length in order that the one simple true thing may 
 be at last uttered with the greater brevity and more overwhelming effect: it is 
 the few words of tremendous force ver. 28 to which the whole speech tends 
 from the beginning. Accordingly it falls, it is true, into three parts: (1) man 
 has undoubtedly a wonderful power of bringing the most hidden tangible things 
 from their deepest abysses and finds the toil and pains he employs for this purpose 
 at last rewarded by rich gain, vv. 1 — 11 ; but (2) wisdom, no tangible and 
 visible thing, confined to a particular locality, cannot thus be found by the ex- 
 penditure of any amount of trouble, or gained by any external treasures, 
 vv. 12—22, because (3) God alone possesses it, who has appointed for man 
 religion as his wisdom, vv. 23—28. But the last of these three parts, into 
 which the highest truths arc compressed, is with emphasis the shortest, the 
 most solemn in its calmness and abruptness, because the thought finds scarcely 
 
262 IV. 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 have they who have been forgotten of the foot 
 
 and in the depth stray far from men; 
 5 the earth — -from it springeth forth bread, 
 
 yet under it men ravage like fire! 
 the place of its most brilliant stones, 
 
 nuggets of gold become man's, 
 that path which the eagle never knew, 
 
 which the vulture's eye hath never pierced, 
 proud animals have never trodden, 
 
 to which the lion hath never penetrated ; 
 on the pebble man hath laid his hand, 
 
 overturned from the roots mountains, 
 
 any corresponding words, losing itself in its immeasurable elevation, and opening 
 an infinite field for further meditation. — (1) Vy. 1 — 11. Mining operations, 
 particularly inasmuch as they were then still uncommon and probably the 
 Hebrews were occupied with them only quite in the north on the Phoenician 
 borders, or in the south on the Idumean and Egyptian borders i, are here very 
 suitably mentioned as an example of the way in which man understands how 
 to bring even the most hidden things to light, when they are only capable of 
 being laid hold of, and how nobly his pains are rewarded. How deep and how 
 firm lie the treasures of the earth, and how dangerous and daring are the 
 labours of mining : yet nevertheless man has the joy and the gain of bringing 
 all these most secret treasures into the light of day to use them as he will! 
 Accordingly (a) it is quite possible to call forth as by magic the deepest trea- 
 sures of the earth for use, vv. 1, 2: silver has a source from which it can be 
 drawn forth, the gold which has to be refined (''p'"' is relative clause, which 
 men refine, in contrast with gold found in rivers and sand) has a place where 
 it can be found, like metal-ore and Iron, 'p'^'sr^ third per. sing, from pi^, with 
 indefinite subject one, men, hence the plur. appears in subordinate clauses, ver. 
 4Ö, f, § 319 a, although the sing, is in such cases as this, ace. § 294 6,(3, 
 more frequent, (b) By what means? by the most daring, vv. 3 — 5, thereby 
 that men most minutely search through the darkest things, as if an end had al- 
 ready been put to all darkness and no more fear was felt of its horrors, ver. 3; 
 thereby further that men have broken open dripping gangways (channels, shafts, 
 as ^X", ver. 10, and "ns, ver. 11) through rocks, far from the traveller, who 
 walks carelessly over this mountain and treads above the heads of the miners, 
 
 1 See Hist, of Israel IV. 192 (HI. 695, 848); as regards the mines near 
 Phsenou in Idumea, see the Onomasticon in Jerome, 0pp. l\. p. 442. — [see later 
 note in the History above. Tr.] — I do not find in this description any trace of 
 perpendicular mines. 
 
IV. 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 263 
 
 10 hath hewn passages in the rocks 
 
 — and all splendoui' his eye seeth : 
 he hath stayed the gangways from weeping 
 — and hidden things he bringeth into light. 
 
 But wisdom — whence can it be found r 
 
 and where is the place of understanding? 
 no man knoweth its value, 
 
 it is not to be found in the land of life ; 
 the abyss also saith: "I have it not!" 
 
 and the sea saith : "it is not with me !" 
 15 fine gold is not given for it, 
 
 silver is not weighed down as its price, 
 
 whilst those who are swaying too and fro in the dangerous depths below know 
 nothing of what is going on above their heads ! ver. 4 * [by the foot which 
 walks over the mountain) ; lastly, by a merciless turning up of the bowels of 
 mother earth, whose bright, sunny surface gives bread to the ungrateful men 
 who destroy her inwardly as with fire ! ver. 5. (c) But the gain of such toils is 
 certain! vv. 6 — 11: the place both of the noblest metals and the most precious 
 stones (of the brilliant one of the stones, i.e., the most brilliant stone, § 313 c), 
 that path which neither the longest sighted birds of prey, which best see every- 
 thing that is in the lowest depths, nor the proud beasts of prey, which force 
 their way through everything, have ever known and trodden, — all these wonder- 
 ful regions become the possession of man ! vv. 6 — 8 ; and, once more briefly to 
 sum up everything, after he has put his bold hand upon the hard pebble, turned 
 up mountains from the bottom, hewn passages in the rocks, and purified and 
 made passable the latter by the collection and diversion of the water which is 
 wept (constantly drips) from them, his eye beholds enraptured all splendour 
 and he brings the most hidden things to light! vv. 9 — 11. This appears to be 
 the most reliable sense of this passage, which is important as regards the history 
 of ancient mining. — (2) Vv. 12 — 22. But can wisdom also be thus discovered? 
 impossible, it is nothing palpable, material, confined to a certain place, is neither 
 to be found in the light of the upper-world, nor in the darkness of Sheol and 
 the sea; accordingly neither can it be balanced and purchased by all visible, ma- 
 terial treasures, it has a supernatural value, is quite invaluable and incompar- 
 able. In order to express this its incomparable and transcendent character, all 
 the precious treasures of antiquity are enumerated and compared with it, vv. 
 15 — 19, in such an order that the noblest metals are taken first, vv. 15 — 16 a, 
 
 ^ A literal rendering of this verse would be, one hath broken open a gang- 
 way removed from a sojourner, they who had been forgotten of a foot, hung far 
 from men, were suspended. Tr. 
 
264 IV. 3. — Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 it is not balanced by Ophir's treasure, 
 
 onyx, most precious, and sapphire, 
 gold and glass doth not equal it, 
 
 nor as its exchange the most splendid vessels; 
 crystal is not to be mentioned and coral: 
 
 the possession of wisdom is before pearls, 
 topaz also of Cush doth not equal it; 
 
 by the purest gold it is not balanced.— 
 20 And wisdom — from where cometh it? 
 
 where is the place of understanding? 
 wisdom — hidden from the eye of all life 
 
 is it, and concealed from the birds of heaven; 
 Destruction and Death always said: 
 
 "by the ear only did we hear of it!" 
 
 €rod understandeth the way to it, 
 and He knoweth its place: 
 
 and then returned to again, ver. 19 5, whilst in the middle it is more particularly 
 other chief valuables which are mentioned in large numbers ; by the turn 
 ver. 18 o, that coral and crystal are not even worthy of mention in comparison 
 with it (ist"' X? ace. § 136 e), a certain amount of variety is brought into the long 
 series. "•'i^O, ver. 15, is a new form derived from ^^JD ariT, i Kings vi. 20, x. 21, 
 ace. § 153o, refined gold (comp. 2 Chron. iii. 4), from ^ ^ y , to distend (whence 
 
 '|^"'30 the name of a rain), to seethe, boil. rnUB the same word as Tona^iov, 
 with transposition of the first two letters; Ephrsem Syr. is probably too free 
 when he substitutes for it pearls, Hahn et SiefFert Chrest. Syr. p. 21. The other 
 names have been rendered according to the suppositions which seem at present 
 to have most in their favour. Inasmuch as the fundamental thought has been 
 somewhat too much put into the background by this long enumeration, in order 
 to hasten to the plain conclusion, the whole beginning, ver. 12, is repeated 
 ver. 20: but since this question recurs not for the sake of interrogation, or of 
 doubt, but answers itself in the negative, the thought is immediately further 
 pursued, ver. 21, by the vav conseq., § 348 a: so far is wisdom from being at 
 some place visibly discoverable, and to be fetched thence, that, on the contrary, 
 no creature endowed only with the senses has ever seen it, either on the earth, 
 or above in the air (ace. ver. 7, to which this verse corresponds), or in the 
 underworld. — (3) Vv. 23—28. The description of the relation of wisdom to God 
 is now at last made as far as possible by the aid of the same illustrations, 
 although with a pointed antithesis in the thoughts. First, vv. 23 — 25, on the 
 one hand the proposition cannot be shaken, that God only and not man knows, 
 
IV. 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 265 
 
 for He looketh to the ends of the earth, 
 
 seeth under the whole heaven, 
 26 to give to the wind weight, 
 
 and that He might weigh the sea by measure. 
 When He gave to the rain a law, 
 
 a way for the thunder-flash: 
 then He saw it, explained it, 
 
 understood it, examined it also, 
 
 to speak after the manner of men, the place of this wisdom, beholds it as it 
 were in its complete, firm outline and figure, because He has always used it, as it 
 were, as His servant and artist (Prov. viii) ', in His supervision and government 
 of the whole world (which would be impossible without the highest wisdom), 
 in order, amongst other things, to give to the terrible wind its measure, that 
 it may not be weaker and yet not more destructive, and similarly to reduce the 
 water upon the earth (ver. 2bb corresponding to ver. 24a and vice versa) within 
 its limits (xxxviii. 8 — 11), which continues from the creation of the earth in 
 such order (hence ver. 25 b changes »into the past). But, on the other hand, 
 vv. 26 — 28, it is surely also a divine necessity that He should not for ever shut 
 up within Himself this wisdom, which is at first His peculiar possession and in 
 Him : because it is as Creator that He rirgt becomes fully God, and in the crea- 
 tion wisdom, as forming and preserving, must appear and reveal itself, in order 
 that it may be prophetically longed for and sought in the fear of God particularly 
 by the image of God. So that it may be said that with the creation God 
 Himself expounded and offered to view wisdom in the works of the creation, 
 that He also immediately, not earlier, ceased as it were from creating, when as 
 the true master of the work He had Himself examined and acknowledged as cor- 
 rect His work and accordingly the wisdom which shone forth from it (Gen. i. 
 31), and thus as a wisdom to be belield in the creation He finally at once then 
 expounded, narrated and revealed it with His other truths also to man (as His 
 image), to the extent to which man can behold and attain, or rather strive 
 after it; and from that time man has preserved a primitive remembrance of 
 wisdom, or a tradition of it. Accordingly: token He gave to the rain a law, 
 that it should come neither too scantily nor too destructively, and prepared a 
 way through the clouds for tlie thunder-Hash (xxxviii. 34, 35; Zech. x. 1), that 
 is at the creation, to which the transition was made ver. 25 b, when the present 
 creation arose by means of wisdom, then He saw and understood, examined 
 also as the work-master that wisdom which was by no one else understood, 
 tested, and approved, with regard to its works in detail, and, narrating (ex- 
 
 * Comp, now Gott und die Bibel., HI. p. 75 sq., where the author treats 
 Prov. viii. as presenting a further stage than our passage iu the development 
 of the doctrine of Wisdom. Tr. 
 
266 IV. 3.— Ch. xxvii., xxviii. 
 
 and said then unto man: 
 
 "behold, fear of the Lord is wisdom, 
 
 and to depart from evil — understanding!" 
 
 plaining them iu order) them to man, He spoke to him the great eternal truth, 
 that for him wisdom is to be found in the fear of God only! Wonderfully 
 great thoughts thrown out in the fewest words; one of the finest passages of 
 the whole book, and the most admirable close both of this chief part of the 
 book as well as of the entire contention as conducted between men. Finally, 
 instead of ns-^sn^ ver. 27, nran must be read with many MSS., comp. ver. 23: 
 for the preparation, or creation, of wisdom is appropriate in such passages as 
 Prov. viii. 22 — 32, where even the preexistence of it before the world is de- 
 scribed, but not here, where nothing whatever is yet said of a creation of wis- 
 dom before, the creation of the world. 
 
V 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 267 
 
 FIFTH STAGE OF THE DRAMA. 
 
 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 1. JOB'S DEEPEST REFLECTION ANÜ CRY TO GOD. 
 CH. XXIX — XXXI. 
 
 The contention as waged between men has now been brought 
 to silence, without the solution of the enigma about which it 
 had been raised. A higher revelation must shed its light upon 
 this darkness, if it is to be dispelled. And already both parties 
 in the contention, having in this respect become equal, long 
 with more or less clear consciousness after divine revelation, 
 the friends in silence as vanquished and wholly perplexed, Job 
 holding his ground as conqueror and courageous enough to 
 speak further, but yet already prostrating himself before God 
 as the only one who is able to scatter this darkness as well 
 as so many other mysteries in human life. And thus precisely 
 the fact, that both human parties to the contest have clearly 
 perceived their inability from their existing knowledge to solve 
 the enigma, becomes the first step towards its actual solution. 
 For incontestably as long as man in a partial onesided view 
 of a matter, whether that view be superstitious or unbelieving, 
 shuts himself oft' from all other views in a self-satisfied spirit, 
 or defiantly adheres to his imperfect notion, no single ray of 
 a new light can reach his closed and blinded sight : the thick, 
 hard film of infatuation must be removed before the light can 
 find its way into the dark recesses of his mind. In Job, how- 
 ever, this perception that there is here a divine enigma before 
 which all human conceit must come to shame, has become 
 much more clear, strong, and influential than in the friends. 
 
268 V. I.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 
 
 It is by him therefore that the first step of progress towards 
 the solution of the difficult question of his life is taken. On 
 the one hand, he has learnt by the course of the contention, 
 to submit himself, without stubborn trust in his righteousness 
 and without complaining of the general injustice prevailing in 
 the earth, to the divine wisdom alone. On the other hand, 
 he has at the same time become so vividly conscious of his 
 freedom from guilt, the alleged cause of his calamities, that 
 by this consciousness alone he has overcome all outward and 
 inward dangers of the struggle, and now feels himself placed 
 with higher energy and hope upon the threshold of a new de- 
 velopment of the case. Accordingly the whole result of the 
 contention to this point urges him to pass beyond that dumb, 
 modest acknowledgment of a higher understanding, ch. xxviii. : 
 he must precisely after this acknowledgment and from the 
 basis of the higher position which he has now won, make an 
 utmost venture to get from God the final solution of the trying 
 enigma. For it is only the man that summons all the powers 
 of his nature, with all awe and fear, in order to question the 
 secret mind of God, only the man who does not totter and 
 fall when he comes to the last steps leading to the door of 
 the possible but still concealed sanctuary, that will reap the 
 fruit of his struggles, receiving the reward of a divine answer 
 which scatters the darkness to the question that has been cor- 
 rectly and unweariedly put. And Job now stands precisely at 
 that point where he is necessarily urged by the lessons and 
 the result of his past struggle, no less than by the unexhausted 
 treasure of his spiritual powers and hopes, to make the last 
 decisive efl"ort. 
 
 Thus beginning afresh after a short i)ause, quite turned away 
 from the friends and directing his glance exclusively to the ques- 
 tion and to God with great intensity. Job gathers up everything 
 that he can still say in God's sight with regard to the unsolved 
 enigma under which he suffers. This he does with warm and 
 holy fervour, in the most intense struggle for salvation from his 
 
V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 2G9 
 
 dark, inexplicable sufferings and for the full and happy en- 
 lightenment of his views of God, with an honest exposition of 
 the reasons why he cannot yet find rest, at all events before 
 God and in his thought and feeling towards Him. At the 
 same time he does this with the most thoughtful moderation 
 and reserve, which, whenever feeling threatens to become pas- 
 sionate and stormy, immediately seizes again the reins of thought 
 and speech, and from the commencement to the end keeps the 
 command with such steadiness, that neither the former defiant 
 appeal to his own right, nor the former vague complaint at 
 the prevalence of wrong in the earth, ever appears again, as 
 indeed. Job must have already attained to the view that if 
 only his own enigma were solved, then all the other kindred 
 phenomena on the earth would easily have sufficient light 
 thrown upon them. Hence Job takes here the calmest view 
 both of all the periods and vicissitudes of his past life and of 
 his true spiritual condition, and presents here for the first 
 time the most complete and truest picture of himself, bringing 
 into open day, with the greatest detail as well as with the 
 most unreserved sincerity, his entire inner man, just as he was 
 before his calamities, as he now is, and as he desires to be, 
 spreading out before God the inmost recesses of his heart, 
 calmly declaring with perfect candour before God all his 
 highest experiences and views, desires and pains, what he has 
 upon his conscience and what he has not, and in a manner 
 worthy of himself exhausting all that can be said in the greatest 
 effort of which he is capable. 
 
 In this frame of mind he turns to the enigma. He com- 
 pares the past and the present, the justly gained great pros- 
 perity of the former, to which he once more (with no longer 
 any weariness of life from unreasonable despair) looks back 
 with intense longing, and the wholly undeserved, most bitter, 
 apparently' utmost possible calamities of the latter: he com- 
 pares what he might reasonably expect when he considers his 
 relation to God and what he has received instead in the way 
 
270 V- !•— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 
 
 of wholly unexpected and dark calamities. As he makes this 
 comparison, he is quite unable to discover the divine connec- 
 tion between things apparently so incompatible, and closes with 
 nothing else than the strongest protestations of his innocence 
 together with the greatest longing for a judgment and sentence. 
 Thereby he reaches the real point which he must urge in this 
 last effort. For the speech thus brings together all his longings, 
 his griefs and pains, his sincere and purifying confessions, and 
 although it incites and stimulates a divine decision, it does not 
 call for it defiantly or by an arbitrary claim: but the speech 
 calls for it simply thereby, that after he has exhausted every 
 human resource, with longing desire, with wrestling, holy fervour, 
 as a man he seeks the divine decision and excites the divine 
 compassion. On that account this is not only the longest and 
 most exhaustive, but it is also the crown of all Job's speeches. 
 It is here that he first shines in his full brightness, inasmuch 
 as it appears quite clearly at the same time how his greatness 
 comes forth in still greater purity from the withstood trial 
 than it could possess before it. And while he never deemed 
 it necessary to defend his innocence at length before the 
 friends, there shines forth from this speech, without the in- 
 tention of the speaker, the picture of such an exceedingly noble 
 life that it is of itself in the highest degree pleasing and edifying 
 and at the same time supplies the full explanation of all that 
 had gone before, and it also excites the expectation that such 
 a man as Job must necessarily be in some way delivered. It 
 falls, in conformity with what has been said, into three parts: 
 (1) a longing backward glance at the past, beginning quite 
 calmly, ch. xxix. ; (2) a description of the mournful present, in 
 which tlioughtful reflection has to put forth its utmost efforts 
 to command the revolting and disturbed feelings, ch. xxx. ; 
 (3) the holiest, most agonizing protestations of innocence with 
 the most intense longing for a hearing and acquittal, ch. xxxi. 
 
V, 1.— Ch. xxix-xxxi. 211 
 
 xxix. 1 And Job took up further his utterance and said: 
 
 1. 
 that T had moons like the former ones, 
 like that time when God kept me! 
 
 1. Ch. xxix. The happiness of former years, to which Job looks longingly 
 back, consists wlien generally regarded, it is true, in the clear and strong feeling 
 of the divine nearness and friendship, which has not yet completely recovered 
 from all the wounds it has received. But when regarded in detail, or with 
 reference to the special human circumstances, he now misses less the outward 
 superabundance of those times, ver. 6, than the high respect and esteem in 
 which he then stood with all men, particularly in public life, in the council 
 and court of justice, where his word and his dignity obtained the noblest vic- 
 tories, and where again he felt himself so strong and happy as the welcome 
 and beneficent advocate, spiritual prince and comforter of his fellow citizens 
 who were often in distress and despair, vv. 7 — 10, 21 — 25; whilst he is also 
 quite well aware of the grounds of such esteem, inasmuch as all his labours 
 were employed simply in the promotion of justice and the alleviation of others' 
 sufferings, so that he might therefore not unreasonably expect to lead the most 
 undisturbed and longest life in such strength and honour, vv. 11 — 20. But he 
 would not give such special mention to these details, if the results of the con- 
 flict just finished did not naturally lead the man, who had so long been despised 
 by the friends that had come to comfort him, and who had been so cruelly re- 
 proached, now at last to recall with all the deeper longing the opposite of this 
 contempt and accusation in his own earlier life. From the midst of the sad 
 present he dwells with deepest pleasure on the recollection precisely of this 
 aspect of his former life, and mentions with noble emphasis the mutual relation, 
 of which he had always been conscious, between esteem, prosperity, and happy 
 hope on the one hand and self-sacrificing, active labour for otliers' weal, on 
 the other. But inasmuch as the recollection of the high esteem, which he for- 
 merly always enjoyed as a public man in the midst of his fellow-citizens, must 
 most painfully affect him, and of which he has just bitterly experienced the 
 mournful opposite, the whole course of the speech accordingly divides itself 
 into two and a half long strophes ^ : after the general longing for the former 
 
 1 Vv. 2— 10; 11—20; 21—25. In the clause of the LXX, ol S' axouaavTE? 
 ^fi.axotpiaof'j [j.t, instead of ver. 10 a, there is probably, since these words cannot 
 have been taken from ver. 11, a tr.ace of the verse which is wanting in the 
 first strophe and could be restored ver. 10 thus: 
 
 the voice of the nobles was hidden, 
 
 and all Itstentd vnth aire to my counsel, 
 those who heard pronounced me happy, 
 and their tongue etc. 
 
272 ^- 1- — ^^' ^^'^ — ^^^'• 
 
 when His lamp shone over my head, 
 
 by His light I walked through darkness, 
 as I was in the days of my summer, 
 
 when God's counsel was over my tent, 
 5 when the Almighty was still with me, 
 
 round about me my children; 
 when my goings were bathed in cream, 
 
 and a rock poured streams of oil near me ; 
 when I still went out early up to the city, 
 
 in the market placed my seat: 
 
 life has passed at the very commencement into this cheering picture, vv. 2 — 10, 
 tlien the virtue which begets such esteem and answers to it, as well as the hope 
 of lasting happiness built upon this noble manner of life, has been described, 
 vv. 11 — 20, at last that bright scene of the past, that glorious recollection of 
 tlie times of untroubled, exuberant hope, is once more reverted to, as if the 
 imagination found it difficult to let it go, vv. 21 — 25. And shall he then not 
 actually soon taste all this happiness once more? and does he then not already 
 here feel as it were the maternal joy of this approaching birth? 
 
 (1) xxix. 2 — 10. Most gentle, collected commencement, the general happi- 
 ness of the divine friendship and the prosperity founded on it being described 
 in the fairest colours of joyful recollection, vv. 2 — 5, then more briefly, ver. 6, 
 the outward blessing, and more at length the high honour in the gladly visited 
 assembly of the people, vv. 7 — 10. He who stands to God in the relation of 
 one protected by Him, ver. 2, is both himself enlightened in all dangers by His 
 bright, near light, ver. 3, and also sees the blessing of the divine confidence 
 and friendship coming down upon his entire circle, vv. ib, 5 a, so that all such 
 days are those of a gentle, cheerful autumn, f)'^n, ver. 4 a. Thus the descrip- 
 tion passes gradually from inward to outward, from general to particular mat- 
 ters. With regard to 'iVna it is a question whether the Massora intend it should 
 be regarded as Qal, in which case we should expect according to analogy, 
 § 238 i, 'i^"a, but see § 255 a, or for Hiph'il, as the Targ. explains it: when 
 He caused to shine; the first form would meet the requirements of the sense, 
 but the construction explained § 309 c is not found elsewhere in this poet ; and 
 since the reference to a divine act really suits the figure and the thought much 
 better, it is possible to punctuate ^'^la, Hiph'il contracted from 'i'^"!]?, ace. 
 § lie. With ver. 6 comp. xx. 17: only the figure is here carried out more 
 perfectly, the steps of the prosperous man being bathed in cream with which 
 )iis path overflows, and a hard rock by his side pouring streams of oil along 
 his way, he is everywhere therefore attended by all possible abundance. Still 
 his favourite way was that which led to the assembly of the citizens, ver. 7, 
 since we must think of Job as a wealthy, independent resident in the country 
 at a distance from the city, who took an active share in the affairs of the 
 
V. 1. — Ch. xxix — xxxi. 273 
 
 young men saw me — and hid themselves, 
 
 and old men having risen remained standing, 
 
 princes even refrained from speaking 
 and laid the hand upon their mouth, 
 10 the nobles' voice was hidden, 
 
 and their tongue clave to their palate. 
 
 For when an ear heard it pronounced mo happy, 
 and when an eye saw it bore witness to me : 
 
 that I delivered the sufferer calling for help, 
 the orphan who had no helper. 
 
 nearest city and had his appointed seat in the assembly, as Abraham is gener- 
 ally described in a very similar way Gen. xxiii. '^W might be strictly construed 
 with Tss in the sense, when I left the gate, namely my own, /or the city, in 
 order to go to the city : but in that case we should expect ■''??.^, or rather ^f?'?, 
 whilst '^yiö appears, on the contrary, plainly to correspond to aini, comp. v. 4, 
 xxxi. 21, 34; accordingly it would have to be only loosely connected with 
 TKS, whe7i I went out of my house totvards the gate, i.e., the market, going iip 
 to the city, as the towns usually lay higher than the surrounding country. Still 
 the reading of the LXX "'^_ is much easier. When he arrived, the younger 
 men tlien evinced their respect by their reverent retirement, the older men by their 
 readiness to wait upon him, and when he spoke even the noblest honoured his 
 voice by their respectful silence, as enchained during his speaking by conviction, 
 v, 16, xxi. 5. With regard to the construction iNsni — hip, see § 317 c. 
 
