LIBR A^IIY Theological Seminary. PRINCETON, N. J. Case J3S 1^-1 Sl.D'vis.on Shelf , 1)353 Section.. T..:._"^7. Book i?ylZ V.7:. No, C^pvjl I CLARK'S FOREIGN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY FOURTH SERIES. VOL. XI. Sdtt^^cl^ on tf)e )3oo& ot Sob. VOL. IL EDINBURGH: T. AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. MDCCCLXXII. PRINTED BY MUHRAY AND GIBB, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON, .... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. NEW YORK, . , . C. SCRIBNER AND CO. BIBLICAL COMMENTARY THE BOOK OF JOB, F. DELITZSCH, D.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY THE REV. FRANCIS BOLTON, B. A., ELLAND. SECOND EDITION, REVISED. VOL. n. EDINBUEGH: T. & T. CLAKK, 38, GEO KG E STEEET. MDCOCLXXII. TABLE OF CONTENTS. SECOND PART.— THE ENTANGLEMENT.— Chap, iv.-xxvi. THE THIRD COURSE OF THE CONTROVERSY. — CHAP. XXII. -XXVI. (Continued.) PAGE Job's First Answer — Chap, xxiii. xxiv., .... 1 Bildad's Third Speech — Chap, xxv., . . . .44 Job's Second Answer — Chap, xxvi., . . . .49 THIRD PART.— THE TRANSITION TO THE UNRAVELMENT. Chap, xxvii.-xxxi. Job's Final Speech to the Friends — Chap, xxvii. xxviii., . . 65 Job's Monologue — Chap, xxix.-xxxi., .... 117 First Part— Chap, xxix., . . . . .117 Second Part — Chap, xxx., ..... 136 Third Part— Chap, xxxi., . . . . .172 FOURTH PART.— THE UNRAVELMENT.— Chap, xxxii.-xlii. The Speeches of Elihu— Chap, xxxii.-xxxvii., . . 206 Historical Introduction to the Section— Chap, xxxii. l-6a, . 206 EUhu's First Speech— Chap, xxxii. 66-xxxiii., . . 209 Elihu's Second Speech — Chap, xxxiv., . . . 246 Elihu's Third Speech— Chap, xxxv., . . . .267 Elihu's Fourth Speech — Chap, xxxvi. xxxvii., . 276 V' TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE The Unravelment in the Consciousness— Chap, xxxviii.-xlii. 6, 311 The First Speech of Jehovah, and Job's Answer — Chap. xxxviii.-xl. 5, . . . . .311 The Second Speech of Jehovah, and Job's Second Penitent Answer— Chap. xl. 6-xlii. 6, . . . .354 The Unravelment in Outward Reality— Chap. xlii. 7 sqq., 385 APPENDIX. The Monastery of Job m Hauran, etc., .... 395 Addenda, ........ 448 Note on Arabic Words, etc., . • . . . . 449 Index of Texts, ....... 451 THE BOOK OF JOB. SECOND PART.— THE ENTANGLEMENT. Chap, iv.-xxvi. the third course of the controversy. — chap. xxii. -xxvi. (continued.) JoVs First Ansioer. — Chaps, xxiii. xxiv. Schema: 8. 8. 8. 8. | 8. 9. 9. 9. 5. 10. 9. [Then began Job, and said :] 2 Even to-^Iai/ my complaint still hiddeth defiance, My hand lieth heavy upon my groaning. 3 Oh that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come even to His dwelling-place ! 4 / looidd lay the cause before Him, And fill my mouth with arguments : 5 I should like to knoio the words He woidd answer me, And attend to what He would say to me. Since ■'"ijp (for which tlie LXX. reads e« rov ')(€Lp6- in lJ^^-> solvit, laxavit. From the signification to be tight come amarra, to stretch tight, istamarra, to stretch one's self tight, to draw one's self out in this state of tension — of things in time, to continue unbroken ; mirreh, string, cord ; mO, to make and hold one's self tight against any one, i.e. to be obstinate: originally of the body, as jLcj jW, to strengthen themselves in the contest against one another; then of the mind, as 4_f;U, l^Ujj to struggle against anything, both outwardly by contra- diction and disputing, and inwardly by doubt and unbelief. — Fl. CHAP. XXIII. 2-6. 3 stinacy, revolt, rebellion (viz. in the sense of the friends), but, like '"i"ibj 2 Kings xiv. 26 (which describes the affliction as stiff-necked, obstinate), of stubbornness, defiance, con- tinuance in opposition, and explain with Easchi: My com- plaint is still always defiance, i.e. still maintains itself in opposition, viz. against God, without yielding (Hahn, Olsh. : unsubmitting) ; or rather : against such exhortations to peni- tence as those which Eliphaz has just addressed to him. In reply to these, Job considers his complaint to be well justified even to-day, i.e. even now (for it is not, with Ewald, to be imagined that, in the mind of the poet, the controversy extends over several days, — an idea which would only be indicated by this one word). In ver. 2b he continues the same thought under a different form of expression. My hand lies heavy on my groaning, i.e. I hold it immoveably fast (as Fleischer proposes to take the words) ; or better : I am driven to a continued utterance of it.^ By this interpretation ''T' retains its most natural meaning, manus mea, and the connection of the two members of the verse without any particle is best explained. On the other hand, all modern expositors, who do not, as Olsh., at once correct n'' into IT*, explain the suffix as objective : the hand, i.e. the destiny, to which I have to submit, weighs upon my sighing, irresistibly forcing it out from me. Then ver. 2b is related to ver. 2a as a confirmation ; and if, therefore, a particle is to be supplied, it is "'3 (Olsh,) and no other. Thus, even the Targ. renders it ''nn», plaga mea. Job's affliction is frequently traced back to the hand of God, ch. xix. 21, comp. i. 11, ii. 5, xiii. 21 ; and on the suffix used objectively (pass.) we may compare ver. 14, ''jpn ; ch. xx. 29, ii^X ; and 1 The idea might also be : My hand presses my groaning back (because it would be of no use to me) ; but ver. 2a is against this, and the Arab. kamada, to restrain inward pain, anger, etc. by force (e.g. mat kerned, he died from suppressed rage or anxiety), has scarcely any etymological connection with 133. 4: THE BOOK OF JOB. especially xxxiv. 6, ''V'?. The interpretation : the hand upon me is heavy above my sighing, i.e. heavier than it (Ramban, Kosenm., Ges., Schlottm., Renan), also accords with the con- nection. ^V can indeed be used in this comparative meaning, Ex. xvi. 5, Eccl. i. 16 ; but ^5:; T" mna is an established phrase, and commonly used of the burden of the hand upon any one, Ps. xxxii. 4 (comp. ch. xxxiii. 7, in the division in which Elihu is introduced; and the connection with 7ii, 1 Sam. V. 6, and df^ 1 Sam. v. 11); and this usage of the language renders the comparative rendering very improbable. But it is also improbable that " my hand" is = the hand [that is] upon me, since it cannot be shown that T" was directly used in the sense of plaga; even the Arabic, among the many turns of meaning which it gives to jt«, does not support this, and least of all would an Arab conceive of jj passively, plaga quam patior. Explain, therefore : his complaint now, as before, offers resistance to the exhortation of the friends, which is not able to lessen it, his (Job's) hand presses upon his lamentation so that it is forced to break forth, but — without its justification being recognised by men. This thought urges him on to the wish that he might be able to pour forth his complaint directly before God. VT~''l^ is at one time followed by an accusative (ch. xiv. 4, xxix. 2, xxxi. 31, 35, to which belongs also the construction with the inf., ch. xi. 5), at another by the fut., with or without Waw (as here, ver. 3^', ch. vi. 8, xiii. 5, xiv. 13, xix. 23), and at another by the perf., with or without Waw (as here, ver. 3a ; utinam noverim, and Dent. v. 26). And "'Jjii'lVis, as in ch. xxxii. 22, joined with the fut. : scirem (noverim) et invenirem instead of p)ossim invenire eum (ixv^^), Ges. § 142, 3, c. If he but knew [how] to reach Plim (God), could attain to His throne ; nj^i^ri (everywhere from p3, not from )3n) signifies the setting up, i.e. arrangement (Ezek. xliii. 11) or establish- ment (Nah. ii. 10) of a dwelling, and the thing itself which is CIIAP. XXIII. 6-9. set out and established, here of the place where God's throne is established. Having attained to this, he would lay his cause (instruere causam, as ch. xiii. 18, comp. xxxiii. 5) before Him, and fill his mouth with arguments to prove that he has I'ight on his side (ninairij as Ps. xxxviii. 15, of the grounds of defence, or proof that he is in the right and his opponent in the w-rong). In ver. 5 we may translate : I would, or : I should hke (to learn) ; in the Hebrew, as in cognoscerem, both are expressed ; the substance of ver. ha makes the optative rendering more natural. He would like to know the words with which He would meet him,^ and would give heed to what He would say to him. But will He condescend ? will He have anything to do with the matter ? — 6 Will He contend with me imth great power ? JVo, indeed; He will only regard me! 7 Then the upright loould be disputing with Hhn, And I should for ever escape my judge. 8 Yet I go eastivard, He is not there, And tvesticard, hut I perceive Him not; 9 Northwards ivhere He loorketh, hut I behold Him not ; He turneth aside southioards, and I see Him not. The question which Job, in ver. 6a, puts forth : will He contend with me in the greatness or fulness of His strength, i.e. (as ch. xxx. 18) with a calling forth of all His strength ? he himself answers in ver. 66, hoping that the contrary may be the case : no, indeed, He will not do that.^ N7 is here ' ^y^X is generally accented with DecM, Q^pD with Munacli, according to which Dachselt interprets : scirem, quae eloquia responderet milii Deus, but this is incorrect. The old editions have correctly nyiN Munacli, U'h'O Mtniach (taking the place of Dechi, because the AthnacJi--wori\ which follows has not two syllables before the tone-syllable; rid. Psidler, ii. 104, § 4). * With this interpretation, K^ should certainly have Ilihia mugrasch ; 6 THE BOOK OF JOB. followed not by the ''3, which is otherwise customary after a negation in the signification imo^ but by the restrictive ex- ceptive '^^, which never signifies sed, sometimes verum tamen (Ps. xlix. 16; comp. supra, ch. xiii. 15, vol. i. p. 215), but here, as frequently, tantummodo, and, according to the hyper- baton which has been mentioned so often (vol. i. pp. 72, 238, and also 215), is placed at the beginning of the sentence, and belongs not to the member of the sentence immediately following it, but to the whole sentence (as in Arabic also /•a the restrictive force of the WA never falls upon what im- i> mediately follows it) : He will do nothing but regard me (D''b>^, scil. ^2, elsewdiere with pV of the object of regard or reflection, ch. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 15, Judg. xix. 30, and with- out an ellipsis, ch. i. 8 ; also with ?X, ch. ii. 3, or p, 1 Sam. ix. 20 ; here designedly with 3, which unites in itself the signi- fications of the Arab. < , and ^, of seizing, and of plunging into anything). Many expositors (Hirz., Ew., and others) understand ver. Qb as expressing a wish : " Shall He contend with me with overwhelming power ? No, I do not desire that ; only that He may be a judge attentive to the cause, not a ruler manifesting His almighty power." But ver. 6a, taken thus, would be purely rhetorical, since this question (shall He, etc.) certainly cannot be seriously propounded by Job ; accordingly, ver. 6b is not intended as expressing a wish, but a hope. Job certainly wishes the same thing in ch. ix. 34, xiii. 21 ; but in the course of the discussion, he has gradually acquired new confidence in God, which here once more breaks through. He knows that God, if He could but be found, would also condescend to hear his defence of himself, its accentuation -with Mercha proceeds from another interpretation, pro- bably no7i utlque ponet in me {manum sua?n\ according to which the Targ. translates. Others, following this accentuation, take N? in the sense of i<^n (vid. in Dachselt), or are at pains to obtain some other meaning from it. CHAP. XXIII 6-9. 7 that He would allow him to speak, and not overwhelm hhn with His majesty. Ver. 7. The question arises here, whether the Dtj' which ■0' -a -» follows is to be understood locally (*;) or temporally (J) ; it is evident from eh. xxxv. 12, Ps. xiv. 5, Ixvi. 6, Hos. ii. 17, Zeph. i. 14, that it may be used temporally; in many passages, e.g. Ps. xxxvi. 13, the two significations run into one another, so that they cannot be distinguished. We here decide in favour of the temporal signification, against Rosenm., Schlottm., and Hahn ; for if DtJ> be understood locally, a " then " must be supplied, and it may therefore be concluded that this DC* is the expression for it. We assume at the same time that n^lJ is correctly pointed a.s part, with Kametz; accordingly it is to be explained : then, if He would thus pay attention to me, an upright man would be contending with Him, i.e. then it would be satisfactorily proved that an up- right man may contend with Him. In ver. Ih, £2pS, like t^w, ch. xx= 20 (comp. nris^ to have open, to stand open), is inten- sive of Kal : I should for ever escape my judge, i.e. come off most completely free from unmerited punishment. Thus it ought to be if God could be found, but He cannot be found. The in, which according to the sense may be translated by "yet" (comp. ch. xxi. 16), introduces this antithetical rela- tion : Yet I go towards the east (in with Mahpachy D^i;^ with Munach), and He is not there ; and towards the west (linx, comp. CJins, occidentales, ch. xviii. 20), and perceive Him not (expressed as in ch. ix. 11 ; ? pS elsewhere : to attend to any- thing, ch. xiv. 21, Deut. xxxii. 29, Ps. Ixxiii. 17 ; here, as there, to perceive anything, so that \b is equivalent to ink). In ver. 9 the left (PlXOtt', Arab, shimdl, or even without the substantival termination, on which comp. Jesurun, pp. 222-227, sham, sham) is undoubtedly an appellation of the north, and the right (Pf^, Arab, jemm) an appellation of the b THE BOOK OF JOB. south; both words are locatives which outwardly are undefined. And if the usual significations of nb'J? and fiDj? are retained, it is to be explained thus : northwards or in the north, if He should be active — I behold not ; if He veil himself southwards or in the south — I see not. This explanation is also satisfactory so far as ver. 9a is concerned, so that it is unnecessary to understand inti'ya other than in ch. xxviii. 26, and with Blumenfeld to translate according to the phrase i^ll i^^Vy Judg. xvii. 8 : if He makes His way northwards ; or even M'ith Umbr. to call in the assistance of the Arab. ^Ji^ (to cover), which neither here nor ch. ix, 9, xv. 27, is admissible, since even then inb>y2 i'lSJDb' cannot signify : if He hath concealed himself on the left hand (in the north). Ewald's combination of ntJ>y with ntsy, in the assumed signification "to incline to " of the latter, is to be passed over as useless. On the other hand, much can be said in favour of Ewald's trans- lation of ver. 95 : " if He turn to the right hand — I see Him not ;" for (1) the Arab. ^oUr , by virtue of the radical notion,^ which is also traceable in the Heb. flJOJ?, signifies both trans, and iutrans. to turn up, bend aside ; (2) Saadia translates: "and if He turns southwards (atafa 'gunuban);''^ (3) Schultens correctly observes : fi^y signijicatione operiendi commodum non ejicit sensum, nam quid mirum si quern occul- tantem se non conspiciamus. We therefore give the preference to this Arabic rendering of flt:j?\ If Pltiy, in the sense of ohvelat se, does not call to mind the '^^ "'1*1'], penetralia austri, ch. ix. 9 (comp. jS:>~, velamen, adytum), neither will "inb'ya ^ The verb i^Lr. signifies trans, to turn, or lay, anything round, so that it is laid or drawn over something else and covers it ; hence i jllic, a garment that is cast round one, c-iiixj' with <«>> of a garment : to cast it or wrap it about one. Intrans. to turn aside, depart from, of deviating from a given direction, dejiectere, declinare ; also, to turn in a totally opposite direction, to turn one's self round and to go back. — Fl. CHAP. XXIII. 10-13. y point to the north as the seat of the divine dominion. Such conceptions of the extreme north and south are nowhere found among the Arabs as among the Aryan races {vid. Isa. xiv. 13) ;^ and, moreover, the conception of the north as the abode of God cannot be shown to be biblical, either from ch. xxxvii. 22, Ezek. i. 4, or still less from Ps. xlviii. 3. With regard to the syntax, fjDJ?'' is a hypothetical /t<^., as ch. xx. 24, xxii. 27 sq. The use of the fut. apoc. Tnt<, like ^^, ver. 11, without a voluntative or aoristic signification, is poetic. Towards all quarters of the heavens he turns, i.e. with his eyes and the longing of his whole nature, if he may by any means find God. But He evades him, does not reveal Him- self in any place whatever. The ""S which now follows does not give the reason of Job's earnest search after God, but the reason of His not being found by him. He does not allow Himself to be seen any- where; He conceals Himself from him, lest Pie should be compelled to acknowledge the right of the sufferer, and to withdraw His chastening hand from him. 10 Fo7' He knotoeth the loay that is with me : If He should prove me, I should come forth as gold. 1 1 My foot held firm to His steps ; His way I kept, and twvied not aside. 12 The command of His lips — I departed not from it; More than my own determination I kept the words of His mouth. 1 3 Yet He remaineth hy one thing, and ivho can turn Him ? And He accomplisheth what His soul desireth. That which is not merely outwardly, but inwardly with ^ In contrast to the extreme north, the abode of the gods, the habitation of life, the extreme south is among the Aryans the abode of the prince of death and of demons, Jama (vid. vol. i. p. 325) with his attendants, and therefore the habitation of death. 10 THE BOOK OF JOB. (pV) any one, is that which he thinks and knows (his con- sciousness), ch. ix. 35, XV. 9, or his willing and acting, ch. X. 13, xxvii. 11 : he is conscious of it, he intends to do it ; here, ver. 10, DJ? is intended in the former sense, in ver. 14 in the latter. The " way with me" is that which his conscience (avveLBr]ai<;) approves (av/ji/jiapTvpet) ; comp. Psycliol. p. 161. This is known to God, so that he who is now set down as a criminal would come forth as tried gold, in the event of God allowing him to appear before Him, and subjecting him to judicial trial. ""J^na is the prcet. hypotheticum so often men- tioned, which is based upon the paratactic character of the Hebrew style, as Gen. xliv. 22, Ruth ii. 9, Zech. xiii. 6 ; Ges. § 155, 4, a. His foot has held firmly^ to the steps of God Ol^5<, together with lltJ^K, ch. xxxi. 7, from "\^\^ Piel, to go on), so that he was always close behind Him as his prede- cessor (THX synon. "^ipJ^, Ps. xvii. 5, Prov. v. 5). He guarded, i.e. observed His way, and turned not aside (t3X fut. apoc. Hiph. in the intransitive sense of defiectere, as e.g. Ps. cxxv. 5). In ver. 12a, vriSB' ni^*» precedes as cas. absolutus (as re- spects the command of His lips) ; and what is said in this respect follows with Waw apod. (= Arab. ^_j) without the retrospective pronoun n3?30 (which is omitted for poetic brevity). On this prominence of a separate notion after the manner of an antecedent, comp. vol. i. p. 91, note 1. The Hiph. B'^on, like r^^^r}^ ver. 11, and T^'H, Prov. iv. 21, is not causative, but simply active in signification. In ver. 126 the question arises, whether }?? jQy is one expression, as in ch. xvii. 4, in the sense of " hiding from another,'' or whether p is comparative. In the former sense Hirz. explains : I re- moved the divine will from the possible ascendancy of my own. ^ On tnx, Carey correctly observes, and it explains the form of the expression : The oriental foot has a power of grasp and tenacity, because not shackled with shoes from early childhood, of which we can form but little idea. CHAP. XXIII. 