LIBRARY THE Theological Seminary PRINCETON, N. J. Case IBS'VC14 Divis.on Shelf * 1-2.1 6? Section ok v.8. No ^ey. .._ :J* Not to be removed from the Library. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/bookofjobrhythmi08zc A COMMENTARY OX THE HOLY SCRIPTURES: CRITICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND HOMILETICAL, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MINISTERS AND STUDENTS, JOHN' PETER LANGE, D.D. raonssoB "i moLooi u rut i •• ASSISTED BY A KUUBEB OS EMINENT El I DIVINES. TRANSLATED ENLARGED, AND EDITED I-.Y PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. PROFESSOR or TBBOLOOl IS i 'BJK, IN CONNECTION WITH AMERICAN AND I LABS OF VARIOUS DENOMINATE VOL. VUXOF THE OLD TESTAMENT: THE BOOK OF JOB. WITH A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. N E W YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., G54 BROADWAY. There are now issued of fange'B Commentari) Eight Volumes on the Old Testament, and ten on the New Testament, as a follows. I. Genesis. II. Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. III. First and Second Kings. IV. Job. OLD TESTAMENT VOLUMES: V. Psalms. VI. Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and ECCLESIASTES. VII. Jeremiah and Lamentations. VIII. The Minor Prophets. In Preparation : Exodus, LnviTirr.. Numbers, and Dkotbronomy (i vol.), Isaiah (i vol.), Daniel and Ezekiel (i vol.) NEW TESTAMENT VOLUMES: I. Matthew. II. Mark and LUKE. III. John. IV. Acts. V. Romans. VI. Corinthians. VII. Gai. avians, Ephesians. Piiil- irriANs and Colossians. VIII. Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrews. IX. James, Peter, John and Jude. X. Revelation. With an Index to the New Testament por- tion. V Tlie New Testament portion, it will be observed, is compute. Each one vol. 8vo. Price per vol., in half calf, $7.50; in sheep, $6.50; in cloth, $5.00. Any or all of the volumes of Lance's Commentary sent, post or express charges paid, on receipt of the price by the publishers. THE BOOK OF JOB. A RHYTHMICAL VERSION WITH IXTRODUCTI AND ANNOTATIONS PROF. TATLl S, L. D. : LEGE, BCBBXIOTA9T, N.Y. A. OOMMENTAEY LLEB, D.D. PEori ! m M.n. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN WITH ADPIT! '- PROP. L. J. EVANS, D.D. LANE Til M, U1IIO TnnrniER itnil A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS rHILIP BCHAFF. NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTB I '.ROADWAY. Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1S74, by SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG A CO., In tho Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. .TAS. B. KODGERS CO., ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS, 62 & 54 N. Sixth St., Philadelphia. PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. This volume embraces three distinct parts, as foil" 1. A General Introduction to the I itament, by the American Editor. It corresponds to a similar Introduction to the Prophetical Books, In it- pi paration I have chiefly consulted Lowth, Herder, and EwalcL I might have considerably enlarged it by inn of Hebrew metre, rhyi . . but the great extent of thi- suggested brevity. brief phi! ■ dons, a preliminary essay, an I lt,K' Book, by Prof. a, who has made J He discuss ■■ tth rare aljility and vi, l1"' hamble and unconditional submit rill the final an in tl " The " in the un " Job an fan eudli Hi .. vii 16), though a future state is n iled though th andmytho Ver- n aims at Bdelil ■ ntuation and d "'"- latoiy or solilc >hed from ! oned ad- os in the latter part of Job which— ai > Humboldt's dictum— have no leen answered < »f the twelve Excnrsn important l'i:ir character of J and on the Angel L attention. I try of Prof. Zoeckler, prepared for 1872, pp. 821), translated by Dr. L. J. Evakb, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Literature in Lane Thi imry, i irieinnati. Truf. Evans has given a faith- ful and idiomatdi German work, and has v PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. citations, and critical remarks, mostly in the exegetical part, where the general uti- lity of the commentary seemed to require it. He has also, in the Introduction (pp. 252-262), ventured upon a new and ingenious suggestion in respect to the vexed question of the authorship, which deserves careful consideration. He ascribes it to king Hezekiah, and regards the beautiful ode after his recovery, which Isaiah has preserved (ch. xxxviii. 9-20), as the key-note rather than the echo of Job. To the same age, though not the same author, Ewald, Eenan and Merx assign the composition. But the conjectures of a post-Mosaic and post-Solomonic authorship leave it an inexplicable mystery that a pious Israelite enjoying the blessings of the theocracy and the temple service, should, in such a long poem on the highest theme, have purposely ignored the sacred laws and institutions of his Church, and gone back to a simpler and more primitive religion. Ancient literature furnishes no example of such a complete reproduction of a byegone age. For, whoever was the author, he certainly represents a patriarchal state of society and a religion of the order of Melchize- dek the cotemporary of Abraham, the mysterious Upev; to'v Veov tov bfiarov, 3aat?.ri Oxford =lnce 1741, Bishop of London, since 17". .thered. wlthaddii ||a,BoaenmuUer, Blchter, and Weiss, Oxon. 1828 English translation •"•* "1 <*<■ "■ ' ry' K-7 .'ion in 1,1s b ad., Und., 1M2). Lowtb'a wn* U the flr»t mpt at a learned and critical dta sion of II- It « Poetry. .... . • J Gottfried II.t.I.t (an almost unlTersal genius and scholar, poet, historian, philosopher and theologian, bora Full of cD.tlm.iio.-m for the purity and sublimity of Hi English ti Burlington, VL, 1833, 1 Tola, Comp. also the Brat twain Wten of Berdor on tne Study of Theology* I.. T. KoaCCmrten : VAtr desDfclUeroeie! dcr heil. S^hriJUUller uuj Jem Chr, Grelfsw., 1794 A. tiiitjler: We htil. A'unrf Jor IhbrUer. Landnhut, 1-1 1. J. I tTnlarhnta' , Poati. Konlgaberg, yt. Xlrolnx: / J. 0. Woiirii-h: ObmsienlaUo di ;■ m Hthrdcm anjso AnWcm on mitnoqut contain al.pie dUcrimlxe. Ll|«. 1 ' J. <;. Soiiiuur FoOtBOmit, ill hl» BOX. AbhmdlmgttL, Bonn, 1846, pp. II. Hapfeld: JUyttn mid Aocmtmation ... ii.ircu- Potty, Banal, by Prof. Charles M. Head In the Andorer 'Biito- Oteoa 8cu Isaac Taylor (Independent, a learned layman, d. 1886): Tas dJ>W1 <•/ t»e ZUrw fbetry, repnb., New York, , bleat Introduction by It. Win. \ Ernst Helen reflentseaai Sational-LUcratur der Ilebracr, Lelpl., 1SSG. Thosnmo: Dl and music by Lowth (see nbo. ihaner, Ban, an 1 othi r. may be found In tb„ x.Wl tola, of l toliui* Jnwuw-w. II. O.BTIC1 ES IN CTCLOPJED1 k -. «. n. Winer: JWielieoruiV** in bis / 88 1.1.1 l".«l. Betuai H ">, In Heno- ' < W. A. Wright: v. in Smith's DiotbmarytifOu i Bible, (enlarged ! DO., pp. SM9-358L Dleetel : DieUJmiul der HeoroV, in Schenkel's BioeUexicon, L, 607-615. III. COMMENTARIES ANI> D3AG0GICAL WORKS. • II. Ewald : In, DicJUeroVa All,,, I: (. i, Id 3 Parts, Gutting. LL,pp.SOO. Full of lent n search, E. Molrr: W , ■'■ • .1. T., Pruttgart, 1K84. J. «. Vnlhlntrcr: I • 1 '■' Stnttg., 18£6-'58. it. Weber i /..'• peel B it*., i8S3-'80. Tayler Lewis: Hetrfcol IVm'enn/ K„l„',ii, with an introduction (in an Appendix to h'a translation of Langc on I a sections in the Critical Introductions to the Old Teetam.nl by Dl Wrm, Haeveekiox, Km, Blece, , ilc. TU GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. \ 1. ORIGIN OF POETRY. Poetry and music — the highest and most spiritual of the fine arts — are older than the human race ; they hail from heaven and from a pre-historic age. The old legend traces the origin of music to the angels, and Eaphael paints St. Cecilia, the patroness of church music, as faintly echoing the higher and sweeter chorus from the celestial world. The same applies to poetry, for music presupposes poetry and derives from it its inspiration. Christianity was . sung into life by the anthem of the heavenly hosts, who existed before the bexaemeron or certainly before man, and who are the agents of God in the realm of nature as well as in all great epochs of revelation. The same angels raised their anthems of glory and peace at the completion of the first creation by the hand of the Almighty. Then " The morning stars sang together, And all the bods of God shouted for joy."* As poetry and music began in heaven, so they will end in heaven, and constitute a rich fountain of joy to angels and sanctified men. g2. POETRY AND RELIGION. Poetry and music came from the same God as religion itself, and are intended for the same holy end. They are the handmaids of religion, and the wings of devotion. Nothing can be more preposterous than to assume or establish an antagonism between them. The abuse can never set aside the right use. The best gifts of God are liable to the worst abuse. Some have the false notion that poetry is necessarily fictitious and antagonistic to truth. But poetry is the fittest expression of truth, its Sabbath dress, the silver picture of the golden apple, the ideal embodied in and shining through the real. " Let those," says Lowth,t " who affect to despise the Muses, cease to attempt, for the vices of a few, who may abuse the best of things, to bring into disrepute a most laudable talent. Let them cease to speak of that art as light and trifling in itself, to accuse it as profane or impious; that art which has been conceded to man by the favor of his Creator, and for the most sacred purposes ; that art, consecrated by the authority of God Himself, and by His example in His most august minis- trations." Dean Stanley says : J " There has always been in certain minds a repugnance to poetry, as inconsistent with the gravity of religious feeling. It has been sometimes thought that to speak of a book of the Bible as poetical, is a disparagement of it. It has been in many Churches thought that the more scholastic, dry, and prosaic the forms in which reli- gious doctrine is thrown, the more faithfully is its substance represented. Of all human compositions, the most removed from poetry are the Decrees and Articles of Faith, in which the belief of Christendom has often been enshrined as in a sanctuary.^ To such sentiments the towering greatness of David, the acknowledged preeminence of the Psalter are constant rebukes. David, beyond king, soldier, or prophet, was the sweet singer of Israel. Had Ra- phael painted a picture of Hebrew as of European Poetry, David would have sate aloft at the summit of the Hebrew Parnassus, the Homer of Jewish song." ? 3. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. More than one-third of the Old Testament is poetry. This fact is concealed, and much of the beauty of the Bible lost to many readers by the uniform printing of poetry and prose in our popular Bibles. The current versicular dh i- sion is purely mechanical, and does not at all correspond to the metrical structure or the laws of Hebrew versification. The poetry of the Old Testament is contained in the Poetical Books, which in the Jewish * Job xxxviil. 7. f Lectures <<>t 11. P., Stowe's ed.. p. 28. } History of the Jeieish i thiirch, IT. 164' Am. ed. \ This disparaging remark about creeds is too sweeping and inapplicable to the oldest and best, the Apostles' and Nicene creeds, which Bound like liturgical poems through all ages of Christendom, together with the Te Deum and ill of the same age. . J 3. THE rOETRY OF THE BIBLE. canon are included among the Hagiographa or Holy Writings, namely, Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Besides i Lamentations of Jere- miah, and most of the Prophets are likewise poetic in sentiment and form ; and a number of lyric songs, odes, and prophecies, ar 1 through the historical books. The poetic sections of the New Testament are the M Virgin, the ■ is of Zachariah, the Gloria in Excelsis, the -A' - in, the Pai our Lord, the Anthems of tie i:id several poetic quotations in the Epistles, e.g., 1 Tim. iii. 16. Sometimes the prose of the Bible is equal to the best poetry, and blends truth and beauty in perfect harmony. It approaches also, in touching the highest themes, the rhythmical form of Hebrew poetry, and may be arranged according to the parallelism of members.* M was a poet as well as a historian, and every prophet or seer is a poet, though not every a prophet. The same is true of the prose of the New Testament. We need only refer to the Beatitudes and the whole Sermon on the Mount, the Parables of our Lord, the Pro- logue of St. John, the seraphic description of love by St. Paul in the thirteenth chapter of second Corinthians, and his triumphant paan at the close of the eighth chapter of Boms which, in the opinion of Erasmus, surpas loquence of Cicero.f In this wider sense the Bible begins and ends with poetry. The retrospei n of the fir^t creation, and the prospective vision of the new heavens and the new earth are pre- sented in which rises to the summit of poetic beauty and power. There can be nothing more pregnant and sublime in thought and at the same time more terse aud clas eal iu expression than the sentence of the Creator: id then wu light." ere a loftier and more inspiring conception of man than that with which the Bible in- troduces him into ;' ind likeness of the infinite God? And the idea of a paradise of innocence, 1 al the threshold of history is poetry as well as reality, casting its Bunshine over t: of the fall, and opening the prospect of a future paradise regained. Then, passing from the first chapters of Genesis to the last of the tionof the new J — thein- spir: II the hymns of heavenly home-sickness from "Ad peretmii to " Jerusalem the which have cheered so many weary pilgrims on their journey through tin desert of life. tyg been an essentia] part of Jewish and Christian worship. The Psalter « turiesth ily hymn-book of the Church. I the most fruit! of Christian hymnody. Many of the finest English and German hyn I'salm alone has furnished I i number of Christian hymns, and the 46th Psalm to Luther's master-piei "EM fate 8 As an g other n: unong the Jews, poetry was the oldest form of composition. It | einhood, and as feeling and imagination arc active befop in and logical reasoning. Poetry and music were closely connected, and accompanied domestic and social life in • i' joy and Borrow. They cheered the wedding, the harvest, and other fi . ix. 3; Jud. xxi. 19; Anew vi. .' ; Pg, iv. 8). They celebrated victory after a battle, as t] of M \v., and the -ong of 1 leborah, Judg. V. ; they greeted the victor on his return, 1 Sam. rviii. 8. The shi pherd sang while watching his flock, the hunter in the pursuit of his prey. Maidens deplored the death of Jephthah's daughter in songs Judg. xi. 40), and Da i '• '! d ith ofSaul and Jonathan '2 Sam. i. 18), and afterwards Aimer (2 8am. iii. 33). Love was the theme ofa nobler inspiration than among the sensual Greeks, and the Song • Inane Taylor aaye (1. <■■ P OS): " Biblical attorancea .if the fir-t trntha Id theology i i l.-nr of the i u well u ii rhythml f " Quid unqmm O Che 0, IiOOglouS, p Ofatora. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. of Songs celebrates the Hebrew ideal of pure bridal love, as reflecting the love of Jehovah to His people, and prefiguring the union of Christ with His Church. \ 4. THE SriRIT OF HEBREW POETRY. In a wider sense all true poetry is inspired. The civilized nations of antiquity, particu- larly the Greeks, regarded it as a divine gift, and poets as prophets and intimate friends of the gods ; and all the ceremonies, oracles and mysteries of their religion were clothed in poetic dress. There is, however, a two-fold inspiration, a Divine, and a Satanic; and the poetry which administers to pride and sensual passion, idolizes the creature, ridicules virtue, and makes vice attractive, is the product of the evil spirit. The poetry of the Hebrews is in the highest and best sense the poetry of inspiration and revelation." It is inspired by the genius of the true religion, and hence rises far above the religious poetry of the Hindoos, Parsees and Greeks, as the religion of revelation is above the religion of nature, and the God of the Bible above the idols of the heathen. It is the poetry of truth and holiness. It never administers to trifling vanities and lower passions; it is the chaste and spotless priestess at the altar. It reveals the mysteries of the divine will to man, and offers up man's prayers and thanks to his Maker. It is consecrated to the glory of Jehovah and the moral perfection of man. The most obvious feature of Bible poetry is its intense Theism. The question of the existence of God is never raised, and an atheist — if there be one — is simply set down as a fool (Ps. xiv.). The Hebrew poet lives and moves in the idea of a living God, as a self- revealing, personal, almighty, holy, omniscient, all-pervading and merciful Being, and over- flows with his adoration and praise. He sees and hears God in the works of creation, and in the events of history. Jehovah is to him the Maker and Preserver of all things. He shines in the firmament, He rides on the thunder-storm, He clothes the lilies, He feeds the ravens and young lions, and the cattle on a thousand hills, He gives rain and fruitful seasons. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Moses, David and the prophets, He dwells with Israel, He is their ever-present help and shield, their comfort and joy, He is just and holy in His judgments, good, merciful and true in all His dealings, He overrules even the wrath of man for His own glory and the good of His people. To this all-prevailing Theism corresponds the anthropology. Man is always represented under his most important moral and religious relations, in the state of innocence, in the ter- rible slavery of sin, or in the process of redemption and restoration to more than his original glory and dominion over the creation. Hebrew poetry reflects in fresh and life-like colors the working of God's law and promise on the heart of the pious, and every state of his expe- rience, the deep emotions of repentance and grief, faith and trust, gratitude and praise, hope and aspiration, love and peace. Another characteristic of Bible poetry is the childlike simplicity and naturalness with which it sets forth and brings home to the heart the sublimest ideas to readers of every grade of culture, who have a lively organ for religious truth.* The scenery and style are thoroughly oriental and Hebrew, and yet they can be translated into every language without losing by the process — which cannot be said of any other poetry. Greek and Roman poetry have more art and variety, more elegance and finish, but no such popularity, catholicity and adaptability. The universal heart of humanity beats in the Hebrew poet. It is true, his experience falls far short of that of the Christian. Yet nearly every phase of Old Testament piety strikes a cor- responding chord in the soul of the Christian; and such are the depths of the divine Spirit who guided the genius of the sacred singers that their words convey far more than they themselves were conscious of, and reach prophetically forward into the most distant future.! * " Not leas in relation to the most highly-cultured minds than to the most rude — not less to minds disciplined in ab- stract thought, than to such as are unused to generalization of any kind — the Hebrew Scriptures, in the metaphoric style, and their poetic diction, are the fittest medium for conveying, what is their purpose to convey, concerning the Divine Na- ture, and concerning the spiritual life, and concerning the correspondence of man — the finite, ■with God — the Infinite.' This idea is well carried out in the work of Isaac Taylor, see p. oft i The higher order of secular poetry furnishes an analogy. Shakespenre was not aware of the deep and far-reaching §4. THE SPIRIT OF HEBREW POETRY. All this applies more particularly to the Psalter, the holy of holies in Hebrew poetrv. David, "the singer of Israel," was placed by Providence in the different situations of shepherd, courtier, outlaw, warrior, conqueror, king, that he might the mure vividly set forth Jehovah as the Good Shepherd, the ever-present Helper, the mighty Conqueror, the just and merciful Sovereign. He was open to all the emotions of friendship and lore, generosity and mercy he enjoyed the highest joys and honors; he suffered poverty, persecution and exile, the loss of the dearest friend, treason and rebellion from his own son. Even his changing moods and passions, his sins and crimes, which with their swift and fearful punishment-; form a domestic tragedy of rare terror and pathos, were overruled and turned into lessons of humility, com- fort and gratitude. All this rich spiritual biography from his early youth to his old age, together with God's merciful dealings with him, are written in his hymns, though with r. I. - rence to his inward states of mind rather than his outward condition, so that readers of very different situation or position in life might yet be able to sympathize with the feelings and emotions expressed. His hymns give us a deeper glance into his inmost heart and his secret communion with God than the narrative of his life in the historical books. They are re- markable for simplicity, freshness, vivacity, warmth, depth and vigor of feeling, childlike tenderness and heroic faith, and the all-pervading fear and love of God. " In all his woi says the author of Eccles - A. - 1.' , he | raisi 1 the Hi ly One m at high with \\ of glory ; with his whole heart he sang songs, and loved Him that made him. He sot sing- ers also before the altar, that by their voices they might make sweet melody and daily sing praises in their songs. He beautified their t'. a-t< and si t in order the solemn times until the end, that they might praise His holy name, and that the temple might sound from morning. The Lord took away his sins and exalted his horn forever ; He gave him a covenant of kings and the throne of glory in Israel."* This inseparable union with religion, with truth and holiness, gives to Hi r w poetry such an enduring charm and undying power tor good in all ages and countries.t It brings us into the immediate presence of the great Jehovah, it raises us above the miseries of earth, it dispels the clouds of darkness, it inspires, ennobles, purities and impart- peace and joy, it gives us a foretaste of heaven itself. In this respect the poetry of the Bible is as far above classic poetry as the Bible itself is above all other book-. Homer and Virgil dwindle into utter insignificance as compared with David and Asaph, if we look to the moral effect upon the heart and the life ofth ar readers. The classic poets reach only a small and cultured class ; but the singers of the Bible come home to men of every grade of education, every race and color, evei in of life, and every creed and sect. The Psalter is, as Luther calls it, "a manual of all the saint-," where • meaning of his own productions. Goethe said that the deepest element in poetry is " the unconscious" (das Vnbewuute) and that hie I be tragedy of Fau-t, proceeded from the dark mid blddeo depthi of hi* being. • Comp. Bwald's admirable portrait of David as a poet, In the Aral : B.,p.2S, Prof.Perowne In bis Oommentary on the 1 '■<'»>•, toI. I., pp. 8, 9 third ed, this truthful description of htm: "As David's life shines in his poetry, so also does his character. That character was no common one. It was string with nil the strength of man, tender with all the, tenderness of woman. Naturally brave, his courage, was heightened and confirmed by that fai'h in Cod which never, in the worst extremity, forsook him. Naturally warm-heart- 1, his affections struck their roots deep Into the innern En his love foi Is, for whom he provided In bis own extreme peril — in his lovo for his wife Michal — for his friend Jonathan, whom he loved as his own soul — for his darling Absalom, wh death attnost broke his heart — even for the infant wh Ireaded — we see the time man, the sine- depth and truth, theaeme tenderness of personal affection. On the other hand, when stung by a sons© of wrong or injustice, his sense of which was peculiarly keen, lie could flash out into strong words and strong deeds. lie could hate with the same fervor that 1 ■ Q men and evil things, alt that was at wax with I with God — for these he found no abhorronco too deep, scarcely any Imprecations too strong. Vet he was, with and roady to forgive. He conld exercise a prudent self-control, isionallv Impetuous. Flis true courtesy, his chivalrous generosity to his foes, his rare delicecy, his rare self-denial, are all traits which present themselves most forcibly as we read hi- history. Be Es the truest of hemes in the gei ion of his character, no less than in the extraordinary Incidents of bis life. Such a man can- not wear a mask in his writings. Depth, tenderness, fervor, mark all his poemB." t Winer, too, derives from the religions character "f Hebrew poetry its usubitme flight nnd never-lying beauty." Angus says : '• Tti- pecnllar excellence if the Hebrew poetry is to he ascribed to the employment of it in the noblest service, that of religion, ft present* the loftiest and truths, expressed in the nest appropriate language." Bwald remarks that " Hebt - the interpreter of the snbllmest religious ideas for alt times, and herein lies its most im- portant and im] duo." xii GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. each one finds the most truthful description of his own situation, especially in seasons of af- fliction. It has retained its hold upon the veneration and affections of pious Jews and Chris- tians for these three thousand years, and is even now and will ever be more extensively used as a guide of private devotion and public worship than any other book. " When Christian Martyrs, and Scottish Covenanters in dens and caves of the earth, when French exiles and English fugitives in their hiding-places during the panic of revolution or of mutiny, received a special comfort from the Psalms, it was because they found themselves literally side by side with the author in the cavern of Adullam, or on the cliffs of Engedi, or beyond the Jordan, escaping from Saul or from Absalom, from the Philistines or from the Assyrians. When Burleigh or Locke seemed to find an echo in the Psalms to their own calm philosophy, it was because they were listening to the strains which had proceeded from the mouth or charmed the ear of the sagacious king or the thoughtful statesman of Judah. It has often been observed that the older we grow, the more interest the Psalms possess for us as indi- viduals; and it may at most be said that by these multiplied associations, the older the hu- man race grows, the more interest do they possess for mankind."* \ 5. POETIC MERIT. In its religious character, as just described, lies the crowning excellence of the poetry of the Bible. The spiritual ideas are the main thing, and they rise in richness, purity, subli- mity and universal importance immeasurably beyond the literature of all other nations of antiquity. But as to the artistic and aesthetic form, it is altogether subordinate to the contents, and held in subserviency to the lofty aim. Moses, Solomon, David, Isaiah, and the author of Job, possessed evidently the highest gifts of poetry, hut they restrained them, lest human genius should outshine the Divine grace, or the silver pitcher be estimated above the golden apple. The poetry of the Bible, like ihe whole Bible, wears the garb of humility and conde- scends to men of low degree, in order to raise them up. It gives no encouragement to the idolatry of genius, and glorifies God alone. " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory," (Ps cxv. 1.) Hence an irreligious or immoral man is apt to he repelled by the Bible; he feels himself in an uncongenial atmosphere, and is made uneasy and uncomfortable by the rebukes of sin and the praise of a holy God. He will not have this book rule over him or disturb him in his worldly modes of thought and habits of life. Others are unable to divest themselves of early prejudices for classical models ; they es- teem external polish more highly than ideas, and can enjoy no poetry which is not cast in the Greek mould, and moves on in the regular flow of uniform metre and stanza. And yet these are no more essential to true poetry than the music of rhyme, which was unknown to Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, Virgil and Horace, and was even despised by Milton as " the in- vention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre, as the jingling sound of like endings trivial to all judicious ears and of no true musical delight." This is indeed going to the opposite extreme; for although rhyme and even metre are by no means neces- sary, especially in the epos and drama, they yet belong to the perfection of some forms of lyric poetry, which is the twin sister of music. If we study the Bible poetry on its own ground, and with unclouded eyes, we may find in it forms of beauty as high and enduring as in that of any nation ancient or modern. Even its artless simplicity and naturalness are sometimes the highest triumph of art. Sim- plicity always enters into good taste. Those poems and songs which are the outgushing of the heart, without any show of artificial labor, are the most popular, and never lose their hold on the heart. We feel that we could have made them ourselves, and yet only a high order of genius could produce them. Where is there a nobler ode of liberty, of national deliverance and independence, than the Song of Moses on the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea (Ex. xv.) ? Where a grander * Stanley: Hid. nf the JmcM Church, II. 167. I 5. POETIC MERIT. panorama of creation than in the one hundred and fourth Psalm? Where a more charmiug and lovely pastoral than the twenty-third Psalm? Where such a high view of the dignity and destiny of man as in the eighth Psalm? Where a profouuder sense of sin and divine forgiveness than in the thirty-second aud fifty-first Psalms ? Where such a truthful and over- powering description of the vanity of human life and the never-changing character of the holy and just, yet merciful God, as in the ninetieth Psalm, which has been styled " the most sublime of human compositions, the deepest in feeling, loftiest in theologic conception, the most magnificent in its imagery?" Where have the infinite greatness and goodi: His holiness, righteousness, loug-sutferiug and mercy, the wonders of His government, and the feeling of dependence on Him, of joy and peace in Him, of gratitude for His b praise of His glory, found truer and titter embodiment than in the Psalter and the Pro; Where will you find such sweet, tender, delicate and exquisite expression of pure inno- cent love as in the Song of Songs, which sounds like the singing of birds in sunny May from the flowery fields and the tree of life in Paradise? Isaiah is one of the greatest of poi well as of prophets, of an elevation, a richness, a cpmpass, a power and comfort that are un- equalled. No human genius ever soared so high as this evangelist of the old dispensation. Jeremiah, the prophet of sorrow and affliction, has furnished the richest supply of the lan- guage of holy grief in seasons of public calamity and distress from the destruction of Jeru- salem down to the latest siege of Paris; and few works have done this work more effectively than his Lamentations. And what shall we say of the Book of Job, the Shakspeare in the Bible? Where are such bold and vivid descriptions of the wonders of nature, of the behemoth and leviathan, and of the war-horse "who paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, who swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage, who saith among the trumpets Ha, ha ! and smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shout of war?" What •can be finer than Job's picture of wisdom, whose price is far above rubies ? And what a wealth of comfort is in that wonderful passage, which inspired the sublimest solo in the gublimest musical composition, those words graven in the rock forever, where this holy outsider, this patriarchal sage and saint of the order of Melchisedec, expn th and hope that his Redeemer liveth and will stand the last on the grave, and that he shall see Him with his own eyes on the morning of resurrection. The times for the depreciation of Bible poetry have passed. Many of the greatest scho- lars and poets, some of whom by no means in sympathy with its religious ideas, have done it full justice. I quote a few of them who represent different Stand-points and nationalities. Henry Stephens, the gnat.