 (2) xxix. 11 — 21. How could it be otherwise, inasmuch as all who had 
 only heard of Job by report pronounced him happy before they saw him, and 
 all who really saw him, how he acted and spoke, convinced by what they saw, 
 gave him again the best attestation as regards his constant readiness to help 
 the unfortunate, inasmuch, therefore, as the good reputation which always pre- 
 ceded him was confirmed in all cases afresh by experience, ver. 11, comp, xxviii. 
 22, xlii. 5 ; with the last word ver. 11, however, ver. 12 must be closely connected 
 as its explanation. On the other hand, he received also the glad blessing of 
 the unfortunate, because he devoted his whole life in society to the noblest ob- 
 jects, vv. 13 — 17, considering righteousness as the best ornament and armour, 
 and being in return adorned and strengthened by it as by the noblest array, 
 ver. 14, comp. Isa. xi. 5, and thus he sought to supply every want of those 
 who were suffering in any way, but particularly to save the unfortunate, even 
 if they were personally unknown to him, when they came into the court of 
 justice, and to rescue from the sinner who was pursuing them the prey which 
 he had already seized, vv. 15 — 17 (as to "rST^ S5 ai the cause of him whom 
 / did not know, see § 333 i ; what is said vv. 12, 13 refers also especially to 
 the important defence in the court of justice, where «'i as well as ^'Vo are 
 
 l8 
 
274 ^^- 1— Ch. xxix— xxx5. 
 
 The blessing of him that was perishing came upon me, 
 
 and the heart of the widow I made joyful: 
 I adorned myself with justice — it adorned me, 
 
 as a robe and diadem my virtue; 
 15 to the blind I was eyes 
 
 and feet to the lame I, 
 a father I to the needy, 
 
 the cause of him whom I knew not — I examined it, 
 I broke the fangs of the sinner 
 
 and wrested from his teeth the prey: 
 and I said : "near my nest will I die, 
 
 and like the phoenix live many days: 
 my root is open towards watei', 
 
 and dew abideth upon my branch; 
 20 my honour is always new with me, 
 
 my bow keepeth green in my hand!" 
 
 circumstantial clauses ace. § 341 b). After all that, he might therefore justly 
 expect to become permanently happy and prosperous, like the phoenix after a 
 long life to die like it by his nest, ver. 18, since he saw his trunk as well 
 protected on all sides, on the part of the earth and of God, as a tree well- 
 watered from above and from below (xviii. 16), and his honour and strength 
 (bow) always being afresh rejuvenated just as a well-watered tree is always 
 putting on fresh verdure (xiv. 7), vv. 19, 20. According to this connection, 
 Vin, which is in certain MSS. pointed ^^Ti in accordance with early tradition, 
 cannot be understood of the sand, inasmuch as the countlessness of the sand 
 might be a figure of the multitude of creatures or even of the extent of knowledge 
 (l Kings V. 9 [A.V. iv. 29], but hardly of days or time, particularly in such a 
 short description, and inasmuch as the completion of the figure of the nest re- 
 quires the myth of the phcenix. According to a myth whicli originated pre- 
 cisely in the more distant part of Asia, the phuenix bird after the longest life 
 dies on its nest to live again rejuvenated ^ . 
 
 1 The Arabs call it Samandel, confound it also with the griffin LüJLt ■'^"'1 
 with the Korkes .^.S^yS^; Pers. simurg, see Bochart's Ilierozoikon, p. 809 sq., 
 
 of the early ed.; d'llerbelot s.v. Samander; Dalberg in Fundgruben des Orients 
 I. p. 199 — 208; Izzeddins Vögel und Blumen, p. 110 — 113; Arab. Qirq Vezir 
 p. 175, par. 4; Tac. Ann. vi. 28; Clem. Epist. I. ad Cor. ch. xxv ; Const. Apost. 
 v. 7 ; Tert. de resurr, car., ch. xiii. See also Wilkinson's Manners and Customs 
 of Anc. Egypt., pi. xxx A ; Tjep.sius' Chron. der Egypter, p. 170 sq.; Raoul 
 Rochette in the Memoires de I'Acad. XVII. 2, p. 311—23. As the bird, which 
 
V. 1. — Ch. xxix — xxxi. 275 
 
 Unto me they hearkened, waited, 
 
 and kept silence at my counsel: 
 after my word they spoke not again, 
 
 and upon them fell my speech in drops, 
 they waited for me as for rain, 
 
 opened their mouth wide for plentiful rain; 
 I smiled upon them if they despaired, 
 
 and the light of my countenance they never dimmed ; 
 25 gladl}- I took their way, and sat as head 
 
 and dwelt as a king in the troop, 
 as one that comforteth mourners ! 
 
 (3) xxix. 21 — 25. As the honour of Job has been again mentioned, ver. 20, 
 this suffices to lead him to further work out and complete the description lie 
 had begun vv. 7 — 10, because this aspect of his recollections is really that 
 which is most attractive to him and from which he finds it diflicult to part. 
 Accordingly he describes afresh the bright picture, how that in the assembly, 
 when everybody was in despair, his word was often waited for as for the most 
 refreshing rain and no one desired to oppose his speech when finished and his 
 counsel, vv. 21 — 23, how that, with a cheerful countenance and never without 
 successful advice, he always smiled helpfully upon the despairing, never de- 
 pressed by their despondency and infected by their despair, ver. 24 (irtts- s^ 
 is an abbreviated circumstantial clause without ~i, since without sV the part. 
 might be used in such a dependent clause, as Ps. Ixix. 4, comp. § 341 i: as 
 'i^'av.Tt used alone can signify to believe Ps. cxvi. 10, so T'oxn sV when used 
 alone may mean to despair; with b comp. Gen. iv. 5; Prov. xvi. 15; Ps. civ. 
 15), and how that in the assembly (D2i-: inas reverts to ver. 7), which he al- 
 ways gladly frequented, he was enthroned as voluntarily acknowledged chief, 
 as proud as any king can be in the midst of the company of his warriors, or 
 rather obtaining such happy victories as he who comforts mourners and is 
 acknowledged by them as their moral lord and benefactor. The last comparison 
 is, contrary to his intention, a pointed arrow against the friends, who had so 
 
 according to the myth was very rare and only returned in certain periods of 
 time, was a symbol of the rejuvenation of changing time, it might very well 
 take its name "i" from the idea of changing, turning, although it lias in Egyp- 
 tian also a similar name (Zeitschrift der Deutsch. Morgenl. Ges. III. p. C4). 
 The (i)S aT^X£x,o? cpoivixo? of the LXX is perhaps a later alteration of the trans- 
 lation, by some one who understood <pofvi| of the palm and further confounded 
 "3p with ?i?.|5; there is no etymological reason for the signification palvi, and 
 if the palm can also serve as a symbol of long life, it does not accord with 
 the figure of a nest and is in appearance only supported by ver. 19. 
 
 l8* 
 
276 V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 
 
 XXX. 2. 
 
 1 But now laugh at me 
 
 they that are younger than I in days, 
 whose fathers I had despised 
 
 to set beside the dogs of my Üock. 
 the strength of their hands also — what could it profit me? 
 to them j)rime of life hath perished: 
 
 miserably comforted the man who as administering true consolation to others 
 was highly honoured by them. And thus at the same time the easy transition 
 is made to the lamentation that follows. 
 
 2. Ch. XXX. Although may things have to be complained of, this lamentation 
 starts with that calamity which, considering Job's former life as above described, 
 must be the most unexpected and painful — the contempt of all men, vv. 1 — 10 ; 
 it then passes to the more distant causes— the countless afflictions sent by 
 God — which must weigh him down, with regard to which he complains in vain, 
 vv. 11 — 22, although he is compelled by the excessive pains and alarms to 
 make complaint, vv. 23 — 31. According to the construction of these verses, 
 they fall into four strophes of eight verses each ; and the first three begin the 
 complaint each time afresh with the sad words hut now .... 
 
 (1) XXX. 1 — 8. It is not of the three friends that Job complains here : for 
 to provoke them further would not be fair ; neither of members of his house- 
 hold, of whom sufficient was said ch. xix. ; but of a class of people whose con- 
 tempt is undoubtedly of the coarsest and most extreme character, and to whom 
 there was an obscure reference xvii. G. Whilst Job sits alone and helpless in 
 the open air', abandoned of his friends and members of his household, there 
 come forth, as one must conceive the situation according to the poet's intention, 
 from their hiding places the basest and coarsest men, in order to heap at their 
 will scorn and cruelty of all kinds upon the sufferer; even the most despicable 
 men make him feel their satisfaction at his humiliation, and he must complain 
 of the worst form of persecution which a man who has already so much to bear 
 can meet with! But this sad lot, as it is here described in detail, is, however, of 
 too peculiar a nature to have been without some historical basis ; and if the entire 
 description is looked at, we may with probability conceive that basis as follows. 
 The men of whom Job here complains are the aborigines of those countries, 
 who had long before been subjugated by the tribe to which Job's family belonged, 
 and as completely debased degenerated into this miserable condition, so that 
 those who refused to submit to slavery fled into the hiding places of the land, 
 led there the most miserable life, and were again hunted forth by society, if 
 they ever came near it in quest of assistance, with loathing, as weak, despicable 
 creatures. A relation of this kind appears to have existed between Seirites and 
 
 1 See p. 95. 
 
V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 277 
 
 through want and famine wholly dry, 
 Ihcy gnaw the desert, 
 
 what was long ago wild and waste, 
 they who pluck marsh-raallows by bushes, 
 whoso bread is genista-root; 
 5 from the midst they are driven, 
 
 as if it were thieves, the hue und cry is after them: 
 they must dwell in the most dismal valleys, 
 in caves of the ground and the rocks, 
 
 Idumeaiis, Gen. xsxvi.: but this is the plainest description of them in the whole 
 of the O. T. Previously, xxiv. 5 — 8, the poet has put a description of them 
 into Job's mouth : but in that passage Job described their lot with compassion 
 and indignation at their oppressors, as in any case we must suppose that this 
 their condition had existed long before Job's time, and that he was personally 
 not responsible for it. Kut miserable as the condition of such men is and de- 
 serving as it is of the pity of every feeling heart, if at any time a calamity 
 befalls the family of their ancient oppressors, the old jealousy immediately re- 
 vives again, breaking out into base insults and low contempt; a sufferer like 
 Job, who as he sits helpless in the open air is exposed to all attacks, they 
 cause to feel most bitterly their delight at his humiliation, and the one innocent 
 descendant of stern conquerors must endure the entire assault of a wild, ac- 
 cumulated vengeance! A hero, an independent prince, a man of spotless fame, 
 must endure the worst from the weakest, basest, and utterly infamous men ; 
 yea, though he had as a man pitied their wretched lot! These pointed anti- 
 theses are here so plainly brought out that we obtain a vivid glance into the 
 extremely unhappy and disturbed condition of those times and nationalities,' and 
 learn to understand the pain of those who innocently suffered in consequence. 
 Comp, also History of Israel I. 227 (I. 304 sq.). First, the painful contrast is 
 briefly stated, ver. 1, then both sides are more calmly described, the con- 
 temptible character of those people, vv. 2 — 8, and the scorn which he has to 
 endure from them, vv. 9, 10. The insufferable feature of this scorn is, ace. 
 ver. 1, that it comes from people who are not only younger than Job, but also 
 the weakest and most miserable wretches conceivable, who on account of their 
 frail bodies cannot even live long, with whom no one would enter into a judi- 
 cial contest, whose fathers even (xv. 10) Job declined to as much as associate 
 with his sheep-dogs, because they are less strong and useful than the dogs ! 
 They are the weakest, vv. 2 — 4, and universally most hated people, vv. 5 — 8 : 
 the weakest, inasmuch as, if one attempted to deal with them, they could not 
 do even manual labour, every moment subject to death and never reaching the 
 prime of life, ver. 2 ("'i'^J' is more than onb the so-called dativus incommodi), 
 in that as completely dried up from want of all kinds ("T^Vj really k sub- 
 stantive a dryness, but also as predicate iii. 7, xv. 34) they are compelled to 
 
278 V. 1. — Ch. xxix — xxxi. 
 
 among bushes they roar, 
 
 under nettles they gather from around, 
 sons of godless also of nameless people, 
 
 who have been whipped out of the land! 
 
 But now I am become their song, 
 and I became a by-word to them; 
 10 they abhor me, avoid me, 
 
 spare not my face with spittle. 
 For with bared bow He afflicted me, 
 a bridle men hung from my head: 
 
 seek the most miserable means of subsistence in the most barren deserts which 
 had long ago (li'oa like ht'or, Mic. ii. 8; Isa. xxx. 33) been abandoned by all 
 other people, vv. 3, 4, comp. xxiv. 5 ; the most hated, because as sprung from 
 a heathen, insignificant race they have from the earliest times been thrust out 
 of the land, and if at any time they show themselves again they are most care- 
 fully chased forth once more, so that they are obliged to dwell in hiding places 
 and collect with a wild cry like animals without any fixed house or covering 
 under the first bush that offers, ver. 8 contains in conclusion the last historical 
 explanation to the description which it closes, vv. 5 — 7 ; on fl^V as st. constr. 
 comp. § 313 c; on p"'"^, which suffices without on? in such a connection, 
 § 237 c. 
 
 (2) and (3) xxx. 9 — 23. Yet such a particular calamity must necessarily 
 come, since, sent from God generally, the mightiest host of outward calamities 
 assailed him, spreading mortal terror, vv. 11 — 15, so that his inward condition 
 has become distressing in the extreme, vv. 16 — 19, in which state he now com- 
 plains, but in vain, or, indeed, to the increase of his pain, vv. 20 — 23. This 
 middle double member of the complaint is therefore really its chief part, the 
 ultimate causes of his sufferings as well as their profoundest dangers and terrors 
 being therein explained, and God being again spoken of with the greatest ten- 
 sion of feeling that is still possible : although even the worst that is said here 
 and that which seems most violent, is uttered after all with much greater 
 moderation and reserve than in earlier passages of the same kind, as if a hard 
 word with regard to God escaped the speaker only now and then against his 
 will. In the first place, the numerous calamities which come from without, from 
 which the description here must start, as from the ultimate cause of his present 
 condition, vv. 11 — 15, seem to him (as xvi. 9, 12 — 14; xix. 10 — 12) like an 
 irresistible host of wantonly destructive besiegers, vv. 12 — 14, set on by God, 
 ver. 11, and only too well accomplishing their object, spreading mortal terrors 
 and chasing away all welfare, ver. 15, as the wind the clouds, vii. 9 ; "Isa." 
 Ixiv. 6. As soon as He (God) had subdued and put him in fetters, the in- 
 dividual and smaller enemies {i.e. bis calamities) came in troops, rising out of 
 
V. 1— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 279 
 
 on the right riseth a growing band, 
 they throw out their flying feet, 
 
 prepare against me their calaraitous paths; 
 they break up my way, 
 
 assist only to my overthrow, 
 none helpeth against them; 
 they come as through a wide breach, 
 roll up under crashing: 
 15 against me mortal terrors are turned, 
 
 they hunt like winds my nobility, 
 
 and like clouds my welfare is gone! 
 
 the gioiiiid to seize him like a growing evil brood, or mob : hence the perf. ver. 11 
 iuterchanges with the imperf. vv. 12 — 14, the perfects amongst the imperfects 
 vv. 12 — 14 receive their proper force from the latter and relate to them. And 
 inasmuch as the figure of war predominates in the description of the attack of 
 his sufferings, it is brought in at the very commencement: His string on His 
 bow, accordingly His bow He opened, bared (Isa. xxii. 6 ; Hab. iii. 9, comp. 
 Ezek. xxi. 33; A.V. ver. 28) or took into His hand and prostrated me hitting 
 me witli sharp arrows, vi. 4; then merely a similar figure: a bridle from my 
 face they let dmvn, I was bound, fettered so that I could not defend myself, 
 Isa. XXX. 28; xxxvii. 29, the sense like xiii, 27.* Thus the K'thibh ""^r- ; the 
 Q'ri would be, my cord, my vigour. He relaxed, but the passage iv. 2 1 is totally 
 different. The host of various assailants we see rising first on the right, as 
 accusers at the same time, xvi. 8 ; Zech. iii. 1 ; Ps. cix. 6, then rapidly put 
 their feet in motion for a charge (comp, substantially the same phrase xviii. 8 ; 
 that is, the reading B'^"?f'], which the LXX has, is the more probable), getting 
 nearer and nearer to their object, they prepare irresistibly a way to the walls 
 of this fortress, simply destroying and piofitting for an overthrow, at last break 
 through the walls and as if with a wide breach therein rolling up amid the 
 crash of the ruins, whilst no one helps the assailed against them! The I's'^, 
 ver. 13c, can in this connection hardly refer to anything else than the assailants; 
 the ^? therefore expresses only a general relation (as in the similar instance 
 Ps. Ixviii. 21), notwithstanding the fact that in this phrase it could have a 
 much closer relation, comp. xxix. 12. Finally, the words ße'Xeaiv auTOu 
 
 1 It might be supposed that the words ver. 11 *, with the meaning the bridle 
 is ihrovm of be/ore me, was still referring to the shamelessness of the men who 
 had been described as far as ver. 10, as w^JI «aJLä. and also « ± , 1 ~^ 
 
 alone can have this force. However, this neither suits the whole connection, 
 nor could "lE" then signify before me. 
 
280 ^^- 2.— Ch. XXV., xxvi. 
 
 But uow my soul is poured out uuto me, 
 
 days of affliction take hold upon me : 
 uight eateth away my wasting bones, 
 
 my gnawers sleep not; 
 great power disfigureth my garment, 
 
 it girdeth me round as the shirt-collar; 
 He hath cast me into the mire, 
 
 so that I am become like dust and ashes. 
 20 1 complain aloud unto Thee — Thou hearest me not; 
 
 I stand still — Thou settest Thyself against me, 
 turnest Thyself into a cruel enemy unto me, 
 
 with the strength of Thine hand waylayest me, 
 liftest me up, causest me to ride into the wind 
 
 and causest me to melt into the thunder-crash! 
 
 xaTT)y.6vTtO£ [It instead of ver. 13 c and other things in the LXX point to the 
 fact that an entii-e verse lias been lost before ver. 14, which probably described 
 something like the shooting before the walls. — In consequence of such an attack 
 of calamities from without, his soul, to which the transition was made ver. 15, 
 is full of all conceivable distress, vv. 16 — 19: despair under incessant affliction, 
 ver. 16; pains which the night also keeps up (comp. vii. 4; the night is an 
 active agent, as iii. 3 ; "'hva signifies, as ver. 30, a change of the outward form 
 to such an extent that something disappears from the person which had hitherto 
 been ujjon it, visibly clothed it) and by which the whole body, succumbing to 
 the irresistible power (xxiii. 6), i.e. God, so shrinks up that the wide upper- 
 garment lOiaV wholly concealing itself around the middle of the body does 
 nothing more than gird or inclose him around as at other times the shirt, or 
 undergarment, quite at the top about the neck, or as the mouth, i.e., the border 
 of the shirt which is very closely drawn together at the neck (comp, the last 
 song but one in the 228tli Night of the Arabian Nights, bk. iii. p. 238, 7 sq. 
 of Habicht's Arab. ed. ; "E3 is therefore here not in proportion to, as xxxiii. 6, 
 Zech. ii. 4, but "E expresses, inasmuch as a garment is spoken of, the upper- 
 most part, or the border round the neck, Ps. cxxxiii. 2), vv. 17, 18; lastly the 
 total collapse and exhaustion, ver. 19 (comp. xvi. 15, only that here a new 
 thought is added). The complaint which naturally arises in such a condition; 
 but in vain, indeed increasing the pains by persistence therein! vv. 20 — 23; 
 here his feeling almost gets the mastery of the speaker, so that it is only with 
 difficulty that he can restrain himself; the speaking of God ch.inges into a direct 
 address to Ilim. If after the first vain complaint he remains standing, without 
 getting calmer, if he waits therefore, then God resents it (animadvertis in me, 
 in a bad sense), yea, becomes a cruel pursuing enemy, causes him when he 
 has been lifted up by violence to ride away and perish 'in wind and storm, as 
 
V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 281 
 
 For I know to death Thou wilt bring me, 
 to the gathering-house for all life. — 
 
 At least — in the overthrow is not the hand stretched out? 
 
 if in ruins — is there not therefore complaint? 
 25 or did I not weep for the man in misfortune, 
 
 did not my soul grieve for the needy? 
 For good indeed I hoped — and evil came, 
 
 I waited for light — and darkness came : 
 my bowels are boiling without rest, 
 
 a time of affliction hath come upon me ; 
 I creep along black, but not with sun's heat, 
 
 I stand up in the assembly complaining aloud, 
 I am become a brother of jackals, 
 
 and a friend of the ostriches; 
 
 if death li;id already seized him to carry him away, ix. 17, 18; iustead of 
 njajp Q'ri nrrp K'thibh must be read = ~*J'öP, xxxvi. 29; Prov. i. 27, so that 
 it is an accusative of motion and simply stronger than fTi"'. Instead of V^PP, 
 the meaning of which has been conjectured only, it is probably better to read 
 with two MSS. ""^r, which ace. Ps. lix. 4 would suit the context much better, 
 describing how at the least sign of Job's resistance immediately follows a worse 
 resistance from the opposite side. 
 
 (4) XXX. 24 — 31. Reflection: according to human calculation therefore Job 
 must naturally despair of life, as he had just said, ver. 23 : yet (">« as .\vi. 7) 
 is it surprising in the sufferer that in the overthrow, in the very midst of the 
 ruins, he stretches out his hand (Hab. iii. 10) calling for help? and is not this 
 a law with all living creatures? ver. 24, or has not Job himself always shown 
 pity in all cases of misfortune, as was said ch. xxix., so that when himself in 
 distress he has a right to complain and to e.xpect sympathy? ver. 25. Indeed, 
 all Job's grief is concentrated in the thought, that while he can, according to 
 ch. xxix. and xxxi., hope for prosperity and blessing from the future, he is 
 visited by the deepest calamity and finds himself in the most extreme misery, 
 vv. 26 — 31. Thus here also there comes in again at last the recollection of all 
 the greatness and glory of the past, by which the speech both reverts to its 
 commencement, ch. xxix., and also at the same time prepares the way to the 
 oaths concerning his past life which soon follow, ch. xxxi. : but the reflection 
 and collected feeling is overborne by new billows of most bitter grief. In the 
 difficult ver. 24 ">" overthrow; ruin and ""C destmction plainly correspond, '~p^ 
 on that account, Ruth i. 13; the sentence is of a general nature, but interrogative: 
 only does not a man in an overthrow, if he is brought to ruin, stretch out the hand f 
 ^ he (this man as a general example) is in his utmost danger, is there not 
 
282 V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi.- 
 
 30 my skin wasteth from me black, 
 
 and my bone burneth from heat, 
 80 that my harp turned to mourning, 
 my pipe to loud weeping. 
 
 xxxi. 3. 
 
 1 A covenant I made with mine eyes, 
 
 and "how could I look upon a maid" 
 
 071 that account a cry for help ? The force of the negation is perpetuated in 
 the second member, § 351 a. The extreme misery is at last once more described 
 with most erapliatic brevity as the most violent inward commotion under afflic- 
 tions, ver. 27, as the condition of one who is vainly bitterly complaining and 
 howling in the profoundest mourning for the wrong he suffers, vv. 28, 29 [black 
 in mourning, xvi. 15, not burnt by the sun but by his afflictions, in that his 
 afflictions by blackening his skin, ver. 30, have put on him a natural, bodily 
 mourning garment; thus he stands in the assembly, i.e., before the tribunal, 
 seeking a judge amid complaints, xi. 10), as the wasting away of his body 
 consumed by an inward heat, so that his former joy and happiness, ch. xxix., 
 is turned into the most mournful contrary, vv. 30, 31.' Accordingly ver. 26 
 and ver. 31, or the first and last words of the last description, glance back to 
 cli. xxix. 
 