10-13 11 But since I^V is familiar to the poet in the sense of preserving and laying by (Q-p^ii^V, treasures, eh. xx. 26), it is more natural to explain, according to Ps. cxix. 11 : I kept the words (commands) of Thy mouth, i.e. esteemed them high and precious, more than ????/ statute, i.e. more than what my own will prescribed for me.^ The meaning is substantially the same ; the LXX., which translates iv Se koXtto) fxov CiPD?)? which Olsh. considers to be " perhaps correct," destroys the significance of the confession. Hirz. rightly refers to the " law in the members," Eom. vii. 23 : ''ipn is the expression Job uses for the law of the sinful nature which strives against the law of God, the wilful impulse of selfishness and evil passion, the law which the apostle describes as erepo^ v6/mo^, in distinction from the v6fMo<; tov &eov {Psychol, p. 445). Job's conscience can give him this testimony, but He, the God who so studiously avoids him, remains in one mind, viz. to treat him as a criminal ; and who can turn Plim from His purpose? (the same question as ch. ix. 12, xi. 10) ; His soul wills it {stat pro ratione voluntas), and He accomplishes it. Most expositors explain peiinanet in iino in this sense ; the Beth is the usual ? with verbs of entering upon and persist- ing in anything. Others, however, take the 3 as Beth essentice : He remains one and the same, viz. in His conduct towards me (Umbr., Vaih.), or : He is one, is alone, viz. in absolute majesty (Targ. Jer. ; Schult., Ew., Hlgst., Schlottm.), which is admissible, since this Beth occurs not only in the comple- ^ Wetzstein arranges the significations of J3V as follows : — 1. (Beduin) intr. fat. i, to contain one's self, to keep still (hence in Hebr. to lie in wait), to be rapt in thought ; conjug. II. c. act: pers. to make any one thoughtful, irresolute. 2. (Hebr.) ti-ans. fut. o, to keep anything to one's self, to hold back, to keep to one's self ; Nipli. to be held back, i.e. either concealed or reserved for future use. Thus we see how, on the one hand, |3i« is related to |ot3, e.g. ch. xx. 26 (Arab, itmaanna, to be still) ; and, on the other, can interchange with nsv in the signification designare (comp. ch. r.v. 22 with xv. 20, xxi. 19), and to spy, lie in wait (comp. Ps. I. 8, Ivi. 7, Prov. i. 11, 18, with Ps. xxxvii. 32). 12 THE BOOK OF JOB. ments of a sentence (Ps. xxxix. 7, like a shadow ; Isa. xlviil. 10, after the manner of silver ; Ps. Iv. 19, in great number ; Ps. XXXV. 2, as my help), but also with the predicate of a simple sentence, be it verbal (ch. xxiv. 13 ; Prov. iii. 26) or substantival (Ex. xviii. 4 ; Ps. cxviii. 7). The same con- struction is found also in Arabic, where, however, it is more frequent in simple negative clauses than in affirmative (vid. Psalter, i. 272). The assertion : He is one (as in the primary monotheistic confession, Deut. vi. 4), is, however, an expression for the absoluteness of God, which is not suited to this con- nection ; and if 11^2 N"in is intended to be understood of the unchangeable uniformity of His purpose concerning Job, the explanation : versatur (perstat) in uno, Arab, huafi wdhidin, is not only equally, but more natural, and we therefore prefer it. Here again God appears to Job to be his enemy. His confidence towards God is again overrun by all kinds of evil, suspicious thoughts. He seems to him to be a God of absolute caprice, who punishes where there is no ground for punishment. There is indeed a phase of the real fact which he considers superior to God and himself, both being conceived of as contending parties; and this phase God avoids. He will not hear it. Into this vortex of thoughts, as terrible as they are puerile. Job is hurried forward by the persuasion that his affliction is a decree of divine justice. The friends have greatly confirmed him in this persuasion ; so that his consciousness of innocence, and the idea of God as inflicting punishment, are become widely opposite extremes, between which his faith is hardly able to maintain itself. It is not his affliction in itself, but this persuasion, which pre- cipitates him into such a depth of conflict, as the following strophe shows. 14 For He accomplishetli that wJiich is appointed for me, And much of a like kind is with Ilim. CHAP. XXIII. 14-17. 13 1 5 Tlierefore I am troubled at His presence ; If I consider it, I am afraid of Him. 16 And God hath caused m,y heart to he dejected, And the Almighty hath put me to confusion ; 17 For I have not been destroyed before darkness, And before my countenance, ivhich thick darkness covereth. Now it is the will of God, the absolute, which has all at once turned against him, the innocent (ver. 13) ; for what He has decreed against him Cpn) He also brings to a complete fulfilment (Qv^'l?, as e.g. Isa. xliv. 26) ; and the same troubles as those which he already suffers, God has still more abun- dantly decreed for him, in order to torture him gradually, but surely, to death. Job intends ver. 146 in reference to himself, not as a general assertion: it is, in general, God's way of acting. Plahn's objection to the other explanation, that Job's affliction, according to his own previous assertions, has already attained its highest degree, does not refute it ; for Job certainly has a term of life still before him, though it be but short, in which the wondrously inventive (ch. x. 16) hostility of God can heap up ever new troubles for him. On the other hand, the interpretation of the expression in a general sense is opposed by the form of the expression itself, which is not that God delights to do this, but that Pie pur- poses (i'Sy) to do it. It is a conclusion from the present concerning the future, such as Job is able to make with reference to himself ; while he, moreover, abides by the reality in respect to the mysterious distribution of the fortunes of men. Therefore, because he is a mark for the enmity of God, without having merited it, he is confounded before His countenance, which is so angrily turned upon him (comp. D^JD, Ps. xxi. 10, Lam. iv. 16) ; if he considers it (accord- ing to the sense fit. hypothet., as ver. 96), he trembles before Him, who recompenses faithful attachment by such 14 THE BOOK OF JOB. torturing pain. The following connection with \ and the mention of God twice at the beginning of the affirmations, is intended to mean : (I tremble before Him), and He it is who has made me faint-hearted {T[\} Hiph. from the Kal, Dent. XX. 3, and freq., to be tender, soft, disconcerted), and has troubled me ; which is then supported in ver. 17. His suffering which draws him on to ruin he perceives, but it is not the proper ground of his inward destruction ; it is not the encircling darkness of affliction, not the mysterious form of his suffering which disconcerts him, but God's hostile conduct towards him, His angry countenance as he seems to see it, and which he is nevertheless unable to explain. Thus also Ew., Hirz., Vaih., Hlgst., and Schlottm. explain the passage. The only other explanation worthy of mention is that which finds in ver. 17 the thought already expressed in ch. iii. 10 : For I was not then destroyed, in order that I might experience such mysterious suffering; an interpreta- tion with which most of the old expositors were satisfied, and which has been revived by Rosenm., Stick., and Hahn. We translate : for I have not been destroyed before darkness (in order to be taken away from it before it came upon me), and He has not hidden darkness before my face ; or as an excla- mation : that I have not been destroyed! which is to be equi- valent to : Had I but been . . . ! Apart from this rendering of the quod non = utinam, which cannot be supported, (1) It is doubly hazardous thus to carry the N7 forward to the second line in connection with verbs of different persons. (2) The darkness in ver. 176 appears (at least according to the usual interpret, caliginem) as that which is being covered, whereas it is naturally that which covers something else ; wherefore Blumenfeld explains : and darkness has not hidden, viz. such pain as I must now endure, from my face. (3) The whole thought which is thus gained is without point, and meaning- less, in this connection. On the other hand, the antithesis CHAP. XXIIl. 14-17. 15 between VJEO and ''jSO, 13S)? and T]tt'n""'pS0j is at once obvious; and this antithesis, which forces itself upon the attention, also furnishes the thought which might be expected from the context. It is unnecessary to take n^yj in a different signi- fication from ch. vi. 17 ; in Arabic ui^.^*^ signifies conticescere ; the idea of the root, however, is in general a constraining de- priving of free movement. 'H^'H is intended as in the question of Eh'phaz, ch. xxii. 11 : "Or seest thou not the darkness?" to which it perhaps refers. It is impossible, with Schlottm., to translate ver. 176: and before that darkness covers my face ; p is never other than a prcep., not a conjunction with power over a whole clause. It must be translated : et a facie mea quam ohtegit caligo. As the absolute D"'33, ch. ix. 27, signifies the appearance of the countenance under pain, so here by it Job means his countenance distorted by pain, his deformed appearance, which, as the attributive clause affirms, is thoroughly darkened by suffering (comp. ch. xxx. 30). But it is not this darkness which stares him in the face, and threatens to swallow him up (comp. ■]*L^'^"'':S0, ch. xvii. 12) ; not this his miserable form, which the extremest darkness covers (on ^SX, vid. ch. x. 22), that destroys his inmost nature; but the thought that God stands forth in hostility against him, which makes his affliction so terrific, and doubly so in connection with the inalienable consciousness of his innocence. From the incomprehensible punishment which, without reason, is passing over him, he now again comes to speak of the incomprehensible connivance of God, which permits the godlessness of the world to go on un- punished. Ch. xxiv. 1 Wherefore are not bounds reserved by the Almighty , And they who honour Him see not His days ? 2 They remove the landmarks^ They steal flocks and shepherd them. 16 THE BOOK OF JOB. 3 They carry away the ass of the orphauy And distrain the ox of the widow. 4 They thrust the needy out of the loay, The poor of the land are obliged to slink away together. The supposition that the text originally stood C^^"?^^ V'^'^'9 """^UD is natural ; but it is at once destroyed by the fact that ver. la becomes thereby disproportionately long, and yet cannot be divided into two lines of relatively independent contents. In fact, D''J?t^"i7 is by no means absolutely necessary. The usage of the language assumes it, according to which ny followed by the genitive signifies the point of time at which any one's fate is decided, Isa. xiii. 22, Jer. xxvii. 7, Ezek. xxii. 3, xxx. 3 ; the period when reckoning is made, or even the terminus ad quern, Eccl. ix. 12; and DV followed by the gen. of a man, the day of his end, ch. xv. 32, xviii. 20, Ezek. xxi. 30, and freq.; or with ri'iH'', the day when God's judgment is revealed, Joel i. 15, and freq. The boldness of poetic language goes beyond this usage, by using ^''7\V directly of the period of punishment, as is almost universally acknow- ledged since Schultens' day, and VD^ of God's days of judg- ment or of vengeance;^ and it is the less ambiguous, since 12V, in the sense of the divine predetermination of what is future, ch. xv. 20, especially of God's storing up merited ^ On DTiy, in the sense of times of retribution, Wetzstein compares the Arab. ClA Jtc, which signifies predetermined reward or punishment ; moreover, ny is deriyed from rnj? (from lyi), and D''rij; is equivalent to DTny, according to the same law of assimilation, by which now-a-days they say "'ph instead of '^tTO (one who is born on the same day with me, from ijj, lida), and Tn instead of ipni (my drinking-time), since the assimilation of the T takes place everywhere where fl is pronounced. The n of the feminine termination in D^Oy, as in niJlpJ^ and the like, perhaps also in D"»n3 (baidm), is amalgamated with the root. CHAP. XXIV. 1-4. 17 punishment, ch. xxi. 19, is an acknovvleclged word of our poet. On }0 with the passive, vid. Ew. § 295, c (where, how- ever, ch. xxviii. 4 is erroneously cited in its favour) ; it is never more than equivalent to diro, for to use p directly as viro with the passive is admissible neither in Hebrew nor in Arabic. lyT" {Keri Vy"]^, for which the Targ. unsuitably reads *J?1^) are, as in Ps. xxxvi. 11, Ixxxvii. 4, comp. supra, ch. xviii. 21, those who know God, not merely superficially, but from experience of His ways, consequently those who are in fellowship with Him. ^tn vh is to be written with Zinnorith over the N7, and Mercha by the first syllable of lin. The Zin- norith necessitates the retreat of the tone of lin to its first syllable, as in mn-''3, Ps. xviii. 8 (Bar's Fsalterium, p. xili.) ; for if ITn remained Milra, N? ought to be connected with it by Makkephf and consequently remain toneless (^Psalter, ii. 507). Next follows the description of the moral abhorrence which, while the friends (ch. xxii. 19) maintain a divine retribution everywhere manifest, is painfully conscious of the absence of any determination of the periods and days of judicial punish- ment. Fearlessly and unpunished, the oppression of the help- less and defenceless, though deserving of a curse, rages in every form. They remove the landmarks ; comp. Deut. xxvii. 17, "Cursed is he who removeth his neighbour's landmark" (rott, here once written with '^, while otherwise J"'^n from Jb'J signifies assequi, on the other hand J''Dn from 21D signifies dimovere). They steal flocks, '^T}% i.e. they are so barefaced, that after they have stolen them they pasture them openly. The ass of the orphans, the one that is their whole possession, and their only beast for labour, they carry away as prey (Jnjj as e.g. Isa. xx. 4) ; they distrain, i.e. take away with them as a pledge (on 72n^ to bind by a pledge, ohstriiigere, and also to take as a pledge, vid. on ch. xxii. 6, and Kohler on Zech, xi. 7), the yoke-ox of the widow (this is the exact meaning of VOL. II. B 18 THE BOOK OF JOB. liB', as of the Arab. thor). They turn the needy aside from the way which they are going, so that they are obliged to wander hither and thither without home or right : the poor of the land are obliged to hide themselves altogether. The IlipJi. ntSHj with D"'?i"'^^ as its obj., is used as in Amos v. 12 ; there it is used of turning away from a right that belongs to them, here of turning out of the way into trackless regions. )i''3X (yid, on ch. xxix. 16) here, as frequently, is the parallel word with I^V, the humble one, the patient sufferer; instead of which the Keii is ''^V, the humbled, bowed down with suffer- ing (vid. on Ps. ix. 13). pi*"\1.jiy occurs without any Keri in Ps. Ixxvi. 10, Zeph. ii. 3, and might less suitably appear here, where it is not so much the moral attribute as the outward condition that is intended to be described. The Pual IXSn describes that which they are forced to do. The description of these unfortunate ones is now continued ; and by a comparison with ch. xxx. 1-8, it is probable that aborigines who are turned out of their original possessions and dwellings are intended (comp. ch. xv. 19, according to which the poet takes his stand in an age in which the original relations of the races had been already disturbed by the calamities of war and the incursions of aliens). If the central point of the narrative lies in Hauran, or, more exactly, in the Nukra, it is natural, with Wetzstein, to think of the i" Jl Jj&\ or^^^sjisw^ 't^j *-^' the (perhaps Itursean) " races of the caves" in Trachonitis. 5 BeJiold, as wild asses in the desert^ They go forth in their work seeking for prey^ The steppe is food to them for the children. 6 In the field they reap the fodder for his cattUy And they glean the vineyard of the evil-doer. 7 They pass the night in nakedness without a garment, CHAP. XXIV. 5-8. 19 And have no covering in the cold. 8 TIie2/ are wet with the torrents of rain upon the mountainSy A7id they hug the rocks for want of shelter. The poet could only draw such a picture as this, after having himself seen the home of his hero, and the calamitous fate of such as were driven forth from their original abodes to live a vagrant, poverty-stricken gipsy life. By ver. 5, one is reminded of Ps. civ. 21-23, especially since in ver. 11 of this Psalm the ^^^"i?, onagri (Kulans), are mentioned, — those beautiful animals^ which, while young, are difficult to be broken in, and when grown up are difficult to be caught ; which in their love of freedom are an image of the Beduin, Gen. xvi. 12 ; in their untractableness an image of that which cannot be bound, ch. xi. 12 ; and from their roaming about in herds in waste regions, are here an image of a gregarious, vagrant, and freebooter kind of life. The old expositors, as also Rosenm., Umbr., Arnh., and Vaih., are mistaken in thinking that aliud hominum sceleratomm genus is described in vers. 5 sqq. Ewald and Hirz. were the first to perceive that vers. 5-8 is the further development of ver. 46, and that here, as in ch. xxx. 1 sqq., those who are driven back into the wastes and caves, and a remnant of the ejected and oppressed aborigines who drag out a miserable existence, are described. The accentuation rightly connects "iai»3 D''N"iD ; by the omission of the Caph similit., as e.g. Isa. li. 12, the compari- son (like a wild ass) becomes an equalization (as a wild ass). The perf. ^KS^ is a general uncoloured expression of that which is usual : they go forth 13?y33j in their work (not : to 1 Layard, New Discoveries, p. 270, describes tliese wild asses' colts. The Arabic name is like the Hebrew, el-ferd, or also hhiiar el-wahsh, i.e. wild ass, as we have translated, whose home is ou the steppe. For fuller particulars, vid. Wetzstein's note on ch. xxxix. 5 sqtj. 20 THE BOOK OF JOB. their work, as the Psalmist, in Ps. civ. 23, expresses himself, exchanging 3 for ?). ^^.ta? """inc'D, searching after prey, i.e. to satisfy their hunger (Ps. civ. 21), from 'l"]^, in the primary signification decerpere {vid. Hupfeld on Ps. vii. 3), describes that which in general forms their daily occupation as they roam about ; the constructivus is used here, without any proper genitive relation, as a form of connection, according to Ges. § 116, 1. The idea of waylaying is not to be connected with the expression. Job describes those who are perishing in want and misery, not so much as those who themselves are guilty of evil practices, as those who have been brought down to poverty by the wrongdoing of others. As is implied in nriB'D (comp. the morning Psalm, Ixiii. 