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ing the old Jewish opinion as to the age in which Job existed. The Septuagint has here an interpolation, transferred probably from the margin to the text, of which the following is a translation: After much time had passed, his wife said unto him, "How long wilt thou persist, saying, Behold, I will wait a little longer, cherishing the hope that I may recover? Behold the memorial of thee hath disappeared from the earth-those sons and daughters-the pangs and sorrows of my womb, for whom I toiled labouring in vain. Even thou sittest among loathsome worms, passing the night in the open air, while I, a wanderer and a drudge, from place to place and from house to house, watch the sun till his going down, that I may rest from the toils and sorrows that now oppress me. But speak some word towards the Lord (7 nua els Kúpiov) and die." This exists in several versions, as copied from the Septuagint; but there is no ground for supposing that it ever existed in the Bible, and must be treated as an ingenious paraphrase.

11. Job's three friends.'-We have spoken of two of these persons in the note to ch. i. 1. We have now only to add, besides the considerations upon the paternity of Eliphaz and Bildad, derived from the names of Teman and Shuah, that Teman, besides being the name of Esau's grandson, was the name, doubtless derived from him, of a town in the land of Edom, as appears from Jer. xlix. 7

20; Ezek. xxv. 13; Amos i. 12. Zophar the Naamathite was probably from Naamah, a town mentioned in Josh. xv. (v. 41) in a list of the uttermost cities of Judah's lot, 'towards the coast of Edom southward' (v. 20); it is, further, among that portion of those towns that lay 'in the valley' (v. 33): which valley is the same that contained Joktheel (v. 38), which we suppose to have been Petra (see the note on 2 Kings xiv. 7). Naamah was probably therefore in or near the Ghor, or valley, which extends from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah. These considerations, in addition to those in the preceding chapter, seem to establish the conclusion that the scene of this book is laid in the land of Edom.

12. And knew him not.'-They knew that the afflicted being they saw before him must be Job, whose condition had doubtless been described to them before they left home; but so awfully was he disfigured that they could not personally recognize him as the Job they had known in prosperous times.

13. Seven days and seven nights.'-This was the usual time of mourning for the dead.

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CHAPTER III.

1 Job curseth the day and services of his birth. 13 The

12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

13 For now should I have lain still and

ease of death. 20 He complaineth of life, because of been quiet, I should have slept: then had I

his anguish.

AFTER this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

2 And Job 'spake, and said,

3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above; neither let the light shine upon it.

5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of

the months.

7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. 11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

been at rest,

14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;

15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver :

16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling ; and there the weary be at rest.

18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

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19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

21 Which 'long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

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23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? 24 For my sighing cometh "before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

1 Heb. answered. 2 Chap. 10. 18, 19. Jer. 20. 14. 8 Or, challenge it. 4 Or, let them terrify it, as those who have a bitter day. 5 Or, let it not rejoice among the days. 6 Or a leviathan. 7 Heb. the eyelids of the morning. s Heb. wearied in strength. 9 Heb, wait. 19 Chap. 19. 8. 11 Heb, before my meat. 12 Heb. I feared a fear, and it came upon me.

CHAP. III.-With this chapter begins the poem, to which the two preceding chapters form an historical introduction. It naturally divides itself into five parts, the due notice of which will considerably assist the reader.

I. (Ch. iii.-xiv.) Consists of the first discussion between Job and his friends, raised by this chapter, in which the sufferer curses the day of his birth. In the next chapter (iv.) Eliphaz begins the controversy, and is followed by Bildad and Zophar. Each of them is successively answered by Job.

II. (Ch. xv.-xxi.) This comprehends a second round of discussion, begun, as before, by Eliphaz, followed by the others in the same order, and each in his turn answered by Job.

III. (Ch. xxii.-xxxi.) This is the third discussion, begun, as before, by Eliphaz, and followed, after Job has replied, by Bildad, who is also answered. Zophar does not speak, and Job having no occasion for an answer to him, this discussion has two speeches less than the last; but the speeches are longer.

IV. (Ch. xxxii.-xxxvii.) Elihu appears for the first time, and gives an opinion upon the preceding discussion.

V. (Ch. xxxviii.-xlii. 7.) The termination of the controversy by the Lord's address out of the whirlwind, followed by the submission of Job. The ten last verses are in prose, and describe the Lord as accepting Job's submission, and restoring him to greater prosperity than he enjoyed at the beginning.