 3. Ch. xxxi. As now Job is unable to discover any connection between 
 these deejiest afflictions and that well-founded hope of his earlier life, save the 
 supposition of his personal sin, a superstition from which he is fast getting 
 entirely free, there is nothing left for him, in his present intensified longing 
 for deliverance, than at the close to protest most solemnly his innocence, in- 
 voking upon himself the heaviest penalties if he has not been precisely as free 
 from blame as he has protested. Thereby the above want of connection remains 
 in reality as great as ever, and is laade still worse in that the attempt to lessen 
 it by any use of Job's guilt has been most emphatically forbidden. These most 
 solemn protestations of his own innocence under the most terrible imprecations 
 are, it is true, so many challönges of God as the judge : for who but God can 
 actually carry out the fearful punishments which the speaker evokes against him- 
 self if he lies, and of whom as witness and judge can Job be in the end thinking 
 but Him ? But warned by his previous experience, he adopts language of great 
 diffidence and moderation with reference to God, without any of the previous 
 
 ' The weepiwj which is not mentioned here only, xxx. 31, where it occurs 
 in a more figurative sense, but frequently elsewhere in Job's case, is produced 
 by physical causes also exactly in the disease of. Elephantiasis, see Danielssen 
 et W. Boeck, traitc de la Spedalskhed ou Elcpliantiasis des Grecs. Paris 1848, 
 p. 201. 
 
V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 283 
 
 and "what is the lot of God from above, 
 
 the heritage of the Almighty from the heights? 
 
 defiance or the vehemently excited challenge. He is content to let the simple 
 facts themselves speak and to express his most solemn convictions, so that the 
 challenge of the higher judge becomes greatly moderated and is barely directly 
 uttered, and contains no infringement of the divine majesty. It is only 
 parenthetically that the direct wish is expressed for a divine judgment, at first 
 briefly, ver. 6, then more energetically towards the end, after the speech has 
 generally grown more violently agitated, vv. 35 — 37. With all the greater 
 freedom and emphasis, on the contrary, does the speech proceed in that field 
 which is quite open to it, in the protestation of perfect innocence. In order to 
 show that this protestation is made with greatest seriousness and after full con- 
 sideration, he enters first very minutely into the various sins which might be 
 suspected in the case of a man in Job's position, and seeks to bring them all 
 forward with exhaustive completeness ; whereby he does not forget in sub- 
 ordinate sentences the fact, that it is not enough merely to avoid crimes, but 
 that the opposite virtues must also be practised, vv. 18, 30 — 32. Then, how- 
 ever, he observes that it is not enough simply to protest that he is not guilty 
 of such sins and to challenge the heaviest punishments if that is not the case. 
 If it is to appear of itself by a moral necessity that he cannot have been guilty 
 of such sins, the inmost motives of his thought and desire must be brought 
 forward. Accordingly he also declares incidentally in short, emphatic words 
 the entire state and character of his inner nature, his clear perception of the 
 wrongness, indeed, the atrocity of the various sins, the steadfast resolve which 
 he made from the very first to avoid them, and his continually strong conscious- 
 ness of the necessity of the severest punishments, vv. 1 — 4; 11, 12; 14, 15; 
 23; 28. There is thus introduced into these imprecations a beautiful variety 
 and life, by means of the no less sincere than clear, calm description of his 
 inward man : one observes that the man who thus uiidertakes to bring into the 
 light of day the holiest within him, as it now is and always was, cannot speak 
 thoughtlessly. Finally, the kind of punishment which he calls down upon him- 
 self corresponds to the various sins that he repudiates: yet it is not needful that 
 the imprecation should immediately follow each protestation, whicli if very often 
 repeated would become monotonous; but gradually the protestations accumulate 
 in greater numbers, as the stream of the discourse is swollen by the warmth 
 of his feeling, and a single horrible imprecation has more emphasis when uttered 
 at the end after all these various protestations. For these reasons, and further 
 because a suitable progression in the picture of the sins must also be observed, 
 this most impressive and exhaustive working out of this part of the speech 
 falls into three parts, beginning with the source of all the various evil deeds — 
 the evil desires — vv. 1 — 12, considering then the great power of a magnate with 
 regard to others, vv. 13 — 23, and finally returning to a number of secret, 
 hidden sins, vv. 24 — 40: yet, with the growing haste observed in bringing 
 together all the various things that have to be said in these last words, a 
 
284 V. 1.— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 
 
 is it not then calamity to the sinner, 
 
 and severe punishment to evil-doers? 
 doth He not see my ways 
 
 and count all my steps?" 
 5 If I have walked with wickedness, 
 
 so that my foot hastened unto deceit: 
 — let Him weigh me in just balances, 
 
 and let God acknowledge my innocence ! — 
 
 division into a number of somewhat long, though not too long, strophes is most 
 suitable, namely into strophes of from 7 to 6 verses each.i Accordingly neither 
 ill respect of evil desire, nor in respect of brutal force, nor in respect of dis- 
 honourable conduct, will Job admit that he has offended, and indeed as regards 
 either God or man: thus his brief survey of all possible human transgressions 
 is completed. It must be further remarked, that the correct understanding of 
 the whole depends on the constant recollection of the fact, that the simple form 
 of protestation can alone prevail throughout, that all the rest can only be sub- 
 sidiary addition, needful setting, or slight digression ; the imprecations always 
 stand quite plainly as invocations, the protestations of the innocence of his 
 former life always beginning with if, either in the perf., which is the most 
 natural, or in the imperf. prceteriti, when the duration of the matter in the past 
 is insisted upon, ver. 7a, 13, 16, 17, 18 J, 19, 2Qb, 25, 26, 29. 
 
 (1) and (2) xxxi. 1 — 12. Starting from evil desire as the ultimate source of 
 all sin, the speaker will touch upon the sins which most directly spring from 
 it: this therefore is the most suitable place at once to explain the prevailing 
 principles and sentiments of the life of the speaker, in conformity with which 
 he was wholly incapable of these and other sins, vv. 1 — 4, whereby the transi- 
 tion from XXX. 25 to the following protestations is at the same time made 
 easier ; then the first protestation asserting that he has never in the affairs of life 
 generally thus given way to evil desire, vv. 5 — 8, and the second protestation 
 with the special asservation that he has never been misled by it to attempt one 
 act of unchastity, vv. 9 — 12 ; each of the two protestations is accompanied in 
 this case by its corresponding imprecation. The introductory declaration, vv. I — 4, 
 is particularly fine, in which the nobility and purity of the view of things which 
 prevailed in the whole of Job's life, and the practical law of life which he 
 based thereon, are sketched most graphically with greatest brevity ; and as 
 
 * It is only after ver. 23 that in that case a verse has probably been lost, 
 and another probably after ver. 27; of the latter we have perhaps some frag- 
 ments in the unintelligible words of the LXX ver. 26. — We might also be in- 
 clined to adopt five great strophes of eight verses each : in that case a verse 
 would be wanting after ver. 15. Still the above strophic division appears to me 
 on the whole most suitable. 
 
V. I.—Ch. xxix— xxxi. 285 
 
 If my step swerved from the way, 
 
 and after mine eyes went my heart, 
 and to my hands cleaved a blot: 
 then I will sow — and another shall eat, 
 
 and my offspring shall be uprooted! 
 If my heart was enticed on account of a woman, 
 
 and at a neighbour's threshold I lay in wait: 
 lU then let another dishonour also ray wife, 
 
 and let others abuse her! 
 for that is a crime, 
 
 and that is sin for the judges; 
 
 afterwards of the many sins which spring immedintely from evil desires it is 
 particularly unchastity which is mentioned, so here likewise in the description 
 of the general principle of his whole life, ver. 1 : a covenant 1 as lord of my 
 senses made for mine eyes, that they should obey my mind, not mislead and 
 subdue it, since evil desire is excited by the senses, particularly by tlie eye, 
 ver. 7 h ; and in the case of such a man as Job there must necessarily be early 
 some understanding come to with his senses, some deliberate law of life with 
 regard to them, and in his case the understanding had long since been arrived 
 at, amongst tlie resolutions of which this law was imposed on his will, that 
 least of all should his eyes be misused for purposes of unchastity, expressed 
 here with repudiation: and hov should I look uj)on a maid! With this turn 
 ver. 1 J he begins therefore to state the thoughts which occupied his mind when 
 he made the covenant, which he presents as vividly as they were at first and 
 still are in his mind, vv. 2 — 4, and how could I come to any other resolution? 
 more strictly considered, what then is the eternally enduring lot from above 
 but calamity and severe punishment in every form for evil-doers? can man 
 really withdraw himself from God and His eye, from Ilim before whom all the 
 necessary consequences of sin are manifest beforehand? To this clearly con- 
 ceived and adopted rule of life he cannot have become unfaithful; and if he 
 had, he would have to pronounce his own sentence, invoke upon himself the 
 worst punishments! if he ever practised deceit (and he knows what he is saying 
 when he appeals to God as judge ! ver. 6), or committed a shameful act at the 
 seduction of evil desire, then the whole work of his life on the earth shall be 
 in vain ! vv. 5 — 8 ; if he attempted unchaste acts, he will pay the most painful 
 penalty by the most dishonouring treatment of his own wife, inasmuch as be quite 
 well knows the criminal, and, indeed, the terrible nature of such a wickedness 
 which brings with it the worst destruction! vv. 9 — 12 ; hence at the end, ver. 12i, 
 the discourse, which had become calmer, reverts to imprecation, n''?''? let «»y 
 vife (jrind, i.e., become the basest slave, Ex. xi. 5; Judg. xvi. 21 ; "Isa." xlvii. 2, 
 would here be too far from clear and also too feeble, since ver. 10 the words 
 manifestly cannot be chosen sufficiently strong and terrible: accordingly it is 
 
286 V. 1— Ch. xxix- xxxi. 
 
 truly it is a fire, which consuraeth unto hell, 
 and all my wealth shall it uproot! 
 
 If I rejected the right of my manservant and maidservant, 
 
 when they had a contention with me, 
 — and what should I do when God arose, 
 
 when He visited, what should I answer? 
 15 hath not He who formed me in the belly formed him, 
 
 and hath not One created us in the womb? — ; 
 if I withheld his need from the poor, 
 
 caused the widow's eyes to fail, 
 and ate my morsel alone, 
 
 without the fatherless also eating thereof, 
 — no, from my youth he grew up to me as a father, 
 
 as long as I have been alive, I guided her ! — ; 
 
 If I saw one perishing without clothing, 
 
 and no covering with the poor, 
 20 if his loins did not bless me, 
 
 he did not warm himself from the fteece of my lambs ; 
 if I swung my hand against orphans, 
 
 because I saw my help in the gate: 
 
 either used intransitively, or, if this usage cannot be establislied, must be taken 
 passively "in^'T- Ver. 1 1 there is no reason for altering a"' 5E "y, ace. ver. 28, 
 into 's Ti? with the Q'rL 
 
 (3) and (4) xxxi. 13 — 23. As forms of the misuse of power by a magnate 
 are brought forward, first, the deliberate withholding of the right of servants 
 in household quarrels, ver. 13, in connection with which Job again, as vv. 1 — 4, 
 finds a suitable occasion to state how he could not by any means have done tliis 
 according to his conception of things, remembering that he could not at all de- 
 fend himself with regard to such a wickedness before God the Creator of all 
 men, before whom all are equal, if once his judgment really came! vv. 14, 15 
 (~ns is both when taken alone and from the sense of the first verse-member, 
 to be referred to God) ; second, cruelty towards the unprotected, whom a magnate 
 can send away by his power simply, whilst Job, on the contrary, always, as far 
 back as he can remember, even as a youth, was as a father and son to orphans 
 and widows and plentifully clothed the poor, vv. 16 — 20, comp. xxii. G, 7, 9, 
 xxix. 12 sq. (as regards '?^"? see § i\bh)\ third, violence towards the un- 
 protected before the tribunal, inasmuch as the magnate can easily corrupt or 
 terrify even the court of justice, ver. 21. To all these forms of the abuse of 
 
v. 1. — Cii. xxix — xxxi. 287 
 
 then let tny shoulder fall from its side, 
 
 and my arm break from its socket! 
 for a terror God's punishment appeareth unto me, 
 
 and for His majesty I am powerless. 
 
 If I made gold my hope, 
 
 and to the treasure said, thou art my trust, 
 25 if I rejoiced that my power was great, 
 
 that my hand had obtained much; 
 if I saw the light how it shone, 
 
 the moon walking in splendour, 
 and then my heart was secretly enticed, 
 
 and my hand kissed my mouth, 
 — that also is a judicial sin, 
 
 because I denied the God above — ; 
 
 power tlie punishment corresponds completely, ver. 22, wliich Job's wislies to 
 be so terrible with deliberation, not from thoughtlessness, but really trembling 
 at the divine punishment and knowing that all human power shrinks to nothing 
 before the divine majesty, ver. 23. 
 
 (5 — 7) xxxi. 24 — 40. There are really only four more hidden and cowardly 
 sins which are here enumerated : first of all covetousness and blind worship of 
 power, vv. 24, 25; second, an inclination, although but clandestine, to heathen- 
 ism, allowing his senses to be dazzled by the splendour of the stars, as well 
 as by that of gold, and so to be carried away to clandestinely worship them, 
 a form of superstition which may appear insignificant, though it is really in the 
 highest degree criminal as a conscious denial of the invisible spiritual deity 
 and as a relapse into more materialistic tendencies in the case of one who has 
 once acknowledged the true God, vv. 26 — 28. This passage on the clandestine 
 worship of the light, i.e. of the sun (Hab. iii. 4) and of the moon by means of 
 kisses fiung to them is at the same time historically of great importance, and 
 refers probably to the spread of the Zarathustric doctrine at the beginning of 
 the seventh century, Deut. iv. 19; xvii. 3; Ezek. via. 16. Third, hatred and 
 pleasure in the calamities of others, from which Job is conscious of being so 
 free that he never allowed himself, even in clandestine, half-uttered words, to 
 throw out an imprecation against his enemy, and that on the contrary his house 
 always stood open with noblest hospitality to all men without distinction, in 
 that at his command his people everywhere carefully sought up men who had 
 not yet been satiated from his rich table (hence meat, flesh, alone is here men- 
 lioned, Isa. xxii. 13), vv. 29 — 32; with ver. 31 it appears tlierefore that Gen. 
 xviii. 1—8; xix. 1 — 3 must be compared, so that J'a'i': is part. Niph.; it is true 
 that the Niph. of vaiu does not occur elsewliere, comp, however X'^3 as well 
 
288 ^' 1— Ch. xxix— xxxi. 
 
 If I rejoiced at the overthrow of my enemy, 
 
 and I exulted because evil had befallen him. 
 30 — neither did I permit my palate to sin, 
 
 by an oath to require his soul — , 
 if the people of my tent did not say 
 
 "would that there were one not satisfied from his flesh!" 
 — in the street no stranger tarried, 
 
 to the caravan I opened the door — ; 
 if I concealed after the way of the world my guilt, 
 
 to hide in my bosom my sin, 
 because I dreaded the great multitude, 
 
 and the contempt of the families terrified me, 
 so that I was silent without going out: 
 
 as xV»3 with a somewhat different meaning; at all events the phrase xix. 22 
 can by no possibility suit this passage. ^ Fourth, a cowardly concealment of 
 his guilt, so that from fear of public accusation and contempt he preferred to 
 keep at home in hiding and not to visit the public assembly, nor ventured to 
 speak in it, vv. 33, 34, comp. xxiv. 16 ; xxix. 7 sq. ; Ex. xxiii. 2 and History 
 of Israel II. p. 446 (II. p. 315 sq.) (ü"'S common people, the vwld, P.s. xvii. 
 4, 14). But here at the end of so many protestations and imprecations, 
 particularly just after the mention of the sin of hypocrisy, which would also 
 cast suspicion upon his present contention if he had committed it, his vehement 
 longing for judgment cannot be longer repressed, but breaks forth all the more 
 violently and forcibly, although in this outbreak it is still moderated. Conscious 
 of no cowardly hypocrisy, prepared, indeed, vehemently longing to hear an 
 answer and judgment with regard to his present complaint from the one Being 
 who can now bring him justice as well as help and deliverance, he exclaims 
 with intense agitation, vv. 35 — 37 : O that I had one (who can be no other 
 tlian God, only he does not venture to challenge Him directly) vho vonld 
 hearken unto me and my complaint! there is my cross, i.e., my signature to the 
 document containing my complaint, the last word attesting all that has before 
 been said, therefore let the Almighty ansver me, since I have said everything ! 
 and would that I had the booh which my opponent has written, i.e., the document 
 of accusation, handed iu by my opponent, in order that I might at least know 
 with what I am really charged and wherefore I suffer. The figures are there- 
 fore taken entirely from the ordinary legal proceedure, according to which the 
 opponent had to present his written accusation to the opposite party, and then 
 
 ' Neither does the suggestion tliat the meaning is, as is said in common 
 life, "we should like to eat him" {I.e. how sweet and dear he is!), suit the 
 context. 
 
V. 1.— Cn. xxlx— xxxi. 289 
 
 35 — that I had one who would hear me! 
 
 lo, there is my sign: let the Almightj' answer me! 
 and that I had my Opponent's book: 
 surely, upon my shoulder would T take it, 
 
 T would bind it as a crown for me; 
 I would declare unto Him the number of my steps, 
 
 I would as a prince approach Him! — ; 
 if over me my field crieth, 
 
 and altogether its furrows weep, 
 if I ate its strength without reward, 
 
 and blew out the soul of its possessor : 
 40 then let thorns spring instead of wheat, 
 
 and instead of barley poisonous weeds! 
 [Job's words are ended.] 
 
 tlie judgment was given. The third member of ver. 35 is still dependent on 
 "? in" "a, the second is parenthetical. Job is so little afraid of the accusation 
 that, on the contrary, if it came, he would receive it with the greatest delight 
 as his most precious treasure, take it upon his shoulder, take it upon his head 
 and wear it as an ornament', and publicly show it to every one, and his 
 accuser, who would be at the same time the highest judge, he would not meet 
 timidly and tardily, but give Him an account of the very smallest things, ap- 
 proach Him with a confident step like a prince, not like a humbled sufferer! 
 3"p.' like ^Vh, § 120 a, to come near sloicly, in this case with a firm, unwavering 
 step. Still this intense desire, which is expressed very appropriately at the 
 end, vv. 35 — 37, is after all a parenthesis, as ver. 6 ^ : the protestations which 
 have been begun are still left without a conclusion, and in order to resume 
 them and close them with the greatest emphasis, the first of the protestations — 
 that referring to covetousness, vv. 24, 25, — is repeated in a more fonible illustra- 
 tion, vv. 38, 39, and put in such a way that it really includes the chief sin of a 
 powerful magnate, since he can from covetousness torment to death the men 
 who are dependent on him in the cultivation of the land, so that his wide 
 fields, treated by him in such a cruel way and full of the traces of his sanguinary 
 tortures of the smaller owners, cry against him as it were to heaven for 
 
 * These are well-known ways of honouring a thing in the sight of every- 
 body in those parts of the world, comp. Weüsted's Travels in Arabia I. p. 362, 
 Fletcher's Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan, H. p. 15, Ilarivansa, ed. 
 Langlois, torn. I. p. VI., and the custom still observed there of kissing a written 
 command or decision and laying it upon the head. 
 
 * It follows of itself from the above exposition that these words vv. 35 — 37, 
 as well as all the rest in this chapter, are quite in their proper place. 
 
 19 
 
290 V. 2.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 14, xlii. 1—6. 
 
 vengeance, xvi. 18 ; the last imprecation, ver. 40, referring to this has again 
 great similarity with the first, ver. 8. 
 
 The closing note appears to have heen added after the speeches of Elihu 
 had been inserted in the book, and Job appeared not to speak any more at 
 such an unusual length. There is no reason whatever for ascribing them to 
 the poet himself. 
 
 2. THE APPEARANCE OF JAHVE. 
 CH. XXXVIII. 1— XL. 14, XLII. 1—6. 
 
 As Job has at last exhausted all mortal powers in order to 
 prevail upon God without defiance and without murmuring, and 
 to behold the solution of the dark enigma. He who has so long 
 been desired and entreated cannot longer withhold His ap- 
 pearance. He now appears at the right time, since an earlier 
 appearance would either have been perilous to the man who 
 was still insufficiently prepared for it, because it would then 
 necessarily have been an angry and destructive response to the 
 defiant or murmuring challenge of man, or else have been in- 
 compatible with the proper majesty of God, supposing it had 
 been mercifully condescending and conciliatory, as if man in 
 his ignorance could force such a gracious appeai-ance by rebel- 
 lion. But now, after the sufferer has at last tried every hu- 
 man means of prevailing upon God in the proper manner, and 
 already, as conqueror over himself, endeavours without pas- 
 sionate feeling to obtain a higher revelation and final deliver- 
 ance, this is granted to him at the right moment. It thus 
 appears as if Jahv6 had so long delayed simply because He 
 had from the beginning anticipated and known that such a 
 brave sufferer as Job would not wholly lose himself even in 
 the utmost temptation and danger, but would triumphantly go 
 forth from it with higher power and capacity, so as to be able 
 to experience the awful moment of the revelation of a truth and 
 glory such as had been previously never thought of. He who 
 had appeared to men hidden and unapproachable, who had so 
 long been a silent and hidden spectator of the contention as 
 
V. 2.— Cii. xxxviii. 1— Ix. 14, Ixii. 1 — C. 291 
 
 conducted by men, as if He had determined to take no part 
 in human affairs, whilst He really, as at least the readers 
 know from eh. i., ii., from the first conducts and follows every- 
 thing with active interest, — He now comes forth from the dark- 
 ness in order to give that light after which the earth is long- 
 ing and to supply that which men in this new, great enigma 
 of the world vainly sought to obtain by means of the resources 
 hitherto in their possession. After earth has risen in the 
 sacred contention near Heaven, Heaven also stoops to the 
 earth, in order that by this conjunction a new divine truth 
 may be established in the heart of humanity. 
 
 A revelation coming in this manner must, it is true, be 
 for Job a friendly and gracious one. For God cannot charge 
 liim with guilt previous to his sufferings in the strict sense and 
 chastise him for it, as the brave contender has justly always 
 maintained amid all the darknesses of his life, even if the reader 
 did not know this from the very beginning of the piece. On the 
 contrary, God is prepared to deliver the man who triumphantly 
 seeks after Him from the midst of his trial, and is resolved to 
 permit him to glance into His glory as He supplies the final 
 solution of the enigma by the act of deliverance. But just as 
 little as the revelation can be purely unfriendly and ungracious, 
 can its immediate effect be one of outward deliverance. For the 
 deliverance from outward evil can with advantage only follow 
 the inward deliverance from all false ideas, and as yet Job is 
 not free from that false notion which is the ground of his 
 suffering in the truest sense, inasmuch as if he were tree from 
 it his outward sufferings would be easily borne. He still, as 
 from the first, cherishes the error, that God does him as an 
 innocent man a wrong: and inasmuch as man can never regard 
 God as unjust and incomprehensible simply with reference to 
 himself and his own case, Job still stands in danger of letting 
 go God's truth and righteousness in the whole world also. In- 
 asmuch as the source of the false; notion, namely, the sup- 
 position that God does him a wrong by sending his calamities 
 
 19* 
 
292 V, 2.— Ch. xxxviü. 1— xl. 14, xlii. 1—6. 
 
 as punishments, is not stopped, in spite of all the progress 
 which he has made, he cannot attain the due knowledge with- 
 out which a full deliverance is impossible. It is true, he might 
 at last as taught by experience seek as far as possible to avoid, 
 as is the case ch. xxvii— xxxi., the two dangers and transgres- 
 sions which resulted from this error, namely, his vague ideas 
 generally of God and the divine justice and his special dis- 
 content and complaining as to his own supposed unjust lot, in 
 conjunction with his defiant attitude at not experiencing the 
 divine appearance and deliverance: he might dimly surmise 
 that the enigma must be solved in another way. Still as yet 
 he has not arrived either at a repentant acknowledgment of 
 his twofold precipitancy and sin, committed in the tumult of 
 the contention, or at an elevating joyous perception of the 
 truth. He has as yet not clearly enough perceived, nor yet 
 acted upon the perception, that by defiance and complaint, 
 however much they may be moderated and repressed, as long 
 as they have not yielded to the most modest and joyful 
 acknowledgment of the glory and inviolable righteousness of 
 God, he closes the way to his own deliverance. In such a 
 case how can the outward deliverance immediately come ? But 
 if he arrives at the happy perception, that the divine law, 
 holiness, and justice have remained perfectly unviolated in his 
 case as in all others, and will remain eternally so, he must, 
 with the complete certainty of the innocence of his previous 
 life, also get rid of the last erroneous idea, that his afflictions 
 an; the sign of the divine anger, and when the old terrible 
 darkness has thus been pierced the light of the divine mercy 
 can then pour its rays upon him. The first step in tlie solu- 
 tion of the enigma was reached as soon as man put forth all 
 his energies to subdue those two errors — the defiance and the 
 complaint — which tended to confuse the pure truth, and to 
 make himself worthy to receive the divine revelation, ch. xxix 
 — xxxi.: the second step which must now be taken is, that 
 the complete, joyous perception of the perversity of these 
 
V. 2.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 14, xlii. 1—6. 293 
 
 errors shall take the place of them as merely suppressed ; and 
 this higher step man must now attain by means of the divine 
 appearance, which must precede all further outward deliverance 
 and redemption. 
 