2, Isa. xxvi. 9), Job describes their going forth in the early morning ; the children (2"'iy3, as ch. i. 19, xxix. 5) are those who first feel the pangs of hunger. Sb refers individually to the father in the company : the steppe (with its scant supply of roots and herbs) is to him food for the children ; he snatches it from it, it must furnish it to him. The idea is not : for himself and his family (Hirz., Hahn, and others) ; for ver. 6, which has been much misunderstood, describes how they, particularly the adults, obtain their necessary subsist- ence. There is no MS. authority for reading v"y3 instead of ii'''^3 ; the translation " what is not to him " (LXX., Targ., and partially also the Syriac version) is therefore to be re- jected. Easchi correctly interprets "iha"' as a general explana- tion, and Kalbag insnn : it is, as in ch. vi. 5, mixed fodder for cattle, farrago, consisting of oats or barley sown among vetches and beans, that is intended. The meaning is not, however, as most expositors explain it, that they seek to satisfy their hunger with the food for cattle grown in the fields of the rich evil-doer ; for "i^i^ does not signify to sweep together, but to reap in an orderly manner; and if they meant to steal, why did they not seize the better portion of CHAP. XXIV. 5-8. 21 the produce ? It is correct to take the suff. as referruig to the yyn which is mentioned in the next clause, but it is not to be understood that they plunder his fields ^er nefas; on the contrary, that he hires them to cut the fodder for his cattle, but does not like to entrust the reaping of the better kinds of corn to them. It is impracticable to press the Hiph. n^i'p^ of the Chethib to favour this rendering ; on the contrary, T'Vpn stands to "iVp in like (not causative) signification as nnjn to nra (vid. on ch. xxxi. 18). In like manner, ver. 66 is to be understood of hired labour. The rich man pru- dently hesitates to employ these poor people as vintagers ; but he makes use of their labour (whilst his own men are fully employed at the wine-vats) to gather the straggling grapes which ripen late, and were therefore left at the vintage season. The older expositors are reminded of ^\>/,, late hay, and explain ^^\?^\ as denom. by IK'p^ "ima"" (Aben-Ezra, Im- manuel, and others) or \^\b 1^3S^ (Parchon) ; but how un- natural to think of the second mowing, or even of eating the after-growth of grass, where the vineyard is the subject referred to ! On the contrary, tJ'i^? signifies, as it were, sero- tinare, i.e. serotinos fructus colligere (Rosenm.) :^ this is the work which the rich man assigns to them, because he gains by it, and even in the worst case can lose but little. Vers. 7 sq. tell how miserably they are obliged to shift for themselves during this autumnal season of labour, and also at other times. Naked (^i^'V, whether an adverbial form or not, is conceived of after the manner of an accusative : in ^ In the idiom of Hauran, {•'p^, fut. i, signifies to be late, to come late ; in Piel, to delay, e.g. the evening meal, return, etc. ; in Hithpa. telaqqas, to arrive too late. Hence laqis i^f^p^ and loqd ''b'pb, delayed, of any matter, e.g. B^ipi) and ib'p^ ynt, late seed (= c'p^, Amos vii. 1, in connec- tion with which the late fain in April, which often fails, is reckoned on), •"K^p^ ■>!??' ^ ^^^^^ ^'^^^ ^^*^ C^-^- ^° ^^*^ ^^^) ' ^'^^'^^ ''"'?^ ^^^ ^'^^'^ ^"1^? are the opposites in every signification. — Wetzst 22 THE BOOK OF JOB. a naked, stripped condition, Arabic \irjdnan) they pass the night, without having anything on the body (on t^l3?, vid. on Ps. xxii. 19), and they have no (pi? supply Dn^) covering or veil (corresponding to the notion of 133) in the cold.^ They become thoroughly drenched by the frequent and continuous storms that visit the mountains, and for want of other shelter are obliged to shelter themselves under the overhanging rocks, lying close up to them, and clinging to them, — an idea which is expressed here by ^psn, as in Lam. iv. 5, where, of those who were luxuriously brought up on purple cushions, it is said that they "embrace dunghills;" for in Palestine and Syria, the forlorn one, who, being afflicted with some loathsome disease, is not allowed to enter the habitations of men, lies on the dunghill (mezdhil)^ asking alms by day of the passers-by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed.^ The usual accentuation, Dn:o with Dechiy nnn with Munach, after which it should be translated ah in- 1 All the Beduins sleep naked at night. I once asked why they do this, since they are often disturbed by attacks at night, and I was told that it is a very ancient custom. Their clothing (kiswe, niD3), both of the nomads of the steppe (bedu) and of the caves (war), is the same, summer and winter ; many perish on the pastures when overtaken by snow-storms, or by cold and want, when their tents and stores are taken from them in the winter time by an enemy. — Wetzst. 2 Wetzstein observes on this passage: In the mind of the speaker, noriD is the house made of stone, from which localities not unfrequently derive their names, as El-hasa, on the east of the Dead Sea ; the well-known commercial town El-hasa., on the east of the Arabian peninsula, which is generally called Lahsd; the town of El-hasja (n"'DnbN), north-east of Damascus, etc. : so that mv ipan forms the antithesis to the comfortable dwellings of the ^jJls- , hadari, i.e. those who are firmly settled. The roots pan, "J3n, seem, in the desert, to be only dialectically distinct, and like the root p^y, to signify to be pressed close upon one another. Thus npan (pronounced hibtsha), a crowd = zahme, and asdbt mahbuke (naiDno), the closed fingers, etc. The locality, hibikke (Beduin pro- nunciation for habaka, n^^n with the Beduin Dag. eiiplionicum), de- CHAP. XXIV. 9-12. 23 widatwne montes humectantur, is false ; in correct Codd. D">JD has also Munach ; the other Munach is, as in ch. xxiii. 5a, 9a, xxiv. 6i, and freq., a substitute for DecM. Having sketched this special class of the oppressed, and those who are aban- doned to the bitterest want, Job proceeds with his description of the many forms of wrong which prevail unpunished on the earth : 9 They tear the fatherless from the hreasty And defraud the poor. 10 Naked, they slink aioay without clothes, , And hungering they hear the sheaves. 11 Betioeen their walls they squeeze out the oil; They tread the wine-presses, and suffer thirst. 12 In the city vassals groan, And the soul of the pierced crieth out — And JEloah heedeth not the anomaly. The accentuation of ver. 9a (ibti^ with DecM, Iti'D with scribed in my Reisehericht, has its name from this circumstance alone, that the houses have been attached to (fastened into) the rocks. Hence psn in this passage signifies to press into the fissure of a rock, to seek out a corner which may defend one (dherwe) against the cold winds and rain-torrents (which are far heavier among the mountains than on the plain). The dherwe (from Ij J, to afford protection, shelter, a word fre- quently used in the desert) plays a prominent part among the nomads ; and in the month of March, as it is proverbially said the dherwe is better than the ferwe (the skin), they seek to place their tents for protection under the rocks or high banks of the wadys, on account of the cold strong winds, for the sake of the young of the flocks, to which the cold storms are often very destructive. When the sudden storms come on, it is a general thing for the shepherds and flocks to hasten to take shelter under overhanging rocks, and the caverns (mughr -*-«) which belong to the troglodyte age, and are e.g. common in the mountains of Hauran ; BO that, therefore, ver. 8 can as well refer to concealing themselves only for a time (from rain and storm) in the clefts as to troglodytes, who constantly dwell in caverns, or to those dweUing in tents who, during the storms, seek the dherwe of rock sides. 2-i THE BOOK OF JOB. Mmiacli) makes the relation of Din^ ^^ genitlval. Heltlenlieim (in a MS. annotation to Kimchi's Lex.) accordingly badly inter- prets : they plunder from the spoil of the orphan ; Eamban better: from the ruin, i.e. the shattered patrimony; both appeal to the Targum, which translates DIJT' wyo, like the Syriac version, men hezto de-jatme (comp. Jerome : vim fece- runt deprcedantes pupillos). The original reading, however, is perhaps {vid. Buxtorf, Lex. col. 295) i^r?'?, airo /3v^lov, from the mother's breast, as it is also, with LXX. (dirb fiaarov), to be translated contrary to the accentuation. Inhuman creditors take the fatherless and still tender orphan away from its mother, in order to bring it up as a slave, and so to obtain payment. If this is the meaning of the passage, it is natural to understand ^^'^^\ ver. 2b, of distraining; but (1) the poet would then repeat himself tautologically, vid. ver. 3, where the same thing is far more evidently said ; (2) ^^^, to distrain, would be construed with ^V, contrary to the logic of the word. Certainly the phrase ^J? b^n may be in some degree explained by the interpretation, "to impose a fine" (Ew., Hahn), or "to distrain" (Hirz., Welte), or "to oppress with fines" (Schlottm.) ; but violence is thus done to the usage of the language, which is better satisfied by the ex- planation of Ralbag (among modern expositors, Ges., Arnh., Vaih., Stick,, Hlgst.) : and what the unfortunate one has on him they seize ; but this bv = bv 1^'S< directly as object is impossible. The passage, Deut. vii. 25, cited by Schultens in its favour, is of a totally different kind. But throughout the Semitic dialects the verb bin also signifies "to destroy, to treat injuriously" (e.g. Arab, el- cJidbil, a by-name of Satan) ; it occurs in this signification in ch. xxxiv. 31, and according to the analogy of bv V^n^ 1 Kings xvii. 20, can be construed with b^ as well as with ?. The poet, therefore, by this construction will have intended to distin- guish the one ^3n from the other, ch. xxii. 6, xxiv. 3 ; and it CHAP. XXIV. 9-12, 25 is with Umbrelt to be translated : they bring destruction upon the poor; or better: they take undue advantage of those who otherwise are placed in trying circumstances. The subjects of ver. 10 are these D^"'jy, who are made serfs, and become objects of merciless oppression, and the poet here in ver. 10a indeed repeats what he has already said almost word for word in ver. la (comp. ch. xxxi. 19) ; but there the nakedness was the general calamity of a race oppressed by subjugation, here it is the consequence of the sin of merces retenta laborum, which cries aloud to heaven, practised on those of their own race : they slink away {'^?.>}, as ch. xxx. 28) naked (nwrfe), without (73 = 730, as perhaps sine = absque) clothing, and while suffering hunger they carry the sheaves (since their masters deny them what, according to Deut. xxv. 4, shall not be withheld even from the beasts). Between their walls (nn^B' like nn^, Jer. v. 10, Chaldee N'^l^t^'), i.e. the walls of their masters who have made them slaves, therefore under strict oversight, they press out the oil (l"'''!^^!, air. 767/3.), they tread the wine-vats (Q''?i^^ lacits), and suffer thirst withal (flit, consec. according to Ew. § 342, a), without being allowed to quench their thirst from the must which runs out of the presses (nin3, torcularia, from which the verb "Hl'^ is here transferred to the vats). Bottch. translates : between their rows of trees, without being able to reach out right or left ; but that is least of all suitable with the olives. Carey correctly explains : " the factories or the garden enclosures of these cruel slaveholders." This reference of the word to the wall of the enclosure is more suitable than to walls of the press-house in particular. From tyrannical oppression in the country,^ Job now passes over to the abominations of discord and war in the cities. Ver. 12a. It is natural, with Umbr., Evv., HIrz., and others, ^ Brentius here remarks : Qiianhim ujitur judicium in eos futurnm est, qui in homines ejusdem carnis, ejusdem patriee, ejusdem Jidei, ejusdem Christi 26 THE BOOK OF JOB. to read D''no like the Pescliito ; but as mite in Syriac, so also DTlO in Hebrew as a noun everywhere signifies the dead (Arab, mauta), not the dying, mortals (Arab, maituna); where- fore Ephrem interprets the. props, "they groan" by the perf. " they have groaned." The pointing D''^^, therefore, is quite correct ; but the accentuation which, by giving Mehupach Zin- norith to T'^tt, and Asia legarmeh to DTlD, places the two words in a genitival relation, is hardly correct : in the city of men, i.e. the inhabited, thickly rpopulated city, they groan; not: men (as Rosenm. explains, according to Gen. ix. 6, Prov. xi. 6) groan ; for just because Q''np appeared to be too inexpressive as a subject, this accentuation seems to have been preferred. It is also possible that the signification fierce anger (Hos. xi. 9), or anguish (Jer. xv. 8), was combined with "fy, comp. 5_xi, jealousy, fury (=:ni?3i5)j of which, however, no trace is anywhere visible.^ With Jer., Symm., and Theod., we take D'TlO as the sighing ones themselves; the feebleness of the subject disappears if we explain the passage according to such passages as Deut. ii. 34, iii. 6, comp. Judg, xx. 48 : it committiint quod nee in hruta animalia commlttendum est, quod malum in Germania frequentissimum est. Vee igitur Germanise ! ^ Wetzstein translates Hos. xi. 9 : I will not come as a raging foe, "with 3 of the attribute =(»A)i]l dji^ (comp. Jer. xv. 8, Tiy, parall. lib') after the form D''p, to which, if not this "i^y, certainly the T^i;, iyp-ziyopo;, occurring in Dan. iv. 10, and freq., corresponds. What we remarked above, vol. i. p. 440, on the form D"'p, is cleared up by the following observation of Wetzstein: "The form D''p belongs to the numerous class of segolate forms of the form *!j?3, which, as belonging to the earhest period of the formation of the Semitic languages, take neither plural nor feminine terminations; they have of ten a collective meaning, and are not originally ahstracta, but concreta in the sense of the Arabic part. act. J.cU,«. This inflexible primitive formation is frequently found in the present day in the CHAP. XXIV. 9-12: 27 is the male inhabitants that are intended, whom any con- queror would put to the sword ; we have therefore translated men (men of war), although " people" (ch. xi. 3) also would not have been unsuitable according to the ancient use of the word. pi?J is intended of the groans of the dying, as Jer. li. 52, Ezek. xxx. 24, as ver. 12b also shows : the soul of those that are mortally wounded cries out. Civ7n signifies not merely the slain and already dead, but, according to its ety- mon, those who are pierced through, those who have received their death-blow ; their soul cries out, since it does not leave the body without a struggle. Such things happen without God preventing them. npDn D''^"N7, He observeth not the abomination, either = 13^3 D'^tr ah, ch. xxii. 22 (He layeth it not to heart), or, since the phrase occurs nowhere elliptically, = h]} 13^ Di^'' t6, ch. i. 8, xxxiv. 23 (He does not direct His heart, His attention to it), here as elliptical, as in ch. iv. 20, Isa. xli. 20. True, the latter phrase is never joined with the ace. of the object ; but if we translate after 2 D''b>y ch. iv. 18 : nan imputat, He does not reckon such n?Dn, i.e. does not punish it, D3 (^l'?) ought to be supplied, which is still some- what liable to misconstruction, since the preceding subject idiom of the steppe, which sho\vs that the Hebrew is essentially of pri- meval antiquity (uralt). Thus the Beduin says : 7iu qitli ('•^Dp Kin), he is my opponent in a hand-to-hand combat ; nithi (TIDJ), my opponent in the tournament with lances ; cMl/i (""D^n) and diddi ('nV), my ad- versary ; thus a step-mother is called dfr (Ti's), as the oppressor of the step -children, and a concubine dirr (Tl'v), as the oppressor of her rival. The Kamus also furnishes several words which belong here, as tilb (3^13), a persecutor." Accordingly, D>p is derived from Dip, as also "^^y, a city, from niy (whence, according to a prevalent law of the change of letters, we have Tiy first of all, plur. D''"l''y, Judg. x. 4), and signifies the rebelling one, i.e. the enemy (who is now in the idiom of the steppe called qomdni, from qOm, a state of war, a feud), as Ty, a keeper, and '^'•y, a messenger; yjj (i^j?) is also originally concrete, a waU (enclosure). 28 THE BOOK OF JOB. is not the oppressors, but those who suffer oppression, npsn is properly insipidity (comp. Arab, tafila, to stink), absurdity, self-contradiction, here the immorality which sets at nought the moral order of the world, and remains nevertheless unpunished. The Syriac version reads npan, and translates, like Louis Bridel (1818) : et Dieu ne fait aucune attention a leur priere. 13 Others are tJiose that rebel against the light, They will know nothing of its ways, And abide not in its paths. 14 J^he murderer riseth up at dawn, He slayeth the sufferer and the poor. And in the night he acteth like a thief. 15 And the eye of the adulterer watcheth for the twilight; He thinks : " no eye shall recognise me," And he putteth a veil before his face. With n?|in begins a new turn in the description of the moral confusion which has escaped God's observation ; it is to be translated neither as retrospective, " since they" (Ewald), nor as distinctive, " they even" (Bottch.), i.e. the powerful in dis- tinction from the oppressed, but "those" (for ni2n corresponds to our use of "those," n?X to "these"), by which Job passes on to another class of evil-disposed and wicked men. Their general characteristic is, that they shun the light. Those who are described in vers. 14 sq. are described according to their general characteristic in ver. 13 ; accordingly it is not to be interpreted : those belong to the enemies of the light, but : those are, according to their very nature, enemies of the light. The Beth is the so-called Beth essenf.; 1''n (comp. Prov. iii. 26) affirms what they are become by their own inclination, or as what they are fashioned, viz. as airoardrai, (pcoro^; (Symm.) ; I^JJ (on the root ID, vid. on ch. xxiii. 2) signifies properly to push one's self against anything, to lean upon, to CHAP. XXIV. 13-15. 29 rebel ; T}P therefore signifies one who strives against another, one who is obstinate (Hke the Arabic mdnd, merul, comp. mumdri, not conformable to the will of another). The im- provement "lix ""lib (not with Mahkeph, but with Mahpach of Mercha mahpach. placed between the two words, vid. Bar's Psalterium, p. x.) assumes the possibility of the construction with the acc.j which occurs at least once, Josh. xxii. 19. They are hostile to the light, they have no familiarity with its ways (y^^, as ver. 17, Ps. cxlii. 