-: philologist of the sixteenth century, thought that there was nothing more poetic (-onfriKurepov)t nothing more musical (fiovomu-cpov), nothing more thrill- ing (■)oi>}n called Divine dramas; but dramatic poetry, in the proper stnse of that term, was altogether unknown to the Israelites.*' I 7. LYRIC POETRY. and living God, to whom all glory is due. And so He appears in the prophetic writings. He is the one object of worship, praise and thanksgiving, but not the object of a narrative poem. He is the one sovereign actor, who in heaven originates and controls all events on earth, but not one among other actors, co-operating or conflicting with finite beings. Epic poetry reproduces historic facts at the expense of truth, and exalts its hero above merit. The Bible poetry never violates truth. There are, however, epic elements in several lyric poem? which celebrate certain great events in Jewish history, as the Song of Moses, Exod. xv., and the Song of Deborah, Judg. v. ; although even here the lyric element preponderates, and the subjectivity of the poet is not lost in the objective event as in the genuine epos. The Book of Ruth has been called an epic by Gothe. The Prologue and Epilogue of Job are epic, and have a truly narrative and objective character; but they are only the framework of the poem itself, which is essen- tially didactic in dramatic form. In the apocryphal books the epic element appears in the book of Tobith and the book of Judith, which stand between narrative and fiction, and cor- respond to what we call romance or novel. I 7. LYRIC POETRY. Lyric poetry, or the poetry of feeling, is the oldest and predominant form of poetry among the Eebrew as all other Semitic nations. It is the easiest, the most natural, and the best adapted for devotion both private and public. It is closely connected with song, its twin -ister. It wills up from the human heart, and gives utterance to its many strong and tender emotions of love and friendship, of joy and gladness, of grief and sorrow, of hop desire, of gratitude and praise. Ewald happily describes it as "the daughter of the moment, of swift, rising, powerful feelings, of deep stirrings and fiery emotions of the soul."* Among the Greeks the epos appears first; but the older lyric effusions may have been lost. Among the Hindoos they are preserved in the Vedas. Lyric poetry is found among all nations which have a poetic literature ; but epic poetry, at least in its fuller development, is not so general, and hence cannot be the primitive form. Lyric poetry contains the fruitful germ of all other kinds of poetry. When the poetic feeling is kindled by a great event in history, it expresses itself more or less epically, as in the battle and victory hymns of Moses and !i. When the poet desires to teach a truth or practical lesson, he becomes didactic. When he exhibits his emotions in the form of action and real life, he approaches the drama. In like manner the lyric i try may give rise to mixed forms which appear in the later stages of literature.! The oldest specimen oflyric poetry is the song of Lamech to his two wives (Gen.iv.23). It has already the measured arrangement, alliteration and musical correspondence of Hebrew parallelism. It is a proud, fierce, defiant "sword-song," commemorating in broken, fragmentary utterances the invention of weapons of brass and iron by his son Tubal Cain (i.e, lance-maker), and threatening vengeance: A( dot lA'ed in teinem :i-»i:. in return und t lien Weeen wit der Anfdug eo doe Rule alter DichtungJ" t t'w.iH, 1. c , p. I ;/ : "Der bemndere Zvteck\ teelchen der Ihrlif'T vet hehre andre trefen\ Oder er will eredUend beeehreiben\ oder endlich er will dae voile IAbmeeXbetebeneoUbendiffviedergeben: und m wera>n Lehrdichtcno, BAonrDiOHnm " Lf.rfnsdicr- TL"NO (Drama i iiu-r Viehtung teint n . i. mii finer dentVbm ne.u vertchnilU and diese ttels nitchttc und allgeyenwUrtigste. DrdfeMnng tieh m in ncuer mg mannichfach verjiinijt." GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. For I have slain* a man for wounding me, Even a young man for hurting me. Lo! Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, But Lamech seventy and seven-foM.f Here we have the origin of secular poetry and music ( for the other son of Lamech, Juba!t i. e.j Harper t invented musical instruments), in connection with the progressive material civilization of the descendants of Cain. The other poetic remains of the ante-Mosaic age are the Prediction of Noah concerning his three sons (Gen. ix. 25-27), and the death-chant of Jacob (Geu. xlix. 1-27); but these belong rather to prophetic poetry. In the Mosaic age we meet first with the song of deliverance which Moses sang with the children of Israel unto the Lord after the overthrow of Pharaoh's hosts in the Red Sea (Ex. xv. 1-19). It is the oldest specimen of a patriotic ode (from beidetv, to sing), and may be called the national anthem, or the Te Deum of the Hebrews. It sounds through all the thanksgiving hymns of Israel, and is associated by the Apocalyptic Seer with the final triumph of the Church, when the saints shall sing "the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb" (Rev. xv. 3). Its style is archaic, simple and grand. It is arranged for antiphonal singing, cho- rus answering to chorus, and voice to voice; the maidens playing upon the timbrels. It is full of alliterations and rhymes which cannot be rendered, and hence it necessarily loses in any translation. J I will sing unto Jehovah, For He hath triumphed gloriously: The horae and his rider Hath He thrown into the sea. Jehovah is my strength and song, And He is become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise Him ; g My father's God, and I will exalt Him. Jehovah is a man of war ; Jehovah is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his hosts Hath He cast into the sea : * The perfect, I have slain CPU^n* Sept. a-TreKTetva, Vulg. occidi), is probably used in the spirit of arrogant boasting. • : — t to express the future with all the certainty of an accomplished fact. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, Jarchi and others set Lamech down as a murderer (of Cain), who here confesses his deed to ease his conscience ; but Aben-Ezra, Calvin, Herder, Ewald, Delitzsch, take the verb as a threat: " I will slay any man who wounds me." t The law of blood for blood is strongly expressed also in the tragic poetry of Greece, especially in the Eumenides of iEschylns, also the Chcephorse, 398 (quoted by Prof. T. Lewis, Com. on Gen. in loc): " There is a law that blood once poured on earth By murderous hands demands that other blood Be shed in retribution. From the slain Erynnys calls aloud for vengeance still, Till death in justice meet be paid for death." X Herder says of this poem, of which he gives a free German translation : "Iter Dttrchgang durchs Mner hot das dheste und ldingend*te Siegeslied hervnrgebracht, das unr in diesrr Sprarhe hnhen. E<; ist (l}orgesang : eine einzdne SUmme maJte vielhicht die Thatm nelbst, die der Chor avjjing und gleichmm verhallte. Bein Bait ist einfach, roll Afwrnanzen und li- i ich in uvsrerSprarhe. okne Wnrtzwang nichtzn geben iriisxte ; denn die ebrmeche Sprarhe ist wegenihres einfbrmigm Bav.es snlcher Jdingenden Assonanzen voll Leichtejange, aber ivenige Worfe verschwben in der Lift, und meistens endigt ein dunWer^eiu Schall, der vielhicht den Bardit des Cliors maefUe." Dr. Lange thus happily characterizes this ode ( Comm. on Ex.) : " Wie der Durchgang durch das Rathe, Meer als eine funde.ment.ale ThaJsache des typischm Rciches Gottes seine Bezriehung durch die ganze Ileilige Schrift ausbreifet, wie er sich riicTewarts aitf die Siinrlfhifh berieiht, wei'er vorwlirts auf die chrUtliche Tauf\ und schliessHch auf das Endgericht, so gehen auch die Rpflexe van diesem Liede Moses durch die ganze HeUigt Schrift. Ruclnvarts ist e* vnrbereitet durch die poetischen Laute der Genesis und durch den Segen Jal-obs. vonvarts geht es dure' episcfte Laute i'tber auf das Abschiedslied des Moses und seinen Segen 5 Mos. 32, 33. Zwei grossartige SeUenslucJce, welchefol- gen, das Siegeslicd der Debnra und das Rettungslied des David 2 5am. 22 (Ps. IS), leiten dann die Fsalmen-poesie ein. in ivi- Cher viilfach der Grundtnn unsres Liedes vrieder mil airtlingt, rss. 77, 7S, 105, 106, 114. Noch einmnl ist am SokhUU de» -V. T. von dem Liede Mnsis die Rede; es tbnt fort als das typische Triumphlied des Volkes Gottes bis in die andre Writ hinein, Offenb, 15, 3." g The E. V.: 'I will prepare Him an habitation' (sanctuary), would anticipate the building of the tabernacle, but is not justified by the Hebrew. \~. LYRIC POETRY. And his chosen captains Are sunk in the Red Sea. The depths cover them. They went down to the bottom like a stone. Thy right hand, 0 Jehovah, glorious in power, Thy right hand, O Jehovah, dasheth in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of Thy majesty Thou orertarneet them that rise up against thee: Thou sendest forth Thy wrath, It consumetfa them like stubble. And with the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were piled up. The floods stood upright as an heap. The depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, My soul shall be satisfied upon tbem ; I will draw my sword, My hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with Thy wind, The sea covered them : They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto Thee, 0 Jehovah, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness. Fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedal oat Thy right hand, The earth swallowed them. Thon in Thy mercy hast led the people Which Thon hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in thy strength To thy holy habitation. The peoples have heard, they tremble :* Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philietia. Then wen the chiefs of ESdom dismayed. The mighty m^n ofHoah, trembling taketh hold upon them. All the Inhabitants °f Oinaan are melted away ; * TiTr«ir and dread rail upon them. By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone ; Till Thy | pie pass over, 0 Jehovah, Till the people pass over, Which Thou hast purchased. Thon shall bring thom in, and planl them In the mountain of Thine Inheritance. The pl&ce, 0 Jehovah, which Thou bast mads f'-r Thee to dwell Id, The sanctuarv, 0 Jehovah, which Thou hast established, i ib shall reign for over and ever. Here the song ends, and what follows (ver. 19) is probably a brief recapitulation to fix the event in the memory : For the horses of Pharaoh event in with his chariots And with bis horsemen info the sen, And Jehovah brought again the waters of the sea upon them; But the children of Israel walked on dry land Io the midst of the sea. Moses wrote also that sublime farewell-song which celebrates Jehovah's merciful deal- ings with Israel (Deut. xxxii.), the parting blessing of the twelve tribes (Deut. xxxiii.), and the ninetieth Psalm, called "A Prayer of Moses, the man of God," which sums up the spi- ritual experience of his long pilgrimage in the wilderness, and which proves its undyinir force at every deathbed and funeral service. * The poet now, after giving thanks for the past, looks to the future and describes the certain consequences of this Dlghty deliverance, which st nick terror Into the hearts of all enemies of Israel, and must end laths as promised by God. 2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. In the book of Joshua (x. 12, 13) there is a poetic quotation from "the Book of the "Upright," which was probably a collection of patriotic songs : "Sun, stand still upon Gibeon, And thou, moon, upon the valley of Ajalon!" And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed her course, Until the nation were avenged of their enemies. The song of Deborah (Judges v.), from the heroic period of the Judges, eight centuries before Pindar, is a stirring battle-song full of fire and dithyrambic swing, and breathing the spirit of an age of disorder and tumult, when might was right.* Another but very different specimen of female poetry is Hannah's hymn of joy and gra- titude when she dedicated her son Samuel, the last of the Judges, to the service of Jehovah (1 Sam. ii. 1-10). It furnished the key-note to the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary after the miraculous conception. The reign of David was the golden age of lyric poetry. He was himself the prince of singers in Israel. His religious poetry is incorporated in the Psalter. Of his secular poetry the author of the Books of Samuel has preserved us two specimens, a brief stanza on the death of Abner, and his lament for the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 19-27). The latter is a most pathetic and touching elegy full of the strength and tenderness of the love of friendship. His generosity in lamenting the death of his persecutor who stood in his way to the throne, enhances the beauty and effect of the elegy. Thy Glory, 0 Israel. f Is slain upon thy heights. (Chorus) Mow are the heroeefaSen I Tell it not in Goth, Publish it not in the streets of Askelon ; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, . Lest the daughters of the uucircunicised triumph* Te mountains of Gilboa. no dew nor rains Ctomeupon you, and ye fields of offerings^ For there the shield of the hero U polluted^ The shield of Saul not anointed with oil.jj From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the heroes. The bow of Jonathan turned not back, And the sword of Saul Returned not empty. * An admirable German translation is given by Herder, and another by Prof. Cassel, in his Com. on Judffet, translated by Prof. Steenstra. f Or: "The Glory (the Beauty) of Israel." Ewald, Hansen, Keil, take 7K1BP, B8 vocative, "0 Israel;" the E. V. ("the beauty of Israel"), De Wette, Erdmann (Die Zterde Jsrosls), and others, as genitive. "3j* means splendor, glory (Isa- iv. 2; xiii. lri ; xxiv. 16, and is often used of the land of Israe', and of Mount Zion, which is called "the mountain of holy beauty," *JHp *3X in, Dan. xi. 45); also a gazelis, from the beauty of its form (1 Kings v. 3; Isa. xiii. 14 i. The gazelle* were so much admired by th* Hebrews and Arabs that they eyen swore by them (Cant. ii. 7 : iii. 5). Herd and Ewald {Bar Bteinboclc, Tsrae' — to avoid the feminine cKe GaxeJU) take it in the latter sense, and refer it to Jonathan alone. Ewald conjectures that Jonathan was familiarly known among the soldiers of Israel as the Gazelle on account of his beauty and swiftness. Jonathan was, of course, much nearer to the heart of the poet, but in this national Bong David had to identify him with Saul, so that both are included in tin Glory of Israel. X niDHn "H"*, Sept. aypoi aTrapx^v, Yulg. neqne rint agri privritiantm, fertile fields from which the fiist fruits are gathered. The E. V. renders with Jerome: "nor (let there be) fields of offerings." On the different interpretations and conjectures see Erdmann in Lange's Com. It is a poetical malediction or imprecation of such complete barrenness that not even enough may grow on that bloody field for an offering of first-fruits. g By blood and dust. A great indignity to a soldier. Homer says that the helmet of Patroclus was rolled under the horses' feet, and soiled with blood and dust (H. xvi. 794). The E. V., following the Vulgate (abjectus), translates SjJJ] vilely east away, || But with hlood. The E. V., following again the Vulgate {qvatti nan essef\ supplies " 08 (hough he had not been anointed," i.e., as if he had not been a king (1 Sam. x. 1). So also Herder: uKfim'ge» 8chSd,aJe war er tammer rati Oct geheiligt." But the more natural interpretation is: " the shield of Saul tew not anointed with oil,*' as was usual in preparation for bat- t!.-, and after it had been polluted by blood or corrupted by rust (Isa. xxi. 5). The unanointed shield here is an emblem of otter defeat and helples>neaa. 2 7. LYRIC POETRY. Saul ami Jonathan, lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they are not divided. They were swifter Chan -■■■< They were stronger than Lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you in purple with delight. Who put ornaments of gold Upon your apparel.* (CHORUS) How are tfte heroa fallen in the midst o/Ote battle I 0 Jonathan ^ stain upon thy height*/ I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan, i hast thou been unto me: Thy love (0 me was wonderful. Passing the love of women.f (CHORrs) •■ (he heron faUen£ Anil (he weapon* >■/ war \ perished. Lyric poetry flourished daring the reiiavJ lit., song of inscription), a golden poem, or a song of mysterious, deep import. Delitzsch: catch-word poem). Shiggaion, an excited, irregular, dithyrambic ode. ;i ! m of praise. The plural thehiUtm is the Hebrew title of the Psalter. Thephiliah, a prayer in so wii., lxxxvi.,xc, cxlii., Hab. iii.). Shti . song of loves, erotic poem (Ps. xlv. i. Shir hamma'alolh (Sept. )a&fiuvt Vulg. canticum graduum, E. "V. ' ( son. degrees ?), most probably a song of the goings up, i.e., pilgrim song for the journeys to the yearly festivals of Jerusalem. * Lowth: "This pa I >n. Tho women of Israel are most happily in and the admirably adapted to the ( f Tii' women 1 »Te, A picto [ in. Th- Vulgate Inserts here the mater vnicum egoteamabam, which hu no foundation either in the Hebrew or the Septuogint, J Tli irus, Is entirely in keeping with the nature of an el ry, whl to dwell upon the grief, and flnda relief by Its repeated nttei i riDrivO *73 are the h. -i the living weapons of war. So Ewald and Erdmann t t : ■ ■■ : Caa.xlll.6j Lctalx. 15, where St. Paul Is called " a chosen Teasel n (cicevot). It la lees lively and i lly of the material of war, .- 'h': Vulgate doea (arma beBieaX and Herder who res Ach, u and ihre Waffen des KrUge* ■ , EUrernlcl Sell, among the inea, Geseniua, Ewald, Thenins, Dillmann, amonp; the liberal i i -i Psalms, I ■•■ b i !"■ more false and perron s than to au| ed. Ity, hut d>?ni 9 the existence of such late P titles in 1 h< tnaci iptio me of which ai i\ Interpreted, we mna1 n m ate f Ewald, Hitz U 11 In Lange), and Per « GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. Kinah {dprjvoQ), a lament,'dirge, elegy.* Here belong the laments of David for Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam. i. 19-27, for Abner (2 Sam. iii. 33, 34), and for Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 33 . the psalms of mourning over the disasters of Judah, Ps. xlix., Lx., lxxiii., cxxxvii.), and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The Psalter is the great depository of the religious lyric poetry of the Jewish Church, and the inexhaustible fountain of devotion for all ages. The titles are not original, but con- tain the ancient Jewish traditions more or less valuable concerning the authorship, historical occasion, musical character, liturgical use of the Psalms. Seventy-three poems are ascribed to David ("""17) ;f twelve to Asaph ('JDS '),oneof David's musicians (Ps. 1., lxxiii. -lxxxiii.); eleven or twelve to the sons of Korah, a family of priests and singers of the age of David Pss. xlii.- xlix., lxxxiv., lxxxv., Ixxxvii., Ixxxviii.) ; one to Heman the Ezrahite (lxxxviii.) ;% one to Ethan the Ezrahite (lxxxix.) ; two to Solomon (lxxii., cxxvii.) ; one to Moses (xc.) ; while fifty are anonymous and hence called Orphan Psalms ia the Talmud. The Septuagint as- signs some of them to Jeremiah (cxxxvii.), Haggai and Zechariah (cxlvi., cxlvii.). The Psalter is divided into five books, and the close of each is indicated by a doxology and a double Amen. In this division several considerations seem to have been combined — authorship and chronology, liturgical use, the distinction of the divine names (Elohistic and Jehovistic Psalms), perhaps also the five-fold division of the Thorah (the Psalter being, as Delitzsch says, the subjective response or echo from the heart of Israel to the law of God). We have an analogy in Christian hymn- and tune-books, which combine the order of sub- jects and the order of the ecclesiastical year, modifying both by considerations of convenience, and often adding one or more appendixes. The five books represent the gradual growth of the collection till its completion after the exile, about the time of Ezra. The collection of first book, consisting chiefly of Psalms of David, may be traced to Solomon, who would natu- rally provide for the preservation of his father's poetry, or, at all events, to King Hezekiah, who "commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph, the Seer" (2 Chron. xxi. 30 ; Prov. xxxv. 1). If we regard chiefly the contents, we may divide the Psalms into Psalms of praise and adoration, Psalms of thanksgiving, Psalms of faith and hope under affliction,? penitential Psalms, didactic Psalms, historic Psalms, Pilgrim Songs (cxx.-cxxxvi.), prophetic or Mes- sianic Psalms. But we cannot enter here into details, and refer to the full and able Intro- duction of Moll's Commentary in this series. Before we leave lyric poetry, we must say a few words on the LAMENTATIONS ('"^'p, dmvot, elegise) of Jeremiah — the most extensive elegy in the Bible. They are a funeral dirge of the theocracy and the holy city after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldees, and give most pathetic utterance to the most intense grief. The first lines strike the key-note. Jerusalem is personified and bewailed as a solitary widow : (AlEFB) How sirteth solitary The city once full of people \ She hae become as a widow ! She that was great among the nations, A princess over the province?. Has become subject to tribute. * From « c Ae'yeir, to cry woe, woe! Comp. the German, Klagliett, Traverlled, TodtenUed, Grdblied. t Thirty-seven in the first Book, Ps. iii.-xli., IS in the second, 1 in the third. 2 in the fourth, 15 in the fifth Book. The Septuagint ascribes to David S5 Psalms (including xcix. and civ., which are probably his). The N. T. quotes as hi? also tbe anonymous Pss. ii. and xcv. (Acts iv. 25, 26; Ftebr. iv. 7), and Ps. ii. certainly has th^ impress of his style and age [as Ewald But some of the Psalms ascribed to him, either in the Hebrew or Greek Bible, betray by their Chsldatans a later age. Hengstenberg and Alexander mostly follow the Jewish tradition ; Delitzsch | Commeiitar fiber die P&il/neti, p. 7 thinks that at least fifty may be defended as Davidic; while Hnpfeld, Ewald, and especially Hitzig, considerably reduce tbe Dumber. Ewald regards Ps. iii., iv., vii., viii.. xi., xv., xviii., xix., xxiv., xxix., xxxii., ci., as undoubtedly Davidic; Ps. ii., xxiii., xxvii., lxii., lxiv., ex., exxxviii., as coming very near to David. { This Psalm is called ehir mismor and Tnaschil, and is ascribed both to the sons of Korah and to Heman the Ezrahite, of Hie age of Solomon 1 1 Kings v. 11). The older commentators generally regard the former as the singers of the shir, the latter as the author of the mtiKchil Hupfeld thinks that tbe title combines two conflicting traditions. I What the Germans wou'd call Ercin- und Tront-Paahnea. ?8. DIDACTIC POETRY. (BeIH) She weepetb bitterly in tbe night. And her learB are upoa her cheeks: She hath no comforter From among nil her lovers: All her friends have turned traitors to ber, They have t>econie her enemies. (Lajied) Is it nothing to you, all ye th;it pass by? Behold and see, If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, Which is inflicted on me, Wherewith Jehovah huth afflicted me In the day of His fierce anger. The ruin and desolation, the carnage and famine, the pollution of the temple, the desecration of the Sabbath, the massacre of the priests, the dragging of the chiefs into exile, and all the horrors and miseries of a long siege, contrasted with the remembrance of former glories and glad festivities, and intensified by the awful sense of Divine wrath, are drawn with life-like colors and form a picture of overwhelming calamity and sadness. " Every letter is written with a tear, every word is the sob of a broken heart!" Yet Jeremiah does not forget that the covenant of Jehovah with His people still stands. In the stormy sunset of the theocracy he beheld the dawn of a brighter day, and a new covenant written, not on tables of stone, but on the heart. The utterance of his grief, like the shedding of tears, was also a relief, and left his mind in a calmer and -erener frame. Beginning with wailing and Weeping, he ends with a question of hope, and with the prayer: Turn as, 0 Jehovah, and we shall turn; i oM! These Lamentations have done their work very effectually, and are doing it still. They have soothed the weary year- of the Babylonian Exile, and after the return they hav. up the lively remembrance of the deepest humiliation and the judgments of a righteous God. Oil the ninth day of the month of Ab July | they are read year after year \\ ifh fa-ting and weeping by that remarkable people who are still wandering in exile over the face of the earth, finding a grave in many lands, a home in none. Among Christians the poem is bi I appreciated in times of private affliction and public calamity; a compauion in mourning, it Berves also as a hook of comfort and consolation. The poetic structure of the Lamentations is the most artificial in the Bible. The four chapters are alphabetically arranged, like the 119th and six Other Psalms, and Pro- verbs xxxi. 10-31. Every stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in regular order; all the stanzas are nearly of the same length; each stanza has three nearly balanced clauses or members which together constitute one meaning; chap-, i.. ii. and iv. contain twenty-two stanzas each, according to the number of Hebrew letters; the third chapter has three alphabetic series, making sixty-six stanzas in all. I 'ante chose the terza ritna for his vision of hell, purgatory, and paradise; IVtrarca the complicated sonnet for the tender and passionate language of love. The author of Lamentations may hav, chosen this structure as a discipline and check upon the intensity of his Borrow— perhaps also as a help to the memory. Poems of this kind, once learnt, are not easily forgotten.* ? 8. I1IDACTIC POETRY. Didactic poetry is the combined product of imagination and reflection. It seeks to in- struct as well as to please. It is not simply the outpouring of subjective feeling which Car- rie- in it its own end and reward, but aims at an object beyond itself. It is the conn- * " In the scatterings and wanderlnee of famiHea," says. Isaac Taylor (p 375), "and in lonely Jourueyfngs, In Ii end cities, where no synagogo trical Scriptares— infixed ss they were in th "is of those artificial devices of Tenets and of alphabetic «>nter, and of alliteration— became f""d to tie- sonl. Thus was the religions & ustancj ■ the people and its brave endurance of injury and insult sustained and anim ted." GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. link between pure poetry and philosophy. It supplies among the Shemitic nations the place of ethics, with this difference, that it omits the reasoning and argumentative process, and gives only the results of observation and reflection in a pleasing, mostly proverbial, senten- tious style, which sticks to the memory. It is laid down in the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Many Psalms also are didactic (i., xix., xxxvii., cxix., etc.), and the Book of Job is a didac- tic drama (see below). The palmy period of didactic or gnomic poetry is the peaceful and brilliant reign of So- lomon, which lasted forty years (B. C. 1015-975). He was a favorite child of nature and grace. He occupies the same relation to the Proverbs as David to the Psalter, being the chief author and model for imitation. He was the philosopher, as David was the singer, of Israel. The fame of his wisdom was so great that no less than three thousand proverbs were ascribed to him. " God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore. And Solomon's wisdom ex- celled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men ; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol : and his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thou- sand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all peo- ple to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wis- dom" (1 Kings iv. 29-34). According to a rabbinical tradition, Aristotle derived his philoso- phy from the Solomonic writings which Alexander the Great sent him from Jerusalem.