 As now every error regarding God and divine righteous- 
 ness, as soon as it passes into action, though this may be as 
 in Job's case action in words only, constitutes actual human 
 guilt such as, while it is not cancelled, prevents the full ex- 
 perience of the divine mercy, majesty, and glory, and, indeed, 
 does not permit man to glance into the pure light of God as 
 He reveals Himself, in this case though God appears to Job 
 at the right time He is still at first wrapped in clouds and 
 speaks in a terrible voice from the storm. Thus in this case 
 Jahvc presents at first His terrible aspect, behind which the 
 milder one is hidden. Glancing not only at the last speech, 
 but also, as the case required, at all the former speeches of 
 Job, reviewing and gathering up the entire human contention, 
 in order at last to settle everything as judge, He becomes as 
 He now appears forthwith the stern interrogator and judge of 
 Job, who when at last He appears, as Job had so long desired, 
 shows Himself really infinitely more exalted and divine than 
 Job had ever anticipated before this awful moment, and who 
 intends before everything else to overcome the human folly 
 which yet remains and to bring about the acknowledgment of 
 the pure truth. It is true that even in this highest region no 
 compulsion or blind force proceeds from Him whom Job had 
 often previously thought of as his despotic lord: on the con- 
 trary. Job shall prepare for his self-defence, and every opportunity 
 of doing this is freely presented to him; and lest he should 
 have the most remote cause to complain of compulsion, the 
 exalted speaker deigns, where necessary, to give him also com- 
 plete explanation of the divine meaning and intention. But it 
 is equally unbecoming that Jahve should, like a man, or even 
 a human judge, enter into any kind of doubtful examinationj 
 contention, or litigation with Job, us if He were not the being 
 
294 V. 2.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 14, xlii. 1—6. 
 
 who knows and decides everything, who even by every slightest 
 utterance of His true mind teaches infallibly and expresses 
 perfectly the truth: but every one of his words must contain 
 the most immediate and undoubted certainty and spiritual ne- 
 cessity, uttered from a region totally unlike that from which 
 all the former speeches came, producing with marvellous magic 
 the greatest effect by the most direct means, so that quickly 
 the most willing and joyful conviction on the part of man must 
 follow so much purest and brightest light as here breaks forth 
 as if unexpectedly and so much overwhelming and yet bene- 
 ficent power as here wonderfully makes itself felt. 
 
 Will Job really doubt or even deny that the Creator gra- 
 ciously sustains, both in the general universe as well as in the 
 smaller human world and the special aff'airs of an individual 
 godly man, the divine order — God who needs merely to 
 speak in order to show how marvellously He sustains it and 
 has always sustained it, who will also sustain it in this most 
 special case, as may be inferred from most general con- 
 siderations, and as He permits it plainly to appear what is in 
 this matter His ultimate intention, only that as yet He cannot 
 on man's account eff"ect immediate deliverance in the way in 
 which man desires it ? Everything is here included in this double 
 question: but as soon as the divine comes to confront in its 
 purity the human, a disproportionate relation is thereby created, 
 which, when the divine graciously stoops to the human, can 
 be relieved only by means of sportive seriousness and bitter 
 raillery. Accordingly the most suitable manner for these di- 
 vine speeches is that of irony, which combines with concealed 
 severity and calm superiority the effective and benevolent in- 
 cisivencss of a higher insight, which is used as in bright 
 sportivencss, a manner of speech which shows, without wound- 
 ing or annihilating, clearly and tellingly the disproportion of 
 the human in its onesidedness to the truly divine,, of the 
 clouded human understanding to the clear, complete wisdoni, 
 of powerless human defiance to true power. If the perfectly 
 
V. 2.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 14, xlii. 1—6. 295 
 
 divine reveals itself in opposition to the limited and human, 
 it is always like an involuntary irony in relation to the latter, 
 even when it punishes and destroys: but in this case there is 
 also a condescension which is really in its inmost nature of 
 the most gracious character. The essence of the words of Jahve 
 lies therefore in the thouj^ht which may be expressed thus: 
 did Job, the weak man, with his limited, confused knowledge, 
 really mean, or docs he now really mean, to defy and to 
 charge with general unrighteousness Him who here reveals 
 Himself as the Being that He is eternally, as not only the 
 strict Judge but also as the wise Arranger of the Universe, as 
 the marvellous Restorer of right, as the gracious Revealer of 
 His Glory V So that the refutation, as supplied without any 
 etibrt or much search, is incidentally interspersed and concealed 
 in the speech itself. 
 
 If then Jahve, although still veiled and speaking only from 
 the storm, permits with such strict earnestness, and yet really 
 at the same time with kindness and mercy, man so clearly and 
 closely to glance into His inner sanctuary, how can Job in 
 that case longer resist? The same Job that previously held 
 his peace before no one, now, when enlightened by the higher 
 wisdom, hardly ventures to express a few words of profound 
 reverence of that which he has now clearly perceived and of 
 deep regret at his previous blindness: at the same time his 
 present timid, quiet word is not less eloquent than the full 
 stream of his language before the divine appearance; and his 
 acknowledgment and reverence now, after he has obtained higher 
 knowledge, are not less sincere than formerly his indignation and 
 displeasure at the misconception of the divine things. Job re- 
 mains here precisely the same in point of human dignity and 
 glory, only that he makes a rapid advance in knowledge of 
 infinite value. Man ought everywhere to be prepared to be 
 warned and taught by higher wisdom wherever it reveals 
 itself to him in his struggles, and he also who already oc- 
 cupies a lofty height gladly submits to its correction, inasmuch 
 
296 V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxviii. 1-xl. 5. 
 
 as when it finally approaches as the prize of the struggle, it 
 then again reacts by its light in instruction and correction. 
 Thus the hero who is invincible in conflict with men, as he 
 boldly seeks to come into the secret of God and contends with 
 Him, who can be subdued by nothing in the world save God, 
 here at last carries off", before his outward deliverance and 
 beatification, some few remaining deep scars showing the divine 
 superiority and correction, and sufi"ers himself before it is too 
 late to be admonished and led by the pure wisdom which he 
 has bravely won. 
 
 Yet it is impossible, even for the greatest power of divine 
 eloquence, to comprehend the entire matter within the compass 
 of one single discourse, inasmuch as the two errors which have 
 to be corrected in Job are of too dissimilar a nature to be 
 recognised both at once. It is true there easily springs from 
 the defiance, which failing to perceive the divine way imagines 
 it may contend with God and challenge His appearance, the 
 second transgression of murmuring at supposed injustice in the 
 personal aff"airs of the sufferer himself as well as in the whole 
 world : nevertheless before this special error can be destroyed, 
 the previous more general and injurious one must be got rid 
 of. Thus two speeches are here required from Jahve: 
 
 a. JAHVE AND JOB THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 CH, XXXVIII. 1 — XL. 5. 
 
 "Will Job defy God, as he has already so long called for 
 His appearance V Well then. He who has so long been missed 
 is now at hand, in order to contend with Job according to his 
 desire! But if he will really, as he imagined he could do, 
 dispute with Him, that is know and do more than God, then 
 let him show his power to do so ! let him show that eternity, 
 that power, and that wisdom, which God possesses, and into 
 which He now here grants man a glance in order to show him 
 how little he possesses them, he the creature, who is sur- 
 rounded by limitations and knows so little 1 — Accordingly in 
 
V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 5. 297 
 
 the chief section of the speech, xxxviii. 4 xxxix. 30, everything 
 of the most wonderful liiud is briefly produced, amid the most 
 ironical questions and references taken from creation, — from 
 the present inanimate world and from the animal world, — 
 that can not only reveal to man his limitation and compel 
 him to look beyond himself and acknowledge in his astonish- 
 ment many other powers and worlds which another being than 
 himself must sustain, but also fills him with admiration of the 
 order and wisdom which prevail there as everywhere; while 
 at the same time it is admirably remarked incidentally, how 
 by the divine order of creation human wrong is always can- 
 celled, xxxviii. 13 — 15, 23. 
 
 We have here the first endeavours to take a general survey 
 of creation and nature in detail, both as regards its extent 
 and inward laws: and if here not a few things appear as 
 wonderful which come before us already in a fuller light, it 
 must not be forgotten that the element of miracle only retreats 
 from the nearer spheres to baffle all enquiry in the more dis- 
 tant ones. The poet's century was one of the earliest in which 
 such questions were put to the world of nature and general 
 descriptions of nature were attempted; above in the contention 
 between the mortal disputants similar series of pictures have 
 been made, ch. v., ix., xii., xxv., xxvi.: yet the description 
 which has been reserved for this place surpasses in point of 
 affluence, vividness and surprising effect all former ones to the 
 extent to be expected when it is the Lord of the world Him- 
 self who speaks. And inasmuch as the important point here 
 is, that Job shall for the first time come to the complete 
 knowledge of God and the acknowledgment of his own guilt, 
 this first speech is made of almost disproportionate length, 
 as, in fact, there is scarcely any end of the various mat- 
 ters which can here be brought forward: yet if the de- 
 scription of the world is intentionally presented in such a full 
 stream that the commencement of the speech is almost for- 
 gotten in its progress, the speech at last naturally gathers 
 
298 V. 2. a.— Ch, xxxviii. 1.— xl. 5. 
 
 itself up once more in a more brief and powerful close, 
 xl. 2. 
 
 xxxviii. 1 Then answered Jahve Job speaking from the storm 
 and said : 
 
 Who is this that darkeneth counsel 
 
 with words without knowledge? 
 Gird now as a hero thy loins, that I may ask thee! 
 
 and declare thou unto me! 
 
 Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? 
 make it known, if thou knowest to be wise! 
 
 xxxviii. 1 : from the tempest, in which he approached, in a terrible form 
 though veiled, nearer the earth, as from afar thundering, quite audible to the ear 
 and visible to the eye in His terribly bright covering, yet still all the time 
 veiled and not appearing in a bodily shape. This addition is wanting in the 
 short second remark of resumption xl. 1, but properly recurs again before the 
 second speech xl. 6. 
 
 1. xxxviii. 2, 3. The very first words with which this Speaker announces 
 Himself, pierce with decisive severity all the previous speeches of Job : as in 
 anger seeking the unclear speaker, He enquires as He approaches: Who is this 
 that da)-ketieth counsel by Joolish luords ? it is therefore intimated that in the 
 entire affair of Job, it is not accident, but the well-considered, clear counsel, 
 or plan, of God which prevails, namely, as we know from ch. i — ii., the plan 
 to test Job's faithfulness, a plan which Job is so far from having discovered 
 and brought to light that he has more and more darkened it by thoughts and 
 words which are in this respect quite wrong. Still, he shall not be condemned 
 unheard; now the desired time is come to contend with God and to defy Him: 
 let him get ready to answer the questions to be proposed! 
 
 2. xxxviii. 4 — xxxix. 30. This magnificent portion of the speech is worked 
 out in six very long strophes of twelve verses each i, in such a way that the 
 first half is confined to the creation and apparently inanimate world, while the 
 second passes to the wonders of the animal world. The questions begin 
 
 (1) xxxviii. 4 — 15 with the creation itself, accordingly primarily once more 
 with the most magnificent and marvellous things in the creation of the earth, 
 
 • The fact that of the six strophes, according to the present text, there are 
 wanting in the third and the fourth one verse each, and in the fifth two verses, 
 proves nothing against the original law of the structure, since from xxxviii. 28 
 onwards the crowded thoughts are presented in such a detached manner that 
 one or another verse might easily be very early omitted, e.g., before ver. 30. 
 
V. 2. a.— Ch. xxiviii. 1— xl. 5. 299 
 
 5 Who set its measures, that thou shouldest know? 
 
 or who stretched over it the liner 
 whereupon were sunk its foundations: 
 
 or who cast its corner-stone, 
 when the morning-stars rejoiced together, 
 
 all Sons of God shouted for joy; 
 and then shut in the sea with doors? 
 
 when from the mother's womb it came bursting forth, 
 when I gave it clouds as its garment, 
 
 thick-fog as its swaddling-clothes; 
 10 and brake for it my bound, 
 
 set bars and doors, 
 said: "hitherto comest thou — and no further! 
 
 here be stayed the pride of thy waves!" — 
 
 vv. 4 — 11, which is here described witli that freedum which every poet, and 
 particularly one of older times, may claim. Where was Job, the man of yester- 
 day, iu that primeval time of the foundation of the earth V ver. 4. Was he 
 perhaps enj^aged iu its foundation, or God, that he should know everything by 
 personal experience? and upon what basis and space (xxvi. 7) was then the 
 immense edifice of the earth, which itself bears all human edifices, from the 
 very first assigned its dimensions and built — when as yet not ordinary mortals 
 could rejoice (Zech. iv. 7) over its foundation and the commencement (usually 
 in the morning) of the new erection, but the Morning-stars and the Angels, 
 which answer to these bright bodies (i. 6, xxv. 5), jubilated in their innumer- 
 able ranks V vv. 5 — 7 ; or was it he who took the next step in creation — 
 separated the mighty, restless sea from the Chaos and directed it within its 
 established boundaries, Gen. i. 9, 10, — at that time when it was just born (5<5J" 
 continuation of in";3, ace. §346 6), was surrounded with clouds which still en- 
 circle it, like a newborn child with swaddling clothes, and when it received its 
 established, unsurpassable boundaries, so that it can never bring back again the 
 old Chaos, as also in human aflfairs such firm eternal limitations have been 
 fixed which pride and defiance can never break through! vv. 8 — 11. Broken 
 hounds, ver. 10, on account of the rent, broken, rugged shores of the sea, 
 ^ifjYlJ'''^ 5 ■* ^^^1 '^^^- ^ ^ ' ™'gJ>t seem to signify to put a stay to, and KB would 
 then be used again as a subject : here = this place, the shore, § 294 a. If this 
 construction appears too hard, we might read with the LXX, comp. ver. 15, 
 KJ "f-O" here shall be broken the pride of thy waves, or perhaps still better 
 pri^' shall be hushed, comp. Jahrbb. der Dibl. Wiss. IV. p. 64. — As now the 
 first morning of creation had just been spoken of, vv. 5 — 7, when the rosy 
 light of dawn for the first time illuminated the earth, the transition to the long 
 survey of the present world is suitably made thereby that mention is now first 
 
300 V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 5. 
 
 Hast thou, as long as thou hast lived, ordered the morning, 
 
 appointed its place to the dayspring, 
 that it should seize the tips of the earth, 
 
 and the wicked flee from it alarmed? 
 the earth is changed like seal-clay, 
 
 its tips become light as a garment: 
 15 and from the wicked their light is kept back, 
 
 the proud arm is broken. 
 
 Camest thou unto the torrents of the sea, 
 walkedst thou in the bottom of the deep ? 
 
 stood the gates of death open to thee, 
 and the gates of darkness seest thou? 
 
 made ot the wonderful nature of the perpetual return of tiie new morning, 
 vv. 12 — 15. Of the dawn there are two things to be said: first, it returns 
 everyday from eternity always in its appointed place : now has perhaps Job, 
 the short-lived man, since his days, as long as he has lived (and how short is 
 this moment of time!) commanded it to that place, just as God during His 
 eternity? Second, it chases away the wicked, like every light, always every 
 day afresh, so that they must hide themselves or be discovered, and is thus a 
 symbol of the eternal flight and destruction of dark, unrighteous men before 
 God; and how rapidly and marvellously this transformation takes place! on 
 higher command the dawning light seizes in a moment the outspread wings of 
 the earth, the mountains in the west and east; the earth changes its entire form 
 as rapidly and easily as the seal-clay changes the forms which are impressed 
 upon it (comp. Layard's Discoveries pp. 608 sq.), whilst its wings, or skirts, 
 become shining like a garment ^ : and in a moment the wicked are aghast, in- 
 asmuch as their light, the darkness (xxiv. 14 — 17), is taken from them by a 
 higher power! 
 
 (2) and (3> The infinitely varied objects of the world are taken up in 
 turn, and in the first instance objects from the inanimate world : and of this 
 class of objects it is, on the one hand, secret places and ways, xxxviii. 16 — 27, 
 and on the other, vv. 28 — 38, unusual transformations and variations, in which 
 their wonderful nature, pointing man to a divine wisdom above him, is specially 
 revealed. And inasmuch as the speech had risen from the creation of the earth 
 to the description of the sublime dawn, now, in order to continue to connect 
 
 * Instead of las'n* which would have to be understood according to i. 6, 
 ii. 1, ■isa'^rii must be read, or rather must be so understood (since it does not occur 
 again in the poetical part of the book of Job, except in the later pieces xxxiii. 5, 
 xli. 2) from (j»aJ, == V^^-, but *_ä^» also is probably originally the same. 
 
V. 2. a— Ch. xxxvlii. 1— xl. 5. 301 
 
 didst thou overlook the breadths of the earth? 
 
 declare it, if thou knowest it all ! — 
 Which is the way -where light dwelleth, 
 
 darkness — where is its place? 
 20 that thou shouldst take it to its boundary, 
 
 that thou shouldst know the paths of its house! 
 thou knowest! for then thou wast born, 
 
 the number of thy days is many! — 
 Camest thou to the storehouses of the suow, 
 
 and seest thou the chambers of the hail? 
 which I have reserved for time of distress, 
 
 for the day of battle and war. — 
 Which is the way where light parteth itself, 
 
 storm bursteth from the east over the earth? 
 25 who hath cleft a path for the waterspout, 
 
 a way for the thunderflash? 
 
 together the greatest contrasts, it descends first to the wonderful deptlis of the 
 sea, vv. 16, 17, ascends thence again to the wonderfully extensive surface of 
 the earth, ver. 18, in order then to dwell longer upon tlie wonderful ways and 
 localities of the heavens, vv. 19 — 27. With vv. 16, 17 comp. xxvi. 5, 6. ^333 
 might be explained as torrents, from "]2J = "13 to be entangled, confused: but 
 there is greater probability, ace. Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2, for the TCYiyai of the LXX, 
 from "^33 = ya:. in the case of the numerous celestial marvels, vv. 19 — 27, 
 as in the case of vv. 12 — 15, light is again made the commencement, which 
 seems to have its place in the infinite spaces beyond the arch of heaven and to 
 come thence like the mysterious darkness by secret ways over the earth, 
 vv. 19 — 21: knoweth Job perhaps the way where (see § 332a) it dwelleth, 
 where it can be got at, that he could take it at his pleasure to its boundary 
 (Vk ny^ Gen. xlviii. 9) and retain it in its proper sphere or carry it further 
 off? certainly he knows it; for he is undoubtedly as old as the light, which 
 streams over the earth ever since the creation! comp. ver. 12. There above 
 the celestial arch appear to be also the hidden store-houses of snow and hail, 
 these strange weapons of heaven for the destruction of the evil on the earth, 
 vv. 22, 23, comp. Jos. x. 11; Ps. xviii. 13, 14; Ixviii. 14, 15. Then that which 
 comes to the earth making its way through the celestial arch is dwelt upon, 
 vv. 24 — 27 : light, storm, rain, lightning when they descend must divide the 
 firmament, but does Job know where they break through it? who, he or God, 
 has cleft the way for these wonderful heavenly objects — in order that not 
 merely proud man and what belongs to him, but also the most desolate districts 
 of the earth may enjoy the blessing from above? It is a chief point in the 
 teaching of this speech, by which human pride is to be bowed, that the bene- 
 
302 V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— x!. 5. 
 
 to bring rain upon uninhabited land, 
 
 the wilderness, where are no men, 
 to satisfy wasteness and desolation, 
 
 and to cause to spring forth the germ of green shoots. 
 
 Hath the rain a father, 
 
 or who hath begotten dew-drops? 
 from whose womb sprung the ice, 
 
 hoar-frost of heaven — who hath brought it forth ? 
 30 having become like a stone, water is hidden, 
 
 and the face of the deep cleaveth firmly together. — 
 Bindest thou the fetters of the Pleiades, 
 
 or loosest thou the bauds of Ori 
 
 on 
 
 dost thou bring forth the Crown of the North in time, 
 guidest thou the Bear with its sons? 
 
 factions of tlie creation are not alone for man, and that he must everywhere dis- 
 cover traces of a Creator whose care extends far beyond him, comp, how an- 
 cient Arabic Poets of the Desert insist on similar truths, Hamasa pp. 785 — 87. — 
 But the last-named celestial objects naturally conduct further to the mention of 
 numerous equally wise and wonderful transformations and variations in the 
 lower inanimate world, vv. 28 — 38. Have rain, dew, ice and hoar-frost, so 
 suddenly appearing as if by secret transformations, perhaps a human originator 
 or father, that a man like Job could produce them at his pleasure— those 
 marvels which unborn come into existence in a moment, that (particularly in 
 Palestine) strange phenomenon, according to which flowing water becoming by 
 frost firm as a stone entirely hides itself or loses itself by becoming indis- 
 tinguishable. In and binder the vault of heaven, finally, appear stars, further 
 clouds and fiery phenomena, all moving marvellously and yet in order in 
 obedience to a superhuman will, vv. 31 — 38. — The names of the four stars 
 which are here mentioned by preeminence, three of which were previously, 
 ix. 9, more briefly referred to, are in part obscure; most plain is ver. 31: 
 bindtat thou the bands of the Seven Stars, a compact group of stars, as it were 
 bound together, so that this constellation always appears exactly thus? or 
 loosest thou Orion' s fetters, so that this foolish giant of the Underworld, bound 
 to the heaven, at times comes nearer in the firmament, as if he had been un- 
 loosed? comp, on Orion C. O. Müller in the Rheinisches Museum für Philol., 
 vol. II. Ver. 32 rilittt is more difficult. The Targ. and many modern inter- 
 preters explain the word as a corruption of Jillsftt the signs of the Zodiac, 
 2 Kings xxiii. 5: however, the change of V into "i in the poet of this book is 
 difficult to accept, and here only a single constellation appears to be more 
 suitable in conjunction with the other individual ones; it is better probably 
 
V. 2. a.— Ch xxxviii. 1— xl. 5. 303 
 
 dost thou know the ordinances of heaven, 
 
 or settest thou its rule in the earth? — 
 Liftest thou to the cloud thy voice, 
 
 that floods of water cover thee? 
 35 thou sendest forth lightnings and they go, 
 
 they say to thee: "behold here we are!" 
 who put wisdom in celestial appearances? 
 
 or who gave understanding to heavenly phenomena? 
 who numbereth the clouds with wisdom? 
 
 causeth the pitchers of heaven to empty themselves? 
 when the dust poureth itself into molten-work, 
 
 clods cleave to one another. 
 
 therefore to understand the stars of the Northern and those of the Southern 
 Crown, from '''•t. crown, see Eichhorn's Biil. Biblioth., vol. VII. p. 415; Notices 
 et Extr. t. XII. pp. 249, 268; Transact. Asiat. Soc. of Lond. vol. II. pp. 381, 
 391. »"S, as may with certainty be assumed, is only the fuller, original form 
 of VS ix. 9: the latter has recently, according to Michails Siipplementa, p. 1901, 
 been generally regarded as standing for the Great Bear, inasmuch as Niebuhr 
 heard this name amongst the Arabs: however, it is still uncertain whether he 
 did not mistake asch for nusch , ji:fcXJ ", according to our passage, where the 
 guiding of the 'aisch together with its young ones is spoken of, rapella and 
 the guide of the goat with the young ones (Eichhorn's Blbl. Biblioth. vol. VII. 
 p. 429 ; Transact, of the Asiat. Soc. of Lond. vol. II. p. 382, comp. p. 379) 
 might perhaps be thought of, so that 'aisch is merely a dialectical form of Ty : 
 it is probably, however, the most easy thing to think here of the Jyion, so that 
 its cubs are the .,Lji,J:». (see Eichhorn's BiU. Biblioth. VII. p. 464) for ooLfc 
 or \^^ji^ is the lion, and the Pesh. has probably in ] / n >V the same 
 word. Still this would only be another name for the Great Bear: for that 
 this most resplendent star is intended, cannot well be doubted. It may be 
 gathered from the context that ver. 36 still refers to the things of the heavens; 
 and if ^13W, formed ace. § 173/, can undoubtedly signify a phenomenon, mnu 
 
 must be derived, with a kindred meaning, from nu = na, ^^, ^-^> T'Y^'* 
 which roots express the brightest radiance or ray : whilst from the signification 
 of shining, appearance, it can also denote the imagination, i.e., thought, Ps. li. 
 8.— In that the phenomena, lightning and others, execute the divine will, as 
 was just before said vv. 34, 35, they seem themselves to be endowed with 
 wisdom and understanding, no less than living creatures; whence, in fact, the 
 mythology of many other nations regards them as divine beings. But in the 
 case of the Hebrews, there is always a Higher One above them, who ace. 
 vv. 37, 38 with wisdom, in order that too much rain may never destroy the 
 
304 V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxviii. 1— xl. 5. 
 
 Huntest thou prey for the lioness, 
 
 fillest the appetite of the young lions? 
 40 when they couch in dens, 
 
 sit in the thicket in ambush. 
 Who provideth the raven its prey, 
 
 when its young cry unto God, 
 xxxix. wander without food? — 
 
 1 Knowest thou when rock-chamois bring foi-th, 
 
 the giving birth of the hinds, dost thou observe it? 
 couutest thou the moons they fill, 
 
 knowest thus when they bring forth? 
 bowing themselves, they bring forth easily their young, 
 
 get rid of their pains : 
 their children are strong, growing in the field, 
 
 go forth — and never return again. — 
 5 Who hath set the wild ass free, 
 
 his bands — who hath loosed them? 
 him whose house I made the desert, 
 
 steppes his dwellings: 
 he scorneth the noise of the city, 
 
 heai-eth not the shouting of the driver; 
 
 earth, Gen. viii. 22, counts the pitchers of lieaven, the clouds, even when the 
 rain is the strongest, when the dust becomes fluid and again firm, in some such 
 way as molten-work changes its form, 
 
 (4 — 6) xxxviii. 39— xxxix. 30. Of tlie animals by preference wild ones 
 only are chiefly distinguished, inasmuch as their life, preservation and peculiar 
 nature most of all remind man of the fact tiiat beside himself there are many, 
 strange, and marvellous beings at work. Thus first the lion and raven, which 
 also receive their food without any assistance from man, xxxviii. 39 — 41 ; as 
 likewise chamois and hinds, xxxix. 1 — 4, bring forth their young without man 
 caring for them as he does for the domesticated animals, and yet they bear 
 very easily, and yet their young grow up most vigorously, quickly establishing 
 new families! If these animals show that they do not need the help and care 
 of man, the three following, xxxix. 5 — 19, prove that man, as he is at present, 
 is unable even to subjugate all the animals and conduct them at his pleasure, 
 inasmuch as some have a marvellous dislike of human society and servitude. 
 The wild ass, called xiB or il'iy, lias an extraordinary love of freedom, in the 
 most desolate places of the earth, implanted in him by the Creator, so that he 
 despises the noise of the city and of the drivers of the tame asses, content with 
 
V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxviii. 1 xl. 5. 3()5 
 
 exploreth mouutaius, his pasture, 
 searcheth after every green thing. 
 