5, Ruth ii. 19, to take knowledge of anything, to interest one's self in its favour), and do not dwell O^^J, Jer. reversi sunt, according to the false reading ^^^l) in its paths, i.e. they neither make nor feel themselves at home there, they have no peace therein. The light is the light of day, which, however, stands in deeper, closer relation to the higher light, for the vicious man hateth TO (pm, John iii. 20, in every sense ; and the works which are concealed in the darkness of the night are also epya rov c/coToi;?, Rom. xiii. 12 (comp. Isa. xxix. 15), in the sense in which light and darkness are two opposite principles of the spiritual world. It need not seem strange that the more minute description of the conduct of these enemies of tlie light now begins with "iii\ . . . Dlp^, Ges. § 142, 3, c) the unfor- tunate and the poor, who pass by defenceless and alone. One has to supply the idea of the ambush in which the way- 30 THE BOOK OF JOB. layer lies in wait ; and it is certainly inconvenient that it is not expressed. The antithesis n7^??l, ver. 14c, shows that nothing but primo mane is meant by "ti^?. He who in the day-time goes forth to murder and plunder, at night commits petty thefts, where no one whom he could attack passes by. Stickel translates : to slay the poor and wretched, and in the night to play the thief ; but then the suhjunctivus "•n'l ought to precede (vid. e.g. ch. xiii. 5), and in general it cannot be proved without straining it, that the voluntative form of the future everywhere has a modal signification. Moreover, here ^7: ^oes not differ from ch. xviii. 12, xx. 23, but is only a poetic shorter form for i^''J)1_ : in the night he is like a thief, i.e. plays the part of the thief. And the adulterer's eye observes the darkness of evening (vid. Prov. vii. 9), i.e. watches closely for its coming on (ip^, in the usual signification observare, to be on the watch, to take care, observe anxiously), since he hopes to render himself invisible ; and that he may not be recognised even if seen, he puts on a mask. D''33 "inp is something by which his countenance is rendered unrecognisable (LXX. airoKpv^r} Trpoo-coTrov), like the Arab, sitr, sitdreh, a curtain, veil, therefore a veil for the face, or, as we say in one word borrowed from the Arabic i^^^Xw^, a farce (masquerade) : the mask, but not in the proper sense.* IQ In the dark they dig through houses j By day they shut themselves up, They will know nothing of the light. ^ The mask was perhaps never known in Palestine and Syria ; ino fija is the mendil or women's veil, which in the present day (in Hauran exclusively) is called sitr^ and is worn over the face by all married women in the towns, while in the country it is worn hanging down the back, and is only drawn over the face in the presence of a stranger. If this expla- nation is correct, the poet means to say that the adulterer^ in order to CHAP. XXIV. 16, 17. 31 17 For the depth of night is to them all as the dawn of the morning, For they know the terrors of the depth of night. The handiwork of the thief, which is but slightly referred to in ver. 14c, is here more particularly described. The indefinite subj. of "inn, as is manifest from what follows, is the band of thieves. The 2, which is elsewhere joined with inn (to break into anything), is here followed by the ace. D''Pi3 (to be pronounced bdttim, not hottim)^ as in the Tal- mudic, i3a> inn, to pick one's teeth (and thereby to make them loose), h. Kidduschin, 24 b. According to the Talmud, Ralbag, and the ancient Jewish interpretation in general, ver. 166 is closely connected to DTin: houses which they have marked by day for breaking into, and the mode of its accomplishment ; but Onn nowhere signifies designare, always obsignare, to seal up, to put under lock and key, ch. xiv. 17, ix. 7, xxxvii. 7 ; according to which the Piel, which occurs only here, is to be explained : by day they seal up, i.e. shut themselves up for their safety Qm is not to be accented with Athnach, but with Mehia mugrasch) : they know not the light, i.e. as Schlottm. well explains : they have no fellowship with it ; for the biblical Vl), fyivcoa-Ketv, mostly signifies a know- ledge which enters into the subject, and intimately unites remain undiscovered, wears women's clothes [comp. Dent. xxii. 5] ; and, in fact, in the Syrian towns (tlie figure is taken from town-life) women's clothing is always chosen for that kind of forbidden nocturnal undertak- ing, i.e. the man disguises himself in an tzar, which covers him from head to foot, takes the mendil, and goes with a lantern (without which at night every person is seized by the street watchman as a suspicious person) un- hindered into a strange house. — Wetzst. 1 Vid. Aben-Ezra on Ex. xii. 7. The main proof that it is to be pro- nounced hattim is, that written exactly it is DTIB, and that the 3Icthcg, according to circumstances, is changed into an accent, as Ex. viii. 7, xii. 7, Jer. xviii. 22, Ezek. xlv. 4, which can only happen by Kametz, not by Kometz {K. chatupJi) ; comp. Kohler on Zech. xiv. 2. 32 THE BOOK OF JOB. itself with it. In ver. 17 one confirmation follows another. Umbr. and Hirz. explain : for the morning is to them at once the shadow of death ; but "I'^n^, in the signification at the same time, as we have taken ^^l in ch. xvii. 16 (nevertheless of simultaneousness of time), is unsupportable : it signifies together, ch. ii. 11, ix. 32 ; and the arrangement of the words inb . . . mni (to them together) is like Isa. ix. 20, xxxi. 3, Jer. xlvi. 12. Also, apart from the erroneous translation of the TilV, which is easily set aside, Hirzel's rendering of ver. 17 is forced: the morning, i.e. the bright day, is to them all as the shadow of death, for each and every one of them knows the terrors of the daylight, which is to them as the shadow of death, viz. the danger of being discovered and condemned. The interpretation, which is also preferred by Olshausen, is far more natural : the depth of night is to them as the dawn of the morning (on the precedence of the pre- dicate, comp. Amos iv. 13 and v. 8 : changing darkness into early morning), for they are acquainted with the terrors of the depth of night, i.e. they are not surprised by them, but know how to anticipate and to escape them. Ch. xxxviii. 15 also, where the night, which vanishes before the rising of the sun, is called the " light " of the evil-doer, favours this interpretation (not the other, as Olsh. thinks). The accen- tuation also favours it ; for if "ipn had been the subj., and were to be translated : the morning is to them the shadow of death, nin^V 10^ "ip3 ought to have been accented Dechi, Mercha, Athnach. It is, however, accented MunacTi, Mimach, Atlmach, and the second Munach stands as the deputy of BecM, whose value in the interpunction it represents ; there- fore lob "ip3 is the predicate : the shadow of death is morning to them. From the plur. the description now, with 'T'3^, passes into the sing., as individualizing it. Tf\nbz, constr. of nin?3j is without a Dagesh in the second consonant. Mercier admir- ably remarks here : sunt ei familiares et noti nocturni terrores, CHAP. XXIV. 16, 17. 33 neque eos timet aut curat, quasi sibi cum illis necesdtudo et familiaritas intercederet et cum illis ne noceant fcedus aut pactum inierit. Thus by their skill and contrivance they escape danger, and divine justice allows them to remain un- discovered and unpunished, — a fact which is most incom- prehensible. It is now time that this thought was once again definitely expressed, that one may not forget what these accumulated illustrations are designed to prove. But what now follows in vers. 18-21 seems to express not Job's opinion, but that of his opponents. Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst. regard vers. 18-21, 22-25, as thesis and antithesis. To the question. What is the lot that befalls all these evil-doers? Job is thought to give a twofold answer: first, to ver. 21, an ironical answer in the sense of the friends, that those men are overtaken by the merited punishment ; then from ver. 22 is his own serious answer, which stands in direct contrast to the former. But (1) in vers. 18-21 there is not the slightest trace observ- able that Job does not express his own view : a consideration which is also against Schlottman, who regards vers. 18-21 as expressive of the view of an opponent. (2) There is no such decided contrast between vers. 18-21 and 22-25, for vers. 19 and 24 both affirm substantially the same thing concern- ing the end of the evil-doer. In like manner, it is also not to be supposed, with Stick., Lovventh., Bottch., Welte, and Hahn, that Job, outstripping the friends, as far as ver. 21, describes how the evil-doer certainly often comes to a terrible end, and in vers. 22 sqq. how the very opposite of this, how- ever, is often witnessed; so that this consequently furnishes no evidence in support of the exclusive assertion of the friends. Moreover, ver. 24 compared with ver. 19, where there is nothing to indicate a direct contrast, is opposed to it ; and ver. 22, -which has no appearance of referring to a direct contrast with what has been previously said, is opposed to VOL. II. C 34 THE BOOK OF JOB. such an antitlietical rendering of the two final strophes. Ver. 22 might more readily be regarded as a transition to the antithesis, if vers. 18-21 could, with Eichh., Schnurr., Dathe, Umbr., and Vaih., after the LXX., Syriac, and Jerome, be understood as optative : " Let such an one be light on the surface of the water, let . . . be cursed, let him not turn towards," etc., but ver. 18a is not of the optative form ; and 18c, where in that case njD^-^N would be expected, instead of n3Q''-N^, shows that ISb, where, according to the syntax, the optative rendering is natural, is nevertheless not to be so rendered. The right interpretation is that which regards both vers. 18-21 and 22 sqq. as Job's own view, without allowing him absolutely to contradict himself. Thus it is in- terpreted, e.g. by Rosenmiiller, who, however, as also Kenan, errs in connecting ver. 18 with the description of the thieves, and understands ver. 18a of their slipping away, 186 of their dwelling in horrible places, and 18c of their avoidance of the vicinity of towns. 18 He is light upon the surface of the water; Their heritage is cursed upon the earth ; He turnetli no tnore in the way of the vineyard. 19 Drought, also heat, snatch away snow-water — So doth Sheol those who have sinned. 20 The womb forgeiteth him, worms shall feast on him, He is no more remembered ; So the desire of the wicked is broken as a tree — 21 He who hath plundered the barren that bare not. And did no good to the widow. The point of comparison in ver. 18a is the swiftness of the disappearing : he is carried swiftly past, as any light substance on the surface of the water is hurried along by the swiftness of the current, and can scarcely be seen ; comp. ch. ix. 26 : "My days shoot by as ships of reeds, as an eagle CHAP. XXIV. 18-21. 35 ■wlilch dasheth upon its prey," and Hos. x. 7, " Samaria's king is destroyed like a bundle of brushwood (LXX., Tlieod., (fypvyavov) on the face of the water," which is quickly drawn into the whirlpool, or buried by the approach- ing wave.^ But here the idea is not that of being swallowed up by the waters, as in the passage in Hosea, but, on the contrary, of vanishing from sight, by being carried rapidly past by the rush of the waters. If, then, the evil-doer dies a quick, easy death, his heritage ('^i^c'^j from P2^, to divide) is cursed by men, since no one will dwell in it or use it, because it is appointed by God to desolation on account of the sin which is connected with it (vid. on cli. xv. 28) ; even he, the evil-doer, no more turns the way of the vine- yard (njs, with '^"iT, not an ace. of the obj., but as indicating the direction = "=1"^."^." v > comp. 1 Sam. xiii. 18 with ver. 17 of the same chapter), proudly to inspect his wide extended do- main, and overlook the labourers. The curse therefore does not come upon him, nor can one any longer He in wait for him to take vengeance on him ; it is useless to think of vent- ing upon him the rage which his conduct during life pro- voked ; he is long since out of reach in Sheol. That which Job says figuratively in ver. 18«, and in ch. xxi. 13 without a figure: "in a moment they go down to Sheol," he expresses in ver. 19 under a new figure, and, moreover, in the form of an emblematic proverb (vid. Herzog's Real- EncyMopddie, xiv. 696), according to the peculiarity of which, not }3, but either only the copulative Waw (Prov. xxv. 25) or nothing whatever (Prov. xi. 22), is ^ The translation : like foam (apiima or hitlla)^ is also very suitable here. Thus Targ., Symm., Jerome, and others ; but the signification to foam cannot be etymologically proved, whereas ?]Vp in the signification confrin- gere is established by Piavp, breaking, Joel i. 7, and i..Juzi ; so that conse- quently ;)vp, as synon. of F|X, signifies properly the breaking forth, and is then allied to may. 36 THE BOOK OF JOB. to be supplied before IxtDH h)m. l^^^n is virtually an object : eos qui peccarunt. Ver. 12b is a model-example of extreme brevity of expression, Ges. § 155, 4, b. Sandy ground (n^V, arid land, without natural moisture), added to it (D3, not: likewise) the heat of the sun — these two, working simultane- ously from beneath and above, snatch away (y[\, cogn. 1T3, root T3, to cut, cut away, tear away; Arab. jj>',fut. i, used of sinking, decreasing water) J/C' "''?"'?, water of (melted) snow (which is fed from no fountain, and therefore is quickly absorbed), and Sheol snatches away those who have sinned (= ^iK^n "tti'K-nx n^Ta). The two incidents are alike : the death of those whose life has been a life of sin, follows as a consequence easily and unobserved, without any painful and protracted struggle. The sinner disappears suddenlj^ ; the womb, i.e. the mother that bare him, forgets him (0^1, matrix = mater ; according to Ralbag : friendship, from Dnn, to love tenderly ; others : relationship, in which sense ^.o^j = DHl is used), worms suck at him (ipnp for ^^i?no, according to Ges. § 147, a, sugit eum, from which primary notion of sucking comes the signification to be sweet, ch„ xxic 33: Syriac, metkat ennun remto ; Ar. imtasahum, from the synonymous j^^a^ = fur^, nVD, nrD), he is no more thought of, and thus then is mischief (abstr. pro concr. as ch. v. 16) broken like a tree (not : a staff, which fV never, not even in Hos. iv. 12, directly, like the Arabic 'asa, 'asdt, signifies). Since n?lj? is used personally, '1J1 ni;n^ ver. 21, can be connected with it as an appositional permutative. His want of compassion (as is still too often seen in the present day in connection with the tyrannical conduct of the executive in Syria and Palestine, especially on the part of those who collect the taxes) goes the length of eating ap, i.e. entirely plundering, the barren, child- CHAP. XXIV. 18 21 37 less (Gen. xi. 30 ; Isa. liv. 1), and therefore helpless \Yoman, who has no sons to protect and defend her, and never showino; favour to the widow, but, on the contrary, thrusting her away from him. There is as little need for regarding the verb ny"i here, with Rosenm. after the Targ., in the signification con- fringere, as cognate with VT\, XTl, as conversely to change DV^^, Ps. ii. 9, into Dynn ; it signifies depascere, as in ch. xx. 26, here in the sense of depopxdari. On the form 3''P^.1 for ^''p"'";, vid. Ges. § 70, 2, rem.; and on the transition from the pari, to the V. fin., vid. Ges. § 134, rem. 2. Certainly the memory of such an one is not affectionately cherished ; this is equally true with what Job maintains in ch. xxi. 32, that the memory of the evil-doer is immortalized by monuments. Here the allusion is to the remembrance of a mother's love and sympathetic feeling. The fundamental thought of the strophe is this, that neither in life nor in death had he suffered the punish- ment of his evil-doing. The figure of the broken tree (broken in its full vigour) also corresponds to this thought ; comp. on the other hand what Bildad says, ch. xviii, 16 : " his roots dry up beneath, and above his branch is lopped off" (or : withered). The severity of his oppression is not manifest till after his death. In the next strophe Job goes somewhat further. But after having, in vers. 22, 23, said that the life of the ungodly passes away as if they were the favoured of God, he returns to their death, which the friends, contrary to experience, have so fearfully described, whilst it is only now and then distinguished from the death of other men by coming on late and painlessly. 22 And He premrveth the miglity hy His strength; Such an one riseth again, though he despaired of life. 23 He giveth him rest, and he is sustained^ And His eyes are over their ways. 38 THE BOOK OF JOB. 24 They are exalted — a little loMle, — then they are no more, And they are sunken away, snatched away like all others, And as the top of the stalk they are cut of. — 25 And if it is not so, xoho will charge me with lying, And make my assertion worthless ? Though it becomes manifest after their death how little the iingodly, who were only feared by men, were beloved, the form of their death itself is by no means such as to reveal the retributive justice of God. And does it become at all manifest during their life? The Waio, with which the strophe begins, is, according to our rendering, not adversative, but progressive. God is the subject. '^^^, to extend in length, used elsewhere of love, Ps. xxxvi. 11, cix. 12, and anger, Ps. Ixxxv. 6, is here transferred to persons ; to pro- long, preserve long in life, Ci''-)''3X are the strong, who bid defiance not only to every danger (Ps. Ixxvi. 6), but also to all divine influences and noble impulses (Isa. xlvi. 12). These, whose trust in their own strength God might smite down by His almighty power. He preserves alive even in critical positions by that very power : he (the "i''?i<) rises up (again), whilst he does not trust to life, i.e. whilst he believes that he must succumb to death (PP?^'! as Ps. xxvii, 13, comp. Genesis, S. 368; T% Aramaic form, like Tf'O, ch. iv. 2, xii. 11 ; the whole is a contracted circumstantial clause for 'iJI ^ Nini). He (God) grants him nnn?^ in security, viz. to live, or even directly : a secure peaceful existence, since n'd'lh is virtually an object, and the ^ is that of condition (comp. 3n^, ch. xxvi. 3). Thus Hahn, who, however, here is only to be followed in this one particular, takes it correctly : and that he can support himself, which would only be possible if an inf. with ^ had preceded. Therefore : and he is sup- ported, or he can support himself, i.e. be comforted, though this absolute use of \V^^, cannot be supported ; in this instance CHAP. XXIV. 22-25. 39 we miss is^ti'py, or some such expression (cli. viii. 15). God sustains him and raises him up again : His eyes (^'^\^^i; = "'"'^^V) are (rest) on the ways of these men, they stand as it were beneath His special protection, or, as it is expressed in cli. X. 3 : He causes Hght to shine from above upon the doings of the wicked. " They are risen up, and are conscious of the height (of prosperity) — a httle while, and they are no more." Thus ver. 24a is to be explained. The accentuation ion vnth MaJipach, t3j;o with Asia legarmeK (according to which it would have to be translated : they stand on high a short time), is erroneous. The verb nv\ signifies not mei-ely to be high, but also to rise up, raise one's self, e.g. Prov. xi. 11, and to show one's self exalted, here extulerunt se in altum or exaltati smw^; according to the form of writing ^J3h, Dn is treated as an Ayhi Waio verb med. 0, and the Dagesh is a so-called Dag. ajfectuosum (Olsh. § 83, h), while ^sn (like 12% Gen. xlix. 23) appears to assume the form of a double Ayin verb med. 0, consequently Db"i (Ges. § 67, rem. 1). ^VJ^, followed by Waw of the conclusion, forms a clause of itself, as more frequently 1 t2J??p niy (yet a little while, then . . . ), as, e.g. in an exactly similar connection in Ps. xxxvii. 