* The usual word for a didactic poem is mdshd! (/Bra, ^apumia, Trapa,3o/J/), a likeness, si- militude, comparison ; then, in a wider sense, a short, sharp, pithy maxim, sententious say- ing, gnome, proverb couched in figurative, striking, pointed language. A proverb contains muliu/m inparvo, and condenses the result of long observation and experience in a few words which strike the nail on the head and are easily remembered. It is the philosophy for the people, the wisdom of the street. The Orientals, especially the Arabs, are very fond of this kind of teaching. It suited their wants and limits of knowledge much better than an elabo- rate system of philosophy. And even now a witty or pithy proverb has more practical effect upon the common people than whole sermons and tracts.! The Proverbs of the Bible are far superior to any collection of the kind, such as the say- ings of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, the Aurea Carmina attributed to Pythagoras, the Kemains of the Poeta? Gnomici, the collections of Arabic proverbs. They bear the stamp of divine inspiration. They abound in polished and sparkling gems. They contain the prac- tical wisdom (chokma) of Israel, and have furnished the richest contributions to the diction- ary of proverbs among Christian nations. They trace wisdom to its true source, the fear of Jehovah (chap. i. 7). Nothing can be finer than the description of "Wisdom in the eighth chapter, where she is personified as the eternal companion and delight of God, and com- mended beyond all earthly treasures : Wisdom is better than rubies, And no precious things compare with her. I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, And find out knowledge of wise counsels. The fear of Jehovah is to hate evil ; Pride, haughtiness, and an evil way, And a perverse mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and reflection ; I am understanding; I have strength. * Comp. on the wisdom of Solomon, Ewald's GetcMehte tin Volka Tirael, Vol. III. pp. 3"4sqq.; and Stanley's Lectures mi ll, History nf the JewUh ( hur.h. Vol. II. pp. 252 sqq. Ewald exclaims with reference to the visit of the Queen of Sheba i ,7": "0 gluekliche '/.tit wmSchtige Fiirtten mitten in ihren von heiKger GnUatruhe umfriediglen Limdern eo zu emmder rten, so in WeWhcii mid wtu nnch mehr &(, im regen Smlim rferseltien „-. it, ifern l-L'nnen /" r i licero saj ■ . "Gravieeimu unit a,l beate vivendum breviter enwwiata sen'tndie.'' I 8. DIDACTIC POETRY. By me kings reign, And piincea decree justice. By rue prinoea rule, And nobles, all (be judges of the earth. I love them th.it love me ; And tli -v that seek me early shall find me. Biches and honor are with me. Yea, euduriog riches and righteousness. My fruit is belter than gold, yea, than refined gold; And my increase than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, Ili the midst of the path of rectitude; To uwki'. ensure abundance to those that love me, And to fill their storehouse. Blessed b the man that hc&reth me, Watching daily at my gates, V iiting at the jio«ls of my doors! For wl nndeth life; And shall obtain favor from Jehovah. The description of the model Hebrew woman in her domestic and social relations (chap. xxxi. 10-31, in the acrostic form) has no parallel for truthfulness and beauty in all ancient literature, and forms tin- appropriate close of this book of practical wisdom ; for from the fa- mily of which woman is the presiding genius, springs private and public virtue and national prosperity. " The Book of Proverbs," says a distinguished modern writer, " is not on a level with the Prophets or the Psalms. It approaches human things and things divine from quite another side. It has even something of a worldly, prudential look, unlike the rot of the Bible, But this i.-. the very reason why its recognition as a Sacred Book is so useful. It is the philo- sophy of practical life. It is the sign to us that the Bible does not despise common sense and discretion. It impresses upon us, in the most forcible manner, the value of intelligence and prudence, and of a good education. The whole strength of the Hebrew hm of the sacred authority of the book is thrown upon these homely truths. It deals, that refined, discriminating, careful view of the finer shades of human character, so often oki «1 by theologians, but so necessary to any true estimate of human life. 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, ami the stranger does not intermeddle with its joy.' Bow mucl is there, in that single sentence, of consolation, of hive, of forethought I A.nd, above all, it insists, over and over again, upon the doctrine that goodness is ' ,' and thai wicked- ness and vice are 'folly.' There may be many other views of virtue and vice, of ho and sin, better and higher than this. But there will always be some in the world who will need to remember that a good man is not only religious and just, but wise; and that a bad man is not only wicked and sinful, but a miserable, contemptible fool !" * The poetic structure of the Proverbs is that of Hebrew parallelism in its various forms. They consist of single, double, triple, or more couplets; the members corresponding to each other in sense and diction, either synonymously or antithetically. I telitzsch calls them two- liners, four-liners, six-liners, eight-liners. t The first section, x.-xxii. 16, contains exclusively two-liners. Besides these there are a few three-liners, five-liners and seven-liners, where the odd line is either a repetition or a reason for the idea expressed in the first lines. A few specimens will make this clear. * Stanley, Vol. II., p. 2G9. A different view U presented and elaborately defended in the co icntary of Bel Miller, of I'rini-i ■tun ' N"\v York. i-7'ji, »b.i ui.iirit in,- iimt the Proverbs, being an Inspired 1 no secular, but must liav.- throughout a spiritual, meaning. He charges King James' version with making the hook "hopelessly secular in many places *' (p. 12 1. f Zaelailer, TkmUer, Btok eflsr. Commentary on Proverbs, Leipz., 1S73, pp. 8sqq. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. 1. Single synonymous couplets : Chap. in. 1. My bod, forget not mj law: And let thy heart keep ray commandments. 12. Whom Jehovah loveth He correcteth: Even as a father the soq in whom he delighteth. 13. Blessed the man who finds wisdom : And the man who obtains understanding. XI. 25. The liberal soul shall be made fat : And he that watereth shall himself be watered. XXVI, 32. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty : And he that ruleth his own spirit than he who taketh a city. 2. Single antithetic couplets : Chap, x. 1. A wise son maketh a glad father; But a foolish son is the grief of his mother. 12. Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth all sius. 16. The wages of the righteous is life : The gain of the wicked is sin. Xm. 9. The light of the righteous shall be joyous: But the lamp of the wicked shall go out. 25. He that sparpth his rod hates his son : But he that lovetb him giveth him timely chastisement. XVIII. 17. He that is first in his own cause seemeth right: But bis neighbor cometh and searcheth him. 3. Single couplets which merely express a comparison : Chap, xxvii. 8. As a bird that wandereth from her nest, So is a man that wandereth from his place. 15. A continual dropping in a very rainy day, And a contentious woman are alike. 19. As in water face answereth to face, So the heart of man to man. 4. Single couplets where the second member completes the idea of the first or assigns a reason or a qualification : Chap. xvi. 24. 31. Pleasant words are as a honey-comb, Sweet tj the soul and health to the hones. The hoary head is a crown of glory, If it be found in the way of righteousness. 5. Three-liners: (%Hom/;iions) Let not mercy and truth forsake thee : Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the table of thine heart. Sxviii. 10. Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way: He shall fall himself into his own pit, (Antithetic) But the upright shall inherit good things. xxvii. 10. Thine own friend, and thy f.ther's friend forsake not: Neither go into thy brother's in the day of thy calamity; (Reason) Yqt better is a nfighl»«r neat than a brother afar oft". ?8. DIDACTIC POETRV. 6. Double couplets or four-liners: xxiii. 15 sq.; xxiv. 3sq., 28 sq.: xxx. 5sq., 17 sq.; xxii. 22 sq., 24sq.; xxv. 4 sq. These are all synonymous, or synthetic, or corroboratory, but there seems to be no example of an antithetic four-liner. 7. Five-liners ; the last three usually explaining and confirming the idea of the first two lines: xxiii. 4 sq.; xxv. tj sq.; xxx. 32 sq. 8. Triple couplets or six-liners, which spin out an idea with more or less repetition or confirmations and illustrations: xxiii. 1-3, 12-14, 19-21 ; xxiv. 11 sq.; xxx. 29-31. 9. Seven-liners: xxiii. 6-S. The only specimen in the Proverbs. 10. Quadruple couplets or eight-liners : xxiii. 22-25. But these four, six, and eight-liners, so-called, may be easily resolved into two, three, or four single couplets. Take, e.g., chap, xxiii. 12-14, which Delitzsch quotes as a six-liner, and we have there simply three couplets which carry out and unfold one idea, or expand the mashal sentence into a mashal poem : Apply thy heart to Instruction : And tlilne ears to the words of knowledge. Withhold not correction from the child : Tor if tli-m beatest him with a rod, he shall not die. Thou Shalt beat him with the rod. And ehalt deliver his soul from hell. Ecclesiastes or Kohei.ktii is a philosophic poem, not in broken, disconnected maxims of wisdom, like the Proverbs, but in a series of soliloquies of a soul perplexed ami bewildered by <1< >ul >t , yet holding fast to fundamental truth, and looking from the vanities beneath the sun to the eternal realities above the sun. It is a most remarkable specimen of Hebrew scepticism subdued and moderated by Hebrew faith in God and Hi* holj mandments, in the immortality of the soul, the judgment to come, the paramount value of true piety. It corresponds to the old age of Solomon, as the Song of Songs reflects the flowery spring of his youth, and the Proverbs the ripe wisdom of his manhood.* Whether written by the great monarch or not (which question is fully discussed on both sides in this Com- mentary!, it personates him (i. 12) and gives the last sad results of his experience after a long life of unrivalled wisdom and unrivalled folly, namely, the overwhelming imprt of the vanity of all things earthly, with the concluding lesson of the fear of God, which checks the tendency to despair, and is the star of hope in the darkness of midnight. The key-note is struck in the opening lines, repeated at the close (xii. 3) : O vanity of vanities ' Koheleth saJth ; < ' v, uuly of vm.iti. !.: all- \ This is the negative side. But the leading positive idea and aim is expressed in the con- cluding words: Fear God and keep His commandments, F<w's house than seek the banquet hall ; Since that (reveals) the end of every man, And he who lives should lay it well to heart. Better is grief than mirth ; For in tho sadness of the face the heart becometh fair. The wise man's heart is in the house of mourning • The fool's heart in the house of mirth. Better to heed the chiding of the wise Than hear the somr of fools. For like the sound of thorns beneath the pot, So ifl the railing laughter of the fool. This, too, is vanity. *********** Rejoice, 0 youth, in childhood ; let thy heart Still cheer thee in the day when thou art strong. Go on in every way thy will 6hall choose, And after every form thine eyes behold ; But know that for all this thy God will thee to judgment bring. O, then, turn sorrow from thy soul, keep evil from thy flesh; For childhood and the morn of life, they, too, are vanity. Remember thy Creator, then, in the days when thou art young; Before the evil days are come, before the years draw nigh ; When thou shalt say — delight in them is gone. To didactic poetry belong also the fable and the parable. Both are allegories in the style of history ; both are conscious fictions for the purpose of instruction, and differ from the myth which is the unconscious product of the religious imagination. But the fable rests on admitted impossibilities and introduces irrational creatures to teach maxims of sec- ular prudence and lower, selfish morality ; while the parable takes its illustrations from real life, human or animal, with its natural characteristics, and has a much higher moral and religious aim. It is, therefore, far better adapted, as a medium of instruction, to the true religion. "The fable seizes on that which man has in common with the .creatures be- low him ; the parable rests on the truth that man is made in the image of God." The for- mer is only fitted for the instruction of youth, which does not raise the question of veracity ; the latter is suited to all ages. There are no fables in the New Testament, and only two in the Old, viz., the fable of Jotham : the trees choosing their king, Judges ix. 8-15, and the fable of Jehoash : the cedars of Lebanon and the thistle, 2 Kings xiv. 9, and 2 Chr. xxv. 18. The riddle (parable) of Ezekiel xvii. 1-10 introduces two eagles as representatives of human characters, but without ascribing to them human attributes. The parable occurs 2 Sam. xii. 1 (the poor man's ewe lamb), Isa. v. 1 (the vineyard yielding wild grapes), also 1 Kings xx. 39; xxii. 19. It was cultivated by Hillel, Shammai and other Jewish rabbis, and appears frequently in the Gemara and Midrash. It is found in its perfection in the Gospels. The parables of our Lord illustrate the various aspects of the kingdom of heaven (as those in the Synoptical Gospels), or the personal relation of Christ toHis disciples (as the parable of the good shepherd, and that of the vine and the branches, in the Gospel] of John). They conceal and reveal the profoundest ideas in the simplest and most lucid language. They are at once pure truth and pure poetry. Every trait is intrinsically possible and borrowed from nature and human life, and yet the compo- sition of the whole is the product of the imagination. The art of illustrative teaching in parables never rose so high before or since, nor can it ever rise higher .* f! 9. PROPHETIC POETRY. This is peculiar to the Bible and to the religion of revelation. Heathen nations had their divinations and oracles, but no divinely inspired prophecy. Man may have forebodings * Ewald (p. S« says of the parables of Christ: " Was hter aw tier UauckamtU erzanU aird, isl idWmmmm uahr, d. >■ ,1, „ mauchlicht* Verhaltnimm milk .... mtsgrechmd, sodats leiner dor es hurt an uimm Satefa xeveifd* h,m. und w , -,.- „,„ , ,. Bird tuir Lehre, md nicht anders gemmd. Aber mil dtr hSchttm WahrhtH dtr BchOderung dice, mnwcMttften Leoens verbindet Hi h hier Oire hSchtU EinfaU, Lieblichkeit J VoUendmg, ..... Or den imuidertteMicJutai Zauler --,. get, ..." JO. PROPHETIC POETRY. of the future, and may conjecture what may come to pass under certain conditions; but God only knows the future, and he to whom He chooses to reveal it. Prophecy ia closely allied to poetry. The prophet sees the future as a picture with the spiritual eye enlightened by the Divine. mind, and describes it mostly in more or less poetic form. Pn iphetic poetry combines a didactic and an epic element.* It rouses the conscience, enforces the law of God, and holds up the history of the future, the approaching judgments and mercies of God for instruction, reproof, comfort and encouragement. Prophecy is too elevated to descend to ordinary prose, and yet too practical to bind itself to strict rules. Ezekiel and Daniel, like St. John in the Apocalypse, use prose, but a prose that has all the effect of poetry. The other prophets employ prose in the narrative and introduc- tory Bections, but a rhythmical flow of diction in the prophecies proper, with divisions of clauses and stanzas, and rise often to the highest majesty and power. The sublime prayer of Habakkuk (eh. iii.) is a lyric poem and might as well have a place in the Psalter. The greatest poet among the prophets is Isaiah. He gathers up all the past prophecies to send them enriched into the future, and combines the deepest prophetic inspiration with the sublimcst and sweetest poetry.f The earlir-t specimens of prophetic poetry are the prediction of Noah, Gen. ix. 2"i-27, the blessing of Jacob, Gen. xlix., the prophecies of Balaam, Numb, xxiv., and the farewell blessing of the twelve tribes by Moses, Dent, xxxiii. The golden age of prophetic poetry began with the decline of lyric poetry, and continued till the extinction of prophecy, warn- ing the people of the approaching judgments of Jehovah, and comforting them in the midst of their calamities with 1 1 is promise of a brighter future when the Messiah shall come to redeem lli< i pie and to bless all the nations of the earth. We -elect mi.- <>f the oldest specimens, a part of the remarkable prophecy of Balaam concerning Israel, which has a melodious lyrical flow (Num. xxiv. 4-10, 17-19) : :, who heareth the words of God, Who seetb the rial n of the Almighty, Falling down, and havi-i j . tied: II.. w goodlj to, 0 Jacob, i Israeli At thi ■■'■ I »rth, Ai gardens by the rivet Aa llgn alow which the Lord hath planted, As cedi I v, ;itcrs. He shall flow with water from his huckets. And his 8<-ed sliall be in man; waters, And hi* kiug shall be higher than Agag, i ed. God bringeth him forth ">/, toll von Mi ' von ohm Herat trtffen,vnd wsewn mm an erhaben in licJl >„ i,: ihm -irr Strom &i r Bed. , nui Wl vor for ungewVhnli* hen EMu und dm Emste seiner Worts Ui* hi von n lb$i f Comp.the aloqnent description of Isaiah by Ewald in his Die Propheten des Alien Bundew, Stuttg. 1810, vol. I., p. 166. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL COOKS. There shalt come forth a Star out of Jacob, Anil a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel Ani Bhall smite through the corners of Moab, And break down all tbe sons of tumult. And Edom shall be a possession, An4 Seir shall be a possession, his enemies; Whila Israol doeth valiantly. And out of Jacob shall he have dominion. And shall destroy the remnant from the city. • The nearest approach which tbe prophecy of the Old Testament several hundred years before Christ made to the very heart of the gospel salvation, is in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah : Who hath believed our report ? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of a dry ground : He hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we shall see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men; A Wan of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from Him, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely Ho hath borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows: Yet we did esteem Him striken, Smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon nim; And with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray ; We have turned every one to his own way ; And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth : He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 80 He openeth not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: And who shall declare his generation ? For He was cut off out of the land of the living: For the transgression of my people was ne stricken. And He made His grave with the wicked, And with the rich in His death ; Because He had done no violence, Neither was any deceit in His mouth : Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him ; He hath put Him to grief. When Thou sbalt make nis soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. By Hi* knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; For He shall bear thf-ir iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him, a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong; Because He hath poured out His soul unto death: And ne was numbered with the transgressors; And He bare the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors. I 10. DRAMATIC POETRY. If we start with the Greek conception of the drama, there is none in the Bible. But if we take the word in a wider sense, and apply it to lengthy poetic compositions, unfolding an \ 10. DRAMATIC POETRY. action and introducing a number of speakers or actors, we have two dramas in the Old Testa- ment. The Song of Solomon is a lyric drama or melo-drama; the Book of Job, a didactic drama. The best judges of different ages and churches, as Gregory of Naziauzen, Bossuet, Lowth, Ewald, Renan, Stanley, recognize the dramatic element in these two poems, and some have even gone so far as to suppose that both, or at least the Canticles, were really intended for the stage.* But there is not the slightest trace of a theatre in the history of Israel before the ase of Hep id, who introduced foreign customs; as there is none at the present day in the Holy Land, and scarcely among the Mohammedan Arabs, unless we regard the single reciters of romances (always men or boys) with their changing voice and gestures as dramatic actors. The modern attempts to introduce theatres in Beirut and Algeria have signally failed. 1. The Canticles presents the Hebrew ideal of pure bridal and conjugal love in a series of monologues and dialogues by different persons: a lover, king Solomon (Shelomoh, the Peaceful), a maiden named Shulamith, and a chorus of virgins, daughters of Jerusalem. There are no breaks or titles to indicate the change of scene or speakers, and they can be recognized only from the sense and the change of gender and number in the personal pro- noun. The English version is much obscured by a neglect of the distinction of feminine and masculine pronouns in the Hebrew. The poem is full of the fragrance of spring, the beauty of flowers, and the loveliness of love. How sweet and charming is Solomon's description of spring, ch. ii. 10-14, which a German poet calls "a kiss of heaven to earth." Rise up, my love, my fair one, and go forth I F'>r, lo, thi> winter i< past, The rain is over, Is . The flowers appear on the earth. The time (or the singing of t-ir-1** is come, And the voice of the turtle i* heard in our land. The tig-tree spices its green ttgs, And the vines with tender blossoms give fragrance. my (air one, and go forth I My dove, in the clefts ->f the rock, In the recess of the cliffs, Let me see thy countenance, Let me hear thy voice ; For thy voir.- It sweet, And thy countenance is comely. The Song of Solomon canonizes the love of nature, and the love of sex, as the Book of Esther (where the name of God never occurs) canonizes patriotism or the love of country. It Lrives a place in the Book of God to the noblest and strongest passion which the Creator has planted in man, before the fall, and which reflects His own infinite love to His crea- tures, and the love of Christ to I T is ( Ihurch. Proad abesle prof anil The very depth of perversion to which the passion of love can be degraded, only reveals the height of its origin and destiny. Love in its primal purity is a "blaze" or "lightning flash from Jehovah" (Shalhebeth-Jah, ch, viii. 6), and stronger than death, and as it proceeds from God so it re- turns to Him ; for " I lod is love; and he that dwclleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him" (1 John iv. L6).f » Ews i lively, but without proof, that drama* were enncted on the great festivals, and n1 I David and Solomon, tie calls the Gantlolea " the purest model of a comedy (Lewi Job, "s i tdmits, however, that in no case could God (whoisoneof the actors in Jol») I on a Jewish stage, like the gods in the Qreek*dramas. Benan / OanKque dee Comftgues) denies the existence of pi sg the Hebrews, owing to the absence of a complicated mythology which stimulated the , sent of the drama among the Hindoos and Greeks, bul maintains that the Song of Songs, being a dramatic poem, must 1 1 ' : resented in private families at marriage feasts. f That most pure and godly Herman hymnisl In liis sweet hymn : " Zen f"'tr an die Machl der Liebe" traces all true love i" Chri«l as the fountain-head, in these beautiful lines : Jemmamm, I !!,■ BaV hh in : Atu aV m "'■ r >' ! fft n S R tar dart trinkL GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. As to the artistic arrangement or the number of acts and cantos in each act of this melo- drama of Love there is considerable difference among commentators. Some divide it into five acts, according to the usual arrangement of dramas (Ewald, Bottcher, ZSckler, Moody- Stuart, Davidson, Ginsburg), some into six (Delitzsch, Hahn), some into seven, correspond- ing to the seven days of the Jewish marriage festival for which the successive portions of the poem are supposed to have been intended to be sung (Bossuet, Percy, Williams). Ewald subdivides the five acts into thirteen, Kenan into sixteen, others into more or less cantos. On the other hand Thrupp and Green give up the idea of a formal artistic construction, such as the Indo-European conception of a drama would require, and substitute for it a looser me- thod of arrangement or aggregation with abrupt transitions and sudden changes of scene. All the parts are variations of the same theme, "the love of king Solomon and his bride, the image of a divine and spiritual love." Those who regard the poem as an idyl rather tnan a drama (Sir William Jones, Good, Fry, Noyes, Herbst, Heiligstedt) divide it into a series of songs, but likewise differ as to the number and the pauses. This is not the place to enter into the wilderness of interpretations of this wonderful and much abused Song, which are fully discussed in this Commentary by Drs. Zockler and Green. But I must protest against the profane, or exclusively erotic interpretation which in various contradictory shapes has of late become so fashionable among scholars, and which makes the position of this book in the canon an inexplicable enigma. I add the judicious remarks of Dr. Angus on the subject.* " Much of the language of this poem has been misunderstood by early expositors. Some have erred by adopting a fanciful method of explanation, and attempting to give a mystical meaning to every minute circumstance of the allegory. In all figurative representations there is always much that is mere costume. It is the general truth only that is to be examined and explained. Others, not understanding the spirit and luxu- riancy of eastern poetry, have considered particular passages as defective in delicacy, an im- pression which the English version has needlessly confirmed, and so have objected to the whole, though the objection does not apply with greater force to this book than to Hesiod and Homer, or even to some of the purest of our own authors. If it be remembered, that the figure employed in this allegory is one of the most frequent in Scripture, that in extant ori- ental poems it is constantly employed to express religious feeling, that many expressions which are applied in our translation to the person, belong properly to the dress, that every generation has its own notions of delicacy (the most delicate in this sense being by no means the most virtuous), that nothing is described but chaste affection, that Shulamith speaks>and is spoken of collectively, and that it is the general truth only which is to be allegorized, the whole will appear to be no unfit representation of the union between Christ and true believers in every age. Properly understood, this portion of Scripture will minister to our holiness. It may be added, however, that it was the practice of the Jews to withhold the book from their children till their judgments were matured." The most recent commentator, too, justly remarks :f " Shall we then regard it as a mere fancy, which for so many ages past has been wont to find in the pictures and melodies of the Song of Songs types and echoes of the act- ings and emotions of the highest Love, of Love Divine, in its relations to Humanity ; which, if dimly discerned through their aid by the Synagogue, have been amply revealed in the gospel to the Church ? Shall we not still claim to trace in the noble and gentle history thus presented foreshadowings of the infinite condescensions of Incarnate Love ?— that Love which, first stooping in human form to visit us in our low estate in order to seek out and win its object (Ps. cxxxvi. 23), and then raising along with itself a sanctified Humanity to the Hea- venly Places (Eph. ii. 6), is finally awaiting there an invitation from the mystic Bride, to return to earth once more and seal the union for eternity (Bev. xxii. 17) ? ' 2. The Book of Job is a didactic drama, with an epic introduction and close. The pro- logue (chs. i. and ii.) and the epilogue (ch xlii. 7-17) are written in plain prose, the body of the poem in poetry. It has been called the Hebrew tragedy, but differing from, other trage- * Bible Handbook, Lond. ed., p. 449. f Kiugsbury, in tie " Speaker's Commentary " (vol. IV., p. G73). \ 10. DRAMATIC POETRY. dies by its happy termination. We better call it & dramatic theodicy. It wrestles with the perplexing problem of ages, ui , the true meaning and object of evil and suffering in- the world under the government of a holy, wise and merciful God. The dramatic form shows itself in the symmetrical arrangement, the introduction of several speakers, the action, or rather the suffering of the hero, the growing passion and conflict, the secret crime supposed to underlie his misfortune, and the awful mystery in the background. But there is little external action (ipa/ia) in it, and this is almost confined to the prologue and epilogue. In- stead of it we have here an intellectual battle of the deepest moral import, mind grappling with mind on the most serious problems wliieh can challenge our attention. The outward drapery ouly is dramatic, the soul and substance of the poem is didactic, with all the Hebrew- ideas of Divine Providence, which differ from the Greek notion of blind Fate as the light of day differs from midnight. It is intended for the study, not for the stage.