 Will the wild buffalo consent to serve thee, 
 
 or lodge the night in thy stall? 
 lU bindest thou him by the rope in the furrow, 
 
 or will he harrow valleys following thee ? 
 trustest thou to him, because his strength is great, 
 
 committest thy toil to him? 
 believest thou him, that he will bring thy seed, 
 
 gather-in thy threshing-floor? — 
 The wing of those she-ostriches, beating joyfully, 
 
 is it a kind pinion and feather? 
 
 the scantiest nourishment (instead of ^^f^'',, ver. 8, "the surplus of the mountains 
 is his pasture", it is better on account of the context and the verb tsiiT' to 
 read """^^, LXX xaTaaxi^zxai), comp. Robert Ker Porter's Travels in Georgia 
 Persia etc., part. I. p. 550, Germ. Trans. ; Layard's Nineveh I. p. 324 sq., II. 
 p. 429 f., Discoveries p. 270. — In the next strophe, xxxix. 9 — 18, two marvels 
 from the animal world only, more exalted and wonderful things being suc- 
 cessively brought forward, are treated of. The wild animal, called lieim, ex- 
 ternally so similar to the ox, in spite of his similarity with the domesticated 
 ox, and notwithstanding that his immense strength would make him suitable for 
 it, will never consent to serve man, nor will man make the attempt to use in 
 agriculture such an untamable, dangerous animal, for which purpose he can use 
 only tame, reliable creatures! (Ver. 10a biridest thou him in the fwrow of his rope, 
 in the furrow which he shall make by following his rope). The wild buffalo, 
 which is now called , uj»^Lä» G'ämüs, is probably not meant thereby, which 
 
 John Wilson {Lands of the Bible, II. 167 sq.) supposes that he found by the 
 Lake el Ilule in a too weak and tame condition, but a strong species of anti- 
 lope, similar in appearance to the ox, the Oryx of the Greeks, to which also 
 the name Beem points. ^ 
 
 In the case of the next still more wonderful animal, the ostrich, or rather 
 the ostrich hen, the description almost loses sight of its commencement, vv. 13 
 — 18 : so profoundly does the speaker apparently, and with him still more the 
 hearer, become absorbed in the wide, inexhaustible subject. How marvellously 
 
 • To what extent the [jLovoxepu; of the LXX has now actually been found 
 in Africa, or even in Asia, is notwithstanding all the assurances even of 
 Fresnel still matter of uncertainty: see C'omptes rendus de I'acad. des Sciences, 
 1848, p. 281; Ausland, 1849, pp. 639 sq., 1853, p. 742 ; Ally. Zeit., 1853, 
 p. 4684 ; also Catalog, odd. aeth. Mus. Brit., p. 56. 
 
 20 
 
306 V. 2. a.— Ch. xxxxiii. 1— xl. 5. 
 
 that she leaveth her eggs to the earth, 
 
 upon the dust maketh them warm: 
 15 and forgetteth that the foot trampleth them, 
 
 wild beasts crush them, 
 hard against her children, as if not her own, 
 
 frustrating her toil, without fear! 
 because God hath caused her to forget wisdom, 
 
 hath not imparted to her understanding. 
 When she once lifteth herself on high, 
 
 she scorneth the horse and his rider. 
 
 O-ivest thou to the horse strength, 
 
 clothest thou his neck with trembling? 
 20 makest thou him rattle like locusts? 
 
 the splendour of his snorting how terrible! 
 
 does the mother ostrich appear, contrary to the feeling of all other animals 
 and of men, to act towards her eggs, which, in an unkindly and also foolish 
 way, as if they were not her fruit which she had brought forth with toil, she 
 carelessly leaves to the earth and to be trampled on by the foot of man and 
 beast! (comp. Hamäsa, p. 374, ver. 1, with the scholia) certainly man, if it 
 had been his work to create the ostrich, would not have created it with this 
 peculiarity which seems so hard to explain : therefore, let men understand the 
 divine work, the truth that in addition to man there exists much that is wonder- 
 ful reminding him of a higher rule ! ver. 17. Inasmuch as the wing is the 
 strongest weapon of the ostrich, with which it violently smites everything that 
 assails it, and with the help of which it flies, ver. 18, the description begins 
 thus : the wing of the ostrich, which is moved joyfully, is it then, is it perhaps 
 (on as interrogative particle, §324c), a kind pinion and feather? as the storch, 
 so careful for its young, is called emphatically the kind one, n-^^on, Ps. civ. 1 7, 
 which is here alluded to ; and inasmuch as the fern, is used throughout, it is 
 better to read ""''»l?':!, inf. abs., ace. § 280 a, instead of n"'i2^i?v', ver. 16. Yet 
 a second marvellous thing is, that this great cumbrous creature, if it once lifts 
 itself up, tries to fly, gets away with the greatest rapidity, mocking both horse 
 and rider that pursue it, ver. 18 (J^ys at the time Judg. xx. 22, relatively used 
 then when i-!zzi^r\, Num. xxiii. 23, § 337 c). — Thus ver. 18 makes the transition 
 to the horse, as the horse and the ostrich can really in a certain respect be 
 compared with each other as similar : but much more powerful than the picture 
 of the ostrich is that of the horse, vv. 19 — 25, of the war-horse, namely, a 
 rare animal in the hills of Palestine, which Arabic poets also describe in rivalry 
 with each other, and call the opus artis äLjiÄ,0 of the Almighty (Koseg. C'hrcst. 
 Arab. p. 81 ; comp. Virg. Qeorg. iii. 73 — 90 ; Layard's Discoveries p. 330) : 
 
V. 2. a.— Cii. xxxviii. 1 — xl 5. 307 
 
 men spy forth in the vallej', he rejoiceth at his strength, 
 
 advanceth to meet the arms, 
 mocketh at fear and trembleth not, 
 
 turneth not back before the sword; 
 above him rattle arrows, 
 
 flaming spears and lances; 
 rattling, rushing he drinketh up the ground, 
 
 standeth not when the trumpet soundeth; 
 25 as often as it soundeth, "hui!" he crieth, 
 
 and from afar scenteth he war, 
 
 the thunder of princes and battle-cry. — 
 According to thy understanding soareth the hawk, 
 
 spreadeth his wings out toward the south? 
 according to thy word mounteth the eagle, 
 
 building also his nest on high? 
 rocks he occupieth, and lodgeth 
 
 upon the peak of rock and the castle: 
 from thence he descrieth food, 
 
 far off pierce his eyes; 
 30 and his young suck up blood, 
 
 and wherever the slain are, there is he. 
 
 wonderfully magnificent is bis strength, his mane, the roar and rattle of his 
 gallop, resembling the roar made by locusts' as they leap (Joel ii. 4), his 
 snorting, vv. 19, 20 (ver. 20 i is like an exclamation of astonishment); still the 
 most marvellous thing is that he has even still greater courage in battle than 
 man, whilst the warriors still in the valley of the battle are delaying and taking 
 observations, he is then already unable to await the moment of attack, running 
 in the midst of deadly missiles or spears in the most daring haste, as if he 
 drank and tore up the ground (.jös^f ■ ■ a '■> rapit tcrram, Koseg. Chreat. 
 
 p. 80, penult.), and as often as ever the trumpet sounds and the battle can be 
 scented from afar, he is always afresh equally as eager ! 
 
 After this description has thus occupied the largest portion of the entire last 
 strophe, the strophe gently approaches its close, and vv. 26 — 30 it is only a 
 few kinds of great birds of prey which form the conclusion. In these birds the 
 wonderful thing is partly their instinct in certain seasons of the year to migrate 
 to the South, partly their daring habit of making their nests on the highest 
 crags and the barest mountain-peaks, from whence again nevertheless they peer 
 through the lowest plains with piercing eye, and wherever any prey is, there 
 they suddenly assemble with their young that drink up blood greedily! The 
 
 20 * 
 
308 V. 2. a— Ch. xxxvlii. 1— xl. 5. 
 
 xl. 1. And Jahve answered Job and said: 
 
 Contend with the Almighty will he, the upbraider? 
 lie that called God to account, let him answer! 
 
 And Job answered Jahv^ and said: 
 
 Insignificant am I: what shall I answer Thee? 
 
 my hand I have laid upon my mouth. 
 Once I spoke — and do it not again ; 
 
 and twice even — yet not another time! 
 
 "'S in '^31, ver. 2Tb, depends on ^^t Vs: and is it at thy command, that he 
 builds Lis nest on high? VW ace. § 118« shortened from hvhy, root J^^ to 
 drink, a formation which frequently occurs in Aramaic. 
 
 3. xl. 1 — 2. The last picture of the birds of prey is still very wonderful, 
 but not so surprising as the previous ones. By it the description of the won- 
 ders of the world has gradually been brought to a certain repose. Still pre- 
 cisely through the multitude of these wonders and through the necessity here 
 for the first time of representing emphatically and exhaustively the divine Being 
 who is at work in them, the speech has almost lost sight of the point from 
 which it started, and almost put Job's case out of view; so generally might 
 these questions and this line of proof concern all men, and so naturally must 
 man become wholly absorbed in hearing the divine discourse whenever it be- 
 comes audible. Therefore Jahve reverts, as if beginning afresh, to Job, ver. 1, 
 and closes with severe brevity, ver. 2 : contend tvith the Almighty, as thus described 
 and thus to be known, will the upbraiderf will the disputatious reprover really 
 deliberately, and after he has been warned and the true relation has been 
 pointed out to him, continue further the contention which was at first begun 
 in haste ? let him declare himself on this point ! he who previously called God 
 to account, let him answer it, why he is now asked, whether he intends really 
 to contend and show defiance? a** after § 328 a. 
 
 The answer of Job's, xl. 4, 5, as might be expected, is in the negative, under 
 the influence of the new knowledge which he has gained: he will and must be 
 silent as a man before the God whom he has now more clearly known ; and if 
 formerly he dared once, yea, carried away by his confusion and perplexity, even 
 twice and oftener (Ps. Ixii. 12) to speak against God, he will now take care 
 not to do so again ! This answer is no less brief, and by brevity eloquent, 
 than completely adequate precisely at this point, since he is as yet not at all called 
 upon nor entitled to answer more. 
 
V. 2. b.— Ch. xl. 6—14, xlii. 1 — 6. 309 
 
 b. JAIIVE AND JOB THE SECOND TIME. 
 
 CH, XL. 6 — 14, XLII. 1 «. 
 
 If Job had not thus placed himself once more with full 
 consciousness in the true relation to God as regards the world 
 generally, every further explanation with regard to a particular 
 question would be impossible in his case: but now after the 
 first of the two errors from which he suffered, sec pp. 59 sq., 
 as the most general and therefore universally injurious has 
 been overcome, the second also may be the more easily removed, 
 which concerns most closely and directly the matter itself which 
 forms the central point of this entire contention. Jahve can 
 by continuing His speech approach more closely to the matter 
 itself. Job had failed to perceive the righteousness of God in 
 the whole world as well as most immediately and most un- 
 deniably in his own case: the whole of his calamity properly 
 centres in this question. When he expressed, now loudly then 
 faintly, despair of the manifestation of this righteousness, he put 
 himself in opposition to it: he did not live under its laws and 
 influence, but was always in danger of not only himself straying 
 ever further from it, but also of leading others astray by his 
 speeches. For it is only the man that seeks to make an ever 
 closer acquaintance with the divine righteousness and to keep 
 it more and more firmly, who will in return be kept by it; 
 whilst the man that resists it, condemns God in order that he 
 may be deemed righteous according to his own idea. Ac- 
 cordingly Job, for the second time summoned to the conflict, 
 is here asked, whether he will really resist it, disannul it? 
 And in this case the speech of Jahv6 may dispense instruction 
 in the fewest words: to what end proofs from beyond the 
 sphere immediately concerned — the world of men and history, — 
 inasmuch as the entire case of Job's turns upon this axis, and 
 inasmuch as soon there can be given, in Job himself, the most 
 illustrious example of divine justification! The brief, ironical 
 challenge is here the most telling: let Job, then, if he is 
 
310 V. 2. b.— Ch. xl. 6—14, xlii. 1—6. 
 
 serious with his speeches against the divine righteousness, 
 himself as judge rule the world with the power which is re- 
 quired, destroying for ever everything evil and— help himself 
 by his own power!— just as, when the matter is looked at 
 more closely, God ever destroys what is evil, on the other 
 hand, is always ready to help all the faithful, amongst whom 
 it is to be hoped Job is to be found. 
 
 The answer of Job cannot be doubtful : pervaded most deeply 
 by the feeling of the folly of the human endeavour to oppose 
 God and His righteousness, enlightened as well as quivering 
 from the brightness of God who has now appeared, he de- 
 clares the deepest, sincerest repentance, solemnly revoking 
 everything that he had spoken in haste and folly in his pre- 
 vious condition of perplexity and darkness. 
 
 xl. 6 Then answered Jahve Job speaking from the storm and 
 said: 
 
 Oird up now as a hero thy loins! 
 
 I will question thee; declare thou to Me: 
 Wilt thou also break My justice, 
 
 condemn Me, that thou mayst be righteous? 
 Or hast thou an arm like God, 
 
 wilt thou thunder as loud as He? — 
 10 Deck thyself now with majesty, exaltation, 
 
 and in splendour and glory clothe thyself! 
 scatter forth the inflictions of thy wrath, 
 
 behold everyone that is proud and humble him! 
 
 xlviii. 8: whoever fails to find, or even goes so far as to deny, the divine 
 righteousness, and accordingly invites and invokes the opposite of it, he does 
 not promote and establish it, but seems to seek to break it, to annul it, putting 
 his own folly and unrighteousness in its place ; and if Job has not in his pre- 
 vious life sinned, still he permitted himself in' his sufferings to be carried away 
 by an actual transgression precisely through this doubt of the divine righteous- 
 ness, the danger of which transgression is here destroyed at the commencement 
 for his advantage. Or has perhaps Job, if he will oppose God's righteousness, 
 the means of executing his own imagined righteousness? Well, then, let him 
 assume the full prerogatives of God when He reveals Himself as judge, ver. 10, 
 
V. 2. b.— Ch. xl. 6—14, xlii. 1—6. 311 
 
 behold everyone that is proud, abase him ! 
 
 cast down the wicked to the ground, 
 hide them in the dust together, 
 
 make fast their face in darkness : 
 then will / also praise thee, 
 
 that thy right hand helpeth thee! 
 
 xlii, 1 And Job answered Jahve and said: 
 
 I know that Thou art all-powerful, 
 
 to Thee no thought is impossible. — 
 "Who is he that darkeneth counsel without knowledge?" 
 
 therefore I gave utterance — yet without understanding, 
 things too wonderful for me — without knowledge! 
 
 scatter abroad over the earth his puuishments, and behold all that are proud 
 aud wicked upon the broad earth, that he may so cast the unrighteous (to 
 whom Job may belong, if he continues in his present course) into the dust and 
 into the Underworld, that they never venture again to lift up their faces ? 
 
 xlii. 2 — 6. If Job makes the prefatory remark, ver. 2, that nothing is im- 
 possible to God, but that everything that He thinks becomes at the same time 
 act, he cannot mean thereby, that what is contrary to the divine nature is also 
 possible to Him ; but simply, that whatever is in God conceivable and possible, 
 that when thought by Him is at the same time done. To this, however, be- 
 longs also the punishment of the wicked as well as the redemption of the 
 righteous; and in that Job thus expresses the general truth that in God exists 
 the only true power, he thereby indicates that precisely He alone possesses 
 that power spoken of, to destroy constantly unrighteousness in human aflfairs 
 and to reestablish the right (to remove Job's calamities also), since, indeed, 
 generally the omnipotence of God in relation to the confusion of human rela- 
 tions in the present world is limited by His righteousness, and neither of them 
 can be conceived without the other. Therefore the"! brief utterance ver. 2 in 
 reality contains the complete, appropriate answer to the address of God, xl. 
 9 — 14, in which perfect righteousness had just been thus connected with omni- 
 potence ; and vv. 3 — 6 there follows strictly nothing but the declaration of re- 
 pentance for all that had been previously unwisely uttered. But this is not a 
 cold, still less a forced declaration: on the contrary, because the divine revela- 
 tion and appearance has most profoundly afiected his inmost being and kindled 
 in the most influential manner a purer light and established in him a new 
 spiritual life, on this account he is urged by everything to repentance. Ac- 
 cordingly he declares briefly how indelibly and with what great consequences 
 the mighty words of Jahve make themselves felt: Jahvc designated him from 
 the begiuniiig as without true knowledge, xüvüi. 2 ; aud in reality he has now 
 
312 V. 3— Ch. xlii. 7—17. 
 
 "Come, hear Me, and I will speak; 
 
 I will question thee, declare thou to Me!" 
 5 As the ear heareth, I had knowledge of Thee; 
 
 but now hath mine eye seen Thee : 
 therefore I revoke and repent 
 
 in dust and ashes! 
 
 recognised himself as such an one, and does not shrink from the confession 
 that he previously spoke foolishly regarding the enigma which was too difficult 
 and wonderful for him, ver. 3; Jahve challenged him to defend himself before 
 His presence, xxxviii. 3, xl. 7 : but after he has now with his own eyes seen 
 God close at hand, of whom he had before only heard from a distance, and 
 has perceived His true majesty and glory, ver. 5, there remains for him nothing 
 but the most profound repentance. The antithesis of hearing and seeing; ver. 5, 
 is frequent, xxviii. 22; xxix. 11; Ps. xlviii. 9; xviii. 45: according to the hearing 
 of the ear^ as the ear hears from a distance, without closer knowledge and per- 
 sonal conviction, thus had I heard Tfiee, heard Thy report, or the report of 
 Thy truth and Thy words. Thus only have most men heard of Him, got some 
 knowledge of Him only from a distance and dimly, have not beheld Him eye 
 to eye and obtained immediate certainty from Him Himself. 
 
 3. JOB'S DELIVERANCE AND EXALTATION. 
 CH. XLII. 7 — 17. 
 
 Job has arrived at the happy knowledge and the voluntary 
 confession, that the divine holiness and righteousness has re- 
 mained unviolated and will eternally remain so, not only every- 
 where else but also in his own case. Thus those two errors, 
 which had darkened the pure, true knowledge, have been re- 
 moved, and with them finally the fundamental error, that suf- 
 ferings are as such consequences and signs of the divine wrath; 
 and there remains nothing further than the eternal love and 
 mercy on the part of God, on the part of man free access 
 opened to it as to deliverance from his sufferings. Now, in 
 such a case as that of Job's, where previous sins have not to 
 be first punished, the salvation which is inwardly possible can 
 even at once become an outward deliverance from all calami- 
 ties, since for the sufferer who has arrived at this higher per- 
 
V. 3.-CH. xlii, 7—17. 313 
 
 ception, suffering is no longer regarded us wnith and punish- 
 ment, and has accordingly lost its dark, terrible power. Thus, 
 therefore, Jahv6 is here at last prepared immediately to de- 
 liver the brave sufferer from all outward sufferings, and thereby 
 to seal the truth on earth, that the innocent man may indeed 
 suffer, but must also certainly triumph, if he is neither pro- 
 voked to defiance nor to rebellious discontent but only becomes 
 stronger and more conscious of his true self by his sufferings. 
 Yet before this deliverance is carried out, judgment must first 
 be passed upon the three friends. This judgment can be brief. 
 Against their better knowledge, they proceeded on the sup- 
 position of Job's previous sin, relying upon this supposition 
 they assailed Job and even cruelly treated him : therefore they, 
 who previously desired to present intercession for Job, shall 
 now on the contrary appeal to Job for his intercession on their 
 behalf: wherewith Jahv6 both gives to the friends the deserved 
 humiliation and to Job the opportunity to take his j-evengc 
 on them in the noblest manner. After that Job has thus by 
 such forgiveness and intercession for the enemy given the first 
 finest proof of his higher life, and thus appears before men 
 and God as wholly pure and blameless, his deliverance im- 
 mediately follows. But not this only, but also at the same 
 time his exaltation. For whoever goes forth out of his suf- 
 ferings as conqueror in such a way, can go forth from them 
 only with higher gain, as having become twice as powerful 
 and prosperous; as this is here described in detail, correspond- 
 ing with the former description. And since thus, after the 
 great, weighty truth and teaching of the piece has been clearly 
 unfolded from all points of view, everything hastens to the 
 necessary end, there appears here again as at the commence- 
 ment a i)iece of simple narrative. 
 
.314 V. 3— Ch. xlii. 7—17. 
 
 xlii. 7 And it came to pass after Jahvd had spoken these words 
 to Job, that Jahvc spake to Eliphaz the Temanite : "my anger 
 is enkindled against thee and against thy two friends, because 
 ye have not spoken of me sincerely like my servant Job» 
 
 8 so then taking to you seven bullocks and seven rams, go ye 
 to my servant Job and present an offering for yourselves, 
 and Job my servant shall pray for you : only to him will I 
 have respect, not to deal with you according to your folly, 
 that ye spoke not of me sincerely like my servant Job." 
 
 9 Then went Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and 
 Zophar the Naamathite, and did as Jahve had spoken to 
 
 10 them; and Jahve had respect to Job. — But Jahve restored Job 
 whilst he prayed for his friends; and Jahve added to all the 
 
 11 possessions of Job twofold. And there came to him all his 
 brethren and all his sisters with all his former acquaintances, 
 and ate with him bread in his house, and condoled with him 
 and comforted him over all the evil which Jahve had brought 
 
 Vv. 7 — 10. Eliphaz appears, with propriety, altogether as the representative 
 of the other friends ; since he had first spoken against Job, he must also be 
 the first to humble himself. Sincerely, namely as regards the chief point upon 
 ■which everything here depends : whether Job is innocent or not ou account of 
 his calamities; if they had not yielded to outward appearances and fear, if they 
 had made pure sincerity to prevail, they would have been obliged to say with 
 Job, that calamity comes from God in cases where there is no guilt, comp. ch. xiii. ; 
 and thus they committed a i^^as, ii. lo, folly, by denying calmly and deliberately 
 the divine truth, and this ought to be punished as intentional sin before God; 
 yet He will have regard to Job's intercession, not to execute on them folly, i.s., 
 the punishment which would answer to such folly, as )'^y and many words for 
 sin denote also the punishment which is connected with the sin. As to BX '^3 
 see § 356.— If n-^aio in the phrase ver. 10 really signified captivity, as if God 
 had turned this from Job, the figure might be chosen and appear tolerably 
 appropriate after vii. 12, xii. 14, xiii. 27, as overwhelming sufferings hold a 
 man as in prison. However, the entire phrase has another meaning, which is 
 here also more appropriate, according to the discussion in the Jahrbb. der Bibl. 
 Wiss. V. p. 217 ; and here it is only the restoration of Job's health which is 
 primarily intended by it.» Yet before the restoration and the twofold increase 
 
 recovery is 
 p. 344 sq 
 
 If the elephantiasis has not as yet been developed to its worst stage, a 
 ry is at all events not impossible, see the work quoted ante p. 282, 
 
V. 3.— Ch. xlii 7—17. 315 
 
 Upon him ; and each one gave him a heavy coin and a gold- 
 
 12 ring. — But Jahvc blessed Job's latter life more than his early 
 life, and he received fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand 
 camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-asses. 
 