10 ; here, however, not expressive of the sudden judgment of the ungodly, but of their easy death without a struggle {evOa- vaala) : a little, then he is not (again a transition from the plur. to the distributive or individualizing sing.). They are, viz. as ver. 246 further describes, bowed down all at once (an idea which is expressed by the perf.), are snatched off like all other men. lasn is an Aramaizing Ilop/ial-iorm (e.g. Dan. vi. 25, Ip'iJL', comp. supra W3'^, eh. iv. 20) approaching the Ilojyh. of strong verbs, for =i30in (Ges. § 67, rem. 8), from ■^39? to bow one's self (Ps. cvi. 43), to be brought low (Eccl. X. 18) ; comp. cX<, to cause to vanish, to annul. T^'Si?^ (for vwhich it is unnecessary with Olsh. to read \^'^^\^^., after Ezek. xxix. 5) signifies, according to the primary signification of 40 THE BOOK OF JOB. ySip, comprehendere, constringere, contrahere (cogn. pp, )*0p, UOp, comp. supra^ i. 437) : they are hurried together, or snatched off, i.e. deprived of Hfe, hke the Arabic td!\ (n\1^K IVDp) and passive ^^>^v^, equivalent to, he has died. There is no reference in the phrase to the componere artus. Gen. xhx. 33 ; it is rather the figure of housing (gathering into the barn) that underlies it ; the word, however, only implies seizing and drawing in. Thus the figure which follows is also naturally (comp. fdp, ^-fi, manipulus) con- nected with what precedes, and, like the head of an ear of corn, i.e. the corn-bearing head of the wheat-stalk, they are cut off (by which one must bear in mind tliat the ears are reaped higher up than with us, and the standing stalk is usually burnt to make dressing for the field ; vid. Ges. Thes. s.v. ^?_^). On ^^?f. {fut. NipL = 'h^'), vid. on ch. xiv. 2, xviii. 16; the signification prceciduntur, as observed above, is more suitable here than marcescimt (in connection with which sig- nification ch. v. 26 ought to be compared, and the form regarded as fut. Kcd). Assured of the truth, in conformity with experience, of that which has been said, he appeals finally to the friends : if it be not so (on iSijl = XiSS in con- ditional clauses, vid. ch. ix. 24), who (by proving the oppo- site) is able to charge me with lying and bring to nought ^ Anotlier figure is also presented here. It is a common thing for the Arabs (Beduins) in harvest-time to come down upon the fields of standing corn — especially barley, because during summer and autumn this grain is indispensable to them as food for their horses— of a district, chiefly at night, and not unfrequently hundreds of camels are laden at one time. As they have no sickles, they cut off the upper part of the stalk with the 'aqfe (a knife very similar to the Roman sicd) and with sabres, whence this theft is called qarA y^p, sabring off; and that which is cut ofi', as well as the uneven stubble that is left standing, is called jarid. — Wetzst. CHAP. XXIV. 22-25. 41 (''^? = 1>7, E\v. § 321, h, perhaps by ^^ being conceived of as originally hijin. from ^y^ (comp. ''v^), in the sense of non- existence, (♦'>^^) iiiy assertion'? The bold accusations in the speech of Eliphaz, in which the uncharitableness of the friends attains its height, must penetrate most deeply into Job's spirit. But Job does not answer like by like. Even in this speech in opposition to the friends, he maintains the passionless repose which has once been gained. Although the misjudgment of his cha- racter has attained its height in the speech of Eliphaz, his answer does not contain a single bitter personal word. In general, he does not address them, not as though he did not wish to show respect to them, but because he has nothing to say concerning their unjust and wrong conduct that he would not already have said, and because he has lost all hope of his reproof taking effect, all hope of sympathy with his entreaty that they would spare him, all hope of understanding and information on their part. In the first part of the speech .(ch. xxiii.) he occupies him- self with the mystery of his own suffering lot, and in the second part (ch. xxiv.) with the reverse of this mystery, the evil-doers' prosperity and immunity from punishment. How is he to vindicate himself against Eliphaz, since his lament over his sufferings as unmerited is accounted by the friends more and more as defiant obstinacy (''iJD), and consequently tends to bring him still deeper into that suspicion which he is trying to remove ? His testimony concerning himself is of no avail ; for it appears to the friends more self-delusive, hypocritical, and sinful, the more decidedly he maintains it ; consequently the judgment of God can alone decide between him and his accusers. But while the friends accuse him by word of mouth, God himself is pronouncing sentence against him by His acts, — his affliction is a de facto accusation of 42 THE BOOK OF JOB. God against him. Therefore, before the judgment of God can become a vindication of his affliction against the friends, he must first of all himself have defended and proved his innocence in opposition to the Author of his affliction. Hence the accusation of the friends, which in the speech of Eliphaz is become more direct and cuttino; than heretofore, must ur^e on anew with all its power the desire in Job of being able to bring his cause before God. At the outset he is confident of victory, for his conscious- ness does not deceive him ; and God, although He is both one party in the cause and judge, is influenced by the irre- sistible force of the truth. Herein the want of harmony in Job's conception of God, the elevation of which into a higher unity is the goal of the development of the drama, again shows itself. He is not able to think of the God who pursues him, the innocent one, at the present time with suffer- ing, as the just God ; on the other hand, the justice of the God who will permit him to approach His judgment throne, is to him indisputably sure : He will attend to him, and for ever acquit him. Now Job yields to the arbitrary power of God, but then he will rise by virtue of the justice and truth of God. His longing is, therefore, that the God who now afflicts him may condescend to hear him : this seems to him the only way of convincing God, and indirectly the friends, of his innocence, and himself of God's justice. The basis of this longing is the desire of being free from the painful con- ception of God which he is obliged to give way to. For it is not the darkness of affliction that enshrouds him which causes Job the intensest suffering, but the darkness in which it has enshrouded God to him, — the angry countenance of God which is turned to him. But if this is sin, that he is eno;ao;ed in a conflict concerning the justice of the Author of his affliction, it is still greater that he indulges evil thoughts respecting the Judge towards whose throne of judgment he CHAP. XXIV. -22-25. 43 presses forward. lie thinks tliat God designedly avoids him, because He is well aware of his innocence ; now, however, He will admit no other thought but that of suffering him to endure to the end the affliction decreed. Job's suspicion against God is as dreadful as it is childish. This is a pro- foundly tragic stroke. It is not to be understood as the sarcasm of defiance ; on the contrary, as one of the childish thoughts into which melancholy bordering on madness falls. From the bright height of faith to which Job soars in ch. xix. 25 sqq. he is here again drawn down into the most terrible depth of conflict, in which, like a blind man, he gropes after God, and because he cannot find Him thinks that He flees before him lest He should be overcome by him. The God of the present, Job accounts his enemy ; and the God of the future, to whom his faith clings, who will and must vin- dicate him so soon as He only allows himself to be found and seen — this God is not to be found ! He cannot get free either from his suffering or from his ignominy. The future for him is again veiled in a twofold darkness. Thus Job does not so much answer Ellphaz as himself, con- cerning the cutting rebukes he has bi'ought against him. He is not able to put them aside, for his consciousness does not help him ; and God, whose judgment he desires to have, leaves him still in difficulty. But the mystery of his lot of affliction, which thereby becomes constantly more torturing, becomes still more mysterious from a consideration of the reverse side, which he is urged by Eliphaz more closely to consider, terrible as it may be to him. He, the innocent one, is being tortured to death by an angry God, while for the ungodly there come no times of punishment, no days of vengeance : greedy con- querors, merciless rulers, oppress the poor to the last drop of blood, who are obliged to yield to them, and must serve them, \vithout wrong being helped by the right; murderers, who sliua the light, thieves, and adulterers, carry on their evil 44 THE BOOK OF JOB. courses unpunished ; and swiftly and easily, without punish- ment overtaking them, or being able to overtake them, Sheol snatches them away, as heat does the melted snow ; even God himself preserves the oppressors long in the midst of extreme danger, and after a long life, free from care and laden with honour, permits them to die a natural death, as a ripe ear of corn is cut off. Bold in the certainty of the truth of his assertion. Job meets the friends : if it is not so, who will convict me as a liar?! What answer will they give? They cannot long disown the mystery, for experience out- strips them. Will they therefore solve it ? They miglit, had they but the key of the future state to do it with ! But neither they nor Job were in possession of that, and we shall therefore see how the mystery, without a knowledge of the future state, struggled through towards solution ; or even if this were impossible, how the doubts which it exciter are changed to faith, and so are conquered. BildacVs Third Speech. — Chap. xxv. Schema: 10. [Then began Bildad the Shuhite, and said :] 2 Dominion and terror are with Himj He maketh peace in His high places. 3 Is there any number to His armies^ And whom doth not His light surpass'? 4 How coidd a mortal he just with God, And how could one born of woman be pure ? 5 Behold, even the moon, it shineth not brightly, And the stars are not pure in His eyes. 6 How much less mortal man, a worm, And the son of man, a worm ! Ultimum hocce classicum, observes Schultens, quod a parte CHAP. XXV. 45 iriumvironim sonuit, magis receptui canentis videtiiVy qnam prcelium renovantis. Bildad only repeats the two common- places, that man cannot possibly maintain his supposedly per- verted right before God, the all-just and all-controlling One, to whom, even in heaven above, all things cheerfully submit, and that man cannot possibly be accounted spotlessly pure, and consequently exalted above all punishment before Him, the most holy One, before whom even the brightest stars do not appear absolutely pure. ^^r'PI? is an inf. ahs. made into a substantive, like ^?}^'\^ ; the Hiph. (to cause to rule), which is otherwise causative, can also, like Kal, signify to rule, or properly, without destroying the ^^jo7^^7-signification, to exer- cise authority {vid. on ch. xxxi. 18); h^'OT^ therefore signifies sovereign rule, nb'j?, with Nin to be supplied, which is not tinfrequently omitted both in participial principal clauses (ch. xii. 17 sqq., Ps. xxii. 29, Isa. xxvi. 3, xxix. 8, xl. 19, comp. Zech. ix. 12, where ""JN is to be supplied) and in partic. subor- dinate clauses (Ps. vii. 10, Iv. 20, Hab. ii. 10), is an expression of the simple prces., which is represented by the partic. used thus absolutely (including the personal pronoun) as a proper tense-form (Ew. § 168, c, 306, d). Schlottman refers nb'y to nnai 7K'on ; but the analogy of such attributive descriptions of God is against it. Umbreit and Hahn connect Vipiipa with the subject: He in His heights, i.e. down from His throne in the heavens. But most expositors rightly take it as descriptive of the place and object of the action expressed : He establishes peace in His heights, i.e. among the celestial beings immediately surrounding Him. This, only assuming the abstract possibility of discord, might mean : facit majestate sua lit in summa pace et promptissima obedientia ipsi ministreiit angeli ipsius in excelsis (Schmid). But although from ch. iv. 18, XV. 15, nothing more than that even the holy ones above are neither removed from the possibility of sin nor the necessity of a judicial authority which is high above them, can 46 THE BOOK OF JOB. be inferred; yet, on the other hand, from ch. iii. 8, ix. 13 (comp. xxvi. 12 sq.), it is clear that the poet, in whose con- ception, as in Scripture generally, the angels and the stars stand in the closest relation, knows of actual, and not merely past, but possibly recurring, instances of hostile dissension and titanic rebellion among the celestial powers ; so that D'17C' nb'J?, therefore, is intended not merely of a harmonizing reconcilia- tion among creatures which have been contending one against another, but of an actual restoration of the equilibrium that had been disturbed through self-will, by an act of mediation and the exercise of judicial authority on the part of God. Ver. 3. Instead of the appellation VOhOj which reminds one of Isa. xxiv. 21, — where a like peacemaking act of judg- ment on the part of God is promised in reference to the spirit-host of the heights that have been working seductively among the nations on earth, — 1*'']''"'3, of similar meaning to VXny, used elsewhere, occurs in this verse. The stars, accord- ing to biblical representation, are like an army arrayed for battle, but not as after the Persian representation — as an army divided into troops of the Ahuramazdd and Angra- mainyus (Ahriman), but a standing army of the cliildren of light, clad in the armour of light, under the guidance of the one God the Creator (Isa. xl. 26, comp. the anti-dualistic as- sertion in Isa. xlv. 7). The one God is the Lord among these numberless legions, who commands their reverence, and main- tains unity among them ; and over whom does not His light arise ? Umbr. explains : who does not His light, which lie communicates to the hosts of heaven, vanquish (?y Dip in the usual warlike meaning : to rise against any one) ; but this is a thought that is devoid of purpose in this connection. imix with the emphatic suff. eliu (as ch. xxiv. 23, '^'^''TV.) at any rate refers directly to God : His light in distinction from the derived light of the hosts of heaven. This distinction is better brought out if we interpret (Merc, Hirz,, Ilahn, CUAP. XXV. 47 Schlottm., and others) : over whom does (would) not His light arise ? i.e. all receive their light from His, and do but reflect it back. But Qlp^^nnp cannot be justified by ch. xi. 17. Therefore we interpret with Evv. and Hlgst. thus : whom does not His light surpass, or, literally, over whom (i.e. which of these beings of light) does it not rise, leaving it behind and exceeding it in brightness (p^P) as synon. of D1T)? How then could a mortal be just with God, i.e. at His side or standing up before Him ; and how could one of M^oman born be spotless ! How could he (which is hereby indirectly said) enter into a controversy with God, who is infinitely exalted above him, and maintain before Him a moral character faultless, and therefore absolutely free from condemnation ! In the heights of heaven God's decision is revered ; and should man, the feeble one, and born flesh of flesh (vid. ch. xiv. 1), dare to contend with God? Behold, d^"^y OJ^j as usually when preceded by a negation, adeo, ne . . . qiddem, e.g. Ex. xiv. 28, comp. Nah. i. 10, where J. H. Michaeiis correctly renders: adeo ut spinas perplexitate ccquent, and ?^ used in the same way, ch. v. 5, Ew. § 219, c), even as to the moon, it does not (sh with }Yaw apod., Ges. § 145, 2, although there is a reading ^ without 1.) shine bright, £,.nx^_ = isn;, from ^nx = ^j'n.i Thus LXX., Targ. Jer., and Gecatilia translate; whereas Saadia translates: it turns not in ( Jji- Jkj V), or properly, it does not pitch its tent, fix its habita- tion. But to pitch one's tent is 7nx or pHX, whence ^n^;, Isa. xiii. 20, = ^'^y^\ ; and what is still more decisive, one would naturally expect DK' P^nK"" in connection with this thought. We therefore render ?nx as a form for once boldly used in the scriptural language for ^^n, as in Isa. xxviii. 28 t^nx once occurs for t^'ll. Even the moon is only a feeble light before ^ It is worthy of observation, that lulCil signifies in Arabic the new moon (comp. Genesis, S. 307); and the Hiphil ahalla, like the Kal halla, is used of the appearing and shining of the new moon. 48 THE BOOK OF JOB. God, and the stars are not clean in His eyes ; there is a vast distance between Him and His highest and most glorious creatures — how much more between Him and man, the worm of the dust ! The friends, as was to be expected, are unable to furnish any solution of the mystery, why the ungodly often live and die happily ; and yet they ought to be able to give this solu- tion, if the language which they employ against Job were authorized. Bildad alone speaks in the above speech, Zophar is silent. But Bildad does not utter a word that affects the question. This designed omission shows the inability of the friends to solve it, as much as the tenacity with which they firmly maintain their dogma ; and the breach that has been made in it, either they will not perceive or yet not acknow- ledge, because they think that thereby they are approaching too near to the honour of God. Moreover, it must be ob- served with what delicate tact, and how directly to the pur- pose in the structure of the whole, this short speech of Bildad' s closes the opposition of the friends. Two things are manifest from this last speech of the friends : First, that they know nothing new to bring forward against Job, and nothing just to Job's advantage; that all their darts bound back from Job; and that, though not according to their judgment, yet in reality, they are beaten. This is evident from the fact that Bildad is unable to give any answer to Job's questions, but can only take up the one idea in Job's speech, that he confidently and boldly thinks of being able to approach God's throne of judg- ment ; he repeats with slight variation what Eliphaz has said twice already, concerning the infinite distance between man and God, ch. iv. 17-21, xv. 14-16, and is not even denied by Job himself, ch. ix. 2, xiv. 4. But, secondly, the poet cannot allow us to part from the friends with too great repugnance ; for they are Job's friends notwithstanding, and at the close ive see them willingly obedient to God's instruction, to go to CHAP. XXVI. 2-4. 