* The book opens, like a Greek drama, with a prologue, which introduces the reader into the situation, and makes him acquainted with the character, the prosperous condition, the terrible misfortunes, and the exemplary patience of the hero. Even God, and His great an- tagonist, Satan, who appears, however, in heaven as a servant of God, are drawn into the scenery, and a previous arrangement in the Divine counsel precedes and determines thesub- Qt transaction. History on earth is thus viewed as an execution of the decrees of hea- ven, and .as controlled throughout by supernatural forces. But we have here the unsearch- able wisdom of the Almighty Maker and Ruler of men, not the dark impersonal Fate of the heathen tragedy. This grand feature of Job has been admirably imitated by Gothe in the prologue of his Faust. The action itself commences after seven days and seven nights of most eloquent silence. The grief over the misfortunes which, like a succession of whirlwinds, had suddenly hurled the patriarchal prince from the summit of prosperity to the lowest depths of misery, culmi- nating in the most loathsome disease, and intensified by the heartless sneers of lii- wife, at la-t hursts forth in a passionate monologue of .bib, cursing the day 'it' his birth. Then fol- lows the metaphysical conflict with his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who now turn to enemies, and "miserable comforters," " forgers of lies, and botchers of vanities." The debate has three acts, with an increasing entanglement, and every net eonsists ,,(' three as- saults of the fiNe friends, and as many defences of Job (with the exception that in the third and bust battle Zophar retires and Job alone speaks).f The. poem reaches its heighl in the triumphant assertion of faith in his I eh. xix. 25-27), by which " the patriarch of Uz rises to a level with the patriarch of Qras a pattern of faith." J After a closing monologue of Job, expressing fully his feelings and thoughts in view of the past controversy, the youthful Elihu, who hadsilently listened, comes forward, and in three sp dnistereddeservedre- buke to both parties with as little mercy for Job as for his friends, hut with abetter philosophy of suffering, whose object he represents to 1m- correction and reformation, the reproof of arro- gance and the exercise of humility and faith. He begins the disentanglement of the problem ami makes the transition to the jinal decision. At last God Himself, to whom Job had ap- pealed, appears as the Judge of the controversy, ami Job humbly submits to His infinite power and wisdom, and penitently confesses hi- -in and folly. This is the internal solution of the mighty problem, if solution it can !»■ called. A brief epilogue relates the historical issue, the restoration and increased prosperity of Job after this severest trial of his faith, and patient submission to ( hid. To the external order corresponds the internal dialectic development in the warlike mo- tion of conflicting sentiments and growing passions. The first aet of the '1- bate shows yet a « W. A. Wright (in W. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, III. 2553) says of the Book of Job: "Inasmuch as it repi »n action and a progress, it is a dram& as trnly > any poem can bo which develops tho w o and the.alternationg of faith, hope, 'Intrust, triumphant confidence, and black despair, in the straggle which It depicts the hu- manmii I ed in, while attemptii ne of the most intricate problems it can be called upon to regard. It is a drum* as life is a drama, the most powerful of all tragedies; imt thai it is a dramatic poem intended to be r» pi upon tho stage, or capable of being so represented, may be confidently denied." t Th ofthe ruling nnml linB \edta. X Seoa fine exposition of this passage in I>r. Green's Argument of the Book of Jot Unfold ■', New Fork, 1874, pp. lSlaqq. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL BOOKS. tolerable amount of friendly feeling on both sides. In the second the passion is much in- creased, and the charges of the opponents against Job made severer. In the last debate Eliphaz, the leader of the rest, proceeds to the open accusation of heavy crimes against the sufferer with an admonition to repent and to convert himself to God. Job, after repeated declarations of his innocence and vain attempts at convincing his opponents, appeals at last to God as his Judge. God appears, convinces him, by several questions on the mysteries of nature, of his ignorance, and brings him to complete submission under the infinite power and wisdom of the Almighty, chap. xlii. 2-6. I know that Thou canst do all things ; And no thought can be withheld from Thee. Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? I have then uttered what I understand not. But hear me now, and let mo speak ; Thee will I ask, and do Thou teach me. I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear ; But now mine eyes behold Thee. Therefore I abhor it (I recant),* And repent in dust and ashes. The Book of Job, considering its antiquity and artistic perfection, rises like a pyramid in the history of literature, without a predecessor and without a rival. | 11. POETIC DICTION. The language of Hebrew as well as of all other poetry, is, in one respect, more free, in other respects more bound, than the language of prose. It is the language of imagination and feeling, as distinct from the language of sober reflection and judgment. It is controlled by the idea of beauty and harmony. It is the speech of the Sabbath-day. It soars above what is ordinary and common. It is vivid, copious, elevated, sonorous, striking, impressive.- To this end the poet has more license than the prose-writer; while, on the other hand, it im- poses on him certain restraints of versification to secure greater aesthetic effect. He is per- mitted to use words which are uncommon or obsolete, but which, for this very reason, strike the attention and excite the emotion. He may also use ordinary words in an extraordinary sense. The licenses of the Hebrew poets are found in the following particulars : 1. Archaic forms and peculiar words, some of Aramaic or even a prior Shemitic dialect : Eloah for Elohim (God), enosh for adam (man), orach for derech (path), havah for haiah (to be), miUah for dabar (word), paal for asah (to do), katal for razah (to kill). Sometimes they are accumulated for poetic effect.t 2. Common words in an uncommon sense: Joseph for the nation of Israel; adjectives for substantive objects, as 'the hoi' for the sun, ' the white' for the moon (Cant. vi. 10), 'the strong' for a bull (Ps. 1. 13), 'the flowing' for streams (Isa. xliv. 3). 3. Peculiar grammatical forms, or additional syllables, which give the word more sound and harmony, or an air of antiquity ; as the paragogic ah (n ) affixed to nouns in the abso- lute state, o (>-), and i {'-) affixed to nouns in the construct state; the feminine termina- tion ath (for the ordinary ah); the plural ending in and ai (for im) ; the verbal suffixes mo, amo, and emo; the pronominal suffixes to nouns and prepositions — amo (for am), and ehu. (for an) ; also lengthened vowel forms of pronouns and prepositions — lamo (for lo or lahem), lemo (for /), bemo (for 3), hemo (for 3), eleh (for vN), adai (for "tj£). * DXOX from DfcO to reject, to despise, to abhors, without the pronominal object, which is either the person of Job f S'pt. ffj.av7ov ; Vulg. me; E. V., mys°lf ; Luther, miclo, or his argument, his foolish wisdom (Aben Ezra: qtdcqu&d ant sum temere \oqmdVA tt imperite). Ewald translates indefinitely : Drum icitlerrufe itfi und itbe, licut ; Similarly Zockler: Dartnn w'demtfe ieh und Uiiu Buate. I So in the highly poetic Pe. viti. 8 we have zoneh (sheep) for the prosaic "1N¥i alxphim (oxen) for 1p2. sadai (field) for ni'^, and b'llfniK'th s if this covenant idea which forms so peculiar a feature of the Old Testament, and especially of the patriarchal, economy. God does not deal with them as He does with nature. He raises them above the plane of an arbitrarily imposed and an involuntarily accepted law. He stipulates with man, he proposes terms to him, as one rational mind to another. But such a transaction implies a greater being in the party thus treated than the transient earthly life. God deals not thus with creatures of a day. " He is not the God of the dead, but of the living." It is our Saviour's argument with the Sadducees, most rational, most Scriptural, and most conclusive, though some of the Rationalists have not hesitated to characterize it as a force upon the text quoted, and an evasion of the difficulty presented. "the power of an endless life." It cannot be denied that there may be a feeling, a sentiment, an influence, call it what we will, that may have an immense power over the soul, giving it a most peculiar character, and yet wholly undefined in the forms either of thought or of language. It may be the con- sciousness of some greater being, strongly felt, yet without any conceived accompaniments of time, state, and locality. It is that mysterious idea which characterized the priesthood of Melchizedcck, and which the Apostle calls " the power of an endless life," iiva/uv fu^r aKaraAvrov (Heb. vii. 16), — of an indissoluble, unbroken being. It is a power truly instead of a bare dogmatic idea, and yet indissolubly connected with that other and higher idea of the eternal God, with its awful moral relations to the human soul. i It demands a Pure Theism first as the Ground of all other Religious Ideas. Thus it is that these two great articles of religion, though inseparably connected in their essence, stand to each other in a causal relation of birth and development. The second, so far as respects its definiteness of conception, was to grow out of the first, and find in it its security against all perversion. To this end the first was to be clearly established, and to have the dominion of the soul, before the second assumed such form as might make it, in any degree, really or seemingly, independent of it. The clear acknowledgment of God as a moral Go- vernor, whatever might become of man, or whatever might be thought of the duration or the importance of his being, — this was to be first, not only for its own sake as intrinsically greater than any other idea, but also on account of the second itself, as being a dogma, which, with- out such clear recognition of the greater dogma, might become vain, imaginative, grotesque, bringing in all kinds of monstrous chimeras on the one hand, or of pretty sentimentalities on the other, and, in either way, wholly losing all moral power. Doctrine of a Future Life developed from it. From the doctrine of the being, personality, moral government, and moral sovereignty of God, were to grow out all other religious ideas. Under the divine direction of human history, and especially of the people who were chosen to be keepers of truth for the world, their development in the soul was to be their revelation. The Scriptures are the record of this revelation, made by divinely chosen and divinely guided instruments ; or rather it is the record -of the circumstances and events, natural or supernatural, common or extraordinary, in which, under the divine control, these developments had their origin and growth. Thus the idea of retribution was born in the sharp human conviction of something due to great crime — awakening also the thought that there might be a heinousness in such crimes, and even in what were regarded as common sins, far beyond that ordinary estimate which might itself have fallen with fallen beings. In the murderer's conscience was born essentially the idea of Hell before any Hadean penalty was conceived of, either as to mode or locality. So the acknowledged relation of God as Moral Governor, as Redeeming Angel, as Covenant Friend, must have produced in the souls of the pious a feeling that becomes the preparation on which the idea of a blessed future being was, ita time, firmly and definitely to rest. In such an ac- knowledged relationship there was this " power of an endless life," of infinite being, as the THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE. germ of every idea that might afterwards be held in respect to the human destiny or tLe human soteriology. The Hebrew Despondency more spiritual than any Heathen Confidence. Anacreon and David. Farewell to the World — Farewell to the Idea of God. This appears even in their despondency, or their moments of apparent skepticism. There is really something more spiritual in the seeming despair, even, than in many a belief that might be regarded as greatly surpassing in dogmatic statement or conceptive clearness. To the worldly mind, with a dim hope of futurity, or even with one possessing some degree of distinctness, yet without moral power, the agonizing thought in view of death is the leaving behind this fair earth, with its prospects of pleasure or of ambition. See how it meets us in the heathen gnomic poetry, in the Greek monumental verses, and in the Choral odes of the Dramatists. Very affecting are such representations, as they may be all summed up some- times in that touching expression so common in Homer : bpav i\ ine eternity, the loss of which was sorer than any diminution of their own being considered merely in it- self. Hence the affecting contrasts of man's dying, going out, passing away, ami God's ever- lasting continuance. The contemplation of this is tin' reason assigned in praj ing lor the con- tinuance of the human life. " 0 take me not away in the midst of my days ; Thy years arc- through all generations." "Thou sendest man back to dissolution (N2? Tg, to decay and dust), and tlion sayest, return ye sons of Adam." " But Thou art from everlasting unto lasting;" "of thy years there is no end;" wrf to, they never fail. There is, however, a rising hope of eternity in the very thought, as though reflected back on the human soul that thus contemplated itself in God, and leading it to say: "Thou hast been to us our dwelling- place in all generations;" or in the rapt language of the Prophet: "Art Thou not from i lasting, Jehovah, my God, my Holy One ? We shall not die." Hab. i. 12. This "Power of an Endless Life," thus implied, stronger than any Dogmatic Utterance. It is in these and in similar ways that the inspired feeling — for such we may call it i in its apparent skepticism — breathes itself out in many a passage where not a word is said dogmatically of any future state, and' yet the language seems all filled with this " power of an endless life." Thus in the "Psalm of Asaph," lxxiii. 24: "Whom have I in the Heavens (but Thee) ; and in all the earth there is nothing that I desire beside Thee." — !JI?,J> in compa- rison with Thee. Take away this SBOnio inspiration, and all, at once, collapses. The lan- guage, regarded as coming from a mere worldly soul, speaking from a worldly stand-point, is wholly overstrained. There is nothing to call out a state of feeling so high and rapturous.* " My flesh and my heart (my body and my soul) both fail, but Thou art the strength (the rockj * General upplictuioD. THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. of my heart, and my portion Cf> ?n, my decreed or allotted portion) for ever." Not a word here, it may be said, of immortality, or of any life beyond the grave ; no one would quote it as a proof-text for the doctrine dogmatically considered ; and yet the power is there— the diva/us fw/f dtiaraAvTov — " the power of an endless life." Example* from Job — God mourned for more than his Loss or Pain. So is it with Job, though the darkness and sadness of his outward state gives a different form to the expression. The loss of property he hardly mentions — his bereavement of his children he barely alludes to ; but it is for God he mourns — for the hiding of His face, "the light of His countenance," that ineffable good for which our purest modern religion finds its best expression in the language of this ancient theism. Such a feeling is not inconsistent with the daring, and, as they seem to us, almost profane, expostulations wrung from him by the long continuance of his sharp bodily pains. In every subsidence of this great misery — for there must have been such seasons of remission, or he could not have borne it — there re- turns again the humbled, mourning spirit, with its divine want: "Othat I knew where I might find Him ; O that I might set my cause in order before Him ; that I might know the words He would answer me," xxiii. 3,5; "Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face?" xiii. 24; " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," * xiii. 15. From the lowest depth, hope springs up. Just after he had said, " My face is foul with weeping, and the death shade is on my eyelids " (xvi. 16), he cries out, " Even now my Witness is in Heaven, my Attestor is on high," f xvi. 19 ; " My friends are my mockers, but mine eye droppeth unto God," 20. The tearful appeal is made as unto a better friend, who, in the days of his prosperity, had never been absent from his soul's most cherished thoughts : " 0 that it were with me as in months that are past, in the days when God watched over me ('J-'W'), when His lamp shone upon my head, when by His light I walked through darkness ; when the Almighty was with me ; when the secret of God [I'D, eonsessus colloquium, His secret presence and communion, see Ps. xxv. 14] was upon my tabernacle," xxix. 2-4. Our highest rationalism has now no such remembrance and no such mourning. It may talk of the dimness of Job's views, the inade- quate conceptions entertained by the author of the poem in respect to the character of God, or the absence of any clear mention of a future life, but his darkness is better than their light, his intense theistic feeling is stronger than their theory ; they have no such skepticism, perhaps, because they have no such faith. Longing for Goa as distinguishing the Hebrew Theism from all other. It is the same feeling, as characteristic of this ancient theism, which breaks out in that ecstatic longing before alluded to : "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so pantetli my soul after Thee, O God !" Picture the image of the thirsting animal (moaning, with out- stretched neck, as J"\P vividly denotes) in its intense desire for the refreshing element; then transfer it to the rational sphere, and we see that it is a superhuman, earth-transcending good that is so ardently sought. " My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God " — for the God of life. The epithet is not a superfluity. It distinguishes Him from the dead idol, on the one hand, and the equally dead idea, or theosophism, on the other. " It is Thy favor which is life, Thy loving-kindness which is more than life." Again, Ps. lxiii. 1 : " O God ! 0 Thou my God ! my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee [n^D, denoting that strong passion which makes even the body faint under the intensity of its desire) as in a dry and thirsty land wherein no water is." Our Saviour shows His estimate of the power of this lan- guage by'consecrating the image in His own highest term for spiritual blessedness — the " wa- * The Keri here (lS for X1?) of the Maaoretic text must be very ancient, since it is sustained by the Syriac, the Tar- ^um, the Vulgate, and the Arabic of Saadias. It is in the closest grammatical harmony with the Terb 71TN ; and no one tu deny that the rendering produced is in perfect consistency with the spirit of the whote Book. t '1712'. A word from the same root in Arabic means attesting angel, or angels : A-rtgdi, testes in ultimo judicio. See Koran Surat.xi. 21. Is not the -\TW or Attestor, ou whom Job calls here, the same with the "7JU xix. 25! I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH. ter of life," the " fountain leaping up to everlasting life." There is no mistaking the signi- ficance of such an appeal to God. No joy in this world without the beatific sense of the divine presence. Transition from Despondency lo Rapture. Job xix. 25. Such was this ancient theism. It carried with it " the power of an endless life," without any dogmatic mention, and this is the reason why the highest emotion of modern religion still finds in it its most adequate, as well as its most impassioned, expression. There is less of it in Job ; but there, too, we find it, carrying him, sometimes, out of the deepest despond- ency into a spiritual region where his sharpest pains seem, for the moment, forgotten. In the first part of ch. xix. it seems to be all over with him. No hope, either for body or for soul : " He hath fenced up my way, that I cannot pass ; He hath set darkness in my path ; He hath broken me down on every side, and I am gone; He uproots, like a tree, my hope ; my bone cleaves to my skin, and to my flesh ; I am laid bare, the skin from my teeth." * A little be- fore (xvii. 1), he had said, " My breath (my breathing) is exhausted" (flalj, not "corrupt," but from the other sense of '3n, denoting great pain, as of one in travail, hard and painful breathing, quick panting) ; my breath comes hard, my days are going out (Ui'tJ), the graves are my portion." v. 11, 12. " My purposes are broken off, even the treasured thoughts of my heart," all my pleasant earthly remembrances. The light is departing. "Theyt are putting night for day :" the shades of death are gathering fast around him. All hope of life is gone, much more the expectation of restored wealth and worldly prosperity, which the rationalist would regard as the only significance of the triumphal strain that follows, xix. 25. He U in extremis; but such is the very time when this "power of an endless life" asserts itself. At the lowest ebb, as though such a time had been necessary to bring out its returning force, he breaks forth with those ever memorable words so sublime and super-earthly in apite of every lowering strain that criticism will put upon them, the words he wished "engraved," as his monument, " with an iron stile aud lead in the rock forever:" I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIYETH : My Avenger, who takes my part against my murderer or the great unseen evil Power of whose hostility Job sometimes seems to have a kind of dreamy consciousness. There is the same idea of survivorship so touchingly alluded to in the Psalms. He is my p"1™*, my Nach- inaini, my Next of Kin. He lives on ; " and after theyt have broken up this skin of mine, yet from my flesh (or out of my flesh, translate it as we will) shall I see God" — see Him with the eyes of my soul, and not with any outwardly derived theoretical knowledge — see Him as the Living God, as my God, and not a stranger. This beatific thought of God as " all his salva- tion and all his desire" carries him out of and far away from himself. It becomes an insup- portable rapture giving rise to that same intense language before referred to in the 63d Psalm, and elsewhere. It is that most passionate verb fT?3, having for its subject the parono- mastic noun J1V73 (the reins, renei, $pever)t denoting the most interior part of the body, re- * It would seem to denote that ghastly look, and that ghastly condition of extreme emaciation, when the skin will no more close over the protruding teeth. Tins sense may be got for Q/D without going to the corresponding Arabic word. It is closely connected with the common rfebrew sense of escape or deliverance (one thing parting ot part, if rp.in :mutlier). It is like the accusative with preposition after passive verbs denoting condition. lam parted, the shin of my teeth, or in the akin of my teeth — that is, the flesh that covers my teeth. It denotes the extreme of emaciation and suffering. t l?3''iy\ "Tliey are putting." Who are they t It is one of those cases where the agent, real or supposed, is not named because of something fearful, perhaps, associated with it. "They" — invisible powers, it may be, alther Actually believed or used figuratively or proverbially to heighten the effect of the language. Grammarians call it the using of the activo for the passive impersonal, but this does not explain the matter. As parallel passages, compare Job vii. 3, It. 19, xviii. 18, xix. 2ti : Ps. xlix. 16, and especially the Greek of Luke xii. 20. It is generally used by way of deprecating something hostile. Ilut it may also be from reverence. See Isaiah lx. 11. X The same idiom referred to in the note above. They, the agent, too fearful or too revolting to be named, may refer to the worma reducing his skin to shreds, or to the strange hostile powers that were then destroying his body through disease, regarded as produced by evil agency. THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. garded as in nearest connection with the spiritual emotion : " My reins faint within me," 'pm T>V73 HD. Consuming, exhaustion, completion, are the primary sense, hence, of disap- pearing (schwinden), going out, fainting, swooning with ecstatic joy. Ewald's treatment of the passage is most admirable. He, however, refers *" to Job himself, and makes the personal idea conveyed by it one of the chief elements of his insupportable bliss: "Nieht ein Fremder, no more a stranger. It is no other than myself; no, no; all doubt is gone. It is I [ich, ich), I that shall thus behold Him. So deeply does he feel the bliss, that he seems to have wholly forgotten the outer world ; and finally, in the highest transport, like one swooning, he cries out, 0 ich vergehe, O I am almost gone; I faint from trembling joy and insupportable desire." Ewald, Job, p. 200. He refers to Psalms Ixxxiv. 3, cxix. 8. Compare also the use of oixerai by the Greek Dramatists, napdia yap oi^erat. Similar Fluctuations of Faith and Hope. Job xiv. It is the same feeling, though in a calmer or less ecstatic form, that prompts the language, Job xiv. 13 : 'JJ3Vn "?1K»3 jrr 'O, "0 that Thou wouldst lay me up (like a deposit) in Sheol, that Thou wouldst keep me secret till Thy wrath should turn (3WJ, that Thou wouldst ap- point me a time and then remember me." Is it really so? The thought suddenly breaks out of his gloom : " Is it really so : If a man die, shall he live again ?" Every thing depends here upon what we regard as the emotional point of the question. The musing, soliloquizing style should also be remembered. It is not so much answering his friends, as talking to himself, and pausing between each solemn utterance. It may be the language of skepticism, or of rising hope, not denying the idea, but expressive of wonder at some new aspect of its great- ness. It may have been intended — and the thought is not unworthy of inspiration — that dif- ferent readers, according to their different degrees of spiritual-mindedness, might take higher or lower views of the strange interrogatory. Even for Job himself it may have had its various aspects. There may have been intended the denial or the doubt ; or there may have been the feeling of wonder before mentioned ; or it may have been an entirely new view, carrying with it a rising assurance: "If a man die, shall he live?" May it be that death is the way to life ? * — that through it we attain the real life ? However momentary the feeling, it imme- diately raises, him to a higher confidence. Its first fruit is the earnest prayer for remem- brance and security in Sheol ; then the stronger faith grounded on the more unreserved sub- mission: "All the days of my appointment" (what he had prayed for in the verse preceding) will I wait until my change t shall come." And now we have language which seems to mount * It is the same style of musing query given in Plato, Gorgias, 493, A, by way of extract from a lost drama of Euripides : Tis 5' oTSei'. ei to £fjv nev eorl KarOaveiv, To Kardavelv oe ^v f Who knows but life, the present life, be death, And death be living? Socrates explains it from the saying of the wise mm of old, "that we are now dead and buried in the body." Who shall say that the same, or a kindred thought, may not have come to an Idumeau sage, as well as to the old o-o^oi to whom Plato ascribes it ? f Umbreit and other commentators of the same school will have it that the change here is that from life to death. The arguments against it are threefold. There is, first, the consistency of the context. Secondly, if 713' 7J1 stood here alone, without auy thing to determine it one way or the other, it might be said that in other passages the transition denoted by the root is that of renewal, whenever connected with the idea of life, as in Ps. xc. 3 ; Ps. cii. 27, where it seems to denote a new garment for nature, a change of raiment in the sense of renewal. There is, thirdly, the direct use of H'SlT, the Hiphil, for reviviscence, in the seventh verse, as applied to the comparison of the tree. Would the nonn here, so obviously from it, so soon lose the same idea, and be taken in another directly opposite? and is there not the strongest critical reason for regarding the use of the noun in ver. 14 as suggested by the parallel thought, ver. 7 : " Even as there is hope of a tree that it will germinate again CV^ry), so also will I wait until my springing forth, my n3'7n, come." "For Thou wilt call," etc. I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH. to almost full assurance: "For Thou wilt call and I will answer Thee; Thou wilt yearn* to- wards the work of Thy hands." The darkness soon comes over him again ; but these words stand, nevertheless, like the monumental engraving that describes the rapture of the later passage. Even as Ewald describes him then, he seems, for a short period, so carried away by the deep question he is pondering, as to have forgotten the outer world and all his surround- ings. "Thou wilt have regard to the work of Thy hands; Thou wilt call and I will answer." It is " the power of an endless life," carrying him for a moment beyond the thought of death, or suffering, or human injustice. It is, however, but a transient gleam, and the close of the chapter — following, we may suppose, a pause or pauses in his soliloquy — becomes again as mournful as its beginning. One inference most strongly suggest- iteelf from all this. There is a true experience here, an actual life that is lived. A soul went through these sorrows. It had these transitions of hope and despair — now moaning and expostulating with God, now rapt in the deepest meditation, now praying and trusting, now utterly cast down, and now, when "the light is just before darkness," as Dr. Conant renders xvii. 12, rising suddenly to a height of rapture in which every thing disappears before the beatific vision of God. To a mind in a right state there comes from this an irresistible argument for the actual truthfulness of the history, not only in its general outlines, but also in what has been called its dramatic representation. This is not an invented picture. It would require a power and a stvle of writing not only unknown to the early world, but surpassing the highest skill of modern fic- tion, even could we suppose the greatest dramatists of Grecian, German, or English literature capable of describing such a state of soul, or of descending, without divine aid, into the depths of such an experience. Bidding Farewell to God; this Idea in the Psalms connected with the Temple and Ritual Worship. In language like this we have quoted from Job and the Psalms, every hope of future being, or of any greater or higher being now connected with the earthly life, is sustained by, and derived from, the idea of God. It is this which gives such a preciousness to every- thing associated with the divine name. In the Psalms, however, there is a peculiar feature most worthy of note, because leading to a most important inference. In the expression of the glorious divine attributes, and of man's great need of God, their theism is substantially the same with that of Job and the Patriarchs. A new element, however, appears in the passionate language used in respect to the outward divine worship. The occasional feeling of despondency in view of death, as before referred to, is enhanced by the thought of having every thing on earth associated with the divine name, — the temple, the sanctuary, the altar, "the courts of Thine house." .Sec the prayer of Hezekiah, Isaiah xxxviii. Similar to this is the longing expressed when circumstances, even in this life, have cut them off from privileges so highly prized : " O when shall I come and appear before the face of God .' " How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts I Longs, yea, even faints (nSDJJ nr\7j DJ) my soul for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry aloud (UJT) for the Living God." Hence that endeared expression HIIT XV3, " the house of the Lord," used not only for the temple, the place of worship, but for the people of God who worship there. A still further extension of the idea makes it denote the religious as distinguished from the worldly life, or even as something transcending the earthly state, though undefined in time and space. As Ps. xxiii. 