 13 And he received a line of seven sons, and three daughters; 
 
 14 and the name of the one was called "Dove", of the second 
 
 1 5 "Cassia", of the third "Pigment-box", as there were not found 
 women so fair as Job's daughters in the whole land; and their 
 father gave them an inheritance in their brethren's midst. — 
 
 16 And Job lived after this a hundred and forty years and saw his 
 
 17 sons and grandsons through four generations: then Job died 
 old and satisfied with life. 
 
 of Job's former prosperity, wliich can only gradually take place through a 
 number of years, is further described, as begun ver. 10, the description, ver. 11, 
 is inserted, how quickly and eagerly now all relatives and acquaintances, of 
 whose absence Job had so painfully complained above, xix. 13 — 19, once more 
 come to him, honouring him by word and deed, according to ancient custom 
 also appearing with gifts before the higher magnate whose favour they now 
 more zealously seek than before his calamities; comp. Mahäbhär. II. cl. 1216 sq., 
 1297 sq. (vol. I. p. 352, 355); Bhagavata Pur. I. xii. 34, xv. 8. r.Jä^vp, trans- 
 lated above only approximately by the general term heavy coin, is chosen as 
 an allusion to the time of the patriarchs : the explanation belongs to Gen. xxxiii. 
 19. — Ver. 12 resumption of ver. 10. Though the number of the children cannot 
 well, like that of the cattle (i. 3), be doubled, on the other hand, his domestic 
 prosperity is the greater in that his daughters are not merely the fairest, so 
 that the most beautiful names are accordingly given to them (n'2"'3" is probably 
 the pure one, washed, then the name of a species of dove), but also live in 
 rarest harmony with his sons, so that their father, which seldom happened, 
 assigned to them with the sons a special inheritance, in order that the brothers 
 and sisters might never be separated as far as it depended on their will, comp. 
 Num. xxvii. 8 sq., ch. xxxvi., and the Antiquities p. 179 (240). — Vv. 16, 17 
 after Gen. 1. 23, xxv. 8. 
 
 It is not until it is viewed from this end that the highest 
 thought of the book can be fully taken in, and the last words of 
 it are still highly significant in completing the whole work. It 
 is now first that the enigma on earth is satisfactorily solved on 
 all sides, and a series of most important inferences and truths 
 arc presented on a backward glance at the whole from this 
 
316 V. 3— Ch. xlii. 7—17. 
 
 ending. If such a blameless hero as Job suffered though innocent, 
 how shall not other weaker men suffer more than they expected 
 from the human point of view? and if he in early antiquity, 
 before the beginning of a clearer revelation, was delivered only 
 after these dangerous conflicts, because he had still to contend 
 sorely with superstition and unbelief, ought not men of later 
 times to avoid those rocks as they behold this example and 
 the divine revelation which it contains, rocks on which a 
 stronger hero than they almost suffered shipwreck ? May every 
 one in his darkness and suffering carry off by a lasting victory 
 Job's noble reward! That reward is now easier than it was 
 then, since Job's perilous, yet finally successful, conflict has 
 pointed out the way* to it. For if evil was able to effect so 
 little against him even, upon whom it turned its whole force 
 and resources, in spite of the great actual danger and the evil 
 suspicion to which he was exposed, that God is able to rejoice 
 over His faithful servant at the end as at the beginning, why 
 should it necessarily overcome and destroy the man who has 
 hardly in any case so much to sufter at one time as Job, who 
 beholds in Job's example the purer light already revealed, and 
 has no need, if he will only be wise, to contend so sorely as 
 that hero! These as well as other fruitful inferences follow 
 naturally here at the end: and what was above said of the 
 lot of the world generally, becomes of itself plain from the 
 clear pattern of the single case of Job. 
 
 The end therefore reverts to the beginning: the circle of 
 ideas is completed. It cannot properly be said, that for the 
 perfect closing of this circle of ideas the meeting of the de- 
 ceived Satan and Jahve in a celestial scene must follow ; since 
 in such a scene really nothing could be represented which the 
 intelligent reader does not infer of himself from a backward 
 glance at the whole drama. On the contrary, as in the first 
 main section the preparation is eftected principally by the 
 purely divine suggestion and predetermination on the celestial 
 
V. 3.— Ch. xlii. 7—17. 317 
 
 Stage, and as in the second main section the painful, wean- 
 entanglement of the question can be etiected simply by a 
 purely human contention, during the complete silence of the 
 divine voice and apparent vvithdrawment of the celestial oper- 
 ation, so in the third the solution and reconciliation nmst be 
 brought about by the meeting of God and man upon the earth, 
 without requiring a fresh celestial scene. 
 
One great advantage of a thorough interpretation of the 
 book as a whole is further, that those pieces which do not 
 belong to the original work naturally separate themselves. 
 And in reality this is the first distinctive mark of the two 
 pieces which have been inserted in the Book of Job, that they 
 have no proper place and connection whatever in the struc- 
 ture of the constituent parts of the work, neither in the po- 
 sition which they now occupy, nor in any other that is con- 
 ceivable. We should sooner be compelled wholly to give up 
 the attempt to discover an interpretation than to look upon 
 these two pieces as genuine portions of the original poem. As 
 regards the thought and plan of the poem, according to the 
 idea of the early poet, they are not only completely super- 
 fluous and of themselves naturally drop out of the poem, but 
 they interfere in essential respects with its thought. And this 
 argument from the inner meaning of the poem is supported by 
 the more outward evidence of the language and style of these 
 pieces. Though the language in the case of some words re- 
 minds us of that of the Book of Job, inasmuch as undoubtedly 
 such later poets had repeatedly read the work of the earlier 
 master, and had made certain passages particularly quite their 
 own, yet, on the other hand, the language is elsewhere very 
 different, full of words and phrases which are either new or 
 foreign to the earlier work, and is already strongly tinged with 
 Araniaisms; as is observed occasionally in passing in this 
 volume, and might be easily shown at greater length. The style 
 of the work has none of the elasticity, compression, combined 
 
Ch. xl. 15— xH. 26. 319 
 
 with transparency, of the earlier work. It is, on the contrary, 
 looser and weaker, more difficult and more prolix, and aftei" all 
 does not so fully express the thought in difficult passages: hence 
 in spite of its prevailing amplitude, it is sometimes somewhat 
 more obscure. But let it be remembered that these detrac- 
 tions are all relative. The remaining peculiarities follow from 
 the special designs of these later pieces; and the piece which 
 now stands first of the two is so long and important that the 
 later author of it must have had a significant reason for making 
 this interpolation. We prefer, however, to take the second 
 piece first, because it appears, from many indications, to be 
 of somewhat earlier date and by another author. ^ 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND OF THE 
 CROCODILE. Ch. xl. 15— xli. 26. 
 
 This piece, which forms one closely connected whole as re- 
 gards matter, language, and style, has been assigned a place 
 which is quite contrary to the meaning of the original poem. 
 For a description of the power of God in' the creation ex- 
 clusive of man has its place in the speech ch. xxxviii., xxxix., 
 but not here, since in the second speech of Jahv6's it is solely 
 the human relation in the question of the divine righteousness 
 which is treated of, so that it cannot be the inanimaü; and 
 animal creation, or the power of God in general, which is 
 further spoken of. Moreover, the object of the second speech 
 of Jahv6's is attained with xl. G — 14, its close marked and 
 clear; it" is manifestly intended to be shorter than the first 
 speech, as here there is neither the appropriate space foi' a 
 
 1 I have further discussed and defended tlie true view of tliesc pieces in 
 the Tiihinfjcr theol. Jahrhb. 1843, pp. 740 sq. against the most recent sdiolars 
 who seek again to ascribe both interpolations, particularly that which is above 
 first explained, to the original poet. 
 
 [The most recent elaborate attemjjt of independent criticism to vindicate the 
 genuineness of the Speeches of Klihu is that of Lie. Carl Budde, in his work 
 Beiträge zur Kritik des Buches Uiob, Bonn, 1876. Tr J 
 
320 DESCRIPTION OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND THE CROCODILE. 
 
 lengthy exposition, nor are there any plans made for supplying 
 it. Neither is this piece connected internally by even the 
 loosest and most slender thread with xl. 6—14; even outwardly 
 every form of easy transition from the one piece to the other 
 is wanting. Similarly, after the tremendous digression, which 
 the piece would introduce at this point, we seek in vain for 
 any such resumption of the discourse as we have xl. 1, 2.— 
 Accordingly it might be supposed that the piece has simply 
 been displaced, and ought properly to follow ch. xxxix. How- 
 ever, when it is more closely examined, it appears plainly that 
 the piece cannot by its very nature be by our ancient poet at 
 all, so that its externally unsuitable position in the poem is at 
 the same time evidence of its later authorship. The rapidity, 
 delicacy, and lightness of touch which mark the earlier de- 
 scriptions of animals, ch. xxxix., are in vain looked for here: 
 the prolixity of these two lengthy pictures, which vainly en- 
 deavour after precision and compression, is very different too 
 even from pictures which are drawn upon the largest and most 
 elaborate scale in ch. xxxix. Similarly, there is wanting here 
 the sudden irony, the surprising elevation and boldness of the 
 pictures ch. xxxviii., xxxix. Jahv6 is almost wholly lost sight 
 of here; He is felt only from afar, suddenly sending the flash 
 of His word and the majesty of His presence : for the passages 
 xl. 15 a, 19 &, xli. 2, 3, are as compared with the bright, per- 
 vading fire of ch. xxxviii., xxxix., but very weak examples of 
 the overwhelming thunder of a divine discourse. Thus the 
 whole piece, when compared with those earlier models, bears 
 upon its surface the plain marks of later imitation. We find 
 here also, when we come to details, a language which is con- 
 siderably different from that of the earlier poem; and certain 
 words and formations which this piece has in common with 
 the earlier work (by n^^ xl. 30, vi. 27 ; yn^ ^:i:^ xxviii. 8, xli. 
 26; pi£i7: xi. 15, comp, piis^ xli. 15, 16; nsbnri xli. 9, xxxviii. 
 30; ^D3t as part. pass. xv. 22, comp, ^iay xli. 25, § 149 ^f) can- 
 not be regarded as proof of the contrary, since the fact of an 
 
Cu. xl. 15— xli. 2G. 321 
 
 imitation of the earlier piece would sufficiently explain a good 
 deal of this nature. 
 
 It might accordingly at first sight appear as if this piece 
 had been inserted by the same later poet who likewise intro- 
 duced Elihu's speeches not at the most appropriate place, as 
 they would at all events have fitted into the poem after ch. xxviii. 
 better than after ch. xxxi. There are in fact some things in 
 both pieces which they have in common distinguishing them from 
 the earlier poem, as the form of the long interrogative sen- 
 tence without the interrogative part. ~ri, xl. 25, xxxvii. 18 (for 
 the passage ii. 9 is from popular language). However, other 
 things are different both as regards the details of language and 
 the general style, which is here far colder, calmer, and more 
 uniform than in Elihu's speeches. Moreover, a division into 
 strophes, which cannot be discovered in those speeches (see 
 below), is here discernible: namely, the whole piece falls into 
 four long strophes of ten verses each ^, with a brief close. And 
 if we are to judge from the general impression which the two 
 pieces make upon us as regards their age, we should regard 
 this piece describing the animal world as the earlier, which was 
 probably added in the 7th or the beginning of the 6''' century. ^ 
 
 We thus learn historically from these two pieces simply 
 tliat the earlier work soon found those who admired, imitated, 
 and enlarged it. Each of these two augmenters placed his ad- 
 dition to the work simply and without much art at the (irst place 
 that seemed appropriate, without seeking to veil tlu; inter- 
 
 1 Only the second and the third would have eleven verses, whicli is proh- 
 ably of no great importance when the regularity of the piece in other respects 
 is considered. 
 
 * There is probably a special proof of the somewhat earlier date of this 
 piece in the fact tliat it describes xl. 25 sq. (A.V. xli. 1 sq.) the crocodile as 
 impossible to be captured, whilst Herodotus, ii. 70, comp. Ezek. xxix. 4, xxxii. 3, 
 observed just the contrary in Egypt. — Further, comp, regarding these two animals 
 Ihn-Batuta in tlie Jmirn. Asiat. 1843, I. p. 222 sq., Riippell's Beisen in Nnhien 
 (1829), p. 50 — 56, Wilkinson's Maimers and Customs of the Anrii'iit I'Jyijptians, 
 III. p. 68 sq. 
 
 21 
 
322 DESCRIPTION OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND THE CROCODILE. 
 
 polations by a number of smaller changes in other parts of 
 the book. As the hippopotamus and crocodile are here very 
 accurately described, and ch. xxxiii — xxxvii, so much is said of 
 dethroned kings, we may most naturally suppose that both 
 authors had been personally in Egypt, and the later of them 
 was a descendant of the Judeans who fled with Jeremiah into 
 Egypt, and who did not write until after the Persian rule had 
 extended over Egypt, towards the end of the 6th century. 
 
 xl. 15 Behold now Behemoth, which I created as well as thee, 
 
 which eateth grass like oxen: 
 behold now his strength in his loins, 
 
 his force in the sinews of his body, 
 he boweth his tail as if it were a cedar, 
 
 the thews of his loins are woven together, 
 his bones are brazen tubes, 
 
 his limb-bones like a bar of iron; 
 he is the first of God's works, 
 
 yet his Maker blunteth his sword: 
 20 for fruit the mountains present to him, 
 
 the beasts of the field all play there, 
 under the lotus-trees he lieth down, 
 
 in the covert of reed and feu, 
 the lotuses form his shady bower, 
 
 the willows of the brook surround him. 
 Though the river coraeth with force, he trembleth not, 
 
 is careless, when the Jordan rolleth into his mouth. 
 Before his eyes he is captured, 
 
 with lines his nose is pierced. 
 
 1. xl. 15 — 24. Behtmoth appears to be the Hebrew form of the Egyptian 
 name for the liippopotamus, an apparently very dangerous and reany almost 
 harmless, herbivorous animal : after therefore his outward appearance, with his 
 short tail, which is however as stiff as a cedar-branch, has been described, 
 vv. 16 — 18, the point is again referred to, that his Creator has made the sword, 
 i.e., the devouring mouth, of this most wonderful animal harmless, with his 
 well-known terrible tusks, has as it were so blunted it (<üJ3, comp, with |uyjCi, 
 
 ^^Ä->, 5, ^jCI» which all signify the weakening and diminishing of something) 
 
Ch. xI. 15— xli. 2C. 323 
 
 25 Drawest thou the Leviathan bj- a fish-hook, 
 
 and with a cord squeezest down his tongue? 
 puttest thou rushes iuto his nose, 
 
 borest his cheek through with a hook? 
 will he make much supplication to thee, 
 
 or will he speak soft words to thee? 
 will he make a covenant with thee, 
 
 wilt thou take him for a servant forever? 
 wilt thou play with him as with little birds, 
 
 and bind him even for thy maidens? 
 30 will partners trade about him, 
 
 will he be divided among Canaanites? 
 wilt thou fill with points his skin, 
 
 with a whirring harpoon his head? 
 put now on him thy hand, 
 
 and — think not again of war! 
 
 that it cannot do any harm, vv. 19 — 22; then further his power of endurance in a 
 stream (Jordan), ver.23, and the ease with which he can be captured, ver. 24 The 
 words ver. 24 admit of no other meaning. It is true that recent travellers re- 
 mark that this animal is very difficult to take in the water; but as the words 
 are intended rather to describe its capture by artifice upon land, we should 
 have first to enquire whether it was not actually caught in this way in Egypt. 
 2. xl. 25 — xli. 26. Quite otherwise the Livjathan, which ancient name in 
 this passage, unlike its usage in the earlier poet iii. 8, must denote an actual 
 animal, namely, the crocodile : man may not imagine that he can take, tame, 
 or sell him like a fish, xl. 25 — 30* {companions, partners ver. 30 '■', that is of 
 a trading company, Canaanites for Phoenicians, merchants generally) : or if some 
 one will really catch him like a fish, he shall not repeat the attempt, as even 
 the mere sight of the monster casts him down ; and how should man, who cannot 
 even rouse this creature, lay with impunity a violating hand upon the Creator? xl. 
 31— xU. 3 p=T is infin., § 285 c, 328 c 3 ; n--pn hostilely, as Amos ix. 10).— 
 
 > With regard to the absence of the ~'^, before "»^r, ver. 25, Ewald suggests 
 in a note to § 324 a of his Gramm., that it might be left out in order to make 
 a paronomasia between this verb and the Egyptian name for the crocodile, 
 tmsOh (Arab. Lvw~4J>)) more evident. Tr. 
 
 2 As Luke V. 7, 10 likewise of fishermen; comp, also Corp. Tnscr. Qrtec. 
 4C16 sq. 
 
 8 In the later editions of bis Hebrew Grammar, the author appears to treat, 
 "-1 as imper. conseq. § 347 6, comp. Dillmaun's Commentary in loco. Tr. 
 
324 DESCRIPTION OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND THE CROCODILE. 
 
 xli. 1 — Behold, his hope is deceived! 
 
 is one even at the sight of him hurled down? 
 no daring one is there, that he should rouse him: 
 
 and ivho is he, who would plant himself before Me? 
 who surpriseth Me? then I will repay him: 
 under the whole heaven is he Mine! 
 
 His limbs will I not pass over, 
 
 the nature of his powers and manner of his structure. 
 5 Who uncovereth the outside of his garment, 
 
 his double jaw — who entereth? 
 the door of his face who openeth? 
 
 round about his teeth is terror! 
 Splendid are the tubes of the shields. 
 
 shut fast with a close seal, 
 one is joined to the other, 
 
 not a breath cometh between them, 
 cleaving fast one to the other, 
 
 taking hold of one another without separation! 
 10 His neesings make a light shine, 
 
 his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn; 
 from his mouth torches go forth, 
 
 sparks of fire shoot forth; 
 from his nostrils proceedeth smoke 
 
 as if it were a pot blown hot with rushes, 
 his breath maketh red live coals, 
 
 and flame goeth forth from his mouth. 
 
 But as yet nothing has been said regarding the special characteristics of this 
 creature, characteristics which the spealcer cannot pass over in silence, ver. 4 > : 
 accordingly his front aspect is first described, his terrible jaws which no one 
 likes to examine, the marvellously firm and thick scales which cover his whole 
 body up to the mouth like a garment, his sneezing throwing out flames and his 
 terrible breathing, so that it can be said that there is sublime power on his 
 neck while dismay danceth before him, vv. 5 — 14; then his firm flesh in the 
 
 1 T^n cannot stand simply as another form of IH, nor the latter signify any 
 form of beauty, nor has beauty any place at all in this description : the word 
 here answers to the previous ^3" and may as related to "" laeasure denote, 
 only somewhat more generally, tlie manner or relation. 
 
Ch. il. 15-ili. 26. 325 
 
 Upon his neck dwelleth majesty, 
 and before him dauccth dismay. 
 
 15 The Haps of his flesh cleave hrmly together, 
 
 it is molten upon him, not to be moved; 
 his heart is molten like stone, 
 
 molten like a nether millstone: 
 at his loftiness heroes are afraid, 
 
 from wounds lost in terror; 
 if any one gettcth to him, no sword will stand, 
 
 nor spear, missile and coat of mail, 
 . iron is considered as straw, 
 
 metal as rotten wood; 
 20 the son of the bow doth not make him flee, 
 
 into chaff" to him slingstones are turned, 
 as chaff' clubs are considered — 
 
 and he laugheth at the whirring of the spear. 
 Beneath him are sharpest potsherds, 
 
 he spreadeth pointed threshing-sledges upon the mire. 
 He maketh the deep to boil like a pot, 
 
 the sea he maketh like an ointment-pot: 
 after him he causeth the path to shine, 
 
 the deep is taken to be grey hair. 
 
 25 Nothing upon the dust can rule him, 
 
 he which is created not to fear: 
 
 middle of his body, whilst an equally firm heart, as of cast metal, inhabits it, 
 at the courage of which all heroes and weapons come to shame, vv. 15 — 21 
 (Kianpn^ ver. 17, is properly to lose oneself, to lose one's senses in sudden dis- 
 may) ; lastly, that he has underneath the most pointed, prickly skin, and lies 
 on the ground like a pointed threshing-sledge (Isa. xxviii. 27), ver. 22, and 
 that when he is looked at as he swims away the whole sea seems to be il- 
 luminated and agitated with bright foam, as if he used thft sea as a man uses 
 his ointment-pot, so that the sea appears to be coloured like grey hair (while 
 the Mediterranean near Palestine and the Nile have usually a dark colour, 
 comp, mare canum) vv. 23, 24. Then follows the general conclusion, vv. 25, 
 26.— iiSD, ver. 7 5 refers to a: shut fast, the tubes of the shields which one 
 hath, or which have been, shut fast loäh a close seal, ace. § 294 b. And as the 
 ^} before "'^f'*, ver. 12, cau signify tvith, the remarks which I huve made on 
 
326 ELIHU.— Ch. xxxii— xixvii. 
 
 every high thing he seeth, 
 
 he the king over all proud beasts! 
 
 Ps. Ivii. 10 in the Jahrbb. der Bihl. Wiss. V. p. 172 cau be compared with this 
 illustration. 
 
 These two marvellous animals have often been interpreted symbolically, and 
 the strangest things have been imported into the description. As early as the 
 Book of Enoch, Ix. 1 — 10, 24, 25, this allegorical interpretation commenced, 
 hut only in the later piece of that book, which belongs really to the Noah-Book ; 
 comp. Dillmann's translation of the Book of Enoch and his commentary, and 
 my remarks thereon in my Abhandlung über das Buch IlenoJch. 
 
 ELIHU'S SPEECHES. Ch. xxxü— xxxvii. 
 
 The consideration of the real meaning of these speeches 
 conducts to the following view of their origin. A poet, some 
 century or two centuries later than our author, observed in 
 the book that many questionable, dangerous, and offensive 
 thoughts had been uttered by Job with great force and without 
 any hesitation, thoughts which when taken by themselves might 
 seem really to border on blasphemy and to grievously offend 
 every calm and sound mind. It is true that these misleading 
 speeches of Job are completely refuted and retracted after 
 ch. xxvii., partly by himself and partly by Jahve's appearance, 
 and the entire work, when viewed from its conclusion, leaves 
 according to the intention of the ancient poet not the slightest 
 doubt as regards the reprehensible mistake both of all unbelieving 
 and all superstitious views of human suffering. Nevertheless un- 
 doubtedly many a reader might consider a far more deliberate, 
 obvious, and outspoken refutation of the mistaken utterances 
 of Job was desirable or necessary, particularly in that later 
 age when people were generally becoming more anxiously 
 scrupulous with regard to utterances on divine things and also 
 began to entertain dread and fear of merely apparently dangerous 
 expressions. Starting from this feeling the later poet sought 
 to supply what appeared to him to be wanting in the work 
 which in other respects was so highly admired by him; and 
 
ELIHU.-Cn. xxxii-xxxvii 327 
 
 there is no reason to doubt that he thereby rendered the mar- 
 vellous work of the great poet, which was perhaps almost too 
 lofty for the common mind, in the first instance more acces- 
 sible and acceptable to his declining time. The means by 
 which this end was to be attained could not be doubtful to 
 him. He must introduce a fresh speaker, who, as a much wiser 
 and closer thinker than Job and his friends, comes on the 
 scene at the point where neither Job nor the friends know 
 what can be further said, and who then charges the friends 
 with their weakness and still more Job with all his errors and 
 profane speeches : he makes the new speaker correct both the 
 weakness of the former and the errors of the latter, and then 
 at the same prepares as it were the way for Jahve who ap- 
 pears immediately, and elaborately proves what Jahve deems it 
 sufficient more briefly to complete. He must ascribe to this 
 new speaker, as the true prolocutor and interpreter of Jahve, 
 more than merely the highest human wisdom : he must also 
 ascribe to him such an insurpassable ability and such over- 
 whelming confidence in oratory, that Job, although he is not 
 hindered by external pressure from answering, and is at first called 
 upon several times to do so (if he can), is unable to make 
 any reply at all, and this speaker hastens undisturbed from 
 one victorious speech to another, delaying scarcely a few se- 
 conds before making a fresh commencement. The author could 
 most easily introduce him as a young man, wholly unspoiled, 
 who, although long indignant at the course the contention had 
 taken and hardly able to contain his inspiration, had yet from 
 youthful diffidence kept in the background, but now at length 
 is unable any longer to keep silence. 
 
 Thus Elihu begins in his first speech, ch. xxxii., xxxiii., 
 after the needful introduction, the proof of the truth, that 
 man may never deem himself pure and righteous before God; 
 in the second speech, ch. xxxiv., he proceeds to expound the 
 truth, that notwithstanding the daring, criminal doubts of man 
 God is always righteous and cannot be conceived of as without 
 
328 ELIHU.— Ch. xxxii— xxxvii. 
 
 righteousness; and shows more briefly in his third speech, 
 ch.xxxv., the folly of the delusive notion, that the fear of God does 
 not bring greater profit than the contrary of it. But when the 
 false ideas of the speeches have been in this way censured, in 
 a fourth speech, ch. xxxvi., xxxvii., the speaker finally presents 
 the truth in its undisturbed purity in contrast with the error, 
 in that, thinking almost exclusively of God, and proclaiming 
 His praise both from history and nature, he calls upon Job to 
 acknowledge God in a like manner. 
 