49 Job that he may pray for them and make sacrifice on their behalf. For this reason he does not make Bildad at last repeat those unjust incriminations which were put prominently for- ward in the speech of Eliphaz, eh. xxii. 5-11. Bildad only reminds Job of the universal sinfulness of the human race once again, without direct accusation, in order that Job may himself derive from it the admonition to humble himself ; and this admonition Job really needs, for his speeches are in many ways contrary to that humility which is still the duty of sinful man, even in connection with the best justified consciousness of right thoughts and actions towards the holy God. Job's Second Ansioer. — Chap. xxvi. Schema: 6. 6. 6. 6. 3. [Then «Tob began, and said :] 2 How hast thou helped Mm that is icithoiit power, Raised the arm that hath no strength I 3 Hoio hast thou counselled him that hath no icisdom, And fully declared the essence of the matter ! 4 To lohom hast thou uttered icords, And lohose breath proceeded from thee'? Bildad is the person addressed, and the exclamations in vers. 2, 3 are ironical : how thy speech contains nothing whatever that might help me, the supposedly feeble one, in conquering my affliction and my temptation ; me, the sup- posedly ignorant one, in comprehending man's mysterious lot, and mine ! D'^'N^^, according to the idea, is only equiva- lent to 1^ na (rs) vh '^^, and r'y-N^ W^] equivalent to trxb j;i"iT (l^ Ty N^) ; the former is the abstr. po^o concreto, the latter the genitival connection — the arm of the no-power, i.e. powerless (Ges. § 152, 1). The powerless one is Job himself, not God (Merc, Schlottm.), as even the choice of the verbs, vers. VOL. II. I> 50 THE BOOK OF JOB. 2b, 3a, shows. Eespecting n^K^^rij which we have translated essentiality, duration, completion, we said, on ch. v. 12, that it is formed from ^\ (vid. Pro v. viii. 21), not directly indeed, but by means of a verb ''^\ {^^]), in the signification snh- sistere (comp. K", and Syriac Dlp^) ; it is a i/bj^/mZ-formation (like I^^W), and signifies, so to speak, durability, suhsistentia, substantia, vTroa-raais, so that the comparison of ''E^'l with {^'K'^! (jm\ (whence K'"'K'K, Arab, asis, ascis, etc., fundamentum) is forced upon one, and the relationship to the Sanskrit at (asmi = elfii) can remain undecided. The observation oi J. D. Michaelis^ to the contrary, Siipplem. p. 1167 : nor, placent in Unguis ejusmodi etyma metapliysica nimis a vulgar, sensu remota ; philosophi in scJiolis ejusmodi vocabida condunt, non plebs, is removed by the consideration that IT'trin, which out of Prov. and Job occurs only in Isa. xxviii. 29, Mic. vi. 9, is a Chokma-word : it signifies here, as frequently, vera et realis sapientia (J. H. Michaelis). The speech of Biklad is a proof of poverty of thought, of which he himself gives the evidence. His words — such is the thought of ver. 4 — are altogether inappropriate, inasmuch as they have no reference whatever to the chief points of Job's speech ; and they are, moreover, not his own, but the suggestion of another, and that not God, but Eliphaz, from whom Biklad has borrowed the substance of his brief declamation. Since this is the meaning of ver. 45, it might seem as though ''^'^^ were 1 Comp. also Spiegel, Grammatik der Huzvarescli- Sprache, S. 103. 2 Against the comparison of the Arab. ^^\y solari, by Michaelis, Ges., and others (who assume the primary significations solatium, auxilium), Lagarde (Anmerkungen zur griecTi. Uebersetzung der Proverbien, 1863, S. 57 f .) correctly remarks that ^\j is only a change of letters of the common language for ^\\ ; but ^j-, to finish painting (whence ^jk.,^*!', decoration), or niyt as a transposition from mc*, to be level, simple (Hitzig on Prov. iii. 21), leads to no suitable sense. CHAP. XXVI. 5-7. 51 intended to signify by whose assistance (Arnli., Hahn) ; but as the poet also, in ch. xxxi. 37, comp. Ezek. xliii. 10, uses T'iin seq. ace, in the sense of exphiining anything to any one, to instruct him concerning anything, it is to be inter- preted : to Avhom hast thou divulged the words (LXX., tIvl dvt]'y a thing, e.g. hilds, for nothing, ragul mash, useless men). The sky which vaults the earth from the arctic pole, and the earth itself, hang free without support in space. That Avhich is elsewhere {e.g. ch. ix. 6) said of the pillars and foundations of the earth, is intended of the in- ternal support of the body of the earth, which is, as it were, fastened together by the mountains, with their roots extend- ^ The name |1DV signifies the northern sky as it appears by day, from its beclouded side in contrast with the brighter and more rainless south ; comp. old Persian apukhtara, if this name of the north really denotes the "starless" region, Greek ^&'?)oj, the north-west, from the root ukap, ey.i-^iA'j, 0Ki':;-xv6; (Curtius, Griech. Etyniologie, ii. 274), aqidlo, the north wind, as that which brings black clouds with it. 54 THE BOOK OF JOB. ing into the innermost part of the eartli ; for the idea that the earth rests upon the bases of the mountains would be, indeed, as Lowenthal correctly observes, an absurd inversion. On the other side, we are also not justified in inferring from Job's expression the laws of the mechanism of the heavens, which were unknown to the ancients, especially the law of attraction or gravitation. The knowledge of nature on the part of the Israelitish Chokma, expressed in ver. 7, however, remains still worthy of respect. On the ground of similar passages of the book of Job, Keppler says of the yet un- solved problems of astronomy : Hcec et cetera hujusmodi latent in Pandectis cevi sequentis, non antea discenda, guam librum hunc Deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalihus. From the starry heavens and the earth Job turns to the' celestial and sub-celestial waters. 8 He hindeth up the tvaters in His clouds, Without the clouds being rent under their burden. 9 He enshroudeth the face of His thi^one, Spreading His clouds upon it. 10 He compasseth the face of the loaters loith bounds, To the boundary between light and darkness. The clouds consist of masses of water rolled together, which, if they were suddenly set free, would deluge the ground ; but the omnipotence of God holds the waters to- gether in the hollow of the clouds ("il'V, Milel, according to a recognised law, although it is also found in Codd. accented as Milra, but contrary to the Masora), so that they do not burst asunder under the burden of the waters (^'l^'^^) ; by which nothing more nor less is meant, than that the physical and meteorological laws of rain are of God's appointment. Ver. 9 describes the dai'k and thickly-clouded sky that showers down the rain in the appointed rainy season, inx signifies to take hold of, in architecture to hold together by means of CHAP. XXVI. 8-10. 55 beams, or to fasten together (yid. Thenius on 1 Kings vi. 10, comp. 2 Chron. ix. 18, C17C^[9, coagmentata), then also, as usually in Chald. and Syr., to shut (by means of cross-bars, Neh. vii, 3), here to shut off by surrounding with clouds : He shuts off nDa-ipQ, the front of God's throne, which is turned towards the earth, so that it is hidden by storm-clouds as by a nsD, ch. xxxvi. 29, Ps. xviii. 12. God's throne, which is here, as in 1 Kings x. 19, written nips instead of ^5El^ (comp. Arab, el-cursi, of the throne of God the Judge, in distinction from i^j.-^^, the throne of God who dwells above the world^), is indeed in other respects invisible, but the cloud- less blue of heaven is as it were its reflected splendour (Ex. xxiv. 10) which is cast over the earth. God veils this His radiance which shines forth towards the earth, i^jy vbv T^iS, by spreading over it the clouds which are led forth by Him. It^iQ is commonly regarded as a Chaldaism for Tti'iB (Ges. § 56, Olsh. § 276), but without any similar instance in favour of this vocalization of the 3 pr. Piel (PH.). Although I^VT and 1^^.'^) ch. XV. 32, iii. 18, have given up the i of the PH., it has been under the influence of the following guttural ; and although, moreover, i before Resh sometimes passes into a, e.g. ^1!!!, it is more reliable to regard fti^S as inf. ahsol. (Ew. § 141, c) : expandendo. Ges. and others regard this T^nD as a mixed form, composed from iJ^iD and PS ; but the verb tJ'ns (with Shin) has not the signification to expand, which is assumed in connection with this derivation ; it signifies to separate (also Ezek. xxxiv. 12, vid. Hitzig on that passage), ' According to the more recent interpretation, under Aristotelian in- fluence, i^J^\ is the outermost sphere, which God as Trparov kivovv having set in motion, communicates light, heat, life, and motion to the other revolving spheres ; for the canax viedix descend from God the Author of being (muhcjjl) from the highest heaven step by step into the sublimary -world. 56 THE BOOK OF JOB. whereas fc'ID certainly signifies to expand (ch. xxxvi. 29, 30) ; wherefore the reading Tb>"i3 (with Sin), which some Codd. give, is preferred by Bar, and in agreement with him by Luzzatto (vid. Bar's Leht zebi, p. 244), and it seems to underHe the interpretation where Y^V TtJ*"i3 is translated by vbv (iJ'^Si) K'lS, He spreadeth over it (e.g. by Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Kalbag). But the Talmud, b. SabhatJi, 88 b (t^n^a vbv 133yi in3''3t:^ vid n:i>, the Almighty separated part of the splendour of His Shechina and His cloud, and laid it upon him, i.e. Moses, as the passage is applied in the Haggada), follows the reading Ttt>"i2i (with Shin), which is to be retained on account of the want of naturalness in the consonantal combination W; but the word is not to be regarded as a mixed formation (although we do not deny the possibility of such forms in themselves, vid. supra, i. 411), but as an inten- sive form of B>nD formed by Prosthesis and an Arabic change of Sin into Shin, like ,..^J, w\-iy, ki .*, which, being formed from . ^i = K'lSi (^y^), to expand, signifies to spread out (the legs) apart. Ver. 10 passes from the waters above to the lower waters, n^^sn signifies, as in ch. xi. 7, xxviii. 3, Neh. iii. 21, the extremity, the extreme boundary ; and the connection of niS n"'^3ri is genitival, as the Tarcha by the first word correctly indicates, whereas IIN is supplied with Munach, the substitute for Rebia mugrasch in this instance (according to Psalter, ii. 503, § 2). God has marked out (jn, LXX. i'yupoocrev) a law, i.e. here according to the sense : a fixed bound (comp. Prov. viii. 29 with Ps. civ. 9), over the surface of the waters (i.e. describing a circle over them which defines their circuit) unto the extreme point of light by darkness, i.e. where the light is touched by the darkness. Most expositors (Rosenm., Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others) take D^^anny adverbially: most accurately, and draw an to IIX as a second object, whicli is contrary to the usage of the language, and doubtful and CHAP. XXVI. 11-13. 57 unnecessary. Pareau has correctly interpreted : ad lucis usque tenebrarumque conjinia; DV in the local sense, not oeque ac, although it might also have this meaning, as e.g. EccL ii. 16. The idea is, that God has appointed a fixed limit to the waters, as far as to the point at which they wash the terra jirma of the extreme horizon, and where the boundary line of the realms of light and darkness is ; and the basis of the expression, as Bouillier, by reference to Virgil's Georg. i. 240 sq., has shown, is the conception of the ancients, that the earth is surrounded by the ocean, on the other side of which the reo;ion of darkness beoins. 11 The pillars of heaven tremlle And are astonished at His threatening. 12 By His poicer He rouseth %ip the sea, And hy His understanding He hreaketh Rahab in pieces. 13 By his breath the heavens become cheerful ; His hand hath pierced the fugitive dragon. The mountains towering up to the sky, which seem to sup- port the vault of the sky, are called poetically "the pillars of heaven." ^saiT; is Pulal, like '^^^^\, ver. 5 ; the significa- tion of violent and quick motion backwards and forwards is secured to the verb ^Ti by the Targ. ^aitON = K^anrij ch. ix. 6, and the Talm. ^1S"1 of churned milk, blinking eyes (comp. \\V ^1^, the twinkling of the eye, and l^j, fut. i. o. nidare), flapping wings (comp. uJ; and f—^j^j, movere, moiitare alas), and wavering thinking, nnj^a is the divine command which looses or binds the powers of nature ; the astonishment of the supports of heaven is, according to the radical significa- tion of npn (cogn. ^^^), to be conceived of as a torpidity which follows the divine impulse, without offering any resist- ance whatever. That VJ"), ver. 12a, is to be understood tran- sitively, not like ch. vii. 5, intransitively, is proved by the 58 THE BOOK OF JOB. dependent (borrowed) passages, Isa. li. 15, Jer. xxxi. 35, from which it is also evident that j;j"i cannot with the LXX, be translated KareTravaev. The verb combines in itself the opposite significations of starting up, i.e. entering into an excited state, and of being startled, from which the significa- tions of stilling {Niph., Hiplu), and of standing back or retreat {^s>-J), branch off. The conjecture 1^2 after the Syriac version (which translates, goar h^jamo) is superfluous, nn^, which here also is translated by the LXX. to Kf]To<;, has been discussed already on ch. ix. 13. It is not meant of the turbulence of the sea, to which ]V0 is not appropriate, but of a sea monster, which, like the crocodile and the dragon, are become an emblem of Pharaoh and his power, as Isa. li. 9 sq. has applied this primary passage : the writer of the book of Job purposely abstains from such references to the history of Israel. Without doubt, 3m denotes a demoniacal monster, like the demons by the Persians that shall be destroyed at the end of the world, one of which is called akomano, evil thought, another taromaiti, pride. This view is supported by ver. 13, where one is not at liberty to determine the meaning by Isa. li. 9, and to understand nnn K'n:, like r|J? in that pas- sage, of Egypt. But this dependent passage is an important indication for the correct rendering of ^"i^^. One thing is certain at the outset, that nns*^ is not perf. Piel = ^')^^, and for this reason, that the JDagesh which characterizes Piel cannot be omitted from any of the six mutes ; the translation of Jerome, spiritus ejus ornavit coelos, and all similar ones, are therefore false. But it is possible to translate : '^ by His spirit (creative spirit) the heavens are beauty. His hand has formed the flying dragon." Thus, in the signification to bring forth (as Prov. xxv. 23, viii. 24 sq.), rhhn is rendered by Kosenm., Arnh., Vaih., Welte, Eenan, and others, of whom Vaih. and Renan, however, do not understand ver. 13a of the creation of the heavens, but of their illumination. By rr> CHAP. XXVI. 11-13. 59 tliis rendering vers. 13a and 13i are severed, as being without connection ; in general, however, the course of thought in the description does not favour the reference of the whole or half of ver. 13 to the creation. Accordingly, nhbn is not to be taken as Pilel from hn (b^n), but after Isa. li. 9, as Poel from ^^n, according to which the idea of ver. 13a is deter- mined, shice both lines of the verse are most closely connected. (0''"}?) 01? ^™ is, to wit, the constellation of the Dragon,^ one of the most straggling constellations, which winds itself between the Greater and Lesser Bears almost half round the polar circle. " Maximus Tdc itlexu sinuoso elahitur Anguis Circum perque diias in morem Jluminis Arctos.''^ Virgil, Georg. i. 244 sq. Aratus in Cicero, de nat. Deorinn, ii. 42, describes it more graphically, both in general, and in regard to the many stars of different magnitudes which form its body from head to tail. Among the Arabs it is called el-hajje, the serpent, e.g. in Firuzabadi: "the hajje is a constellation between the Lesser Bear (farqaddn, the two calves) and the Greater Bear {bendt en-nasch, the daughters of the bier)," or et-tcmin, the dragon, e.g. in one of the authors quoted by Hyde on Ulugh Beigh's Tables of the Stars, p. 18 : " the ta^iin lies round about the north pole in the form of a long serpent, with many bends and windings." Thus far the testimony of the old expositors is found in Rosenmiiller. The Hebrew name is vn (the quiver), and is to be distinguished from vD and v'n, the Zodiac constellations Aries and Aquarius.^ It is ques- tionable how n"i3 is to be understood. Tlie LXX. translates BpaKovra airoaTaTT^v in this passage, which is certainly . in- ^ Ealbag, -without any ground for it, understands it of the milky way (••^^nn blJJ^n), -which, according to Rapoport, Pref. to Slonimski's Tole- doth ha-schumajim (1838), was already known to the Talmud b. Bcracholh, 686, under the name of niJT nnj. ' a Vid. Wissenschaft, Kunst, Judenthum (1838), S. 220 f. 60 THE BOOK OF JOB. correct, since r\'''\2 beside ^n^ may naturally be assumed to be an attributive word referring to the motion or form of tlie serpent. Accordingly, Isa. xxvii. 1, o^lv (pevyovra is more correct, where the Syr. version is **5^"JD ^'')JI}, the fierce serpent, which is devoid of support in the language ; in the passage before us the Syr. also has Pl^l ^^^irij the fleeing serpent, but this translation does not satisfy the more neuter signification of the adjective. Aquila in Isaiah translates 6 Nb'j), as in Num. xxiii. 7 and further on, the oracles of Balaam. ^^'O is speech of a more elevated tone and more figurative clia- racter; here, as frequently, the unaffected outgrowth of an elevated solemn mood. The introduction of the ultimatum, as bz"0, reminds one of " the proverb (el-methel) seals it " in the mouth of the Arab, since in common life it is customary to use a pithy saying as the final proof at the conclusion of a speech. Job begins with an asseveration of his truthfulness (i.e. VOL. II. E 66 THE BOOK OF JOB. the agreement of his confession with his consciousness) by the life of God. From this oath, which in the form bi-hajcit alldh has become later on a common formula of assurance, R. Josua, in his tractate Sota, infers that Job served God from love to Him, for we only swear by the life of that which we honour and love ; it is more natural to conclude that the God by whom, on the one hand, he believes himself to be so unjustly treated, still appears to him, on the other hand, to be the highest manifestation of truth. The intei'jectional clause : living is God ! is equivalent to, as true as God lireth. That which is affirmed is not what immediately follows : He has set aside my right, and the Almighty has sorely grieved my soul (Raschi) ; but ''DDB'O T'DH and ^K'DJ "lOn are attributive clauses, by which what is denied in the form of an oath — which, introduced by D^^ (as Gen. xlii. 15, 1 Sam. xiv. 45, 2 Sam. xi. 11, Ges. § 155, 2,/), is contained in ver. 4 — pre- serves its closer reference to the false semblance of an evil- doer which suffering casts upon him, but which he constantly repudiates as surely not lying, as that God liveth. Among moderns, Schlottm. (comp. Ges. § 150, 3), like most of the old expositors, translates : so long as my breath is in me, . . . my lips shall speak no wrong, so that vers. 3 and 4 together contain what is affirmed. But (1) ''3 indeed sometimes intro- duces that which shall happen as affirmed by oath, Jer. xxii. 5, xlix. 13 ; but here that which shall not take place is affirmed, which would be introduced first in a general form by ''3 explic. s. i'ecitativum, then according to its special negative contents by Di<, — a construction which is perhaps possible according to syntax, but it is nevertheless perplexing ; (2) it may perhaps be thought that " the whole continuance of my breath in me" is conceived as accusative and adverbial, and is equivalent to, so long as my breath may remain in me (TiJ? ?D, as long as ever, like the Arab. ciiUama, as often as ever) ; but the usage of the language does not favour this explanation, CHAP. XXVII. 