4 : " I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." In that verse our translation may be amended. The words mrv IVS] ¥131?, all belong to the subject of the sentence, as even the accents show : " My dwelling in the House of the Lord — shall be, □'O' 1^X7, for length of days," that is, continuously, or without interruption : My religious life shall not be simply on Sabbath-days, or on the stated festivals, but one un- * HDDiV Primary sense, palluit, the/ace growing pale, like silver,.from strong desire. We Lave used Dr. Conant'8 admirable translation, "yearns." In Ps. Ixxxlv. '■'■ it Lfl used, t"^eth>T with rwD, to denote the longing of the pious soul for God, and that makes more impressivo here the converse idea of God's yearning love for man. 10 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. broken adoration. Comp. Rev. iv. 8. It is thus that, when far removed, or deprived in any way of this divine presence, they so earnestly pray : 0 send again that heavenly hoar, That vision so divine, " Even Thy strength and Thy glory, as we have seen them in the Sanctuary. For better is Thy love than life ; our lips shall ever praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee while I live; thus, in Thy name, lift up my hands. As with marrow and fatness (beyond comparison with any earthly pleasure), so shall my soul be satisfied ; with songs of joy shall my mouth glorify Thee." It is a spiritual joy, transcending any " good of corn and wine." It is a soul-worship, a soul-rapture, no mere affair of trumpets, incense, altars, or cherubic symbols, no imposing ceremonial, however gorgeous or comely its forms, however elevating or pietist ic its influence. " In the shadow of Thy wings do I trust." The outward temple worship suggests the image, but it is in deepest retirement that its power is felt : " For surely I remember Thee upon my bed ; I meditate upon Thee in the watches of the night ; my soul followcth hard after Thee ; Thy right hand upholdeth me." It is an absorbing devotion ; the whole heart is there ; the highest thoughts of God are there ; it is a model which our best modern worship may strive to reach but cannot surpass. " For better is Thy love than life :" No mere rationalistic theism now talks to itself in this way ; it was no mere theosophy, much less any known form of patrial or local worship that used the language then. It is an abiding sense of the power of this ancient devotion that has made the Psalms, in all ages, the Litany of the Christian Church. Inference from the Absence of all such Language in Job. It is true that there are no passages of this latter kind in the Book of Job ; but the inference from the fact is most obvious as well as most important. The story of that book, and even the seances (the dramatic discourses) as recorded, to say nothing of any later writer or recorder, were long before those inspiring temple and tabernacle ideas. They were before the Mosaic Law. That has been ably maintained as proof of the patriarchal character of the book, and we think that some of our modern Evangelical Commentators, such as Heng- stenberg, and others, have been rash in giving up a view sustained by so profound a scholar as Spanheim, and indirectly supported by so learned an Orientalist as Schultens. JVi historia sit, fraus scriptoris, says the former. A pure dramatic work, avowed to be such, or carrying evidence of its dramatic character upon its very face, might have a place in inspired Scrip- ture regarded as given by God for human instruction. Almost every other style of writing is there. But a parable, an allegory, a myth even, we at once know to be such. There is no concealment, no attempt to conceal, no artifice employed to put in what does not belong to the time of the composition, or to keep out what would at once undeceive the reader in regard to the appearance it would maintain. Such an intention, so employed, seems certainly akin to fraud. No subsequent writer was ever led to regard our Saviour's Parables as actual histories ; but such, certainly, was the view derived by the Prophet Ezekiel from this Book of Job, then a part of the Jewish Canon. He no more regarded it as unreal than the his- tories, as contained in the same Canon, or firmly held by tradition, of Noah and Daniel. Difficulties of the pure Dramatic view in excluding all reference to the Divine Law and Testimony so frequent in the Psalms. According to the pure dramatic view, the writer selects a "hero," wholly imaginary, or faintly disclosed in the dimmest nucleus of an ancient legend. He clothes him with the character of the patriarchal age. He carefully keeps from him, and from the speakers with whom he is associated, the least reference to the Mosaic law. This might be compara- tively easy, if it lay before him as a written document, which he might at any time examine, comparing it with his own work, and expunging or modifying as the case might demand. But there would be something far more difficult. The Jewish liturgical writings, older than the time ascribed by most modern critics to the Book of Job, abound in references to this I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH. 11 old law. They give it a great variety of names, such as statutes, judgments, ordinances, testimonies. See how this kind of language is multiplied in the cxix. Psalm, and in others certainly older, if the cxix. is to be carried down to a late date. Language is taxed to ex- press this ardent devotion of the soul, this ecstatic love of the comparatively limited reve- lation God had as yet given to the world, and that, too, veiled, for the most part, under outward and ceremonial ordinances. Yet what a rapture does it call out for the spiritual mind : " O how love I Thy law ! Thy word is very pure, therefore Thy servant loveth it ; The entrance of Thy word giveth light; Great peace have they who love Thy testimonies; Thy precepts are my delight ('£>?>'>?, in the plural, delicise mese, my exceeding joy) sweet to my taste, yea, sweeter than the honey, or the droppings of the comb." What care must it have taken to avoid anything of this kind ! How still more difficult to keep clear of any -uch language as we first set forth, not referring to the Law, even indirectly, but deriv- ing i;s spirit from it, and full of those remembrances of the sanctuary, and of the outward worship which were its fruit. All this kept out !* not the slightest anachronism to be dis- 1, nothing but what is perfectly consistent with that far more ancient Patriarchal age to which the writer evidently wishes the reader to regard his imaginary hero and his- tory as belonging. It is incredible. Such Dramatic Skill and Invention out of Harmony with the Idea of Inspiration, and even of the highest Order of Genius. It would be wholly at war with that simplicity and truthfulness which we cannot sepa- rate from the idea of a holy and inspired writer. Such studied precaution would be incon- sisti it even with the lower human enthusiasm demanded for such a work of genius. It would simply be the genius of invention, and not even a miracle could carry it out of itself and into that higher sphere towards which it soars. Moreover, such a style of writing is inconsistent with any idea we can form of the earliest times. Modern fictitious writing has carried the art to its utmost capabilities, but even here it stops short (as from the very nature of the case it must) of the highest order of genius. It always fails when it attempts to meddle with the most sacred themes. We may confidently repeat it, therefore, that such Buccess in such an effort, by a writer of the days of Solomon, is simply incredible. But why not, then, take it as it purports to be — a true story of the Patriarchal age — and a substantially true report of discourses arising out of it, given in that chanting semi-rhyth- mical style that we know was earliest employed for the expression of all thoughts of a higher order, or regarded as having an extraordinary value. It is the same reflective, medi- tative, self-repeating rhythm, requiring little or no outward artifice, that we see in some of the earliest chants in Genesis, in the Song of Miriam, and in the Oracles of Balaam, the Prophet and Poet of the early East. It was the same, probably, from which the later fixed style of Hebrew poetry derived its origin. There seems to be demanded some ancient work of great repute to be the standard of authority for the later parallelistic chanting, and to give it rule and fixedness ; just as Homer became the model of the Hexameter for all later Epic poetry of the Greeks. Internal Truthfulness. Place of Job in Hebrew Literature. There are other alleged stumbling-blocks, and other objections to the historical reality of the Book, such as the appearance of Satan in the Prologue, the round and double numbers in the narrative, and the theophany at the close, which may be treated elsewhere. In re- gard, however, to the substantial subject-matter of the story, it may weli be asked, why may * The author is represented as showing the most marvellous skill in keeping cut every allusion to things most deeply interwoven in 'he Israelitish life. All is foreign and antique. And yet Commentators who maintain this, find the grossest anachronisms in the Book, whenever they can servo the purpose of assigning to it some comparatively modern period. Tim-. Uerx, p. xli.. finds in ch. xv. 15, 10, an allusion to the Assyrian invasion of 760, or to the fact that foreigners wero in llie liti! end obscuring all the old ideas. Eliphaz is made to refer to the older people " to whom alone was given the land." It is Ten' much the same as if one professing to give a dramatic picture of the Pilgrim Fathers, and striving to keep every thingin hannnny witli that early time, should suddenly betray himself by an allusion to the lato Rebellion. But. with some, the greatest inconsistency is excusable, if it will favcr the latest date that can be given to the Book. 12 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. it not be received, as we receive the early narrations in Genesis ? What is there in the testing, the sufferings, and the final integrity of Job, more difficult of belief than the similar account and similar lesson of Abraham's templation, or of Jacob's long probation, or of the strange vicissitudes of Joseph's history, or of the exile and severe trials of Moses? Such questions it would, indeed, be difficult to answer ; but the main thirjg here is that for which there have been cited these glowing passages from the Psalms, containing ideas so apropros to the author's supposed times, but which have no counterpart in the record of his hero's thoughts and sayings, either by way of resemblance or of contrast. The inference is a very rational one. It shows that Job lived— and the first reporter, too, we think — not only before the giving of the Mosaic Law, but at that still earlier time when there was, indeed, a most sublime theism, but when there had not yet been developed the forms or the idea of local outward worship in gathered assemblies. There were no temples, no sanctuaries, no sacred places. It was at the time when the family was the Church, in which the father was head and priest ; when pious men knew each other, and held intercourse, as did Abraham and Melchizedeck, but when holy days and rites (except sacrifice), and outward collective wor- ship, as such, were things unknown. That such things should have been before the time of Job, and yet without the most remote allusion to them in the Book, seems most incred- ible, even though the greatest pains had been taken to keep them out. The spirit of such ideas, and of such observances, would have somehow come in, in spite of every effort to exclude the letter. To this collective or temple worship, or sanctuary holiness, revelation had not yet educated even the pious mind. To say nothing, however, of inspiration, or of the divine purposes, and viewing it as a mere question of criticism, it maybe maintained that the consistency of Hebrew literature, as we find it, demands that there should be assigned in it a very ancient place to the Book of Job. Such we believe, too, would be the almost unanimous decision of Rationalism, should a similar question, and on similar grounds, be raised in regard to Greek or Hindu writings. IDEAS OF A FUTURE LIFE AMONG SURROUNDING NATIONS; Alleged to be more clear than those of the Hebrews. At any date that may be taken for the Book of Job, there was, unquestionably, among the surrounding nations a belief in a future life that had assumed the form of a dogma pos- sessed of a good degree of definiteness in regard to state and conceived local aspect. Such was the case even with Shemitic nations other than the Hebrew. The Syrians had it. Pareau has shown that such a belief existed among the early Arabians. There is proof of it, moreover, from the Koran, all the more satisfactory as it comes in incidentally by way of unquestioned reference. Repeatedly in the contests of Mohammed with the infidels of his day do they characterize as fables of the ancients,* as ideas once firmly held in the earlier simple world, but now regarded as antiquated and wholly obsolete, asatiru 'lawwalina, those doctrines of a future life, and of a resurrection, which he professed to revive and to urge upon them. If we may trust Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, the most ancient Egyptians had a similarly clear belief. Says the latter, Lib. I., sec. 51, " The abodes of the living they call Karalvaeir, temporary lodging- places or inns, those of the departed (tctcmv-t/- k6tov, the dead, not as -extinguished, or non-existent, but as a state of being), they call aWumc bmnvr, everlasting mansions." The idea of the present life as a pilgrimage would seem akin to that expressed in the patriarchal language : " Pilgrims and strangers upon the earth," and may have been derived from it ; but there the Hebrew mind, and the Hebrew imagination was stayed. A home to that pilgrimage was indeed implied, and Ln that they rested. " They went out, not knowing whither they went," nor making any inquiry, nor indulging in any fancy about it, but committing everything to their covenant God. The Egyptian imagination, on the other hand, unchecked by any divine purpose in the develop- * See Snrat. xxiii. 85 : " How is it that when we are dead, and have become dust and bones, that we live again ? They are only fables of the. ancitnts, v. 38. Away, then, with what we are threatened with! There is no other life. We live and mo die, and then we live no more. They are but stories of the early times." See, also, xxvi. 137, xxvii. 69, 70. IDEAS OF A FUTURE LIFE AMONG SURROUNDING! NATIONS. 13 ment of the doctrine, ran on and made a distinct Hadean world of it, with its distinctly conceived abodes. The idea being separated, too, almost wholly, from that of the personal God, or being independently held as something by itself, became gross and earthly, as though it were a living in catacombs and pyramids, and surrounded by a funereal imagery. Other ancient peoples pictured the thought with lighter and more cheerful accompaniments. We need not refer to the Chaldwaus, the Persians, and the Hindoos, as early possessing the idea of a future life ; for with them the rationalist has no difficulty. It is only in regard to the Jews that he finds it hard to believe in anything spiritual or unearthly. They could only have learned it from foreign sources ; but, in regard to these foreign sources themselves, no questions need be raised. All is easy, except when some strange feeling — of the true nature of which they are, perhaps, not distinctly aware — prompts them to deny all traces of such ideas as originating in the Scriptures, or as being first held, or inde- pendently held, by the Hebrew mind. So far, however, as regards these surrounding nations, they are undoubtedly correct. They all had a more or less distinct doctrine of a future life. On that of the Greeks we need not dwell. In the times referred to, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, a local Hadean world of spirits was distinctly conceived and universally held. So was it among the people of Western Europe. The best testimony shows that the Druids, or Celtic priesthood, possessed it, even in that early day. The Veil thrown over the Doctrine in the Old Testament. And now here is the wonder which has stumbled many. How is it that such a belief, so universal, so intimately connected, as it would seem, with the very life of religion in any form, and without which we find it difficult to conceive of its having any power for the soul — how is it that such a belief should have been so faint among the people who are called the people of God ? Why so little mentioned, if mentioned at all, by those who were chosen as depositaries of the great world-ideas, or the truths by which the race was finally to be regenerated ? The wonder is enhanced by the fact that this Hebrew people, the pious among them, had the most exalted ideas of the Divine Being, and the Divine Holiness, so far surpassing all who seemed to be before them, in a distinct conception of the other doctrine. How is it that in Homer the belief is so clearly expressed, whilst in Job it is so veiled? It is altogether stranger from the fact that in Homer there seems little or no demand for it — no moral demand, we mean — whilst in Job the attending spiritual cir- cumstances are such as would appear to call for it in almost every appeal, whether of charge or response. It would have cleared up the great debate at once. So we would have thought. Instead of being used, however, for any such purpose, it seems actually repressed when about to make its appearance. In places where it may be said to have actually broken through the surrounding darkness, it is only for a moment that it shines. It is laid aside ; the gloom returns; the old difficulties again crowd the path of their ever-circling argument. So is it elsewhere in the Old Scriptures. The more pious the mind, the more exalted its conceptions of God, the greater the reserve on this point ; so that even when it seems to be expressed, or implied, the greatest care is used to exhibit its dependence on the higher idea. The personal God is ever the controlling as well as the fundamental thought : " Thou wilt show me the way of life ;" " I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness ;" " Thou wilt guide me by Thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory."* In other cases, it is simply the * It was only, however, by the more pious and meditative, or those who were chosen as the mediums of the written revelation, that the power of this reserve was chiefly felt. Th.it thy vulgar Jewish mind had the same views of a ghost- world as prevailed among other nations of antiquity, and as now popularly prevail, is proved by the most unmistakable evidence. We need only refer to such passages as Lev. xix. 31, xx. 6, 27 ; Deut. xviii. 11 ; 2 Kings xxi. 16 ; Isa. viii. 19, xxix. i. They show a belief so strong and prevalent, in the continued existence of the dead, that there had arisen, in the very earliest times, a class of persons who professed to be mediums of communication between the two worlds. They are called ni21N, drj^'T, Necromancers, or " Seekers to the dead,'1 Q\~0 75* □ ,I^i"l- Our modern Spiritualism is only a revived form of this impiety, so early condemned. Another example is furnished by the case of Saul and the Witch of Endor, 1 Sam. xxviii. 3. Whether these were wholly or partly imposture, makes no difference in the argument. Such prac- tices could only have been grounded on a very prevalent popular belief in a ghost-world. Ilere as elsewhere, the idea, when left to itself, became only the nourisher of a pestilent superstition ; because the thought of God, as the conservative 14 THEISM OF TUB BOOK OF JOB. expression of the divine care for man, and the strange importance attached to his acts and moral condition ; as when Job says, xiv. 3, " Upon such a one dost Thou open Thine eye, and bring me into judgment with Theef" "What is man that Thou shouldst be so mind- ful of him ?" Again, it is the expression of a soul absorbed in Deity, as it were : " Whom have I in Heaven, or upon the earth, but Thee?" No mention is made of another life, but the power, as we have said, is there ; the dogmatic presence is simply veiled in the splendor of the higher idea. Reasons for this Reserve. Now there must have been some divine purpose in all this. May we not reverently conclude that such a reserve, in respect to the precious idea of the human immortality, was for the very purpose of preserving it in its highest strength and purity ? All other nations had marred the doctrine. They had early received it, and early perverted it. They exer- cised upon it all the license of an unrestrained imagination. They turned it into fables. They deformed it in every way; or, in endeavoring to add to its mythical interest, they took from it all its moral power. God did not mean thus to give up His own people to their fancies. He had some better thing for them, especially for the more pious and spiritual in Israel. Hence this veil upon the sacred idea, and its indissoluble connection with the divine. It was not because the Hebrews were deficient in imagination. The vulgar belief in a ghost-world, to which we have referred (see note, p. 13), shows that they let it rove, just as all other ancient peoples did, and even to an extent which required divine legislation for its suppression. We can not compare the mythical fancies that seem so universally pre- valent with the reserve that was maintained in the Book of Job, or in the utterances of David, Solomon, and the Prophets, without acknowledging the presence of a divine re- straint, making the Jewish literature, in this, as well as in its sublime theistic aspect, so different from that of all surrounding or cotemporary nations. Objections to the Hebrew Scriptures. Alleged Superiority of the Greeks. Homer, Pindar, et al. And yet this very thing has been urged as an argument against the Bible, and against the spirituality of the Old Testament writers. The very fact that it was esteemed too awful a doctrine for utterance, or even for the imagination, has been used as a testimony against its existence in any form. Witness the effort to explain away every passage which may seem, in any way, directly or indirectly, capable of such a meaning. The Greeks, it has been said, were far beyond them in the development of the doctrine of another life. As early as Homer, and long before Homer — for it could not have sprung up at once — they had a defined topography of the Hadean land. Besides the mysterious spirit-world in its general aspect, as graphically detailed in the XI. Book of the Odyssey, there was the more special abode of the blessed, according to the Greek conception of blessedness. Beyond the earth, or at the extremity of the earth, h neipara yair/c, Odyssey, iv. 563, they had their " Elysian Plain, where presided in judgment the golden-haired Rhadamanthus, where life is ever free idea, became dissociated from it, just as in the modern doctrine, and the modern practice that so closely resembles it. Hence such a belief, instead of being encouraged, is most Bharply condemned in the Scriptures. The great guilt consisted in meddling with what belonged solely to God, to be revealed or veiled according to the divine wisdom. The practice of such necromancy prevailed most under the most wicked kings, such as Manasseh ; and its evil in the Divine sight i- ah< iwn by the vehement denunciations of the Prophet : The farther the people departed from God, the more common became this "seeking to the dead." Glimpses, however, of a better popular belief in some higher and purer spirit-world appear in the Book of Job itself. "Whether the word nil, in the Vision of Eliphaz, iv. 15, denote a spirit, or a breath, the whole context intimates a com- munication supposed to come from another world. Calling it a dream makes no difference, since dreams show the course of human thinking and belief. The thing, however, most worthy of note in this view, is the nature of the communication made. How different, in this respect, from the modern spiritualism referred to! There is nothing to gratify curiosity — no talk about " spheres," and *' progress, or a " coming ligh'"," but a most solemn moral announcement. It is for this alone that the separating curtain is for a moment withdrawn. No disclosure is made of states or scenes within. The regulating divine idea is all controlling. That must first of all be learned in its ineffable holiness :" Shall man be more just than God 7 shall mortal Ulan be more pure than his Maker?" Everything else is withheld, as though until this is firmly esta- blished in the soul, the doctrine of a spirit-life may be. in itself, morally powerless, and even unfavorable to a true piety. IDEAS OF A FUTURE LIFE AMONG SURROUNDING NATION'S. 15 from care and toil, where tempest never comes, nor rain nor snow invade, but evermore sweet-breathing gales of Zephyrus refresh the souls of men." Hesiod gives the same pic- ture, Works and Days, 154 ; and adds to it, as a then current mythology, the conception of " The Isles of the Blessed." tl> /lanapav vyooiaiv aur/dla 6v/ibv cxovtcc. Of which Pindar, not long afterwards, gives such a glowing description, Olymp. II. 110* (Boeckh): "Where the sun is ever shining, where the souls of the just spend a tearless eternity, atanpw vt/wvrai aluva (or a tearless existence) ; whilst those of a still higher degree "Take the way of Jove that leads to Saturn's tower, where Ocean's gales breathe round the isles of the blessed, where flowers of gold and fruits immortal grow." In comparison with this, how poor, as some would estimate it, is the dark, shadowy, unlocalized, and wholly indefinite conception of the Old Testament writers, if it can be called a conception at all. Greater Moral Power of this Old Testament Reserve. Its connection with a Pure Theism. To a true theological insight, however, there are two thoughts which must reverse the scale, and lead to a very different conclusion. In the first place, there is in this Greek picture but the dimmest idea of God (if there is any such, except in the local designations where divine names seem to be employed), or of any divine righteousness. It is such a view- as might be entertained by a writer, who, in another place, Pixr\, Xem. vi. 1, makes us all the children of nature, gods as well as men. The second thought is its utter lack of moral power. We feel this as we read, and find it confirmed by the fact of the little influence the Greek Hadean conception actually had upon their moral or religious life. In the Hebrew conception, as held by the pious mind, the idea of God, so prominent, so controlling, more than makes up lor its dimness, and more than fills out all its scenic or local deficiency. "Thou wilt show me the way of life;" "O that Thou wouldst lay me up in Bades," Job adv.; "Thou wilt call, and I will answer; Thou wilt have regard to the work of Thy hands." To say nothing now of such a triumphant outburst as we have, Job xix. 26, " I know that mv Redeemer liveth ;" or such clear hopes as are expressed, Ps. xvii. 15, " I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake, Thy likeness;'' the comparison might be rested on one of the briefest declarations of Scripture, in which death is con- templated as a going to God, and the whole idea of immortality is reduced to a single trust in some undefined blessedness. As Psalm xxxi. 6: 'nn Tp-)N "JT3, "Into Tny bands do I commit my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me; Lord, God of truth." It matters but little whether we regard this declaration as made in extremis, or in view of some great danger. It is, in either view, the committing of the whole being unto God, as something belonging to Him, in virtue of an eternal relation, expressed by the word, "HlX nmfl "Thou hasl redeemed me," and the covenant idea appearing in TON, which ever means tm'h, as trust or faithfulness, or truth in its personal rather than in its abstract or speculative aspect. "Into Thy hands;" that is all ; but how immensely does it transcend in moral power— in " the power of an endless life," — all those Homeric, Hesiodean, and Pindaric pictures which some would regard as so rich in comparison with the Hebrew poverty. Comparison of the Early Hindu and Shcmitic Belief. Merx' Claim of Superiority for the former. This lack of a true moral and theological insight is strikingly, though un wittingly, shown by Merx (Das Oedicht von Hiob., p. x.), where, in respect to this belief in another life, he asserts the superiority of the Vedas to the Bible. " In the representations of such an existence after death," he proceeds to say, " there is a deep difference between the people * * It may be said, too, that in this passage of Pindar there is fully developed the other idea, or the doom of the wicked. See line 120. Tot o"1 airpoaopaTov o«\«oi'Ti irdcov. A woo on which no eye can gaze. 16 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. of our race (the Arian) and the Shemitic. The latter know no Isles of the blest, where the noble heroes live. All that is included in that word hero seems to them a reckless auda- city. The old men of renown (C3I? '33, or men of name), appear to them as impudent evil doers. The Semites, in consequence of living with their herds in the plains, and shunning the mountain peaks, fail in the development of the loftier energies. It was otherwise with our ancestral kindred, as we learn from the monuments of their religion. It is true that, in the Vedas, allusions to a life after death do not often occur. They had too much to do with the present world. Still, as a reward for piety, there was held to be admission to the abodes of the Heavenly Powers." As a proof of the superiority of the Hindu to the She- mitic belief in this respect, he gives us passages from the Bigveda, ix. 113, 7-11, in the rhythmical version of Prof. Both. Da, wo der Schimraer nie erlb'scht, Zur Welt des Sonneulichtes hin, Der ewigen unsterblichen — Dahin, 0 Soma, bringe mich. Wo Konig ist Vivaawant's Sohn, •■ Und wo des Himmels InnersteB, Wo jene Wa&serquellen sind, Dort lasse mich unstcrblich sein! Wo man bebaglich sich ergeht, Ini dritten hohc-n Himinelsraum, Wo Schimmer alle Riiume fiillt Dort lasse mich unsterblich sein I Wo Wunsch und Wohlgefallen ist, Die HBh', zu der die Sonne klimmt Wo Lust ist und Befriedigung, Dort lasse mich unsterblich sein: Wo Freuden und ErgBtzungen, Wo jubelndes Entziicken wohnt, Wo sich ein jeder Wunsch erfiillt, Dort lasse mich unsterblich sein. Other extracts are made, and of a similar kind. There is a striking sameness in their im- a the internal blessedness which the righteous man finds through such a process. "It is the important truth," he says, " that there is a suffering of the righteous which is not a decree of wrath, but a dispensation of love, and this is the heart of the Book of Job." To this general view he gives two divi- sions: 1. The afflictions of the righteous are a means of discipline and purification; 2. They * According to this view, it would be tentative and skeptical, — we mean skeptical in a good sense,— like some of tho Socmtlc discourses, which are thus entitled, because they come to no conclusion, yet have served a good purpose in as our IgDorance, oi by showing the great value of the truth sought, and stimulating to more earnest study to be rewarded by the disclosures of a more advanced revelation. 