 It is impossible not to see in this order of the thought a 
 certain advance from what is close at hand and more obvious 
 to that which is further removed, although in respect of the 
 style of exposition and literary art, quite a different poet here 
 presents himself. And it scarcely need be remarked, that the 
 thoughts which are here expounded are in themselves pure 
 and true; indeed, there are many things in this piece which 
 have been more profoundly conceived and more strikingly pre- 
 sented by the later poet than in the earlier book, inasmuch as 
 he enjoyed the help which was rendered, precisely in these re- 
 flections on divine things, by the more advanced time in which 
 he lived: although here not a single wholly new thought oc- 
 curs which cannot be found in the earlier book. The piece 
 when taken alone on its own merits is beautiful and good : but 
 every careful, critical attempt to regard it as included in the 
 design of the earlier poet and as an integral portion of his 
 work, fails in the process. It is of no use to try to find a 
 way out of the difficulties — how it could be possible in har- 
 mony with the earlier work to make a man refute Job, since 
 really he can be taught and humbled by Jahve alone, — how 
 this could be intended here precisely after ch. xxxi., where in 
 reality it would be least of all in place and where Job cannot 
 hold his peace with regard to such charges, because for the 
 most part he does not deserve them in this form particularly 
 at this place, — how it is that Elihu does not appear anywhere 
 else in the ])ook, since he surely could not be unmentioned at 
 
ELIHU. 1.— Ch. xxxii., xxxiii. 329 
 
 least ill xlii. 7 — 17. On close iiiid strict reflection we come 
 upon nothing but insoluble difficulties; in which then precisely 
 a warning lies not to regard this piece as belonging to the 
 original work and not to require from it what it is not in- 
 tended to be or to supply. The piece, when its external 
 features only are looked at, really forms so little a part of 
 the older work that it can be wholly removed from it without 
 leaving any observable trace of its removal, still less of the 
 least mutilation of the older book. Least of all do tJiose mo- 
 dern readers understand either the remaining pieces of the 
 present book or this particular piece, who suppose that the 
 poet intentionally made the departures from the style and 
 language of the older book in the speeches of Elihu simply on 
 account of the change of the person speaking. While we 
 find in the speeches of Job, Jahve, and the friends, notwith- 
 standing certain well chosen and firmly adhered to differences, 
 after all the mind of one and the same poet in clear features, 
 it is here equally clear that the poet himself is in every re- 
 spect so totally dift'erent that fresh proofs of this may be dis- ■ 
 covered on every new examination of the piece. ^ 
 
 1. Ch. xxxii., xxxiii. 
 
 xxxii. 1 And these three men ceased to answer Job, because he 
 
 2 appeared to himself to be righteous. Then was kindled the 
 
 wrath of Elihu the son of liarakhcl, the Buzitc of the kindred 
 
 xxxii. 1 — 6. The manner in which Elihu's descent is particularly described, 
 ver. 2, diflfers from those of tlic friends in the earlier book. The author took 
 it without doubt from genealogical tables of ancient families, of whom, liow- 
 ever, we now know nothing further than that Buz was a small people and 
 
 * Many differences presented by this poet are more particularly referred to 
 incidentally in the interpretation of the text below. Neither can a division of 
 the long speeches into strophes be discovered, according to my repeated ex- 
 aminations. And even the text is here as regards single words less pure in 
 comparison, because it was manifestly less pure from the very beginning, comp, 
 xxxii. 5, xxxiii. 17, 24, xxxv. 14, 15, xxxvi. 18, xx.\vii. 16. 
 
330 ELIHÜ. 1.— Ch. xxxii,, xxxiii. 
 
 of Kam : against Job was his wrath kindled, because he re- 
 
 3 garded himself as more righteous than God; and against his 
 three friends was his wrath kindled, because they did not 
 
 4 find answer and yet considered Job guilty. But Elihu had 
 ah-eady waited for Job with words, because they were older 
 
 5 than he in days: as now Elihu saw that there was no an- 
 swer in the mouth of the three men, then his wrath was 
 
 6 kindled; and 
 
 Elihu the son of Barakhel the Buzite answered and said: 
 
 Young am I in days, and ye grey: 
 therefore I held back and feared 
 to tell to you my knowledge; 
 I thought, let days speak, 
 
 and many years reveal wisdom. 
 But it is the spirit in man, 
 
 the breath of the Almighty, which giveth them under- 
 standing ; 
 not the older are wise, 
 
 not the aged understand justice: 
 10 therefore I say, hearken ye to me! 
 
 I also will tell my knowledge! — 
 
 country east of Palestine, Gen. xxii. 21 ; Jer. xxv. 23. A family Ram from the 
 land Biiz is otherwise unknown to us : yet this name, which was easily inter- 
 changed with Aram, according to Ruth iv. 19; 1 Chron. ii. 25 sq. compared 
 with Matt. i. 4 ; Luke iii. 33, occurs again. Gen. xxii. 21, at least as a con- 
 siderable family of another and younger branch of the Nahorites. — The reason 
 of the silence of the friends is somewhat briefly given, ver. 1, to the effect that 
 they had nothing more to say in reply because Job considered himself as in all 
 respects justified. According to ver. 4 he had long had words against Job in 
 readiness, but had waited to utter them from youthful modesty : but now this 
 reason is no longer of force, inasmuch as the older opponents of Job have no 
 more that they can say. 
 
 1. xxxii. 6 — xxxiii. 7 the long introduction to this speech as the first. And 
 first, xxxii. 6 — 10, an apology to all the former speakers that he the youngest 
 now begins to speak: he has learnt that it is not really advanced years, but 
 ultimately only the impulse of the divine spirit which gives understanding and 
 ability; yet it does not suit the connection that he should at the end, ver. 10, 
 call upon Job to hearken, so that instead of '^V'asi we must read, after the 
 LXX, iSWtti, comp, xxxiv. 2, 10. ?"i, which is formed afresh, ace. § 153 6, 
 
ELIHÜ. I.—Cu. xxxii., xxxüi. 331 
 
 Behold, I have waited for your words, 
 
 I give ear uuto your reasons, 
 
 until ye would examine the speeches, 
 and unto you I paid attention: 
 
 but behold, no one of you decidcth right against Job, 
 answereth his words; 
 ye might easily say: "we found wisdom; 
 
 God may put him down, but not a man!" 
 while he hath not prepared a word against me, 
 
 and not like you will I answer him. — 
 15 They are terrified, making no further answer, 
 
 the speeches have departed from them: 
 and should I wait, because they speak no more, 
 
 because coming to a stop they do not answer further? 
 / also answer my part, 
 
 / also tell my knowledge! 
 for I am full of words, 
 
 the spirit within me hath straitened me: 
 my inward-part is like wine which hath no vent, 
 
 like new skin-bottles it will burst; 
 20 I will speak that I may breathe freely, 
 
 open my lips and answer! 
 
 from r^~, ;nTj ver. 6, literally to creep, to slink mnay abashed, are new words ; 
 neither is 13« btit found in the genuine book of Job. — But before the speech 
 passes to Job, witli whom it will then remain, it turns, and indeed for the first 
 and last time (with the exception of the incidental addition xxxy. 4) to the 
 three friends ; and it gives freer vent to the indignation, which had been so 
 long pent up, at their weakness, in a bold address to the three friends, vv. 11 
 — 14, inasmuch as he determines to speak, first, after he has vainly waited so 
 long, that they might properly answer Job's speeches after they had been 
 wisely examined, vv. 11, 12, and, secondly, that they may not suppose that 
 they have found wisdom in what Job has said, and that God only can refute 
 him, vv. 13, 14. — But when he has turned from them and calmly considers the 
 matter by himself, he is brought back to the same necessity, vv. 15 — 20: shall 
 he, as the friends are totally silent, on that account continue further to wait, 
 because they do not speak? ("r^mm ace. § 342 c per/, cons, and interrog.) how 
 unreasonable! no, he must speak for the simple reason that his inward part 
 is too full of spirit and straitened, as new, well pent-up wine, in fresh 
 leathern bottles ferments most strongly and often even bursts this integument 
 
332 ELIHÜ. 1— Ch. xxxii-, xxxiii. 
 
 But I may not consider any man, 
 
 and a mortal will I not flatter: 
 for I do not know how to flatter; 
 xxxiii. easily might otherwise my Creator put me away! — 
 1 But hear, Job, my speeches, 
 
 to all my words give ear: 
 behold now, I have opened my mouth, 
 
 my tongue speaketh already in my palate; 
 the uprightness of my heart are my words, 
 
 what my lips know they speak purely: 
 the spirit of God hath made me, 
 
 the breath of the Almighty given me life; 
 5 if thou canst, answer me, 
 
 prepare thyself against me ! take thy stand ! 
 behold, I am of thy measure as regards God, 
 
 from clay am / also cut: 
 behold, my terror shall not confound thee, 
 
 and my burden shall not oppress thee! — 
 Only thou spakest, surely, in my hearing, 
 
 and loud words I hear: 
 "pure am I, without transgression, 
 
 clean am I, and have no guilt; 
 10 behold. He findeth quarrels against me, 
 
 considereth me for an enemy to Him, 
 
 if it does not get vent in time (Matt. ix. 17). And this very impulse of the 
 spirit, comp. ver. 8, xxxiii. 3, 4, briefly reminds him at last, vv. 21, 22, that 
 though he begins to take part in the dispute, he may not seek honour and 
 applause from men, which, indeed, he is unable to do, since precisely as im- 
 pelled by the spirit he knows too well that he is not lord of his body, and 
 if he should purposely not speak for the honour of God alone, his Creator would 
 in a moment carry Mm away, i.e., snatch him from life, demanding an account. 
 lay, ver. 16, to come to a stop, as xxxvii. 14; the construction of TS""', ver. 22, 
 with the imperf. instead of the infin. is more Arabic than Hebrew, § 285 c. — 
 But really intending to speak to Job, he calls upon him to listen to him at- 
 tentively, xxxiii. 1, 2, since he intends to speak candidly in the consciousness 
 of his own spiritual importance and mission (namely, that of speaking in the 
 place of God) and yet not with hardness and compulsion, in case Job may be 
 able to defend himself, as knowing well that he as a weak man confronts Job 
 in relation to God only as an equal, like to like, that he is a piece of the same 
 
ELIIIU. 1.— Ch. xxxli., xxxiii. 333 
 
 setteth my feet in the stocks, 
 
 watcheth all my paths!" 
 behold, in this thou art not right, T answer thee: 
 
 for God is greater than a man. 
 
 Why hast thou contended against Him? 
 
 since He doth not reply to all His words; 
 for once God speaketh, 
 
 a second time He looketh not back thereon. 
 15 In a dream, a vision of the night, 
 
 when deep sleep falleth upon men, 
 in slumbers upon the bed: 
 then He openeth the ear of men, 
 
 and putteth a seal upon their correction, 
 that He may withdraw man from the deed, 
 
 and pride may remove far from the man, 
 may keep back his soul from destruction, 
 
 his life from rushing upon the weapon : 
 
 mother-earth ("B3, see note on xxx. 18), vv. 3 — 7 ; only Job has uttered aloud 
 thoughts such as too seriously violate the majesty of God, and which he must 
 now reply to, vv. 8 — 12. 
 
 2. The chief subject of this speech, namely, the refutation of some of the 
 utterances and thoughts of Job ; to which the speech passes xxxiii. 8. From 
 Job's speeches his opinion that he was innocent, is specially mentioned, that 
 without cause God treated him as an enemy: ver. 10 i and ver. 11 are taken 
 verbally from xiii. 24 6, 27, but otherwise much is freely altered, as also it is 
 only here that the words !]", nxisn occur; ri3S burden also is intentionally 
 substituted, ver. 7, for C|3 xiii. 21, and 7"p, ver. 6, is new with this meaning, 
 comp, the Aram, f']!? a piece. The refutation, vv. 13 — 30, proceeds therefrom, 
 that man acts foolishly when he opposes the divine declarations, which when 
 once they have gone forth from God are never altered, since, not like a man, 
 who is responsible to others. He never reverts again to utterances which He has 
 once made, so as perhaps to amend them (^"iw, ver. 14, as xxxv. 13), vv. 13, 14. 
 Accordingly He does not withdraw the correction which He has inflicted upon 
 men, and man must regard suffering as a chastisement unalterably determined 
 upon and audibly announced by God : but if the sufferer will be admonished 
 and made better under his sufferings by the revelations (e.i/., in dreams, ver. 15 
 elaborated after iv. 13, comp. Gen. xx.), which come to him during and througli 
 them, he may then still be delivered in a glorious manner, since God designs 
 by such chastisement and revelation simply to draw man from further destruc- 
 tion. This line of thought is followed in a condensed manner, vv. 15 — 18; but 
 
334 ELIHU. 1.— Ch. xxxii., xxxiii. 
 
 he is chastened in pain upon his bed 
 
 with the still vigorous multitude of his limbs, 
 20 and his desire of life maketh him loath bread, 
 his soul the desired food; 
 — already his flesh wasted awaj- from comeliness, 
 
 and the leanness of his limbs scarcelj^ suffers them to 
 
 be seen, 
 and near to destruction is his soul, 
 
 his life to the angels of death — : 
 if there is then for him an angel, 
 a mediator, one of the thousand 
 to declare to man his uprightness, 
 and He hath compassion on him and saith: 
 
 "deliver him from going down into destruction! 
 I have found a ransom:" 
 25 then his flesh becometh fresher than in boyhood, 
 
 he returneth to the days of his youth, 
 
 then the wonderful aspects of this deliverance are further particularly described, 
 on the one liaud, the worst and immediate destruction which is already pos- 
 sible, on the other, the rapid, surprising recovery effected by the deliverance, 
 vv. 19 — 28; and all this is again briefly summed up in conclusion, vv. 29, 30. 
 Chief points therefore are ver. 16 : He openeth their ear, that those who have 
 long been hardened and deaf to the truth receive once more open ears, and 
 sealeth (DI^!^ with 3 again xxxvii. 7) precisely thereby their chastisemeid, so that 
 they clearly perceive their suffering is meant to improve them as correction 
 from God, comp. ver. 19, xxxvi. 10; also to pass into the missile for to rush 
 into open, present mortal peril, ver. 18, is expressed peculiarly xxxvi. 12, comp, 
 ver. 24 i, ver. 28 a. If the reaaing ver. 17 a is correct, we must interpret the 
 clause, in order that man may remove '^'w?'.'? in the bad sense (like /acinus) 
 evil deed; but here it is the action of God which is intended to be described, 
 as what follows likewise shows: therefore a better reading is "iuyt:, or better 
 still "'i'.?^'?, comp. ver. 30. As now the further description of this chastisement, 
 vv. 19 — 22, is really already connected with vv. 16 — 18, the continuation is 
 made with vav conseq. nsim, so that this passage becomes at the same time 
 the protasis to vv. 25 — 28, § 357 a. after a second conditional sentence has 
 been parenthetically inserted, vv. 23, 24. Accordingly as follows : if he is 
 painfully chastised, together with all his as yet fresh, youthful bones (xx. 11a; 
 ace. to the Q'ri ai'^) upon his bed of sickness, and already loathes all food 
 (now a parenthetical sentence to make the picture graphic, vv. 21, 22: his flesh 
 wastes away 'S'^'s from appearance, form, comeliness, losing all appearance, then 
 the Kthlhh '%^.: and the leanness of his limbs = his most wasted limbs are not 
 
ELinU. 1.— Cir. xxxii— xxxiii. 335 
 
 prayeth to God and He is favourable imto him, 
 
 causeth his face to behold joy, 
 
 giveth anew to the man his righteousness; 
 he singeth before men and saith : 
 
 "I have sinned and made the straiglit crooked, 
 yet the like was not rendered me. 
 He redeemed me from passing into destruction, 
 
 my life now enjoyeth the sight of the light." — 
 Behold, all this doeth God, 
 
 twice, thrice with a man, 
 30 to bring back his soul from destruction, 
 
 that he may give light in the light of life. 
 Attend, Job, hearken unto me ! 
 
 hold thy peace, and I will speak! 
 if thou hast words, return me an answer, 
 
 speak, for I desire to justify thee: 
 if not, hearken thou unto me, 
 
 hold thy peace, and I will teach thee wisdom! 
 
 to It seen any more at all, have lost appearance and comeliness, so that he is 
 already near to the slayers or angels of death; tliis definite distinction of angels 
 of death and of life, occurs here for the first time) : if then one of the many 
 angels of life or mediators (V^^'^ in quite another sense than xvi. 20), whose 
 work it is to show to man his uprightness, the way of uprightness which he 
 must walk in, is for him (which can only be after man really follows the me- 
 diation which is offered to him ace. ver. 16) and God permits this mediator to 
 redeem him (iry-E appears to be ace. ~"E, ver. 28, a false orthograpliy for 
 ■irx-E)^ accepting the intercession of the angel and the prayer of repentance, 
 ver. 2C, as ransom of the lost man, then his sufferings have quickly fled, 
 ver. 25, so that upon his prayer, being translated into circumstances of rejoicing 
 and made again to share in the divine justification ("p"^ is not in this sense 
 found in the earlier book), he can in the presence of all men loudly proclaim 
 his marvellous deliverance, as Ps. xxxii. Ver. 28 to be read ace. to the K'thibh. — 
 As if he already anticipated at the end that Job would be unable to make any 
 reply, although he does not desire to hinder him, he requests at the close, 
 vv. 31—^33, at once silent attention to the following speech. 
 
336 ELIHU. 2.-^Ch. xxxiv. 
 
 2. Ch. xxxiv. 
 
 1 And Elihu answered and said : 
 
 Hear, ye wise, my words, 
 
 ye understanding, give ear unto me! 
 since the ear trieth words, 
 
 as the palate tasteth for eating; 
 justice let us choose for ourselves, 
 
 acknowledge amongst us what is good! — 
 5 But Job said: "I am right, 
 
 yet God hath taken from me my right, 
 notwithstanding my right I must lie, 
 
 my wound is incurable — without guilt!" 
 — Who is a man like Job, 
 
 that drinketh blasphemy like water, 
 and walketh of one mind with evil doers, 
 
 to go with men full of wickedness: 
 since he even saith, "a man hath no profit 
 
 if he delighteth to be with God!" 
 10 Therefore, men of understanding, hearken unto me! 
 
 far be from God a wickedness, 
 from the Almighty an injustice! 
 for everyone's work He recompenseth to him, 
 
 and as everyone doeth, He sendeth upon him. — 
 
 1. Vv. 2 — IG: again a somewhat long introduction. It begins already with 
 increased confidence by the appeal to all wise men to hear the words of the 
 man who is determined in their midst and with their help to seek what is most 
 just and good, vv. 2 — 4, ver. 2 from xii. 11. He will now refute the notion 
 of Job, that God is unjust towards him, vv. 5, 6 (ver. 5 h from xxvii. 2 ; ver. 6 
 V» as X. 7, xvi. 17, notwithstanding, in spite of my right I lie according to God's 
 sentence, therefore I may not maintain my right, and if I do so, I appear as 
 guilty; ■'Sn after vi. 4, xvi. 9, xix. 11, but iüi3S after Mic. i. 9), with regard to 
 which notion, so daringly expressed, Elihu cannot help uttering at once his 
 horror, because according to it Job must like acknowledged blasphemers main- 
 tain that godliness is unprofitable, which could really be inferred from ch. xxi., 
 xxiv., vv. 7 — 9 (ver. lb from xv. 16; '^t'.^.^!', ver. ih, ace. § 351 c), and with 
 regard to which all wise men will agree with Elihu when he maintains the 
 exact opposite, vv. 10, 11. Really, if the one consideration only is kept in 
 view, that IJe is the one God who superintends and governs everytliing, who 
 
ELIIIU. 2— Cii. xxxiv. 337 
 
 Surely too! God doeth not wickedness, 
 
 the Almighty perverteth not justice: 
 who inspecteth man upon the earth i, 
 
 and who then observeth the whole Avorld? 
 should He give heed to Himself only, 
 
 gather unto Himself His spirit and breath, 
 15 then all flesh would die together, 
 
 man would return to dust! 
 so if there is yet understanding, hear this, 
 
 give ear to the sound of my w^ords: 
 
 Will also one that hateth right be able to control? 
 
 or wilt thou condemn the powerful-righteous One? 
 Him who saith to a king, "thou worthless one!" 
 
 and "wicked" to the nobles, 
 
 sustains the world not at the call of outward force and compulsion but from 
 pure grace and mercy (inasmuch as all life flows from and returns to Ilim), 
 then it appears clearly enough that it is impossible He sliould be unjust, inas- 
 much as from Him alone all life, law, and preservation proceed. Hence EliLu 
 calls upon Job, if he supposes that he still possesses any intelligence, to further 
 think out attentively this true proposition, vv. 12 — 16. The phrase ver. 13 a 
 becomes plain from the exactly similar passage xxxvi. 22, 23, who examineth 
 against him (man, ver. 11, in order to punish him if necessary) the earth and 
 everything that is done by man upon it? some one else than God? "s-s 
 therefore here and xxxvii. 12 ace. § 173 Ä; Dvu as ver. 23, iv. 20, xxiv. 12, 
 hence the thought is continued immediately, ver. 14, with the same verb in this 
 signification. 
 
 2. Vv. 17 — 37. It is intended therefore to prove here that God precisely 
 as God, i.e.. from His inmost nature, cannot be unjust : and the further proof 
 of this proceeds from the fundamental thought which had just been thrown out, 
 in order then gradually to revert more particularly to Job's case. From the 
 idea of God as the highest, ultimate ruler, follows of itself, vv. 17 — 20, that 
 He cannot be unjust, because government is everywhere and always founded 
 upon equal justice and is dissolved by the contrary; God is the righteous and 
 mighty at the same time (""33 p"~s a kind of compound epithet, ace. § 270 d), 
 inasmuch as He would not be able to exercise the highest power without the 
 highest justice, nor the latter without the former, as we always see that He is 
 both at once ; He who without distinction of persons judges all men alike, in 
 that He often quickly, as in one night, punishes the potentates of the earth also, 
 so that they vanish not by an ordinary, visible, i.e., merely human, hand and 
 
 * So in both editions; but see the comment. Tr. 
 
338 ELIHU. 2.— Ch. xxxiv. 
 
 who payeth no consideration to princes, 
 
 acknowledgeth not the rich before the poor, 
 because they are all the work of His hands: 
 20 suddenly they die at midnight, 
 
 they stagger in crowds and pass away; 
 
 the strong man is removed — not by a hand. — 
 For His eyes are upon everyone's ways, 
 
 and all his steps He seeth; 
 there is no darkness and no gloom, 
 
 that there evildoers might hide themselves: 
 for He payeth not first heed to one, 
 
 that a man should go to God for judgment: 
 He breaketh in pieces the mighty without examination, 
 
 and causeth others to stand in their stead! 
 25 Wherefore He knoweth their deeds, 
 
 and overturneth them at night, so that they are crushed, 
 as wicked men He putteth them to scorn 
 
 at the place where all see it, 
 — they who only therefore departed from Him 
 
 and considered not any of His ways, 
 in order to bring the complaint of the weak before Him, 
 
 that He might hear the complaint of the sufferers: 
 
 power, but by the invisible operation of the highest righteousness (comp, with 
 ver. 20 c Zech. iv. 6, Dan. ii. 34) ; ver. 18 ^'3S<~ should be read. — If it is asked 
 how this can be, the answer follows, vv. 21 — 30, that He thus judges because 
 everything is seen by Him, vv. 21, 22, because He has no need first to observe 
 whether the guilty person comes to judgment or not — to whom again but to 
 Himself? (just as Job, in fact, always appealed to God), but with Him the 
 examination and the judgment are one and the same, it being unnecessary in 
 His case that a long and doubtful question and inquiry should be first put with 
 regard to the guilt or innocence of a suspected person as is the case with hu- 
 man judges, vv. 22, 23 ; moreover, for the reason precisely that he knows every- 
 thing. He also knows what is specially decisive — the deeds of the potentates — 
 and punishes them quickly {at night, as ver. 20«) and publicly before the eyes 
 of all, just as if they were common criminals who are executed under public 
 scorn, vv. 25, 26 (finri instead of them, as if they were such, comp. ver. 18), 
 these infatuated potentates, who, when their fate is looked at from the point of 
 view of this their end, seem to have departed from God and to liave fallen 
 into unrighteousness simply in order to bring the complaint of tliose wlio are 
 unjustly tormented the more certainly before God's throne, vv. 27, 28: He 
 
ELinU. 2— Ch. xxxiv. 339 
 
 then He keepeth quiet — and who will condemn Him? 
 hideth His face — and who will behold Him? 
 both from a nation and a man, 
 30 that profane men may not reign, 
 nor snares of the people. — 
 For one saith to God even: 
 
 "I suffer what I do not transgress; 
 what I see not teach Thou me that; 
 
 if I did iniquity, I will not do it again!" 
 according to thy mind shall He recompense, that thou 
 
 deniedst, 
 that thou choosest and not /? 
 — Yet what thou knowest speak! 
 understanding men will say to me, 
 
 the wise man that hearkeneth unto me: 
 35 "Job speaketh not with understanding, 
 
 and his words have no wisdom." — 
 that Job might be tried to the utmost, 
 
 on account of the answers amongst bad men, 
 
 tlien indeed, taketh rest, i.e., giving no more help (Ps. Ixxxiii. 2, Zecli. i. 12, 13) 
 and turning His face away, conning with punishment both upon a nation and 
 upon all persons of the earth — but who will condemn Him on that account, or 
 who will hinder Him? — since He really is angry only in order to overthrow 
 injurious potentates who mislead the people, therefore precisely for the sake 
 of justice! vv. 29, 30. — And when the matter is looked at negatively from the 
 other side, it is equally certain, that man as a creature may not speak to God 
 as his equal, charging Him with injustice and demanding defiantly an account 
 from Him (ver. 32 a nrrrK •'"'sVa is the object of the verb "'Sin : that which is 
 beside vhat I see teach Thou me, i.e., what I do not see, what is unseen by 
 me, comp. § 333 i, a similar construction to that of ver. 31 J), or promising 
 amendment if he should have done wrong, as if that were doubtful ! whence 
 would follow really, that God would be compelled according to the man's own 
 notion to treat him as he demanded in folly rejecting (God Himself!) or de- 
 siring! vv. 31 — 33 i: and here, as he discusses this supreme infatuation, Elihu 
 is so profoundly moved by divine inspiration that he even uses / instead of 
 God, ver. ZZh, as if God Himself spoke, and being unable to speak calmly 
 further on this point he hastens to conclude, since Job's folly is now perfectly 
 clear to all and nothing further can be desired than that God Himself should 
 try him most thoroughly! vv. 33c — 37. In this passage a late word is 
 -as^a, ver. 25, as generally "Ja» in the sense of to do, Ecc. ix. 1, Dan. iii. 1 ; 
 "3S, ver. 3G. which can only be the expression of a strong desire, §§ 101 <•, 
 
340 ELIHU. 3.— Ch. XXXV. 
 
 that he addeth to his guilt further evil, 
 acteth scornfully in our midst, 
 
 and multiplieth his words against God. 
 