2-7. 67 for 2 Sam. i. 9, ''1 'Si'DJ llV'^a, signifies my whole soul (my full life) is still in me ; and we have a third instance of this pro- minently placed ^3 jier hypallagen in Hos. xiv. 3, py sb'jT^D, omnem auferas iniquitatem, Ew. § 289, a (comp. Ges. § 114, rem. 1). Accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., Hahn, and most modern expositors, we take ver. 3 as a parenthetical confir- matory clause, by which Job gives the ground of his solemn affirmation that he is still in possession of his full conscious- ness, and cannot help feeling and expressing the contradiction between his lot of suffering, which brands him as an evil-doer, and his moral integrity. The ''0^'^'^ which precedes the mn signifies, according to the prevailing usage of the language, the intellectual, and therefore self-conscious, soul of man {Pt but u_i;:>-j deceypere, that is to be compared in the tropical sense of the prevailing usage of the Hebrew speci- fied. The old expositors were all misled by the misunder- stood partitive ''13"'D, which they translated ex (= inde a) diebus meis. There is in ver. 7 no ground for taking "•H"', with Hahn, as a strong affirmative, as supposed in ch. xviii. 12, and not as expressive of desire ; but the meaning is not : let my opponents be evil-doers, I at least am not one (Hirz.). The voluntative expresses far more emotion : the relation must be reversed; he who will brand me as an evil-doer, must by that very act brand himself as such, inasmuch as the VKHO of a p''n^' really shows himself to be a ych, and by recklessly judging the righteous, is bringing down upon him- self a like well-merited judgment. The 3 is the so-called CapJi veritatis, since 3, instar, signifies not only similarity, but also equality. Instead of ''P''!?, the less manageable, primitive form, which the poet used in ch. xxii. 20 (comp. vol. i. 440), CHAP. XXVII. 8-12. 69 and beside which DP (Dip, 2 Kings xvi. 7) does not occur in the book, we here find the more emphatic form "•Jpjpipno (comp. ch. XX. 27).^ The description of the misfortune of the ungodly which now follows, beginning with ''3, requires no connecting thought, as for instance : My enemy must be accounted as ungodly, on account of his hostility ; I abhor ungodliness, for, etc. ; but that he who regards him as a ]}'J-\ is himself a ]}^i, Job shows from the fact of the ]}'^-\ having no hope in death, whilst, when dying, he can resign himself to the confident hope of a divine vindication of his innocence. 8 For ivhat is the hope of the godless, luhen lie cutteth off^ When Eloah taketh away his soul f 9 Will God hear his cry When distress cometh upon him ? 10 Or can he delight himself in the Almighty, Can he call upon Eloah at all times ? 11 I will teach you concerning the hand of God, I will not conceal the dealings of the A Imighly. 12 Behold, ye have all seen it. Why then do ye cherish foolish notions ? In comparing himself with the V^, Job is conscious that he has a God who does not leave him unheard, in whom he delights himself, and to whom he can at all times draw near; as, in fact. Job's fellowship with God rests upon the freedom of the most intimate confidence. He is not one of the god- less ; for what is the hope of one who is estranged from God, when he comes to die ? He has no God on whom his hope ^ In Beduin the enemy is called qomCini (vid. supra, on ch. xxiv. 12, p. 26), a denominative from qom j*^, war, feud; but qom has also the signification of a collective of qomani, and one can also say: entnm wa- ijdnd qom, you and we are enemies, and bendtna qom, there is war between us. — Wetzst. 70 THE BOOK OF JOB. might establish itself, to whom it could cling. The old expositors err in many ways respecting ver. 8, by taking yva, abscindere (root ^3), in the sense of (opes) corradere (thus also more recently Rosenm. after the Targ., Syr., and Jer.), and referring bp^^ to HpK' in the signification tranquillum esse (thus even Blumenfeld after Ralbag and others). it^S3 is the object to both verbs, and C^'D3 j;^3, abscindere animam, to cut off the thread of life, is to be explained according to ch. vi. 9, Isa. xxxviii. 12. K'S3 n^tr, extraJiere animam (from rhf, whence ^;^l^' L:, the after-birth, cogn. hhf J^, hm J^, Jjo, Jj^), is of similar signification, according to another figure, since the body is conceived of as the sheath (n^l^, Dan. vii. 15) of the souP (comp. J«-j in the universal signi- fication evaginare ensemi). The fut. apoc. Kal ???''; (= p!p^) is therefore in meaning equivalent to the intrans. b^\ Deut. xxviii. 40 (according to Ew. § 235, c, obtained from this by change of vowel), decidere ; and Schnurrer's supposition that h^\ like the Arab. J.aJ, is equivalent to h^V^^ (when God demands it), or such a violent correction as De Lagarde's'^ (when he is in distress pX'', when one demands his soul with a curse npxa ^^}^\), is unnecessary. The ungodly man. Job goes on to say, has no God to hear his cry when distress comes upon him ; he cannot delight himself (^^ynij pausal form of J^i^H'', the primary form of Jpyn'') in the Almighty; he cannot call upon Eloah at any 1 On the similar idea of the body, as the TcosM (sheath) of the soui, among the Hindus, vid. Pnychol. p. 268. 2 Avm. zur griecJi. Uebers. der Proverhien (1863), S. VI. f., where the first reason given for this improvement of the text is this, that the usual explanation, according to which ^^"^ and J?V3'' have the same subj. and obj. standing after the verb, is altogether contrary to Semitic usage. But this assertion is groundless, as might be supposed from the very be- ginning. Thus, e.g. the same obj. is found after two verbs in ch. xx. 19, and the same subj. and obj. in Neh. ill. 20. CHAP. XXVII. 8-12. ' 71 time (i.e. in the manifold circumstances of life under which we are called to feel the dependence of our nature). Torn away from God, he cannot be heard, he cannot indeed pray and find any consolation in God. It is most clearly manifest here, since Job compares his condition of suffering with that of a fl^n, what comfort, what power of endurance, yea, what spiritual joy in the midst of suffering (Jjynn, as ch. xxii. 2G, Ps. xxxvii. 4, 11, Isa. Iv. 2, Iviii. 13 sq.), which must all remain unknown to the ungodly, he can draw from his fellowship with God ; and seizing the very root of the dis- tinction between the man who fears God and one who is utterly godless, his view of the outward appearance of the misfortune of both becomes changed; and after having allowed himself hitherto to be driven from one extreme to another by the friends, as the heat of the controversy gradu- ally cools down, and as, regaining his independence, he stands before them as their teacher, he now experiences the truth of docendo discimus in rich abundance. I will instruct you, says he, in the hand, i.e. the mode of action, of God (3 just as in Ps. xxv. 8, 12, xxxii. 8, Prov. iv. 11, of the province and subject of instruction) ; I wull not conceal "''nt^^'Oy "itf'X, i.e. according to the sense of the passage : what are the prin- ciples upon which He acts ; for that which is with (QV) any one is the matter of his consciousness and volition (vid. on ch. xxiii. 10, p. 10). Ver. 12a is of the greatest importance in the right inter- pretation of what follows from ver. 13 onwards. The in- struction which Job desires to impart to the friends has reference to the lot of the evil-doer ; and when he says : Behold, ye yourselves have all beheld (learnt) it — in con- nection with which it is to be observed that Dp^3 um does not signify merely vos omnes, but vosmet ipsi omnes, — he grants to them what he appeared hitherto to deny, that the lot of the evil-doer, certainly in the rule, although not with- 72 THE BOOK OF JOB. out exceptions, is such as they have said. The application, however, which they have made of this abiding fact of ex- perience, is and remains all the more false : Wherefore then (nr makes the question sharper) are ye vain (blinded) in vanity (self-delusion), viz. in reference to me, who do not so completely bear about me the characteristic marks of a J?m? The verb ^^[} signifies to think and act vainly (without ground or connection), 2 Kings xvii. 15 (comp. i/jbaraKodTja-av, Rom. i. 21) ; the combination ^3n b^n may be judged of according to Ges. § 138, rem. 1, as it is also by Ew. § 281, a, but bn may also be taken as the representative of the gerund, as e.g. nny, Hab. iii. 9. In the following strophe Job now begins as Zophar (ch. XX. 29) concluded. He gives back to the friends the doctrine they have fully imparted to him. They have held the lot of the evil-doer before him as a mirror, that he may behold him- self in it and be astounded; he holds it before them, that they may perceive how not only his bearing under suffering, but also the form of his affliction, is of a totally different kind. 13 This is the lot of the wicked man loifh God, And the heritage of the violent lohich they receive from the Almighty : 14 If his children multiply, it is for the sivord, And his offspring have not bread enough. 15 His survivors shall he buried by the pestilencef And his loidoius shall not loeep. 16 If he heapeth silver together as ditst, And prepareth garments for himself as mire: 17 He 'prepareth it, and the righteous clothe themselves, And the innocent divide the silver among themselves, 18 He hath built as a moth his house, And as a hut that a watchman setteth up. CHAP. XXVII. 13-13. 73 We liave already liad the combination V'^"] D^J? for t;''X V'^'l in ch. XX. 29 ; it is a favourite expression in Proverbs, and reminds one of avd p(tiirop, exclusively peculiar to the book of Job in the Old Test, (here and ch. xxix. 21, xxxviii. 40, xl. 4), is p rendered capable of an independent position by means of ia = no, \^. The sword, famine, and pestilence are the three punishing powers by which the evil-doer's posterity, however numerous it may be, is blotted out ; these three, nin, 3j;"i, and ri}», appear also side by side in Jer. xv. 2 ; np, instead of ""riiop (Jer. xvi. 4), diris mortibusy is (as also Jer. xviii. 21) equivalent to ">^T in the same trio, Jer. xiv. 12 ; the plague is personified (as when it is called by an Arabian poet umm el-farit, the mother of death), and Vavassor cor- rectly observes : Mors illos sua sepeliet, nihil prccterea honoris supremi consecuturos. Bottcher (de inferis, § 72) asserts that ni03 can only signify pestilentice tempore, or better, ipso mortis momento ; but since 3 occurs by the passive elsewhere in the isense of ah or per, e.g. Num. xxxvi. 2, Hos. xiv. 4, it can also by n3p3 denote the efficient cause. Olshausen's correction nap"" ^ ni03, they will not be buried when dead (Jer. xvi. 4), is still less required; "to be buried by the pestilence" is equi- valent to, not to be interred with the usual solemnities, but to be buried as hastily as possible. Ver. \bb (connuon to our poet and the psalm of Asaph, Ixxviii. 64, which likewise belongs to the Salomonic age) is also to be correspondingly interpreted : the women that he leaves behind do not cele- brate the usual mourning rites (comp. Gen. xxiii. 2), because the decreed punishment which, stroke after stroke, deprives them of husbands and children, prevents all observance of the customs of mourning, and because the shock stifles the feeling of pity. The treasure in gold which his avarice has heaped 74 THE BOOK OF JOB. up, and in garments which his love of display has gathered together, comes into the possession of the righteous and the innocent, who are spared when these three powers of judgment sweep away the evil-doer and his family. Dust and dirt {i.e. of the streets, mvin) are, as in Zech. ix. 3, the emblem of a great abundance that depreciates even that which is valuable. The house of the ungodly man, though a palace, is, as the fate of the fabric shows, as brittle and perishable a thing, and can be as easily destroyed, as the fine spinning of a moth, ^V (according to the Jewish proverb, the brother of the DD), or even the small case which it makes from remnants of gnawed articles, and drags about with it; it is like a light hut, perhaps for the watchman of a -vineyard (Isa. i. 8), which is put together only for the season during which the grapes are ripening.^ 19 He lietli doion iicJi, Mid doeth it not again, He opeiieth Ms eyes and — is no more. 20 Terrors Uike hold of him as a flood; By night a tempest stealeth hini aivay. ^ The watchman's hut, for the protection of the vmeyards and melon and maize fields against thieves, herds, or wild beasts, is now called "either 'arisJie and mantara (n"lL33D) if it is only slightly put together from branches of trees, or cheme (njDTl) if it is built up high in order that the watcher may see a great distance. The cheme is the more frequent ; at harvest it stands in the midst of the thresliing-floors (bejcidir) of a district, and it is constructed in the following manner : — Four poles ('awdrmd) are set up so as to form the corners of a square, the sides of which are about eight feet in length. Eight feet above the ground, four cross pieces of wood {'atvdrid) are tightly bound to these with cords, on which planks, if they are to be had, are laid. Here is the watcher's bed, which consists of a litter. Six or seven feet above this, cross-beams are again bound to the four poles, on which boughs, or reeds (qasab), or a mat (hosfra, nT'Vn) forms a roof (sath, nt^EJ'), from which the cheme has its name ; for the PieZ-forms tJ'Tiy, D*n, and ntsb^ signify, " to be stretched over anything after the manner of a roof." Between the roof and the bed, three sides of the cheme are hung round with a mat, or with CHAP. XXVII. lD-23. 75 21 The east xoincl lifteth him up, that he dejjarteth, A nd hurleth him forth from his j^lace. 22 God casteth upon him without sparing, Before His hand he fleeth hither and thither. 23 They clap their hands at him, And hiss him aioay from, his place. The pointing of tlie text ^p^?|' X7l is explained by Sclmurr., Umbr., and Stick. : He goes rich to bed and nothing is taken as jet, he opens his eyes and nothing more is there; but if this were the thought intended, it ought at least to have been ^DN3 pxi, since N? signifies non, not nihil; and Stickel's translation, " while nothing is carried away," makes the fut. instead of the prcet., which was to be expected, none the more tolerable ; also fjDX can indeed signify to gather hastily together, to take away (e.g. Isa. xxxiii. 4), when the connec- tion favours it, but not here, where the first impression is that J?t^"i is the subj. both to f]DS'' vh^ and to 13^X1. Bottcher's translation, "He lieth down rich and cannot be displaced," gives the words a meaning that is ridiculed by the usage of the language. On the other hand, ^0^\ vh^ can signify : and he reeds or straw (qasJisJ), C'p) bound together, in order both to keep off the cold night-winds, and also to keep the thieves in ignorance as to the num- ber of the watchers. A small ladder, sulltm (D^D), frequently leads to the bed-chamber. The space between the ground and this chamber is closed only on the west side to keep off the hot afternoon sun, for through the day the watcher sits below with his dog, upon the ground. Here is also his place of reception, if any passers-by visit him ; for, like the vil- lage shepherd, the field-watcher has the right of showing a humble hos- pitality to any acquaintances. When the fruits have been gathered in, the chtme is removed. The field-watchman is now called ncitur ( "jlslj), and the verb is natar, ")t03, "to keep watch," instead of which the quadri- literal notar, ntOIJ (from the phir. _>irl»j, "the watchers "), has also been formed. In one part of Syria all these forms are written Avith V (d) instead of t3, and pronoimced accordingly. The n^*j in this passage is similarly related to the n^il in Cant. i. 6, viii. 11, 12. — Wetzst. TO THE BOOK OF JOB. is not conveyed away (comp. e.g. Jer. viii. 2, Ezek. xxix. 5 ; but not Isa. Ivii. 1, where it signifies to be swept away, and also not Num. xx. 26, where it signifies to be gathered to the fathers), and is probably intended to be explained after the pointing that we have, as Rosenm. and even Ralbag explain it : " he is not conveyed away ; one opens his eyes, and he is not;" or even as Schlottm. : "he is not conveyed away ; in one moment he still looks about him, in the next he is no more;" but the relation of the two parts of the verse in this interpretation is unsatisfactory, and the pre- ceding strophe has already referred to his not .being buried. Since, therefore, only an unsuitable, and what is more, a badly-expressed thought, is gained by this reading, provided the expression might be regarded with Hahn as interroga- tive : is he not swept away ? which, however, is only a makeshift, we must see whether it may not perhaps be sus- ceptible of another pointing. Jerome transl. : dives cum dor- 7nierit, nUiil secum auferet ; the thought is not bad, but nn^iND is wanting, and i?h alone does not signify nihil. Better LXX. (Ital., Syr.) : 7r\ovcno<; KOijJbrjOrjcreTai Kal ov irpocr- 6rj(Tei. This translation follows the form of reading ^DN"" = 5]''pi''j gives a suitable sense, places both parts of the verse in the right relation, and accords with the style of the poet {vid. ch. XX. 9, xl. 5) ; and accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we decide in favour of this reading : he lieth down to sleep rich, and he doeth it no more, since in the night he is removed from life and also from riches by sudden death ; or also : in the morning he openeth his eyes without imagining it is the last time, for, overwhelmed by sudden death, he closes them for ever. Vers. 20a and 206 are attached cross- wise (cJiiastisch) to this picture of sudden destruction, be it by night or by day: the terrors of death seize him (sing. fern. with a plur. subj. following it, according to Ges. § 146, 3) like a flood (comp. the floods of Belial, Ps. xviii. 5), by night CHAP. XXVII. 19-23. 77 a whirhvind (ns^D 1M3J3, as cli. xxi. 18) carrleth him away. The Syriac and Arabic versions add, as a sort of interpola- tion : as a fluttering (large white) night-moth, — an addition which no one can consider beautiful. Ver. 21 extends the figure of the whirlwind. In Hebrew, even when the narrative has reference to Egyptian matters (Gen. xli. 23), the Dnip which comes from the Arabian desert is the destructive, devastating, and parching wind /car' i^o-j(7-jv} ^^1"! signifies peribit (ut pereat), as ch. xiv. 20, xix. 10. "^W (comp. n"il(D, O storm-chased one) is connected with the accus. of the person pursued, as in Ps. Iviii. 10. The subj. of V'i'l], ver. 22, is God, and the verb stands with- out an obj. : to cast at any one (shoot), as Num. xxxv. 22 (for the figure, comp. ch. xvi. 13); LXX. correctly: iircppL-^ei, (whereas ch. xviii. 