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Verse 1. Cursed his day.'-After the account of the first calamities of Job, and the manner in which he received them, it is said, 'In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly; and after the second calamity, it is again said, In all this did not Job sin with his lips.' These remarkable expressions, never afterwards repeated, have always seemed to us carefully intended to distinguish between the proper and improper part of his conduct, and to intimate that after this, he did charge God foolishly,' and did sin with his lips.' He certainly did so. At the end, after the Lord's address, he becomes sensible of it, and confesses-I uttered that I understood not....I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' Can anything be more conclusive? and does not the book itself thus guardedly direct us to the estimation in which we are to hold Job's reasonings and complaints? Yet this has been too much overlooked, and there has been too strong a disposition to regard Job as triumphant in the controversy. Both parties seem to be in the wrong; and Job himself, his strong mind being at last subdued, does frequently sin with his lips, and charge God foolishly, until the speech of Elihu, followed by one of similar import, but greater majesty, from the Deity himself, draws from his revived heart that memorable confession which we have quoted. Having stated this general view, which repeated study of this book, in the course of years, has led us but the more strongly to entertain, we shall not follow the arguments, but confine our attention to those matters which it falls more strictly within our province to illustrate or explain.

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3. Let the day perish,' etc.-There is nothing,' says Dr. Good of this passage, that I know of in ancient or modern poetry equal to the entire burst, whether in the wildness and horror of the imprecations, or in the terrible sublimity of its imagery. The reader may see it closely imitated by Jeremiah (xx. 14-16). A remarkable parallel to Job's commencing imprecation on the day of his birth is found in the comparatively modern history of Palestine. Malek el-Nasser Daoud was the prince or emir of some tribes in that country, from which, however, he had been driven, and after sundry adverse fortunes, ended his days at Damascus in the year 1258. When the Crusaders had desolated his country, he deplored its misfortunes and his own in a poem of which Abulfeda, in his Annals, has preserved the following specimen:-O that my mother had remained unmarried all the days of her life; and that God had appointed no lord or consort for her! O that when he had destined her to an excellent, mild, and wise

prince, she had been one of those that He had created barren, and that she had never known the happy tidings that she had borne a man or woman! Or that, when she had carried me under her heart, I had lost my life at my birth; and if I had been born and had seen the light, that, when the congratuluting people hastened upon their camels, I had then been gathered to my fathers.' As there is no likelihood that this prince had ever seen the book of Job, the closeness of the resemblance is very remarkable, but is still intelligible as being founded on analogous usages and a corresponding range of ideas.

8. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.'-This is an obscure and difficult verse, and has been variously understood in both its clauses. In respect to the first, those who curse the day,' appear to be either those who, overwhelmed by affliction, shower curses upon the day of their birth, like Job and Jeremiah; or else it may indicate some well known class of persons who were supposed to have the power of rendering a propitious day unpropitious, or, in other words, who had the power of divination or enchantment. A belief in such a power existed early in the world, and has prevailed in all savage and semi-barbarous nations, and even in nations considerably advanced in civilization. This power was supposed to be achieved by a compact with the beings of the invisible world, who, it was supposed, could be induced to impart to such persons the hidden knowledge they possessed, and bestow upon them powers above nature. The persons thus endowed claimed to be the favourites of heaven, to be possessed of control over the elements and over the destinies of man, and to have the power to bless or to curse, and to render propitious or calamitous. We hesitate to think that Job speaks of these as recognizing the power they claimed; and for that reason should, between probabilities equal on other grounds, choose the one first proposed.

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Then, as to the other clause, it is evident that our translators were much embarrassed by it-they seem to have supposed that it contained an allusion to hired mourners, and that Job wishes that they might be employed to howl over it as inauspicious. But the word rendered' mourning' is Leviathan,' as in the margin; and there is not much difficulty in seeing that the clause ought to be translated, Who are ready to stir up (or excite) Leviathan.' Now it is admitted that the word Leviathan denotes the fierce and terrible monsters of the deeps and morasses, and in particular the crocodile, whose wrath was dreadful, and whom no one dared to rouse with impunity. Now, how does this apply? The only intelligible explanation we can deduce seems to be this, giving it by paraphrase: Let those who in bitterness of soul curse the day, curse this day; yea, let it be cursed by those who in their desperateness would not shrink to stir up Leviathan;' that is, as we should say, to rush into the jaws of death.' 9. The dawning of the day, or rather, as in the margin, 'the eyelids of the morning, or still better, the eyelashes of the morning.'-This involves a very beautiful" image, copied by Milton in his Lycidas

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'Ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove afield."

Prevent me.'- Receive me' is better. It cannot be ascertained whether this refers to the nurse or the mother, probably the latter.

13, 14. Then had I been at rest,' etc.-Much of the chapter is occupied with allusions to the peace and the immunity from pain which Job thinks he should now have enjoyed, in this time of his suffering and sorrow, had he died in early life, before these troubles came upon him. Here he says

'Then should I have been at rest
With kings and counsellors of the earth
Who built up for themselves desolate places.'

This is very beautiful, however understood, and is still more beautiful when understood rightly. It would seem

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as if Job had meant to say, 'who built up magnificent palaces and monuments;' but that the idea was arrested or turned in his mind by the sudden recollection that many of those fabrics, destined for immortality, had already become desolate and ruined; and from that recollection substitutes, with great force, 'desolate places,' that is, 'places now desolate. If this was the case in the early times to which Job belonged, how much more now that the ages have grown old, and when a thousand monuments of human greatness-cities, palaces, and temples have crumbled to ruins, or have utterly perished, leaving no track behind!