 358 a note, is rare. If the divine /, ver. 33 b, in Elihu's mouth does not owe its 
 origin to an involuntary recollection of the language of the earlier prophets, 
 we may also suppose that he here inserts some words of an ancient prophet 
 which were at that time well known. 
 
 3. Ch. XXXV. 
 
 1 And Elihu answered and said : 
 
 Hast thou considered that as right 
 
 when thou thoughtest, "I am more right than God", 
 when thou sayest even, "what then doth it profit thee", 
 
 "what then do I gain more than if I sinned?" 
 / will reply to thee with words, 
 
 and to thy friends as well as thee! 
 5 Look unto the heavens, hehold, 
 
 survey the skies, too high for thee! 
 if thou sinnest — what wilt thou do against Him? 
 
 if thy transgressions are many, — what doest thou to 
 
 Him? 
 if thou art righteous, — what givest thou to Him? 
 
 and what will He receive from thy hand? 
 for men like thee is thy wickedness, 
 
 for mortals thy righteousness! — 
 
 In this case, almost without any introduction, as if already quite sure of his 
 position against Job, he begins forthwith to quote the words which have now 
 to be refuted, vv. 2 — 4: what has to be refuted is the idea that man gains 
 nothing by godliness, an idea which easily follows from complaining of un- 
 righteousness (ver. 2 b) and was also previously mentioned, xxxiv. 9, as arising 
 therefrom : the proposition might be derived from ch. xxi., xxiv. (yet contrary 
 to Job's meaning) ; and because this speech is intended only to refute this error, 
 which had already been mentioned but not refuted in the previous one, xxxiv. 9, 
 this its brief, abrupt opening is explained, since it is meant to have the ap- 
 pearance of a supplement to the previous speech. Ver. 3 a is an indirect quota- 
 tion of another's speech, as xix. 28 b. — The refutation is : least of all can the 
 idea of profit be applied to divine things, because man can neither injure 
 the infinitely exalted One by sin nor profit Him by righteousness, on the con- 
 trary, simply injures or profits himself and his fellow men, vv. 5 — 8 (being very 
 
ELITIU. 3.— Cn xxxv. 341 
 
 On account of a multitude of Avrong there is complaint, 
 
 a man crieth out on account of the violence of many: 
 10 and yet never thinketh, "where is God ray Maker, 
 
 who giveth songs of gladness in the night, 
 who maketh us more instructed than the beasts of the earth, 
 
 and wiser than the birds of heaven!" 
 there they complain — and He answereth not — 
 
 because of the pride of evil men : 
 only vanity God heareth not, 
 
 and the Almighty regardeth it not. — 
 Well then, how sayest thou: "Thou regardest it not; 
 
 the contention is before Thee — but Thou waitcst for it!" 
 15 therefore, because His wrath hath not yet punished. 
 
 He knoweth not of the foolishness quite well! 
 But Job — vanity his mouth spi'eadeth abroad, 
 
 without knowledge he heapeth up words. 
 
 similar to xxii. 2, 3, 12): if therefore man, as often happens, cries in vain for 
 deliverance from violence, it comes therefrom that he wildly complains amid 
 continual sin and the ignoring of the truth of Him, who really eternally (even 
 in the darkest night, ver. 10, xxxiv. 25) delivers surprisingly, wlio has appointed 
 man from the creation to know Himself vv. 9 — 13 (as to oy^V'J, ver. 9, sec 
 § 179a; py^ in the Hiph. ace. to later usage, Jon. iii. 7). How much less is 
 therefore gain and deliverance possible,- if Job charges God directly with the 
 injustice of not being willing to regard the case which he has laid before Him, of 
 waiting for it as if it had not yet been laid before Him (since God, surely, 
 knows everything, long since therefore that which Job supposes He does not 
 regard) : whence would then follow that God does not at all regard it seriously, 
 simply because He has hitherto not punished such folly! (but Job will soon see 
 the contrary!). The suffix of the 3rd person in tje?, ver. 14, is a too rapid 
 variation from the direct quotation with the 2nd person, and ought probably to 
 be corrected into "f-, or better still ^^'i"'^";"!, comp. Ps. xxxvii. 7, should be 
 read, as '^"n in this sense does not occur elsewhere. I's, ver. 15, is used 
 unexpectedly alone and before the verb, and is probably on that account to be 
 taken so that together with the perf. it expresses our not yet, literally it is not 
 that Ue hath examined, as otherwise the simple negative would have sufficed to 
 express this idea. With «'S comp. ilwJ and iujJujj^: unless SOE transgression 
 should be read with the LXX ; K'l is the apodosis, § 345 a. 
 
342 ELIHU. 4— Ch. xxxvi., xxxvii. 
 
 4. Ch. xxxvL, xxxvii. 
 1 And Elihu said further: 
 
 Wait for me a littie, that I may teach thee: 
 
 for I have yet to speak of God; 
 I will lift my knowledge far hence ^, 
 
 and to my Maker ascribe what is due. 
 For truly, my words are not lies, 
 
 a man of perfect knowledge is with thee. 
 
 5 Behold, God is mighty — but without contempt, 
 
 mighty in power of understanding: 
 He permitteth not the wicked to live, 
 
 but the right of the sufferers He granteth. 
 He withdraweth not from the righteous His eyes, 
 and the kings worthy of the throne, 
 them He causeth to reign ever exalted. 
 
 1. xxxvi. 2 — 4. Rising at last to the Highest Himself in his thought and 
 speaking with great amplitude in the praise of God, Elihu seeks by that means 
 also to remind Job at the same time of his errors, as he here announces with 
 greatest confidence in his own knowledge. Si D"'>3P, ver. 4, can only be under- 
 stood ace. xxxvii. 16. 
 
 2. xxxvi. 5 — 25. The immediate aspect of God which is to be celebrated, 
 as might be expected from the chief matter of Elihu's speeches, is that which 
 refers purely to human affairs, accordingly His righteousness, vv. 5 — 15, with 
 which is then connected the appropriate admonition and application to Job, 
 vv. 16 — 25. The highest righteousness, which ace. ch. xxxiv. is associated with 
 equally great power and wisdom, is inexorable towards sinners as such, but for 
 all men who seek after it, although outwardly very despicable, already sunk in 
 the deepest misery, it becomes the ever merciful, provident grace and redemp- 
 tion, ver. 5 a answers to ver. 6 b and ver. 7 a ; and both aspects of the divine 
 righteousness are exhibited in the case of all men without distinction, including 
 the potentates of the earth : the kings for the throne,^ i.e., who deserve the throne, 
 them He causeth to reign perpetually*, that they may rule exaltedly, ver. 7 b, c, 
 
 ' In his Grammar, § 218 5, Ewald renders p^n^'a^ von iceitem her, but here 
 fernhin. Tr. 
 
 * According to the construction of aiü^ with "V Ps. ix. 5, one might also 
 consider as possible the meaning aiid tvith kings upon the throne He causeth 
 them (the righteous) to reign. But this would be contrary to the accents, or 
 
ELIIIU. 4.— Cii. sxxvi., xxxvii. 343 
 
 But if they are bound in fetters 
 
 taken captive in the bands of affliction; 
 and He maketh known to them their doing 
 
 and their sins, how they were defiant, 
 10 and openeth thus their ear to correction, 
 
 saith that they must turn from evil : 
 if they hear and submit themselves, 
 
 then they end their days in prosperity, 
 and their years in pleasure; 
 if they hear not, then they rush upon the weapons, 
 
 and die without knowledge, 
 who with reprobate heart put aside wrath, 
 
 complain no more that He bindeth them ; 
 though in youth their soul die, 
 
 their life in the midst of the unchaste, 
 15 yet He delivereth the afflicted in his affliction, 
 
 and openeth in distress their ear. — 
 
 yet the afflicted, and, precisely by their affliction, warned as by a divine voice 
 which is then heard (vv. 9, 10 from xxxiii. 15 — 19), will if they only submit 
 themselves to correction ("33? in a new meaning, from Ps. ii. 11) by following 
 that voice, yet be gloriously delivered (D*tt"y3 see § 172 5), but in the reverse 
 case must if they continue in their infatuation (iv. 20) perish, by their destruc- 
 tion itself laying aside their foolish defiance as well as their senseless complaint 
 against God : although such an one may be bent on dying even in his strong 
 youth under the greatest sufferings of the divine correction just like debilitated 
 unchaste men (a"^"p are xaic(p(JiaTOt, purgamenta, offscourings ; ^s amongst, as 
 one of their number, xxxiv. 36 Z>), he can nevertheless yet as a humble sufferer 
 be warned and saved, vv. 14, 15; the two sentences therefore form at the same 
 time antitheses, ace. § 357 J, and the similarity of the words xxxiii. 16, 20 is 
 also in favour of this interpretation. — The application, vv. 16 — 25, proceeds upon 
 the supposition that Job has been led astray to folly by too great prosperity 
 and superabundance of outward possessions (which the three friends also thought, 
 and generally Elihu is not much superior to them), as now the plain punish- 
 ments showed : And (tl^i somewhat more emphatic than ~?, but peculiar to 
 
 rather to the entire structure of the clauses, as the strong emphasis on aJi^^ 
 cannot then be explained; it would also be contrary to Elihu's way of 
 thinking, and moreover something far too exalted and unexpected in this con- 
 nection; besides, a thought likes this stands in quite another connection and is 
 intelligible 1 Sam. ii. 8, and quoted thence Ps. cxiii. 7, 8. It is rather the words 
 of Job xii. 13 which are present to Elihu's mind in vv. 7 — 13. 
 
344 ELIHU. 4— Ch. xxxvi., xxxvii. 
 
 And thee also hath led astray more than biting need 
 
 the wide place, in which is no straitness, 
 the quietness of thy table, full of fat: 
 and with the judgment of the wicked thou art full, 
 
 judgment and sentence follow each other. 
 Yea violence may not lead thee astray through abundance, 
 
 let not the large ransom turn thee aside! 
 shall thy wealth set itself in array — without distress, 
 
 with all the means of force? 
 20 be not eager for the night, 
 
 that nations may vanish upon the spot! 
 take heed, turn not to vanity : 
 
 for to this thou inclinest rather than to affliction. 
 
 these speeches) there hath misled thee more than the mouth of netd, devouring 
 need, a breadth in which there is no straitness, i.e., an unlimited breadth (3ni 
 appears as ueut. with the fern., of the verb, which is rare, see § 174<7) as 
 well as the quietness, or the undisturbed enjoyment of thy sumptuous table; and 
 now thou art full of judgment or the punishments of a sinner, which even suc- 
 ceed each other in a long series, vv. 16, 17. Yea, may this not still further 
 continue to be the case ! vv. 18 — 21 : riches (Httrr would be used as xxix. 6 in- 
 stead of T^ann fat, and the fem. would be construed as neut. with the masc. of 
 the verb, which occurs in late writers ; but it is probably better to read D^n 
 v;rong) that they do not lead thee astray ("It as Prov. v. 6, § 337 b) through abun- 
 dance ! (pE*>ü as XX. 22, corresponding to the following 3"^ ; the signification to 
 scorn of God, pED xxxiv. 26, 37, does not readily adapt itself to this connection) 
 and let not the largeness of the ransom, i.e., the great wealth of outward power, 
 wherewith at other times a man can generally purchase immunity from outward 
 evils, mislead thee ! comp. Ps. xlix. ; how infatuated would that be ! shall thy 
 wealth (y^'.ö the abstract noun of ?i'>ü xxxiv. 19, another word not found in the 
 earlier book) prepare itself with all other means of war with which defence is 
 made against human enemies, without distress, with no external distress at hand, 
 since the enemy that troubles thee is God against whom a man cannot arm 
 himself, comp. ver. 16 a; surely, Job does not desire to provoke a great cala- 
 mity, by not taking warning from a less serious one : pant not after the night, 
 that the dark night of general calamity may come upon the earth (xxxv. 10 6), 
 that whole nations may perish (lit. ^hv, tolli, taken up, vanish, perish) under 
 themselves, i.e., where they stand, on the- spot, since whole nations often suffer 
 from the infatuated blindness of a great man, xxxiv. 29 c. "^na, ver. 21, does 
 not occur elsewhere with -S in the sense of to choose, if it is read we should 
 then have to understand it thus : thither (to vanity) thou turnest rather than to 
 suffering, ver. 15: but probably ink = "jnia, as "Isa." xlviii. 10, is better, for 
 
ELIHU. 4.— Ch. xxxvi., xxxvii. 345 
 
 Behold, God worketh loftily in His power, 
 
 who is like Him ruler? 
 who hath ever examined for Him His way, 
 
 and who hath said, "Thou didst iniquity?" 
 remember thou to exalt His doing, 
 
 which men have often sung: 
 '25 all mortals admire it, 
 
 men, as they behold it from afar! 
 
 Behold, God is more glorious — than we know, 
 
 the number of His years — it is unsearchable: 
 thus He draweth up drops of water, 
 
 which purify rain as His vapour, 
 with which the skies flow down 
 
 and distil over many people : 
 still more, how can one understand the sails of wide clouds, 
 
 crashing thunders of His tent, 
 
 thfit reason (that thou shouldst not turn to vanity) 7i;ast thou tried by affliction, 
 although we should then expect "^sa. The last reason for all this is, vv. 22 — 25, 
 
 the infinite greatness of God C^^i-, ver. 22, Lord, related to ^yo, vir, is quite 
 
 Aramaic, SuvaaTT)? in LXX correctly), which can so little be charged with an 
 act of injustice, that, on the contrary, when only beheld and apprehended 
 from a distance, it is universally celebrated and admired by every thoughtful 
 man. 
 
 3. xxxvi. 26 — xxxvii. 24. The praise of God with reference to nature, 
 xxxvi. 26 — xxxvii. 13, and the admonition likewise attached to it, xxxvii. 14 — 24, 
 are still longer : the poet has here present to his mind evidently much that has 
 been said in the speeches of Jahve, ch. xxxviii. and xxxix., although his imi- 
 tation falls far behind its model. After the general introduction, ver. 26, the 
 speech starts with the rain, clouds, and thunderstorms, vv. 27 — 33, lingers then 
 particularly by the thunder, xxxvii. 1 — 5, which to the mind of the ancients was 
 the most divine of nature's phenomena (comp. Ps. xxix.), and reverts at last to 
 the clouds xxxvii. 6 — 13, having referred to some other phenomena of the in- 
 animate world. According to vv. 27, 28 even the creation of the ordinary rain 
 is wonderful, in thab drops of water, drawn up from the dirty earth, bring forth 
 the pure rain, which serves at the same time as vapour, or a vapour-like cloud- 
 covering, of God : but it is still more wonderful (DN C]« is varied by '3 tl^» 
 § 354 c) when in a tempest the clouds spread themselves like the broad sail of 
 a great ship, in the mysterious centre of which crashes a deep voice, whilst He 
 veils Himself primarily in light, which sometimes emits its flashes, but then 
 
346 ELIHÜ. 4.— Cn. xxxvi., xxxvii. 
 
 30 if He spreadeth His light around Him, 
 
 and thereupon covereth the foundations of the sea! 
 for by them He judgeth the nations, 
 
 giveth food also in great abundance: 
 both hands He covereth with light 
 
 and sendeth it forth against the adversary; 
 Him His thunder-call announceth, 
 xxxvii. the cattle even that He is approaching. 
 1 Yea truly at this my heart is alarmed 
 
 and leapeth up from its place: 
 hear hear attentively the commotion of His voice, 
 
 and the rumbling coming from His mouth; 
 forth under the whole heavens He sendeth it, 
 
 His light unto the wings of the earth : 
 after it roareth the voice, 
 
 He thundereth with the proud voice : 
 
 and should not find them, when His voice resoundeth? 
 5 God thundereth with His voice marvellously, 
 
 who doeth great things, more than we know! 
 
 further in the darkest water-clouds which seem to be drawn from, the founda- 
 tions of the sea, vv. 29, 30 (]?! ver. 30 = if, comp. §§ 103 5^, 355 5, is not the 
 same as the "jn before 5X God, vv. 5, 22, 26, which begins a new description 
 of His wonders) ; yet He must be in possession of this power in order that He 
 may dispense life and nourishment no less than judgment and punishment, when 
 He flings forth His light (lightning), vv. 31, 32, comp, xxxvii. 12, 13 {"S'ifo 
 appears to be equivalent to dvavTio?, adversarius) \ even the cattle announce 
 like the thunder the approach of Him who in His tempest maketh the earth 
 tremble, e.g., the peacock, as the poets of India often describe, ver. 33.' But 
 it is particularly the thunder, with its strange, mysterious sound (xxvi. 14 c), 
 which excites most intensely astonishment and agitation, xxxvii. 1 — 5, as like 
 the light (lightning) it passes in a moment under the whole heaven to the 
 ends of the earth, and resounds after the approaching God just as it had sounded 
 before Him ace. xxxvi. 33 : should not He, whose voice thus makes itself heard 
 everywhere with terror, reach and find men, even if they flee from Him from 
 fear of punishment? aip.3? is as in Syriac to pursue, investigare correctly in Vulg., 
 
 * The ?]*< ver. 33 6 is more loosely inserted, the cattle indeed (tell of Him) 
 that Ue . . . ; the poet uses this particle often, and the construction of it is in his 
 case more than usually free. — The animals are likewise not passed over in a 
 similar description xxxvii. 8. 
 
ELIIIU. 4.— Cu. xxxvi., xxxvii. 347 
 
 Thus to the snow He saith: fall ou the earth! 
 
 and to the heavy rain, 
 
 to the heavy rains of His splendour; 
 the hand of all people He sealeth, 
 
 for a sign to all men of His creation, 
 and wild beasts go into coverts, 
 
 and rest in their dens; 
 from the secret chamber cometh a storm, 
 
 and from the severe winds cold, 
 10 from the breath of God ice is given, 
 
 the breadth of the water is straitened; 
 with wet also He loadeth the clouds, 
 
 scattereth the cloud-mass of his lightning: 
 which turneth then round about, 
 
 — guided by Him as men do 
 
 whatsoever He commandeth them — 
 over the wide land and earth, 
 either for correction, if it is for the land, 
 
 or for mercy He causeth them to come. — 
 Give ear unto these things, Job, 
 
 stand still, consider God's wonders! 
 
 a new Aram, word, as is also T-.-.v to let go, send forth, comp. li-^. The com- 
 mencement of ver. 6 like that of xxxvi. 27, specification after the same general 
 proposition. The examples, vv. 6 — 13, are taken from the rainy and snow 
 season of each year: snow and heaviest rain ver. 6 (where S']^!J stands in an 
 unusual manner for fall!), in consequence of which both the labour of man is 
 stopped, so that the hand which is at other times so active in the field now 
 remains as it were shut up at home, as for a sign to men that they are only 
 created beings, subject to a higher will, and also the wild animals seek their 
 dens, vv. 6 — 8 ; then connected therewith stormy northwinds, blowing from 
 hidden celestial chambers, cold, ice as if blown there by God's cold wind 
 (xxxviii. 22, Ps. cxxxv. 7), vv. 9, 10; lastly the broad cloud of his light, laden 
 with iret (■"), through which His lightning flashes, which long guided by Ilim, 
 according to the requirements of the divine conduct of human affairs, turns 
 hither and thither over the earth, in order at last to empty itself either de- 
 structively for correction («/ that is for its land, must fall upon the land be- 
 longing to the cloud), or fruitfully for mercy, vv. 11 — 13; comp, also Jdhrhb. 
 der Bibl. Wis». IV. p. 66 sq. — The application to Job, vv. 14 — 24, refers iro- 
 nically to the impossibility of contending with Him who is thus incomparably 
 powerful in the creation, vv. 14 — 20, in order then to conclude the more em- 
 
348 ELIHU 4 — Ch. xxxvi.. xxxvü. 
 
 15 understandest thou how God giveth to them commands 
 
 and maketh the light of His clouds to shine: 
 understandest thou the sails of the wide clouds, 
 
 the wondrous works of the perfectly wise Oner 
 thou, whose garments are warmed 
 
 when He quieteth the earth from the south: 
 dost thou with Him arch the skies, 
 
 which are firm as a molten mirror: 
 tell us what we shall say unto Him I 
 
 we cannot make preparation — from darkness I 
 20 will it he narrated to Him that I speak ? 
 
 did anyone ever say, that he will be destroyed: 
 Accordingly, men never yet saw the light, 
 
 as it shineth in the clouds, 
 
 and the wind passing over hath purified them; 
 from the north cometh gold, 
 
 yet an awful splendour covereth God, 
 
 phatically with the proof of the necessity of man's submission to Him. vv. 21 — 24. 
 Does Job really understand and can he at his pleasure (like God) manage 
 either those terrible signs of the dark heavens (described at greater length 
 above, rxxvi. 27 — xxrvii. 12). w. 15. 16 (T-v": is evidently nothing more than 
 a variation of "^~E-. xxxvi 29). or the exactly contrary wonders of the per- 
 fectly bright summer heavens (ver. 18 after Gen. L 6)? — the creature who con- 
 tributes nothing more to the summer than that he painfully feels the heat as 
 soon as not he. but God makes the earth quite still and calm from the south 
 by a sultry wind! w. 17, 18- At all events Elihn with his friends does not 
 arrogate to himself anything of this kind, he will not prepare himself for a 
 struggle with Him — in the consciousness of his own weakness, darkness and 
 defective understanding compared with the pure light Tver. 22 S'. or Job would 
 have first to tell him what he must say! no. if a man complain against God. 
 he speaks to the wind, his words never reaching the desired place, ver. 20 a. 
 as it is then foolish to lament that one is destroyed by God. ver. 20 6 Ac- 
 cordingly (T-rr as xixv. 15), though all distant, splendid precious things of 
 the earth can be beheld, ver. 22 a. comp, ixviii. 10. yet still less than the 
 radiant sunlight, even when it has by the purifying winds become quite cloud- 
 less and is quite clearly to be seen in its bright skies, is man able to discern 
 with the eye of sense Him whom the most awful splendour (»"*: placed before 
 its substantive ace. § 293 o covers, who is equally powerful and righteous 
 (ch. iiiiv) : accordingly, as also the experience of history teaches. He cannot 
 be rejected and condemned by men. but must be feared ; and all who in imaginary 
 wisdom speak proudly against Him. are not even regarded by Him and thus 
 
ELIHU. 4.— Ch xxxvi., xxxvii. 349 
 
 Him the Almighty we find not, 
 
 Him who is of exalted power 
 
 and who perverteth not justice and all righteousness: 
 therefore mortals fear Him, 
 
 He overlooketh all the wise of understanding. 
 
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 and had many traditions and legends about it, comp, in addition to the passages 
 before cited Plin. Xat. Hist. vi. 11, xxxiii. 4, Heeren's Hist. Werke, part xi. 
 p. 310, and on Kuvera's seat in the North the Hindoo Legends, e.g. in Rhode, 
 Hindus, lib. II. p. 293, further A. v. Humboldt in the Vierteljahrsschri/i 1838, 
 part iv., and Sjögern in Ausland for 1840, p. 33. Neither may it be forgotten 
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