20 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. are proofs and tests of character coming from the love and regard of God. In short, " they are disciplinary and they are testing." All this may be admitted as, in some way, taught in the Book, or truly suggested by it. So, also, there are other theories presented in various ways by other writers, but all coming to nearly the same thing. Some express themselves with more freedom in respect to the question of fact, whether the Book really furnishes the solution it seems to propose. Merx, the latest interpreter, does not hesitate to pronounce it a failure. After saying much of the Vergeltungslehre of the Mosaic religion, and of the Old Testament generally, and of this Book as being polemically opposed to such a doctrine of retribution — all of which Delitzsch justly estimates as "a phantom of the Rationalists" — he goes on to speak, in the highest terms, of the artistic excellence of the work, patron- izing it even to extravagance, but does not shrink from saying that the solution it proposes is not only inadequate but false. The great problem is still unsolved, and the writer in- timates that it all comes from the fact that the author of the Book was ignorant of " the Critical Philosophy." " Of this," says Merx, with more naiveness than he ascribes to the old poet, "he does not seem to have had the faintest notion." How the Critical Philosophy would have saved the difficulty, or rather would have shown it to be wholly imaginary, he endeavors to tell us, but it seems far less clear than the Book. of Job itself, and may be dismissed with the same sentence of failure and inadequateness. Still the objections made by such commentators as Umbreit and Merx have much force in them as applied to many of the so-called solutions. A stronger objection to some of them is that they receive no countenance from the prologue, or from the address of Jehovah at the close, — where, if anywhere, such a clear solution of the problem might have been expected. Key in the Prologue — A Super-earth!)/ Probation. If we are to judge it solely as an artistic production, then the plan and design of it are to be sought in the prose introduction, just as we look there for the design of a Greek drama, — and this without any nice discussion of the unimportant question, whether the book is to be called dramatic, any more than lyrical or epic. Here is a preface with the evident design of explaining what the mere poem might leave unknown, and without which, as has been tersely said, the dramatic speeches would be artistically a mere torso, — a trunk without a head. In this introduction we do find something which, in the absence of other considerations, we should be required to take as the leading idea of the work. It is, that there are reasons for human events, even for the sufferings of good men, that may whollv transcend this earthly sphere, having no reference to any human probation, for its own sake, either by way of discipline or retribution, .but designed to serve a purpose in the super-human world. It is a problem for the OTwK '33 the Sons of God, one in which they are interested, by which they are to be influenced, but in which a man is the sufferer, the testing patient through whom the truth is exhibited. Thus, earth may be the theatrum in which dramatic events are represented for the instruction of higher beings. It may be to show them that there is such a thing as human virtue, that man immersed in nature, and exposed to the strongest temptations, may " serve God for nought," that is, disinteres- tedly, or from pure love of the service ; as Job did, both in his prosperity and in his perfect submission, at last, to a dispensation unexplained and inexplicable. Such a thought seems plainly in the prologue ; but be it what it may, there is a conceivable design of this kind sufficiently great and beneficent to justify the ways of God, even to our reason, without any demand of compensation to the one by whom the example or the test is made, — especially in view of the fact that such a demand, or even such an expectation, would be the most direct proof of its failure.* * Some such thought of a superearthly drama appears in what the Apostle says, Eph. iii. 10 : " Th it now through the Church there might he made known to the Principalities and Powers in the Heavenly World (ei* roU evavpavUns), tile manifold (jtoAvjtoikiAos, immensely varied) wisdom of God." See Olshausen on the text: "The Church fgood men on earth, whether in their piety or their sufferings) is the theatre (seiner WirlsamJceit) through which this manifold wisdom and teaching are made known to the angels." In support of the idea, Olshausen Tery properly cites 1 Pet. i. 12: els a fvidunovrTtv ayyeKot irapaKvipat : "Which things the angels desire to look into" (to bend eagerly forward for that purpose) and Paul's language, 1 Cor. iy. 9: Biarpo" eyenjflT^ei' t<3 Kocr/iu itai dyyeAois. VARIOUS VIEWS OF THE BOOK. 21 The Lesson of Unqualified Submission. The design may be discipline or punishment, having reference solely to the individual. All that need to be maintained is, that it is not necessarily such. They may be admitted as subordinate aims, in connection with something higher and more universal. As thus subor- dinate, they may even become prominent in the dramatic teaching, as seems to be the case in Job, and yet without furnishing the idea, or the grounds, of the great lesson. Or it may be the design, aside from these, or in connection with these, to teach the lesson of absolute and unconditional submission to the divine will, and an acknowledgment of its necessary wis- dom and goodness, whether we see it or not, either in the present or in any other life. This is quite different from a stoical fatality, or from any mere arbitrariness. It is not that the divine will makes right, but that it constitutes for us an evidence of ite absolute righteous- ness that is not to be called in question. The because, we may say, has reference to our judgments. He does it because it is absolutely right in itself; we say it is right i in the absence of other knowledge) because He does it. As the Psalmist says, xxxix. 10 : "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it." It is a theism inadequate, impure, tainted by some ideas of fatality, or of a power higher than God, that hesitates in making this full and absolute affirmation. The reasons of the divine procedure in any particular case may be wholly or partially hidden. They may have reference to the individual expe- rience, discipline, or purgation of the sufferer, and yet be wholly unknown to him. Job vehemently asserts his inn< imething noble in his expostulations; it was not a vain display of sclf-rigli- ; he was driven to it by unjust criminations ; and yet there might have been bidden evils whose existence his inexplicable sufferings should ' d him to suspect, aside from the question whether they were, or were not, the sole cause of the calamities which had come upon him. He should have searched for them as the Psalmist did, and prayed for self-knowledge. His earnest appeal to God: " 0 show me fire Thou thus dealest with me, 1 very touching, but it manifests too serene a confidence in his entire integrity. It is not like the prayer of David : "Cleanse Thou me from secret faults;'' or of him who said: " Make me to know wisdom in the inward parts;" or of the later exile, who so fervently prayed : "Search. me, () trod, and know my h prove me, anil know my thoughts, and sec if there he any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." It' it he said that Job was very detective here as compared with some others of the Old Testament worthies, it may he urged, on his behalf, that the accusations of his friends, charging him with open transgressions of which he knew he was not guilty, led him away into a mode of defence just in respect to them, but not maintainable before the All-knowing, as he himself afterwards most clearly saw. Reasons Transcending Human Knowledge. Put aside from this, or along with this disciplinary purpose, there may have been other reasons belonging to the "',',-.•, the ineffable, the mysterious, transcending, perhaps, the human faculties, hut which he was bound to admit as possible, however much he or - might fail in finding an explanation ofthe severe trial to which he had been exposed. :' He givi th not account of his ways." Such a view may he characterized as harsh and arbitrary, hut it is perfectly consistent with the highest estimate ofthe Divine clemency. "God knowetli our frame ; He remembereth that we are dust." He hath pity upon man. Even the thought of his depravity, the fact that "the imagination ofthe heart of man is evil from his youth," is mentioned (Gen. ix. 21) as one of the grounds of the divine com- passion. Put he knoweth, too — are we not warranted, from the tenor of revelation, in saying it — that the loftiest height to which the human soul can attain, and ultimately its highest blessedness, i< the acknowledgment of God's absolute right, as the acknowledgment of His absolute glory/ It is that to which the human soul ofthe Saviour attained when, in the great struggle with Satan, in the mysterious and inexplicable agony, he said, " Thy will be done." 22 THEISM OF THE BOOK OP JOB. The Absolute Divine Sovereignty before any Doctrine of Human Destiny. Thus regarded, the value of a pure theism, in which the absolute divine sovereignty- holds its sovereign place, is beyond that of every other dogma.* Without it, all other religious teaching may become not only vain but mischievous. Without it, the doctrine of a future life may become the source of the greatest moral evils, leading, at last, to atheism, after having been the ally of the grossest superstitions. On this account, may we say again, was there need of a reserve that might hold in check the roving imagination, — of a veil, not wholly obscuring, but allowing only the faintest glimpses, now and then, to keep the soul from utterly sinking. Such a schooling of the chosen people, as the world's representatives, was demanded, we may say, until the other great and conserving truth should be perfectly learned, and indelibly stamped upon the soul. Far better a dim shadowy belief in a future life, or a mere feeling without any distinct conception of state or locality, or resolving itself into a pure elementary trust in a covenant God, — far better this than an unrestrained imagi- native picturing, destitute of all true moral power, and to which the thought of God, as a moral sovereign, is, in a great measure, alien, if not wholly lost. Far better the old patri- archal and Hebrew reserve in this respect than such a Hades, and such an Elysium, as we read of in the Greek poets, or any such rhapsodies as the Eationalist so triumphantly quotes for us from the Eigveda. Among the many other solutions, then, of the Book of Job, this seems certainly entitled to respectful attention. It is the teaching of such a theism, whilst throwing into the back-ground, to say the least, not only the dogma of a future life, but every thought of compensation,! discipline, or anything else, that might interfere with the absolute unconditionality of the greater doctrine. THE THEOPHANY. Its One Idea: The Divine Omnipotence. God "can do All Things." If the solution of the problem, as some call it, is to be found anywhere, it is in the address of the Almighty. That is what every reader naturally expects, and is disappointed, to some extent, in not finding. No explanation, however, is given of the cause of Job's mysterious sufferings, nor any decision made in regard to the matters in debate between him and his antagonists. Instead of that, one idea, predominant and exclusive, pervades every part of that most sublime exhibition. It is that of power, omnipotent power, first as exhibited in the great works of creation,^ and afterwards in those greater productions of nature that * It is not too much to say that even now, in this advanced age of theology, there is arising a new need of this idea. There is something in the naturalistic tendencies of our science, and our literature, which more and more demands a revival of the thought of a personal, holy, omnipotent, unchallengeable God, who "doetli all thiugs according to His good pleasure," whether through nature, or against nature, or above nature. The sharpening of this would give a new edge to every other religious dogma. The ideas of sin, holiness, accountability, would receive a new impress of clearness and power. The doctrine of a future life would get a moral significance, throwing in the back-ground those naturalistic and merely imaginative features which are now making it a matter of curious speculation, or of physical, rather than of ethical iuterest. Such a sudden sharpening of the divine idea would have a startling effect, like the actual witnessing of a miracle, in bringing so near the thought of God as to set it in a new and surprising light, resembling vision rather than theory, and calling forth something like the exclamation of Job, when "the hearing of the ear" had become au actual beholding. f As matter of outward fact, indeed, there is set forth in the close of the drama a full compensation. It forms, what some, who are fond of the more artistic criticism, call " the outer disentanglement,'' or Die Losung in iiusserer Wirkhch' Jcut; but we are nowhere told that this entered into the idea of the poem. As such, it would be inconsistent with the thought so prominent in the prologue, or the possibility of a man's serving God for nought. As a mere outward scene, however, it has a certain appropriateness, like the matter-of-fact close of a Greek drama, sometimes brought in as a satisfac- tion to the reader, to save him from pain, by making a harmony in the outward narrative. But in Job the great lesson is complete without it. We read it with pleasure, as something simply due to dramatic consistency, that when the spiritual drama is over, the hero, as the Rationalists, with some propriety, call him, may not be left in his state of suffering; but the great inward design is concluded by the submission of Job, which would have been utterly spoiled by the intimation of any expected recompense. The apparent design, too, of the prologue is satisfied without it. When Job submits, Satan is baffled, and God's judgment is true. J It is worthy of note how the appeal is made alike to the great natural and the great supernatural, as though the THE THEOPHANY. seem next in rank to the creative power itself. Nothing is said of any purpose in the great trial, or of .anything which should be made known to Job as preparatory to his submission. There is no hint in respect to ultimate compensation as a motive for endurance, such as is held out in the Gospel to the Christian : " They that endure unto the end, shall be saved/' There is no allusion to any scheme of discipline, no suggestion of afflictions which are only evils apparently, since they are designed for purification, or as a preparative for a higher Iness. The curtain is not withdrawn to disclose to us any vision of optimism as a motive for the creature's submission. Nothing of this kind appears, but only that idea of power, omnipotent power, thundered forth in tones that seom intended to silence rather than to con- vinee. However strange it may seem, this is all the voice we hear, startling and confounding at first, but soon causing us to forget everything in a feeling of its sublime appropriate "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?-' What knowest thou of the divine purposes in thy own creation, or in that of the universe? What right, therefore, hast thou to challenge any of them as unrighteous or unwise, much less to dream of any fatality, or of any nature of things by which they might be baffled, whether they be purposes of justice or 0f , ; It would seem as though its only design was to overwhelm, and it is overwhelming. Job falls upon his face and acknowledges that he has learned the I It is not mere terror. Deep is the reverence; but there is also the conviction of the under- standing and the conscience: "I hnow that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose* of Thine can be hindered." Had he doubted it before? It would certainly seem so, whether at the time he had been fully conscious of it or not. The Old Idea of Fate— The Name El Shaddai as Opposed to it. A feeling of something irresistible in the vast surrounding nature, something with which it is vain for man to struggle, and against which not even a divine power could help him, shows itself, more or less, in all the early heathen t s afterws the systems of philosophy. They called it fi - rtiny. It was superior to gods as well as to men. It was irrational, inconsistent with any true theistic conception, but its ever-pressing nearness, as well as the vastness and indennableness of i gave it an overpowering weight. That some feeling of this kind, some beginning of a fatalistic idea, mav |n in the minds ,,f God's pe pie, tointin - even the otherwise pure theism of the patriarchs, would seem probable from the stress laid upon that assuring epithet, "10 ^, occurring so often in Genesis and Job, and furnishing such strong evidence of the antiquity of the latter Book. " Almighty God," 'IP Sit, Deut potentimmus, omnipotent, *m>T< the strong God, Deus sufficients, HOIKO HOD 1VT tO ID'S, "from whom nothing dered," to whom nothing can mil— this was the great name of strength and encouragement which God Himself employs to cheer the hearts of those early men, and keep them from fainting in their pilgrimage: "IS? "j* 'JN, "I am El Shaddai, therefore, fear ye not, but walk befi ire me." Thus regarded, too, much of the language of the old Testament respecting the divine power, the divine sovereignty, and the extl ittsy that guards against the hast impeachment of these attributes, loses all its seeming hai j denunciations of idolatry, it is conservative of pure religion. It is a protest against the nature-worship, the fatalistic ideas that were everywhere coming in to pervert the true theistic conception. Thu- viewed, i [on had not then been made ; or the lino drawn, as in our modem thinking; or U though to the Divine Mind such a distinction was of no account. Nature and law are clearly r. gnlzed in the Bible; but both departments, tin Datura! and tte supernatural, are regarded ai equally Illustrating the power and greatness ot Qodas manifested in may be said of the appeal to the gr.-at animal creations, surpassing man in strength and magnitude. Itisnol to ao« design, or utilitarian ends, as in our modern natural theology, and hence to demonstrate the existence of a Deity. Job is not addressed as doubting that, or as needing any proof of God's wisdom and g mess. Everything, on tl ther hand, bears upon this one Idea of omnipotence. It is to show that Cod " can do all things" — a truth which Job i 0 (xlii. 2), iu lauguago intimatiug that be had not beforo fully realized it. » Literally, " hindered from Thee." 1i"3 ha* its Syriac sense of diminution, restraint, failure. LXX. iSvvanl Si ffoi oitiv. The Syriac has "nothing can be hidden from Thee," and iu this it resembles our common version, Dr. Conanfs is better: " And from Thse no purpose can be withheld ;" but mils, we think, in giviug the full thought, which is that of insufficiency, or want of power in the exocution. 24 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. it is the language of paternal Deity, encouraging to faith and suhmission as the only bles- sedness of the human state : " Fear not, for I can do all things." Hie Fatalistic Idea betrays Itself in the Speeclies of Job and his Friends. Such a misgiving dread of some insurmountable fatality, putting his case beyond the reach even of any divine help, seems to lurk in the speeches of Job at the times of his ex- tremest despair. The friends were not pressed to it, as he was, by an anguish unendurable. They had not his experience to breed a doubt. Free from pain and trouble, they could theorize complacently on the divine excellencies, "speaking good words for God," as Job taunts them, and expatiating at their ease on this attribute of omnipotence. Here the speeches of Zophar and Bildad are peculiarly eloquent, however ill-timed. Job, too, is roused to emulation, and strives to surpass them (see especially chs. xxv. and xxvi.). And yet this very style of speech seems, now and then, to betray a want of the confidence it so loudly assumes. The speaker seems to indulge in it as a mode of fortifying himself in a faith not wholly free from a lurking skepticism. None of them, however, ever intimated a doubt of the justice and wisdom of God. In his extreme anguish, Job may seem to be approaching some thought of the kind, but immediately revolts from it, as from the edge of an abyss. He cannot give it up : God is good ; He is righteous ; He is most pure and holy ; but may it not be that there is something, be it fate, be it nature, be it an invisible, fiendish* power, that baffles all His mercy and all His wisdom. " The earth is given into the hands of the wicked," ix. 24; is this the work, or the permission, or the weakness of God? Kin 'a 19M xS CDX, "if not, who then?" Would there be such sore evils? Above all, would they come upon the innocent, if he could help it? Is there not a nature, a fixed order of things (as Job, according to Merx, would have said, had he understood " the Critical Philosophy," or the distinction between " the moral and the practical reason,") which cannot be set aside? The Divine Address adapted to this Fatalistic Idea. — Job's Renunciation of it. He has not ventured to say it openly in words ; the very thought seemed to demand re- pression whenever it showed itself, however dimly, to the consciousness. It was there, how- ever, as is shown by the language of the divine address so directly adapted to such a state of soul, and the closing acknowledgment of Job, expressing a new and clear conviction that admits no doubt. It is absolute certainty, — the certainty of sight, as compared with any abstract theorizing, or any traditional " hearing by the ear :" I know,'' — it is like the ecstatic assurance he had of his Redeemer's living — " I knowf that Thou canst do all things ; and * There is language in chapter xvi. from which it would seem that Joh had such beings in view, — a multitude of them, in fact, as well as the gre.it enemy mentioned in the prologue. Such expressions as those in verses 9 and 10, of that chapter, can hardly be used of the three friends : " His anger rends me; he lies in wait for me ('JTDDI^'i cognate with \Otyt Satan); he gnashes on mo with his teeth; mine enemy CIV), sharpens his eyes upon me (glares at me) ; they gape upon me with their mouths " (1")^0, like the yawning Orcus, Is. v. 14). We are shocked at the very thought of such words being applied to God, although most of the commentators have so taken them. The language that follows :" God delivers me up," etc., though strong, is in a different style ; simply presenting the idea of an unjust surrender into Satan's hands. It might be said, too, that the absence of any expressed subject (simply implied, he, they, etc.) is evidenco of some- thing fearful in the thought, as in the cases mentioned, note, p. 7. The referring them to God, would be inconsistent, moreover, with the appeal to the Witness on high, ver. 20. The language of vers. 9 and 10 shows an imagination wildly excited, as though at the sight of fiends making hideous faces, scowling, and glaring at him. It would seem strange, too, tbat Satan should so figure in the prologue, and that afterwards no allusion whatever should be made to him. It would not be artistic, if that, as some say, is the chief character of the book. Is there not an implied reference to this great persecutor and murderer (aeflpwirdKToyos, John viii. 44), in the appeal to the Avenger or Redeemer, xix. 25 ? Raschi speaks very confidently in respect to the language, xvi. 9, as though it could not admit of a doubt : " Satan here is the enemy ;' -ixn xin journ. f Merx, the latest commentator on Job, in the short notes he adds to his new text and translations, is very fond of putting the word dogmatic to the renderings, ancient or modern, which he rejects. He means by this to stigmatize them as made in a dogmatic interest, even though sometimes giving the only possible meaning which the Hebrew will admit. He ought to have seen how greatly his own version is affected by that precisely identical kind of interest, which we may call the dogmatic anti-dogmatic. He cannot understand this passage according to the text, and so ho does not hesitate to givo a different punctuation, allowing him to render it : " Tliou knowest that Thou canst do all things," an answer which wholly mars tin- force of Job's appeal. Although it may still betaken as his confession of the great truth, yet the putting it thus in the second person makes it not only a puiutless assertion, but seems greatly to change the aspect and spirit of the THE THEOPHANY. 25 that nothing is hindered from Thee." It is as though he had said : Now I am sure of it; if the continuance of my misery is not from Thy want of goodness and mercy, much less is it from Thy lack of power ; nothing is too hard for Thee ; no nature can baffle Thee ; no fate stands in Thy way; no invisible power of evil, however mighty, can prevent Thee from "doing according to Thy sovereign will, either in the armies of heaven, or among the inhabi- tants of the earth." He bows before this divine utterance as conclusive, not only of its own truth, but in respect to everything in the character and government of God that may have been, either directly or indirectly, called in question. It is Thou then who hast done it. and therefore is it holy, just, and wise. Once shown that it is truly God's act — not nature's, merely, or Satan's — and that, if it had not been such, everything in nature that stood in tiie way would have been crushed out if necessary, — all else follows to the believing soul. Thou hast done it, therefore, is it right? I ask no farther. ".Surely have I uttered what I did not under- stand; things wonderful," far beyond my knowledge. But, oh! 