7, n HT he does not begin the enun- ciation of his own view, but that of his opponents, is refuted by the consideration that there is nothing by which he indicates this, and that he would not enter so earnestly into the description if it were not the feeling of his heart. Feel- ing the worthlessness of these attempted solutions, De Wette (Einleitung, § 288), with his customary, spirit of criticism with which he depreciates the sacred writers, turns against the poet himself. Certainly, says he, the division ch. xxvii. 11-xxviIi. 28 is inappropriate and self-contradictory In the mouth of Job ; but this want of clearness, not to say inconsistency, must be brought against the poet, who, despite his utmost endeavour, has not been able to liberate himself altogether from the influence of the common doctrine of retribution. This judgment is erroneous and unjust. Umbreit (2d edition, S. 261 [Clark's edition, 1836, 11. 122]) correctly remarks, that " without this apparent contradiction in Job's speeches, the Interchange of words would have been endless ;" in other words : had Job's standpoint been absolutely im- moveable, the controversy could not possibly have come to a well-adjusted decision, which the poet must have planned, and which he also really brings about, by causing his hero still to retain an imperturbable consciousness of his innocence, but also allowing his irritation to subside, and his extreme harshness to become moderated. CHAP. XXVII. 19-23. 81 the final destiny of the godless, is already indicated in ch. xxiv., but is still more apparent here in ch. xxvii., and indeed in the following line of thought: "As truly as God lives, who afflicts me, the innocent one, I will not incur the guilt of lying, by allowing myself to be persuaded against my con- science to regard myself as an evil-doer. I am not an evil- doer, but my enemy who regards me and treats me as such must be accounted wicked ; for how unlike the hopelessness and estrangement from God, in which the evil-doer dies, is my hope and entreaty in the midst of the heaviest affliction I Yea, indeed, the fate of the evil-doer is a different one from mine. I will teach it you ; ye have all, indeed, observed it for yourselves, and nevertheless ye cherish such vain thoughts concerning me." What is peculiar in the description that then follows — a description agreeing in its substance with that of the three, and similar in its form — is therefore this, that Job holds up the end of the evil-doer before the friends, that from it they may infer that he is tiot an evil-doer, whereas the friends held it up before Job that he might infer from it that lie is an evil-doer, and only by a penitent acknowledg- ment of this can he escape the extreme of the punishment he has merited. Thus in ch. xxvii. Job turns their own weapon against the friends. But does he not, by doing so, fall into contradiction with himself? Yes; and yet not so. The Job who has become calmer here comes into contradiction with the impassioned Job who had, without modification, placed the exceptional cases in opposition to the exclusive assertion that the evil- doer comes to a fearful end, which the friends advance, as if it were the rule that the prosperity of the evil-doer continues uninterrupted to the very end of his days. But Job does not come into collision with his true view. For how could he deny that in the rule the retributive justice of God is manifest in the case of the evil-doer! We can only perceive 82 THE BOOK OF JOB. his true opinion when we compare the views he here expresses with his earlier extreme antitheses : hitherto, in the heat of the controversy, he has opposed that which the friends one- sidedly maintained by the direct opposite; now he has got upon the right track of thought, in which the fate of the evil-doer presents itself to him from another and hitherto mistaken side, — a phase which is also but imperfectly appre- ciated in ch. xxiv. ; so that now at last he involuntarily does justice to what truth there is in the assertion of his opponent. Nevertheless, it is not Job's intention to correct himself here, and to make an admission to the friends which has hitherto been refused. Hirzel's explanation of this part inclines too much to this erroneous standpoint. On the contrary, our rendering accords with that of Ewald, who observes (S. 252 f. 2d edition, 1854) that Job here maintains in Ids oivn favour, and against them, what the friends directed against him, since the hope of not experiencing such an evil-doer's fate becomes strong in him : " Job is here on the right track for more confidently anticipating his own rescue, or, what is the same thing, the impossibility of his perishing just as if he were an evil-doer." Moreover, how well designed is it that the descrip- tion vers. 13 sqq. is put into Job's mouth ! While the poet allows the friends designedly to interweave lines taken from Job's misfortunes into their descriptions of the evil-doer's fate, in Job's description not one single line is found which coincides with his own lot, whether with that which he has already experienced, or even with that which his faith pre- sents to him as in prospect. And although the heavy lot which has befallen him looks like the punitive suffering of the evil-doer, he cannot acknowledge it as such, and even denies its bearing the marks of such a character, since even in the midst of affliction he clings to God, and confidently hopes for His vindication. With this rendering of ch. xxvii. 13 sqq. all doubts of its genuineness, which is indeed CHAP. XXVII. 19-23. 83 admitted by all modern expositors, vanish ; and, far from charging the poet with inconsistency, one is led to admire the undiminished skill with which he brings the idea of the drama by concealed ways to its goal. But the question still comes up, whether ch. xxviii. 1, open- ing with ""S, does not militate against this genuineness. Hirzel and others observe, that this '•D introduces the confirmation of ch. xxvii. 126 : " But wherefore then do ye cherish such vain imaginations concerning me ? For human sagacity and perse- verance can accomplish much, but the depths of divine wisdom are impenetrable to man." But how is it possible that the '^3, ch. xxviii. 1, should introduce the confii-mation of ch. xxvii. 12l>, passing over ch. xxvii. 13-23? If it cannot be explained in any other way, it appears that ch. xxvii. 13-23 must be re- jected. There is the same difficulty in comprehending it by supplying some suppressed thought, as g.^. Ewald explains it: Fo7', as there may also be much in the divine dealings that is dark, etc. ; and Hahn : Because evil-doers perish according to their desert, it does not necessarily follow that every one who perishes is an evil-doer, and that every prosperous per- son is godly, /or — the wisdom of God is imsearchable. This mode of explanation, which supposes, between the close of ch. xxvii. and the beginning of ch. xxviii., what is not found there, is manifestly forced ; and in comparison with it, it would be preferable, with Stickel, to translate ''3 " because," and take ch. xxviii. 1, 2 as the antecedent to ver. 3. Then after ch. xxvii. a dash might be made ; but this dash would in- dicate an ugly blank, which would be no honour to the poet. Schlottmann explains it more satisfactorily. He takes ch. xxvii. 13 sqq. as a warning addressed to the friends, lest they bring down upon themselves, by their unjust judgment, the evil- doer's punishment which they have so often proclaimed. If this rendering of ch. xxvii. 13 sqq. wex'e correct, the description of the fate of the evil-doer would bo influenced by an under- 84 THE BOOK OF JOB. lying thought, to which the following statement of the exalted nature of the divine wisdom would be suitably connected as a confirmation. We cannot, however, consider this rendering as correct. The picture ought to have been differently drawn, if it had been designed to serve as a warning to the friends. It has a different design. Job depicts the revelation of the divine justice which is exhibited in the issue of the life of the evilrdoer, to teach the friends that they judge him and his lot falsely. To this description of punishment, which is intended thus and not otherwise, ch. xxviii. with its confirmatory ""D must be rightly connected. If this were not feasible, one would be disposed, with PareaU, to alter the position of ch. xxviii., as if it were removed from its right place, and put it after ch. xxvi. But we are cautioned against such a violent mea- sure, by the consideration that it is not evident from ch. xxvi. why the course of thought in ch. xxviii., which begins with "•3, should assume the exact form in which we find it; whereas, on the other hand, it was said in ch. xxvii. that the ungodly heaps up silver, 5)03, like dust, but that the innocent who live to see his fall divide this silver, ?1D3, among themselves ; so that when in ch. xxviii. 1 it continues : Ni*1D fpy? C'"' "la, there is a connection of thought for which the way has been pre- viously prepared. If we further take into consideration the fact of ch. xxviii. being only an amplification of the one closing thought to which everything tends, viz. that the fear of God is man's true wisdom, then ch. xxviii., also in reference to this its special point, is suitably attached to the description of the evil-doer's fate, ch. xxvii. 13 sqq. The miserable end of the ungodly is confirmed by this, that the wisdom of man, which he has despised, consists in the fear of God ; and Job there- by at the same time attains the special aim of his teaching, which is announced at ch. xxvii. 11 by ^X'T'a D3nN miX: viz. he has at the same time proved that he who retains the CIIAr. XXVII. 19-23. . 85 fear of God In the midst of his sufferings, though those suffer- ings are an insoluble mystery, cannot be a yt!n. This design of the confirmation, and that connection of thought, which should be well noted, prove that ch. xxviii. stands in its original position. And if we ponder the fact, that Job has depicted the ungodly as a covetous rich man who is snatched away by sudden death from his immense possession of silver and other costly treasures, we see that ch. xxviii. confirms the preceding picture of punitive judgment in the following manner: silver and other precious metals come out of the earth, but wisdom, whose value exceeds all these earthly treasures, is to be found nowhere within the province of tlie creature; God alone pos- sesses it, and from God alone it comes; and so far as man can and is to attain to it, it consists in the fear of the Loed, and the forsaking of evil. This is the close connection of ch. xxviii. with what immediately precedes, which most expositors since Schultens have missed, by transferring the central point to the unsearchableness of the divine wisdom which rules in the world ; whereas Bouiller correctly observes that the whole of ch. xxviii. treats not so much of the wisdom of God as of the wisdom of man, which God, the sole possessor of wisdom, imparts to him : omnibus divitiis, fluxis et evanidis illis possessio prceponderat sajnentice, qiice in pio Dei cidtu et fuga mali est jiosita. The view of von Hofmann (^ScJuiftbeweis, i. 96, 2d edit.) accords with this: "If ch. xxviii. 1, where a confirmatory or explanatory "'3 forms the transition, is taken together with xxviii. 12, where another part of the speech is introduced with a Waio, and finally with ch. xxviii. 28, where this is rounded off, as forming the unity of one thought : it thus proves that the final destruction of the godless, who is happy and prosper- ous in worldly things, is explained by the fact that man can obtain every kind of hidden riches by his own exertion and courage, but not the wisdom which is not indigenous to this outward world, but is known to God alone, and is to be learned 86 THE BOOK OF JOB. from Him only ; and the teaching concerning it is : behold, the fear of God, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." Before we now pass on to the detailed exposition of ch. xxviii., we may perhaps here, without anticipating, put the question, Whence has the poet obtained the knowledge of the different modes of mining operations which is displayed in ch. xxviii. 1 sqq., and which has every appearance of being the result of personal observation? Since, as we have often remarked already, he is well acquainted with Egypt, it is most natural that he derived this his knowledge from Egypt and the Sinaitic peninsula. The ruins of mines found there show that the Sinaitic peninsula has been worked as a mining- district from the earliest times. The first of these mining dis':ricts is the Wadi Nash, where Lepsius (Briefe, S. 338) found traces of old smelting-places, and where also Graul and his companions, having their attention drawn to it by Wilkinson's work, searched for the remains of a mine, and found at least traces of copper slag, but could see nothing more (Reise, ii. 202). E. Riippell explored the spot at the desire of the Viceroy Mehemed Ali, and Russegger with less successful result {vid. the particulars in Ritter's Erdkunde, xiv. 784-788).^ A second mining district is denoted by the ruins of a temple of Ilathor, on the steep terrace of the rising ^ The valley is not called Wadi nahas (Copper valley), v/hich is only a supposition of Rlippell, but Wadi nash, ^,,v^3, which, according to Reinaud, signifies valley of statues or columns. Thirty hours' journey from Suez, says a connoisseur in the Historisch-politische Blatter, 1863, S. 802 f., lies the Wadi nesh [a pronunciation which assumes the form of writing t_-vubJ] ; it is rare that the ore is so easy to get, and found in such abundance, for the blocks containing the copper are in many places 200 feet in diameter, and the ore is almost in a pure state. The mineral (the black earth containing the copper) abounds in the metal. .... Besides this, iron-ore, manganese, carbonate of lead, and also the exceeding precious cinnabar, have been discovered on Sinai. CHAP. XXVIII. 87 ground Sarbut (Serdhtt) el-cMcUm, which stretclies out into a spacious valley. This field of ruins, with its many lofty columns within the still recognisable area of a temple, and round about it, gives the impression of a large burying-ground, and it is described and represented as such by Carsten Niebuhr (Keise, 235, Tafel xliv.). In February 1854, Graul {Reise, ii. 203) and Tischendorf spent a short time upon this eminence of the desert, which is hard to climb, and abounds in monu- ments. It produced a strong impression upon us — says the latter (^Aus dem heiligen Lande, S. 35) — as we tarried in the midst of the grotesque forms of these monuments, while the setting sun cast its deep red gleam over the wild terrific- looking copper rocks that lay around in their varied shades, now light, now dark. That these copper rocks were worked in ancient days, is proved by the large black heaps of slag which Lepsius {Briefe, S. 338) discovered to the east and west of the temple. Moreover, in the inscriptions Hathor bears the by-name "Queen of Mafkat,'^ i.e. the copper country {mafha, copper, with the feminine post-positive article t). It even bears this name on the monuments in the Wadi maghdra, one of the side-gorges of the Wadi mucatteb (i.e. the Written Valley, valley full of inscriptions). These signs of another ancient mining colony belong almost entirely to the earliest Egyptian antiquity, while those on Sarbut elrchddim extend back only to Amenemha ill., consequently to the last dynasty of the old kingdom. Even the second king of the fifth dynasty, Snefru, and indeed his predecessor (according to Lepsius, his successor) Chufu — that Xeo-^ who built the largest pyramid — appear here as conquerors of foreign peoples, and the mountainous district dedicated to Hathor is also called Mafka't. The remains of a mine, discovered by J. Wilson, at the eastern end of the north side of -the Wadi mucatteb, also belongs to this copper country : they lie near the road, but in back gorges ; there is a very high wall of 88 THE BOOK OF JOB. rock of granite or porphyry, which is penetrated by dark seams of metal, which have been worked out from above downwards, thus forming artificial caverns, pits, and shafts ; and it may be inferred that the yield of ore was very abun- dant, and, from the simplicity of the manner of working, that it is of very great antiquity. • This art of mining thus laid open, as Ritter says,^ furnishes the most important explana- tion of Job's remai'kable description of mining operations. As to Egypt itself, it has but few places where iron-ore was obtained, and it was not very plentiful, as Iron occurs much more rarely than bronze on the tombs, although Wil- kinson has observed important copper mines almost as exten- sive as the copper country of Sinai: we only, however, possess more exact information concerning the gold mines on the borders of Upper Egypt. Agatharchides mentions them in his Periplus ; and Diodorus (iii. 11 sqq.) gives a minute description of them, from which it is evident that mining in those days was much the same as it was with us about a hundred years ago : we recognise in it the day and night relays, the structure of shafts, the crushing and washing apparatus, and the smelting-place,^ There are the gold mines of Nubia, the name of which signifies the gold country, for NO YB is the old Egyptian name for gold. From the time of SetJioshi I., the father of Sesostris, we still possess the plan of a gold mine, which Birch (Upon a historical tablet of Barneses ii. of the xix. dijnasty, relating to the gold mines of jEthiopla) has first of all correctly determined. More- over, on monuments of all ages frequent mention is made of other metals (silver, iron, lead), as of precious stones, with which e.g. harps were ornamented ; the diamond can also be 1 In the essay on the Sinaitic peninsula in Piper^s Ev. Jahrhicch, 1852. The mining district that J. Wilson saw (1843-44) is not one that was unknown up to that time, but one of the places of the WcuH vrnfjliCira recognised as favouring the ancient Egyptian system of excavatioa. * Th.i3s Klemm. Allgem. CuUur-GescMchte, v. 304. CHAP. XXVIII. 89 traced. In the Papimis Prisse, which Chabas has worked up under the title Le plus ancien livre du monde, Phtha-hotep, the autlior of this moral tractate, iv. 14, says : " Esteem my good word more highly than the (green) emerald, which is found by slaves under the pebbles." ^ The emerald-hills near Berenice produced the emerald. But if the scene of the book of Job is to be sought in Idumasa proper ('Gebal) or in Hauran, there were certainly mines that were nearer than the Egyptian. In Phunon (Phi lion), between Petra and Zoar, there were pits from which copper (ji(^a\Kov fjueTaWa, cvrls metallci) was obtained even to the time of Moses, as may be inferred from the fact of Moses having erected the brazen serpent there (Num. xxi. 9 sq., comp. xxxiii. 42 sq.), and whither, during the per- secutions of the Christians in the time of the emperors, many witnesses for the faith were banished, that they might fall victims to the destructive labour of pit life (Athanasius ex- travagantly says : ev9a koI (f)ovev<; KaTaBcKa^6fMevo<; 6Xi