'hear me now; let me speak; let me ask of Thee, and do Thou give me knowledge. By the hearing of the ear had I heard of Thee; but now Thou comest near, and I confess Thee as the Almighty. Wherefore, I reject myself ■my arguments), and repent in dust and ashes." There is deep feeling here, as of one who ha> come to a new view of himself and of his relations to God. li is to be noted, however, that it is not from any disclosure of the causes of his sufferings, nor from any hope held out of their alleviation, but altogether from this thunder voice, the tones of which, however varied in the presentation of the great natural or the great supernatural, ever modulate themselves to this one key of Omnipotent, unchallengeable power. God (he Only Power in (he Universe. Not only no other God, but no other power than God in the universe. Compare Tsaiah xliv. (i : "I am the first, and I am the la~t ; beside me there i> no Go I." It reminds us of the oft-repeated Arabic formula, so concise, and yet so full: No God bul God, which must have entered most significantly into the early i the Arabians, as we ma\ its prevailing use in the later Koranic The Mohammedan fatalism, as it has been called, may sometimes have a superstitious aspect, but, in its piousform, as thus expressed, it is rather a pro ast a physical fatalism, or against any other power than God, such as is made here in the challenge of Bhaddai, the Almighty. There is not only n Deity, but no power in Nature, or in Fate, or in any system of (kings, that can. for a moment, stand in His way, if the vindication of His holiness, His wisdom, or His goodness, demand its breach, or its rem- Job's Musing Soliloquy and Confession — Note on the Genuineness of (he Elihu Portion. In this view, we see the force of that musing, wondering language which intervenes, ver. 3, where Job seems, without any reason, to be repeating to himself the words of the Almighty, as though they struck him in a new aspect, or suggested something which he had not thought of before : "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without know! They seem so strange, that Merx and others, with a lack of critical insight, we think, : , them as an interpolation or a misplacement. As lirst uttered by Jehovah, v. i on t<> regard them a- most directly applicable to the speech of Elihu, who, although uttering truths (the soundest ethical doctrine, and approaching the nearest of all the speakers to a solution of the supposed problem), had yet done it in a somewhat pretentious manner. As the last speaker, too, he may be regarded as first noticed in the divine address. It does not militate against this that it is said : " The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind." There passage. It would be as though he had said: I submit, I lay my timid npnn my mouth, because any other course wonld bo of no avail. Thou knowest, Thyself; that Thou art Infinitely strong, a tut canal do as Toon pleases! ; of what use, then, any remonstrance ? God knoweth the difficulties and darkness of our minds as well as our bodily frames. We may, there- fore, believe that a doubt in respect to His power wqnld be li to Him than Bnch s captl ■■ . There Is a shadow of authority for tterx. The pointing Is of the flnt person, bnt the closing yod is supplied by the Keri. It is tho same in this respect as in Ps. cxI. 13, fijCT f"r Ti^Ti in full, and in jVfcrt» for T\'iVV, Kzck. xli. 19. It may bo also taken as an Aramaism, as it would doubtless have been called could it have been made to suit a rationalistic purpose. 26 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. is nothing in the way of regarding these first words as the briefest allowable notice of the man whose voice had just done sounding,* stopped, as it were, by the sudden interruption, and then followed by the turning, in a different style, to Job the subject of the general answer : " But gird up now thy loins, like a man ; I have something to say to thee." In this second appeal, xlii. 3, Job seems to take the language to himself, and yet in a manner which shows that it had not been his first thought. In a sort of dreamy maze, he says over the former words of Jehovah, which had made so deep an impression on his mind : " Who is this ? Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge ?" Yes ; it is I. I am the man ; I see it now ; I am that man who has uttered what he understood not. It is a still deeper feeling of what he had said before: "Surely I am vile (Merx, weak — dogmatics), what shaU I answer Thee? I lay my hand upon my mouth. Once, twice have I spoken, but I will not answer. I say no more." " Who is this (dost Thou ask) that darkens counsel by words without knowledge ?" To whomsoever else they are applicable, surely they apply to me. In his deep confession and self-abasement, he thinks only of himself and his position in the sight of God. And herein lies the difference between Job and the others. They stand in amazement, it may be, awed by this display of the divine majesty, yet without prostration or confession. Still confident in their own wisdom, they may actually regard these thunder- tones of omnipotence as a decision in their favor, as their vindication, in fact, instead of their rebuke. For had not they, also, all of them, expatiated on this idea of the divine power, to the crushing and humiliation of the trembling Job? The repetition of the words, u who is this f" has the appearance of interrupting the train of thought and feeling. On this account, the critic rejects what a closer insight into this rapt, soliloquizing, ejaculatory style, * The genuineness of the speech of Elihu, which has heen much attacked, may be defended on three grounds that, asido from their moral weight, are entitled to attention from those who patronize the Book chiefly on its alleged artistic merits. These are — 1st. That, without it, the appearance and address of Jehovah must be taken as immediately following ch. xxxi., in which case the words, " Who is this that darkeneth counsel," etc., mnst refer directly to the clearest, most eonsistfut, and most eloquent speech in the Book, namely, Job's noble vindication of his fair life against the damnatory accusations of his friends. It is a most manly appeal, undeserving, we reverently think, of being thus characterized as vain and dark, at least in comparison with those of the others. Besides, the term, HVJ7, counsel, teaching, argument, cannot be applied to it as it can to the speech of Elihu, which is ostentatiously didactic. Job's appeal, ch. xxxi., is simply a vindicatory statement of fact, in opposition to unrighteous charges. If he is divinely commended for anything, except his last words of submission and repentance, it must be for this noble defence. 2d. The language, " Who is this, etc." would be applicable to much in the general style and spirit of Elihu s discourse. Although the divine answer, as a whole, is addressed to Job, yet nothing would seem more natural than such an incidental reference to the last speaker, who is seemingly interrupted in his eloquence by the sudden rebuke of the supernatural voice. It was a giving counsel, an assumption of wisdom, a claiming " to speak for God ;" and although we think that those critics altogether overstrain the matter who charge Elihu with being merely a loquacious babbler, or a vain preten- tious disputant, yet, as an attempted vindication of the divine ways, it was a more fit subject for this comparative cen- sure, than the honest and glowing words of Job in ch. xxxi., to which it immediately, or without the least preparation, succeeds, if the part of Elihu ia left out. The repetitions of this last speaker, on which some have so much insisted, are of little consequence. They may be blemishes, or rhetorical excellencies, according to the stand-point from which they are viewed. The specimens we have of the old Arabic Seance, or Consessua, show that such a repetitive style of sententious moralizing was held in literary repute. At all events, it is characteristic, and this they should regard as a dramatic merit in what they call a "work of art." But, aside from this, there is something in the whole of ch. xxxvii., and especially in the closing verses, to which the language is very applicable, as referring to the last speaker, although the divine address is described, generally, by tha historian, as made to Job, to whom, personally, it immediately turns. The words " darken- ing counsel," etc., denote invalidity of argument, doubtless, but, along with this, they are descriptive of the apparent timidity, abruptness, and awe-struck confusion that seem to characterize the close of Elihu's harrangue. It is the lan- guage of one gazing on some strange appearances. The emotion and the exclamations thence produced mingle with his didactic utterances, so that he says, ver. 19 : "Tell us what we shall say, for we cannot order our speech, by reason of darkness." And this suggests the — 3d Gmnnd, namely, That the whole scene is a reality, and that this interlude of Elihu, and especially his abrupt ex- clamatory closing words, are a convincing evidence of it. It is either a painting from the life, or it is the most consummate art. There is the strongest internal evidence that, during this speech of Elihu, there is represented the approach of the storm-cloud, the rising tornado, interrupting and confusing his words, calling away his attention, and giving rise to broken remarks on the vivid phenomena that accompany it, until he is suddenly silenced by the awful voice. Some of the best commentators have thus regarded the language as referring to an actual coming storm. Delitzsch cites Bridel for the opinion that the thunder, mentioned xxxvii. 1, is not a mere matter of eloquent description, but something actually pre- sented to the senses : " I/eclair brille, la tonnere gronde." It is the language of an eye and ear witness, or if it is a mer© work of art — it is so arranged and expressed as to convey that impression. So Rosenmiiller, in the words of Bouillier: " Inter verba Elihu, dum ha?c loqueretur, tonitru exauditum ; ad cujus csecum murmur, mox in fragorem horreodum et fulgur erupturum, circumstantes jubet contremiscere." So, also, on the comment on ^HIi ver. 22; "Ceterum sptendoris THE THEOPHANY. 27 shows to be in harmony with the tone and spirit of the scene. The seeming irregularity gives vivid evidence, not only of its artistic, but of its actual scenic truthfulness. It supplies that emotional connection which carries us over all seeming logical or philological breaks. Job Distinguished from the Others by his Submission. For what else is Job commended but for the completeness of this submission, with its deep humility and hearty penitence? It would be difficult to find any answer to this, except what has arisen from the theory, very ancient, indeed, and supported by the highest authori- ties, that the design of the Book, and especially of the theophany at its close, is the deci- sion of a debate, or to determine which party had the better of this long argument about the cause of Job's sufferings. As the traditional view we are reluctant to call it in question, and yet it may be very defective, if not in itself, yet by rejecting or ignoring another which is important as collateral, and, in certain aspects, may be regarded as presenting the pre- dominant lesson. Job is approved not for what he said, or chiefly for what lie said, in chs. iii. or xvi., or even in chapters xxviii. and xxxi., but for the few words spoken, xl. 4, xlii. 2-6. This is in accordance with the opinion of Abenezra, the most judicious of the Jewish commentators, who restricts the words of God, xlii. 7 : " Ye have not spoken to me the thing that is right, as my sen-ant Job hath done," solely to the confession Job had made (xl. 4, xlii. 2-6), and they had not. ex aqnilone mentio pertinet ad descriptionem appropiuquantis media in tempestate Dei." We find the beginning of this in the close of ch. xxxvi. : " His thunder is announcing Him ;" the cattle (njp"D), feeding on the plains ore startled by the ominous noise (xxxvi. 33). Then, Immediately (xxxvii. 1), "At this" (nxi^? ^X, as though pointing to something coming on and visible to all), "my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place." " Hear, 0 hear, the roar of His voice, the muttering that proceedeth from Ilia mouth; under the whole heavens Be is sending it; His lightning to the far horizon. After It, hark, a sound Is roaring (iW, descriptive fbtnre). He is thundering with His majestic voice, and wo cannot trace them when thai rd." It i< all mn-t graphic, calling to mind the speech of Prometheus Vinct. 1081) as he goes don n in the midst of the storm : ppvx*a 5' qx&> irapapvKaTai — how it bellows long and loud. Here, as there, it is the deep baritone thunder reverberating all round the horizon. " Them • t iZD2p>" K*7), though the sound is heard." It seems to bo everywhere; there is , dug the long roll to an; ky. Thru follows a stillness for a time, during which tho black rP>3 ' rising. Again the speaker, though there Is an awo upon his sonl, attompts to go on with his moralizing on the voico and ih marvellous works ol Bod; In all of which he seems mor 'less influenced by the signs In tl i they become more and more startling, or give rise to occasional sadden remarklngs upon particular phenomena : " 9 ho« II I I tarns it with His gn way"(T.12). The tempestuous wind (v. 17), Is grow- ing In heat and strength ; the intervals of darkness become ovorpowering ; he "cannot order his speech by reason of i v and startling appearance,— a strange light coming out of tho North. Ho calls it 2T\', gold, liter- ally, but here most probably a golden sheen (LXX. i/t^i) xpvo-airyoOira), some electrical or auroral light (au.eu«,auruiii), suddenly gleaming forth fr > tie region, or, it may bo, lining the edge of tho nimbus, as is sometimes tl when it la heavily charged with the electrio fluid. "From the North, see, the amber light is coming," comp. Ezek. i. 4 (nnX\ desorlptlYe future It - this phenomenon, so remarkable and so suddenly arresting the attention of all, that gives the subsequent language its ejacnlatory character. There is terror mingled with the glory: "Surely with God there is dreadful majesty." What follows la In the same brokeu and elliptical style. *H0, "Sbaddal, He it is; we cannot find nim out." All through there are those descriptive features indicating something coming on of an eventful cli The language becomes more and more that of one subdued in spirit, and awed by tho sense of a near divine presence, driving him from his loqUacloos wisdom: "Great In strength and righteousness; He answers not" (njj>'_ SO in Eal, of I .el); surely should we (ear nim ;" that is now more becoming than argument, however seemingly profound ; for " He regardeth not the 3^ 'D3n> those who are wise in their own understandings," and presume to Judge of lhs wjys. " Then answered Jehovah from the storm-cloud," rPl'DH, with tne article, the storm-cloud that has been described. tt : - As thus viewed in connection with Ellbu'a speech, and especially the latter part of It, so broken and abrupt, th f iwer in the whole representation which compels us to regard it as consummately artistic or, what is still an actual painting from the life, a real scene from that olden time, and an actual theophany, like those witni bam, Moses, and Elijah. On the other hand, cut out the speech of Elihu, or bring the divine address right after ch. xxxi., and wo seem to have a hiatus In the drama which all criticism fails to mend. The remarkable language, v. 22, about " the gold coming from the North (the Borcalic aurora) may well bo compared with Ezek. i. 4 : " A storm (T"Pi'D) coming f om the North, and a brightness in the circuit, and in the midst of it, SoBTin ]'j?D) like the color of brass (auridutlcurr.) Vnlg. quasi species ekctri." 28 THEISM OF THE BOOK OP JOB. GROUNDS OF JOB'S COMMENDATION. Origin and Progress of the Dispute. In order to determine how far such a view may be defended, let us briefly review the general course of the narrative, and of the argument, so far as it can be called by that name. In the first stages of Job's grievous affliction, he seems to have borne it perfectly. Philosophical stoicism must confers itself immeasurably transcended by such a declaration as is ascribed to Job i. 21 : " The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken, blessed be the name of the Lord." What is there in Seneca or Epictetus to compare with this conception of "the old Dichter," as the Rationalists call him ? Again, that declaration afterwards made to his tempting wife : " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil 1" No language could more clearly and strongly express that idea of unconditional submission on which we have insisted, — that unreserved surrender that asks no questions as to the cause or the issue, makes no demand of compensation, hints at no injustice, seeks for no other reason of its being right than that God hath done it, and that, therefore, it must be right. "In all this," it says, "Job sinned not with his lips," ii. 10. The latter words in this place — though not occurring in the previous passage, i. 22, where it is said, absolutely, " Job sinned not" — must have a significance. They may denote the beginning of a change, to a degree, perhaps, of which he was yet unconscious. Raschi regards it as a negative pregnant, implying that, though his words were right, there was the beginning of something wrong in his thoughts and feelings; NBn l^S 73X, "but he sinned in his heart." Below the lips, h tt) Kap6iqt in that deep unconscious place lying beneath the thoughts, and out of which, as our Saviour says, thoughts ascend (ai>a,3ahnvot)y there had been some working of that hidden force which afterwards breaks out so irrepressibly. Another supposition may be indulged, that there had come upon him, or doubtless had greatly increased, that severe bodily an- guish which, in its protracted continuance, is so unendurable. Christian martyrs have borne it with divine aid, such as we may suppose Job here not to have had, and because of the briefness of the pain, soon destroying itself, or leading to insensibility. Without this, or when there is no remission or alleviation, it may be safely said that such anguish con- tinuing on, and beyond a certain degree, cannot be endured. The man cannot refrain from fiercely crying out, and it matters but little what the language of his cry may be, since it is only, in any sense, a physical expression of this unendurable agony. " He knoweth our frame." God doth not blame Job for this ; neither should his friends have blamed him. But this is what they did, and it was the beginning of that wrong direction taken in their subsequent discoursings, and growing more and more devious and confused at every step. They could not put themselves in Job's position. They were astonished at his wild out- cries, leading them to imagine something terrible in his state of which they had never thought before. It was this that first led to their chiding tone. They regarded it, not as the involuntary language of extreme suffering, having little of any more accountability attached to it than the mere physical manifestations of tears and groans, but as the evidence of rebellion in the spirit, or of some unknown actual guilt. They had witnessed this during the days of their astonished silence, until they can refrain no longer. His violent language seemed to them like an outburst of profanity ; they undoubtedly knew of his fair reputation in the days of his prosperity, corresponding to the character which God Himself gives of His servant. "They had heard of all this evil that had come upon him." Immediately each starts "from his place;" they make an appointment (1"yfl'i> "to go and mourn with him, and to comfort him." At the sight of their friend, so changed by suffering that " they knew him not, they wept aloud, and rent their garments, and threw dust upon their heads." In all this there is the deepest sympathy, but no unfavorable judgment. No Polemical Interest — The Rationalists' Fanciful Vergeltunaslehre. Neither had they any polemical interest against him in maintaining the old Vergeltungs- lehre, " that phantom of their own imagination," of which the Rationalists are so fond. GROUNDS OF JOBS COMMENDATION. 29 There is no evidence that they had come, "each from his place," to dispute with him about that. There is no such doctrine of retribution in the Mosaic Law, as differing from the later Christian, or from the universal experience of the world in either the earliest or the latest times. Always have men believed, and had reason to believe, both truths * that im- pious deeds are often strikingly punished, even in this world, and also that the righteous often sutler in a manner that seems inexplicable. The Rationalists describe their Vergel- tungslehre as peculiar to the old Patriarchal and Mosaic times; but there is abundant evi- dence to the contrary in the narratives of Genesis. Good men are represented as suffering, without any impeachment of their characters, either on the part of God or man, or on the ground of any specific guilt assigned as the cause of it. The lives of Jacob, Joseph, and Moses prove this. So does the whole history of the Israelites in their sore bondage, for which there is no evidence that the immediate sufferers received or expected compensa- tion, and who certainly were not worse, to say the least, than the nations around them, who had none of those severe trials which were sent upon God's chosen people. So far as there was any basis for the idea in the Mosaic in>titutions, it will generally be found in connection with promises made to families and nations, rather than to individuals. This is the case with the Fifth commandment, which is so often cited in support of this imaginary Vergeltungslehre. Although seemingly addressed to individuals, yet it is in the national aspect that that motive is chiefly held out. It was the nation that was to reap the direct benefit. It was not simply long life, but length of days, continued generations, "in the land which the Lord thy God giveth to thee." And so it is in regard to other blessings promised to the Israelites. Their political aspect is everywhere specially pre- dominant, and, in this sense, they ever held most true. The people among whom filial reverence was maintained, as a foundation virtue, along with that deference which a new generation owed to the experience of the elders — such a people would have "length of days;'' their institutions would derive a strength and a permanency from such a can-.' which no other could give. The words "in theland" show this. Promises thus made to nations have no such reserve as must be supposed to be connected with them when made, really or apparently, to individuals whose cases are affected by such a multiplicity of out- side moral ami physical relations. They have no exceptions, expressed or implied, and history would show that, in such a civic sense, they always hold true. The nation has only an earthly being, and this difference was felt, even before the individual after-life was distinctly maintained. The individual virtue stood on a higher platform. It was connected with a higher order of ideas. Though the thought, as a conception, was not .ideally formed, or consciously received, yet there was in it this mysterious "power of an endless life." Hence, the question which Job's friends mistakingly put in refe- rence to the individual, might have been fairly asked in reference to a people, "When did a nation perish, being innocent?" When did a people cease to flourish that perse- veringly obeyed God's commands, and acknowledged Him to lie its Lord? This fantastic Vergeltungslehre, as thus held by the Rationalists, i- inconsistent more- over witli the tone of the most important ami most Berious of the Psalms. Comp. Pss. lxxiii., xvii., etc In Ecclesiastes it is most expressly repudiated. In the Proverbs, a purely ethical book, there seems to be more of it, but nothing more than any system of popular ethics, ancient or modern, must admit, namely, that virtue is, in the main, favorable to happi- ness or prosperity in this world, and that the practice of it, therefore, may well be recom- mended by the moralist on that ground. In the Proverbs themselves, however, there is evidence that the general truth has its exceptions, not arbitrary, but arising out of cir- cumstance, and reasons connected with a higher ground, demanding a higher rule trans- cending the ordinary experience. Job's Violent Language the First Cause of Crimination — Opening Address of Eliphaz. There is no evidence that Job's friends held this secular Vergeltungslehre as a thing exceptionless. Their own speeches frequently admit the contrary idea.. They would, per- haps, have advised Job to examine himself, try his ways, pray God, as the Psalmist does, 30 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. " to show him if there might be some unknown evil thing in him," that thus he might be " led in the way everlasting." They might have urged him, as the calmer Elihu afterwards did, to regard afflictions, however sore, as sent in love for some mysterious good of disci- pline or purification. But it is not at all probable that they would have charged him with crimes, had they not been led to do so in consequence of the seeming profanity of his violent language, and his own apparent criminations of the divine justice. This first explains the doubt ; and then the increasing harshness of their imputations is the natural conse- quence of the controversial spirit engendered, becoming the more personal, paradoxical as it may seem, in proportion as it becomes more dogmatic and abstract. Yet still the open- ing language of Eliphaz is that of a true friend — a pious friend who wished to sooth the sufferer, and yet mildly rebuke his violently complaining spirit. Together with astonish- ment and compassion, it manifests a tender diffidence which is very finely expressed in Dr. Conant's translation : " Should one venture a word to thee ; wilt thou be offended ? but who can forbear speaking ?" It seems to come after a silence occasioned by a subsidence in the great anguish. There had been, too, a sort of cadence in Job's language which lets us into the interior of the man, showing that his former state, though outwardly fair and prosperous, was not free from spiritual trouble : " I was not at ease, I was not tranquil, I was not at rest, yet trouble came " (iii. 26). There was something strange about the case; yet the words of Eliphaz, that follow, are far from crimination, or even suspicion. It is the gentlest of reproofs, reminding him of what he himself had done to others in similar cases of suffering, and counselling him now to do the same for his own support and consolation : " Lo Thou hast admonished many : Thou hast strengthened the feeble hands ; Thy words have confirmed the faltering." Surely this testifies to a belief in Job's previous reputation for benevolence and piety. Nothing could be farther from the spirit of the harsh charges that seem to be made by this same Eliphaz, xxii. 5-10. "Thou hast comforted many" — it is the mildest of rebukes, if it be a rebuke at all—" but now it comes to thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art confounded. Is not thy religion thy confidence (so in»"l', should be rendered) ; thy hope, is it not the uprightness of thy ways '?" Job's character for integrity is remembered and admitted, with the intimation that he should now derive comfort from the thought. Keeping before us this most natural view of Eliphaz's attempt to comfort, we have the key to what follows. It was not received as it should have been ; and hence the beginning of that personal controversy which arose, in a great measure, from Job's violent retorts. He begins it ; although he has the better of them afterwards, when the polemical spirit, thus aroused, has driven them far from the sympathy they came to express. Had it not been for the effect produced upon our minds by this latter turn, or had this speech of Eliphaz stood alone, we should have carried with us a different feeling, resulting in a different style of interpretation. The words that follow would have appeared to us in another light : "Remember now" — consider your own experience, try and recall a case — " when has the innocent perished ?" The perfectly innocent, some would say in order to soften the imputation, but the emphasis is on the word Tl* The use of it is consistent not only with the belief, but even the firm persuasion, of Job's comparative guiltiness, and the hope of his speedy restoration after a temporary trial. 13" is an extreme word of perdition. Here, especially, as the spirit of the context, and its association with that other strong term TtnDJ very clearly show, it denotes a final, irrecoverable doom. It is suggested^by the idea intimated above, that Job should not forget his religion, his confidence in God, but should derive a pure comfort from the thought of " the uprightness of his ways." God does not mean to destroy you ; you shall not utterly sink under this trouble ; all will come right at last. Such is the spirit of the appeal. Good men may suffer affliction, but where have you known the innocent to perish ? " Therefore, hope thou in God ; for thou shalt yet praise Him, who is the salvation of thy face (thine open salvation), and thy God." There is noth- ing forced in such a view. There may have been a want of appreciation of Job's extreme suffering, such as an outside comforter would find it difficult to conceive, but it seems the best thing that he could do, and the best advice he could offer him under the circumstances. GROUNDS OF JOBS COMMENDATION. 31 It is confirmed by the repetition of the question in language still more emphatic, and in- tended to be still more assuring : " When were the righteous cut off (Hroj*j — finally cutoff? Cheer up, therefore, give not way to despair, God will not forsake thee." It is not a questioning of Job's righteousness, but an assuming of it, in fact, as the ground on which he should yet exercise hope in the divine restoring goodness. The remark, however, here as well as elsewhere, leads to an enlargement on the doom of the wicked man : but any application of this to Job would be inconsistent with the evident assumptions of the context. This doom of the wicked is not thy doom. He ha3 no fear (no religion), no hope as thou hast. Severe as may be thy pains, thy case is very different tV of the men " who plough iniquity and reap mischief." Thou shalt not perish as those " roaring lions " of evil. He who " breaks their teeth " shall bind up thy wounds. Therefore, hope on. Then follows that sublime account of the spiritual appearance, and tl Lesson it brings from the unearthly sphere, bo different from the gabble which the modern natural- izing ilism" would have given us in its stead, as has been before remarked. It is still that grand theism, presented all alone, and in its ineffable purity, to precede all other articles of faith — God's personal being, and His immeasurable holiness : 1 a man itfUX, weak mortal man) be just with God? Shall a man (13J, t1. and most confident man) be pure before his Maker?"t He had indeed given Job credit for uprigl;' had clearly intimated that he might and ought to find comfort in the re- membrance; but here comes the vision of the night, the solemn, sober, second thought, — that there i- something far more holy than our best righteousness, high as that may seem when a man compares himself with other men, or any standard of human ethics. It is an intimation that even Job, with all his uprightness, and though fully corresponding to that charming account given of his moral character in the prologue, cannot yet so stand upon his rig 38 as to cry out against suffering — even extreme suffering iugh it were age injustice. Far different, indeed, is his case from that of those " li<> iniquity to whom Eliphaz alludes, — those utterly Godless transgressors to whom their utter perdition is but a " reaping of what they have sown;" but still he is not righteous, t pure before God. Increasing Severity — Cause of it — Mutual Recriminations — Note on the Atrocious Charges of eh. xxii. Such is a fair interpretation of this fourth chapter. As uttered in a similar spirit, must we regard much of the language of the fifth ; although, probably from some mloi~ of impa- tience in Job, it seems to increase in severity: "Call now; is there any one who will ai thee " whilst indulging in such extravagant appeals? Who of the Holy ( >nes can listen to thy imprecatory language ? "It is the foolish (evil) man whom wrath Blayeth; it is the simple man whom envy killeth." The noun, HNJp, could be better rendered jealousy: It furnishes the key to the train of thought, or the view Eliphaz took of Job's state of mind, as complaining of God, because men manifestly wicked had lived and died more free from pain than himself. Though the language be dark, and full of a passionate abruptness, Buch seems to be tlu meaning of what he had said, iii. 14-17, about "kings and counsellors" who, after lives of uninterrupted prosperity, have lain down beneath their costly monuments, leaving their houses full of treasure. Why could he not have "so lain down,"4 at the end of * The primary sense of tnD is abnegation, — treating a thing as though it was not, or casting it off as utterly fatso and vile. Mi in- in BIphil it gets the sense of putting out of sight (atfiavi^eiv, which la need in theOreok to denote ex- treme destruction), exstirpavit, dtlevit. Tho Niphal is passive of Hiphil. See ita strong sense, Exod. xxiii. :s ; 'Arch. xl. 8. t More just than God, more pure, etc. 80 our translation and Luther have it, with which Dr. Conant agrees. The Vulgate, Dei comparatume. Umbrcit, Kwald, Dclitzsch, Dillmann, Merx, RosenmUUer, el at., reject lie idea of JO, com- parative, anil regard it as equivalent to D>\ xxv. 4; Coram Deo, and in Numb, xxxli.22; Jeremiah li. .0. Tho reasons are that the other rendering, "more Just than God" would be an utterly extravagant thought, which no one would think of seriously holding. And yet it might be suggested by Job's bitter complainings. J III. 13. TOK^ : "I should have slept ; then would there have been rest to mo" — *S nU' &> m0, or even to me. Tho impersonal form with the preposition ib emphatic. This feeling of distrust and Jealousy is made more clear by what ho says at the closo about his want of rest, even in the day of his prosperity : " What he had somehow feared hud come u,. .11 him," iii. 25. 32 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. an untroubled life, and " been at rest." To correct this murmuring jealousy, Elipbaz insists upon what his own experience had taught him to the contrary : " I have myself seen the wicked taking root, but soon I cursed his habitation " (his seemingly undisturbed stability). I have seen what followed them, the ruin of their posterity, the restorations they were com- pelled to make. He is not here charging Job with personal crimes, but cautioning him — and surely there was need of it — against being led into complaints of God as one who leta the wicked live and prosper, and die, at last, without any " bands (doloreg, Ps. lxxiii. 4) in their death." This experience of Eliphaz was true. There is a Vergeltungslehre. God does not let the wicked ultimately prosper, even in this world. During their own lives, and in their posterity after them, this general law of the divine government receives its manifesta- tion. Job's mere groaning under his misery as something inexplicable, is very different from the feeling which suggests such comparisons, as though there were really no God ruling in the earth, and all things happened alike to all, or, what is worse, God actually favors un- righteousness. He himself, Job seems to say, with all his uprightness, was in fact more miserable, had a more grievous lot, than those wicked tyrants. It was this n>s:p; or envy, that was killing him. So it seemed to Eliphaz, and it is enough in interpreting that the idea furnishes the clue to the train of thought. God's favoring the wicked, or suffering them to go with impunity, is very different from the idea that he may send suffering, explained or unexplained, upon the comparatively righteous — Eliphaz is here repelling the former idea. , Some similar view may be taken of most of the speeches of the friends in controversy* They can be explained, or regarded as essentially modified, without supposing that, in the beginning, they had any thought of charging him with crime. That would have been wholly inconsistent with the friendly motive which brought them from their distant homes to mourn and weep with him. The story, it will thus be seen, is best interpreted by regard- ing it as an actual picture of actual life. But even artistic, or dramatic propriety would be grossly violated by such a preposterous fact, that they should, all of them, all at once, fall to making charges against him, not only so atrocious, but so motiveless and abrupt. * Even the harshest parts assume something of a different aspect when we thus take into view the origin and progress of the controversy. Many of these charges will appear to be essentially hypothetical. For it is clear that the friends of Job had no knowledge of any crimes that he had committed. In ch. xxii. Eliphaz seems to charge him directly with the most atrocious deeds. But the beginning of the chapter is evidently the repelling of the idea, on which Job seems strongly to insist, of & personal controversy, as it were, between him and God, or as ono contending with him. It is not, as Eliphaz would seem to argue, such a personal contending whatever else it may be; for that could only be on account of some great sins which had truly roused the divine anger. This hypothetical view may be carried clear through the chap- ter: ''Will He for fear of thee rebuke thee, or enter with thee into controversy? Is it not rather (JOn)i or would it not be rather HD1 "ir^*"!, thy great evil, or for some great evil of thine?" So the Vulgate takes it as a hy*potheticaI question instead of a direct charge : Ifumquid timens argual te et non propter nuditiam tuam plurimam ; " Would it not bo on account of thy wickedness, and because of thine iniquities numberless?" Thus Btated, hypothetically, the ^ that follows is specificatiue. Would it not be on account of tby numerous iniquities, namely, that thou hadst taken a pledge, that thou hadst stripped the naked, favored the mighty, and oppressed the widow, etc. f The manner of stating tbe*e crimes (the standing Bible examples of great wickedness) would also seem to show that the imputations were hypotheti- cal, insteud of direct. It may be a suspicion occasioned by Job's vehement complaints, but it would hardly 6eem to amount to anything stronger, — or a mere conjecture, as Cocceius regards it : " Nam fortassis pignus cepisti, etc. — «:onjectu- raliter et disjunctive explico, nulla repugnante Grammatics, ne crudeliores sententias quam ipsi ami:i in Jobum cudam." Umbreit and Ewald express surprise at the particularity of these atrocious accusations, and wonder how Eliphaz came to the knowledge of them, but the charges themselves they would easily explain by their all-explaining Vergeltungslehre : Job suffered severely ; therefore, he must have been an enormous sinner. What soon follows shows that we must somehow modify the interpretation that makes these charges to be direct, or as something truly believed by the speaker: " Acquaint now thyself with Him (ver. 21), and be at peace " (07u>) give up this idea of a contention, or be composed. There is, indeed, a general exhortation to return to the Almighty, and put away evil ; as it had also been said that he was in darkness and terror, on account of the spirit he showed (vers. 10, 11, 23). But it is not the kind of language we should expect to be used towards one who had robbed widows, and broken, the arms of orphans. Nothing less than unconditional repentance and restitution would have been thought of. But how different the advice of this reproving friend: ?33H (the Kal, ver. S, ani denoting quieting, profitable intercourse) Here, in Hiphil, it is well rendered "acquaint thys'lf" be quiet before God. become familiar with Him, learn to think better of Him and His ways ; " lay up nis words in thy heart." It is addressed to one supposed to be in the wrong, yet Btill having some degree of favor with God, or, at least, one with whom God was not contending, as Ho contends with the. hardened and atrocious sinner, so particularly described. GROUNDS OF JOBS COMMENDATION. 33 The Dispute turned into the Defensive on the Part of the Friends — Does God favor the Wicked f In all the steps of the discussion, it will be discovered that it is not so much a dispo- sition to impute actual crime to Job as to repel his seeming assaults upon their theoretical views of the divine justice. The question, whether afflictions may not come upon the righteous, is lost sight of in another which engages all their zeal : Does God favor the wicked? Does He let them prosper, and ultimately die in peace, as Job sometimes seems to assert? They strongly maintain the negative. This leads to the most vivid pictures of the doom that awaits an evil life. Job, not to be outdone, and not heeding his . tency,* is drawn to vie with them in the assertion of his own experience to the .-ame effect. Sometimes they all seem to say very much the same thing, and then it is worthy of note how some commentators strive to give a good aspect to Job's language, and a bad look to theirs; all coming from the traditional assumption in regard to the judgment at the end of the Book. And their apparent recriminations may, in fact, lie taken in two ways : Such is the doom of the wicked, the enormous evil-doers; but you, Job, are not one of them, although you are now behaving very wrongly; therefore, you may yet hope in God. Or it may be an actual imputation of crime. The first, as we have seen, may be the view taken of Eliphaz.8 early address ; the second, as the etl'ect produced by the exasperation of debate. It is thus they get themselves entangled in a question truly collateral, yet seemingly connected with the other and more important issue : Arc sufferings, in themselves, evidence of crime? Why they are sent upon good men, or why they are permitted even, may remain a mystery; and that mystery, we think, is not solved or attempted to be solved in this Book of Job. But surely it is something quite different from the other thought, that God suffers the wicked to go with impunity, or makes no difference between them and His servants, even in this world. Tlie Didactic Value of the Speeches as Inspired Scripture. The idea that the chief design of the Book is the decision of a debate has had an effect, more or less, in perverting its exposition. It all depends upon the view we take of the language used, ch. xlii. 7, and the object of its most immediate reference. Before dwelling on thai, however, there may come in here a remark in respect to the value of the various speeches in their didactic u-e. It is true that, in a dramatic work, we look to the great lesson which it teaches as a whole ; and in consistency with this, much of what is said may be regarded merely in its dramatic propriety, and not in its absolute didactic truth as uttered, more or less, by all the speakers. It may be a question, however, whether we can apply this strictly to a composition we deem inspired, or divinely given, even though there may be grounds for calling it dramatic- God may instruct us by this style of writing, as well as by other kinds to which we give the names, historical, poetical, parabolic, ethi- cal, or even mythical, if the evidences of such, or such a kind of diction appear on the very face of it. Thus, Job may be said to contain internal evidence of a dramatic intent. It is not a mere collection of precepts, or lofty sayings, but a great spiritual action, a true praxis or drama, the instructiveness of which does not absolutely depend upon the precise truth, or exact moral value of every utterance that composes it. This is easily understood, and not to be dwelt upon. And yet the thought is not irrational, that such an inspired drama, or one that has a true divine authorship, and for a divine purpose, through what- ever media it may have been composed, may be so written, so arranged, and so acted, as to combine both ideas, the dramatic and the preceptive. Even if we regard the speeches of Job's three friends as wrong in their applications, they may, nevertheless, form a body of * This appears especially in chapters xxi. and xxvii., where Job would seem to aim at surpassing them in this kind of painting. Sometimes the transition is quite sudden, as though he had felt he had gone too far in the opposite & re stion. The surprise occasioned by this 1ms led to forced constructions. Thus, xxi. 17, somo would render 71*33. " how seldom," or, "Imw often," with the implied idea of doubt, or with a sarcastic reference. This is contrary to the constant usago of nrDD. and Ps. Ixrriil. 40, cited by Qesenius and Hupfeld, docs not support it 34 THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. preceptive truth of the highest value, far beyond anything to be found in Seneca or Epictetus. In this view it may be said of each one of thern, that they are Sacred " Scrip- ture, profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness," or that they are divine words " most pure," as the Psalmist says, " like silver tried in an earthen vessel, and seven times purified." Thus regarding them, the practical expositor, and the preacher, may study them with confidence, as golden sentences containing golden truth, and which, when " opened up," as the old lovers of Scripture used to say, will furnish, each by themselves, most profitable themes of meditation. It would be difficult to point out a single utterance made by the three friends of Job that does not contain, in itself, such a golden thought, and worthy of a writing for which there is claimed a divine authorship. All ancient and modern books, Oriental or Occidental, will be searched in vain for a purer or loftier theism than that set forth in these speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. The same may be said of Job's language, when regarded as a calm utterance, or something more than a dramatic groan. His impassioned assertions of his integrity, his casting away of all false humility, his vehement expostulations with God, so almost terrifying as by thtir bold- ness: " Wilt Thou put in fear the driven leaf; wilt Thou pursue the withered chaff?" — all this may be regarded even with reverence as viewed from the stand-point of the sufferer. There is no cant about Job ; no affected piety ; no mere sentimentality ; no cold and showy theorizing. All this seeming irreverence, nevertheless, is consistent with a manly piety, most anxious to understand its true relation to the Holy One. He seems, at times, upon the borders of profanity. He makes the boldest declarations; but they are all renounced after- wards, when a new aspect of the matter is presented to his mind, leading him to say DiON, " I reject ;" I throw them all away ; I cannot bear them now. He argues no more ; neither does he remain silent like the others; but falls upon his face, saying, only : "I repent in dust and ashes." Here he said " the thing that was right," wholly right ; but even during the calmer periods given to him from suffering, he seems to rise immediately to a higher position. It is after such pauses that he brings in those impassioned soliloquies in which the disputants around him seem wholly lost sight of; as in that meditation on the unsearchable Wisdom, ch. xxviii., or when he breaks out with that sublime appeal : " I know that my Kedeemer liveth ;" or when he says, " 0 that I knew where I might find Him ;" or when he shows that he can surpass Zophar and Bildad in magnifying the divine glory, whilst he is behind none of them in sententious wisdom. The right " sayings about God " for tohich Job is commended. If, however, there are to be found in the Book any utterances in themselves false or evil, they are to be looked for in those passages in which Job seems to pass almost entirely beyond the bounds of reverence, if regarded as speaking of God (as in ch. xvi.), and not rather of the evil being, of whom, in some way, he seems conscious as a great and malignant antago- nist. (See note, page 7.) But the exposition which proceeds upon the idea of the Book being the solving of a problem, or the decision of a debate, must find these false things " said about God," or to God C'X), in the utterances of the three friends. This might, perhaps, be maintained if there is intended, not their abstract truth, but their practical application to the sufferer ; but then they could hardly be called, with consistency, " wrong things about God." They would have been, rather, wrong things said about Job. Now it may be admit- ted, that, with all his errors and extravagances, there was a general Tightness belonging to Job's position. In spite of his expostulations and vehement upbraidings, even of Deity Him- self, there was something in his impassioned sincerity, that called out the divine pity, the di- vine admiration, to speak anthropopathically, so as to give even his errors, in the divine sight, an interest beyond that of the cold, theoretical, unappreciative, casuistical wisdom of his antagonists. In reference to the whole action of the drama, instead of the mere dialecti- cal merit, it might have been said, in the old patriarchal style, that " Job found favor, or grace, in His sight ; " and in this way the traditional exposition may be accepted. We may take it as implied also in any form of the decision, and it may stand, if insisted on, as the leading solution of the Book : " Job found grace in the sight of God." With this, however, GROUNDS OF JOB'S COMMENDATION. 35 the question may still be raised, whether, in the declaration, xlii. 7, H313J '7K OJTUI X1?, "Ye have not spoken," &c, there was not intended a more special saying, a particular and noted declaration standing by itself, as outside of the long discussion— not something which Job had said better than they, but something which he had said, and they did not say at all, — not something said about God, but directly to Him, and according to the almost exception- less usage of that most frequent preposition, '". Meaning of 'TR, xlii. 7. This is, in the first place, an almost purely philological question. The particle is one of the most common in Hebrew, and we might also add, one of the most uniform in its meaning and application. Let us, therefore, examine whether 'TO, in this place, has been rightly translated by the makers of the English and other versions. If not, it might be asked, why o many commentators taken the wrong direction ? The answer may be found in the influence of the view, so early entertained, that the Book was intended as the solution of a n, and the decision of a debate. The supposed dramatic character and construction aide I this idea. The y thus given would at once afll-ct this passage, and the same would perpetuate the peculiar interpretation it had originated. Instead of taking as ileal and usual sense of the preposition, they made it subservient to a hypothesis derived from other sources. This inverse method appears very plainly in one of the notes of pius (285) to Noldius1 Concordance of the Hebrew Particles: " Luth., Anglic, Trem., Piscat., Belgic, Schmid, Glass, Geier, de me. Nam amici Jobi, non ad Deum loquutisunt, sed de Deo." Here it is taken for granted that there is a decision of something said con- cerning God, and tie- pn ipo -it i. .n i- i . Tympius, with the LXX., Syriac and Vulgate, would render it before me, hut it is from the same idea of a judicial d only carried still farther in that direction ; " for the friends," he says, " non sinistre lo sunt de Deo tantum, sed ct de Jobo, de cruce fidelium, de impiorum in hac vita prosperitate," &c. Some commentator.-, when they come to this place, simply say /H for • >• or ' >N for ''J- and that is all the notice they take of it; or they content themselves with rendering it about, j>ect to, von, mir, in Beziehung aufmich (sec Dillmann, Delitzsch, Eos etaL), without giving any reasons. But Sx for ij) is as rare in the Hebrew as ad for de in Latin, or the English to in the same sense. We say, indeed, speak to a question, or to a point in debate, but this is a technical -use; it is figurative, moreover, denoting direction, or keep- ing the mind intent upon a thing, and never used with a person or a personal pronoun. How infrequent in Hebrew is this supposed use of ^ for 'V, may be seen from the few cases* given by Noldius, and of out many hundreds adhering to the common usage. * From those wo may at once exclude thoao in which ^X follows the verb X2J, or X3jrTI, to pn ipheaj They may be I, prophecy concerning; but the preposition does not loeo its original idea of direction — prophecy to. or at, or against, go also where Noldius tenden Itpropier uLam iv.17: "our eyes are consumed," ljmyf IX. "ou account of our help.*' The idea is, looking to or for our help, elliptically expressed. There is the same kind of ellipsis in the few Other examples he gives, SS 1 Sam. iv. 21 : " this she said (looking to, in vino of) the taking of the ark," ic. There is no need of rendering It propter; the vivid ps I by so doing. 2 Sam. xxi. 1 : " And the Lord said," 71MB 7X— then is an ellipsis any way. "And the Lord said—to Saul "—that is, look to Saul. Noldius nils it up tamely: "(it is) on account of Saul and his bloody house." 1 Kings xix. 3 : " He went, VC7-JJ Sx, for his life "—a peculiar phrase, but may be rendered literally, instead of by propter, on account of. Ps. lxxxiv. 3, " My heart aud flesh cry out," 'n 7X~7X, ren- dered by Noldius :" On account of the living God,'' but far better literally, "to the living Qod." So in tho cases where he would render it de, it will be found that the object is evor present, and there is the ilea of direct reference, or point- ing to it. As 1 Sam. i .27, where Hannah says, "I prayed, niH TJ'On Sx.for this child," as something present— tho di- rect object. 2 Kings xix. 32, "Thussaith the Lord," lh"Z SX- It was indeed about the King of Assyria, but how much mors vivid is it when tHkeu directly, to, at, against ; Deodat. French Version, tmtctiant le roi. The two or three others under that head can all be resolved in the same manner. 2d Psalm 7, pn *7X iT^SDX, cannot be rendered "concerning the decree." Gen. xx. 2, "And Abraham said, T\~\1D Sx, to Sarah, she Is my wife." Sarah was present, and the saying was t» her— as an intimation to Abimelech. THEISM OF THE BOOK OF JOB. Commentators find it difficult to determine for what sayings, in the general argument, Job is com- mended. The word HjO:, xlii. 7. T Another argument for the view here taken is derived from the disagreements among commentators in respect to the things said for which Job is commended and the friends are condemned. According to Ewald and Schlottmann, H30J denotes subjective truth, upright- ness, integrity. Zockler takes the other view: It was Job's correct knowledge, and truthful assertion of his own general innocence, in which he was right, and they were wrong, because they failed to acknowledge it, or were silent about it. So Delitzsch says: "The correct ne;s in Job's speeches consists in his holding fast the consciousness of his innocence without suffer- ing himself to be persuaded of the opposite." This would make it almost contrary, in spirit at least, to the language of his confession, when he says OXOX: " I reject (throw away, re- nounce, recant), and repent in dust and ashes ; " or in the other place, xli. 4 : " I lay my hand upon my mouth ; once have I spoken — twice — I will say no more." Easchi takes this " once — twice " as referring specially to Job's two hard sayings,* ch. ix. 22 ; the first : " He consumes the righteous with the wicked," the second : " When the scourge destroys suddenly, He mocks at the distress of the innocent." It is as though Job meant to specify these, be- cause they were the only ones he could remember. In his Eabbinic particularity, Raschi overlooks the Hebraism : " Once — twice," repeatedly, over and over again, " have I uttered what I understood not, things too hard for me, which I knew not." See, too, how Dillmann strives to make out a case for Job against the friends, and labors with his distinction between the subjective and the objective truth ; as though the declaration itself of the Almighty needed defending and clearing up as much as Job's integrity. In some senses, he would maintain, both were right and both were wrong. Not every word he uttered in itself was true, nor were their's all wrong ; but only on the whole, or on the question of Job's inno- cence, was the balance of truth in his favor. Truly this is a very unsatisfactory view of the great matter which God decides, as though it were a mere question as to the weight of argu- ment in a debate about Job's absolute or comparative innocence ; it being a fact, too, of which Job had knowledge, whilst they could only judge from outer circumstances. A man should maintain his integrity, if he is not guilty of particular crimes laid to his charge ; that is true ; but is there no higher lesson taught in this Book? Again, this mere summing up of a balance of right, with so much difficulty about it as to occasion such a diversity of comment, is inconsistent with the clearness and peculiar nature of that word, F1J133. It is not used of personal moral character, either subjectively or objectively, like "'iy3 xS N1D "int? Ul ri/DO KID ^'Cll Dn 10X, for lo, he never transgressed against Me except in that he said, The innocent and the wicked He alike consumes/' and " of the scourge," etc. THE BOOK OF JOB AS A WORK OP ART. 37 been said, would have left all else dark, undecided, insecure. Such was the saying, ch. xl. 4, xlii. 1-i3, and for this we may believe that Job was specially commended. It was also said directly to God, and this perfectly suits the preposition '*>', xlii. 7, without any necessity of giving it a sense which, to say the least, is very unusual, and only to be resorted to when the context allows no other. This is certainly not the case here. In giving to "7*| the same sense which /N has immediately above, in the words 2rx-7X, there is suggested a reference to Job's confession ; and we venture to say, that, had it been so rendered, in the early ver- sions, there would hardly have been a thought of any other interpretation. Commentators, generally, as Aben Ezra has done, would have restricted it to that memorable saying unto God, and so have avoided the never-to-be-settled disputes as to the particular respects in which Job had the better <>f the argument against his three friends. There is also some- thing in the appointment of Job as the sacrificing and interceding priest fur the others that is in beautiful harmony with the view here taken of the difference between him and them. They had not fallen upon their faces, and laid their hands upon their mouths; they had not confessed, and " repented in dust and ashes." This Job had done. He hum- bled himself, and therefore did God highly exalt him to be a priest and a mediator for the oth r-:. We will not say that this might not have been a proper distinction conferred upon him for his success in the argument by which ho maintained his own righteousness ; but thewhole spirit of the Scriptures, old and new, seems more in harmony with the in- terpretation which regards the other as the prominent, if not the only view to be taken of this great decision. It need only be further said, in this place, that the LXX. have ren '!???! hiCrxi&v /urn, the Vulgate, coram, me, in my presence — before me. To the same purport the Syriac 'Dip, The-' are better than the modern versions, since they leave open the question of reference. They are in better harmony, too, with the usual sense of the , Bition than - of, or concerning, in Bcziehung anf mich, etc.; hut even these translations have been influenced by the idea of a debate held in the presence of a j or umpire, who is to decide on the merits of the argument. It is a notion quite plausible, 1 with the dramatic conception, but receiving no countenance either iu the abrupt ad'lress of Jehovah, or in anything previously said by the several speakers. THE BOOK OF JOB AS A WORK OF ART. Errors of Interpretation arising from so regarding it. The ten - idea of a problem to be solved, or of a debate to be decided, ap- pears i irs who have most to say about the Book of Job as a work of art, lauding it greatly in this way, as though to make up lor what somi I i lacking in a true appreciation of its divine merit. It has given rise to supposed plans and divisions as variant as they are artificial. The great outlines of the Book are marked upon its very race; but when the attempt is made to discover, under this main i more artistic development, the result is very unsatisfactory. Besides the prologue and epilogue, which are ivid n i in bodyof the work has been arranged under certain divisio i the drj ittC action, all regarded as having b I larly planned in the mind of the artist. These are described by technical names invented for the pu ami tlie M<«f,— the envelopment and the development, the tying up and the loosing. The subdivisions are arrang artificially, though we can hardly call them artistic, tin of which is the absence or eon ilment of all studied artificialness. For example, ive as 1st. The Ankmipfung, or Introductory Statement, of which nothing need he said; 2d. The Movement of the Debate, or the Commencing Development, iv. xiv. ; 3d. The Second Movement, or the Advancing Development, xv., xxi. ; 4th. The Third Movement of the Debal . or the .Most Advanced Development, xxii., xxvi.; 5th. The Transition from the Development 'or rather the maximum Envelopment), to the Solution, or from the State to the commencing JAaiq, Job's Vindication, xxvii., xxxi. ; 6th. The Consummation, or the Durchbruch, the breaking through, the transition from the <5