It is remarkable that the land of Edom, in which Job is reasonably concluded to have lived, does at this day continue to offer some of the most remarkable and magnificent monuments of this description. Specimens, taken from the more striking of the sepulchres excavated in the cliffs of Wady Musa (Petra), are therefore introduced as forming a very appropriate illustration of the subject. They are indeed obviously of a date many ages posterior to that of Job; nor could the state of art in his time be such as these sculptured sepulchres exhibit; but it is still interesting to find such satisfactory illustrations of the general idea in the very country where Job appears to have lived.

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21. Dig for it more than for hid treasures.'-This is very emphatic. The persons in question seek death with the eagerness and hope of one digging for hid treasures, and they exult and rejoice when at length they 'find the grave,' like him by whom the sought treasures have been found.

This allusion to the digging for hid treasure is very interesting, considering the early date usually assigned to the book of Job. It shews that the same causes produced in remotest times the same effects which are at this day constantly witnessed in the East. The insecurity of life and property, wars, revolutions, sudden journeys, and the want of safe places of deposit, have in the course of ages caused vast amounts of property to be buried underground, to be built up in walls, and otherwise secured. The people

know this, and their minds are occupied with the idea that some fortunate chance, some slight indication, may one day render them the possessors of some of these hoards. Every man is constantly on the watch for any little circumstance which may indicate to him one of those hiding-places. European travellers are seldom supposed to have any other object than to discover such treasures; and as they are believed to possess superior means of detecting the secret hoards, all their motions are eagerly watched, from their supposed reference to that object. Treasure-seeking is the lottery of the East; and the extent to which it fills the Eastern mind may partly be esti mated from the prominence which the finding of hidden treasure occupies in a large proportion of the Eastern tales. We have among ourselves a few current stories bearing on the subject, which used formerly to be related to young people with earnestness, as matters of great interest, but which have passed out of use since the security of property, the cessation of civil wars, the discontinuance of lotteries, and the increased sources of employment, have diverted attention from the barren contingencies of gain from the possible accidents of life. Mr. Roberts, speaking particularly of India, says: We are constantly hearing of treasures which have been or are about to be discovered. Sometimes you may see a large space of ground which has been completely turned up, or an old foundation or ruin entirely demolished in hopes of finding the hidden gold. A man has found a small coin, or heard a tradition, or has had a dream, and off he goes to his toil. Perhaps he has been seen on the spot, or he has consulted a soothsayer; the report gets out, and then come the needy, the old, and the young, a motley group, all full of anxiety to join in the spoil. Some have iron instruments, others have sticks, and some their fingers to scratch up the ground. At last some of them begin to look at each other with considerable suspicion, as if all were not right, and each seems to wish that he had not come on so foolish an errand, and then to steal off as quietly as they can.'

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CHAPTER IV.

1 Eliphaz reproveth Job for want of religion. 7 He teacheth God's judgments to be not for the righteous, but for the wicked. 12 His fearful vision, to humble the excellencies of creatures before God.

THEN Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said, 2 If we assay 'to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?

3 Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands.

4 Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.

5 But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled.

6 Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

8 Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. 9 By the blast of God they perish, and 'by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. 10 The roaring of the lion, and the voice

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of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

11 The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad.

12 Now a thing was 'secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof. 13 In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, 14 Fear 'came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.

15 Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:

16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?

18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; "and his angels he charged with folly: 19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?

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3 Heb. the bowing knees. 6 Heb. by stealth.

9 Or, I heard a still voice. 12 2 Cor. 5. 1.

4 Prov. 22. 8. Hos. 10. 13. 7 Heb. met me.

10 Chap. 15. 15. 2 Pet. 2. 4. 13 Heb, beaten in pieces.

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Verse 1. Eliphaz.'-Jahn, in characterizing the part which Job's three friends respectively take in the controversy, says, Eliphaz is superior to the others in discern. ment and delicacy. He begins by addressing Job mildly, and it is not until irritated by contradiction that he reckons him among the wicked.' The reader will not fail to perceive that the gist of the whole argument is, that Job's friends conceive that temporal prosperity invariably attends the righteous, and adversity the wicked; which leads them, at first by implication, and then openly, to number Job among the wicked, seeing that he was in affliction. This doctrine is warmly contested by Job, who asserts that the afflictions of life equally visit righteous and wicked-if indeed the latter be not more favoured than the former in temporal blessings. He cannot, however, account for that which he believes; and conscious that he is innocent of those crimes of which the argument of his friends obliges them to suppose him guilty, he is led into many rash reflections and unsound inferences. Job's friends have a mistaken argument, and are often conducted by it to wrong and unjust conclusions: Job has a better position; but, understanding it imperfectly, he also is frequently erroneous in his inferences and views of the Divine government. Yet of both parties it may be said, that, even when mistaken in their general argument, their particular statements often exhibit truths, the force and beauty of which no heart can fail to recognize. However, these four pious men also, when warmed in dispute, censure and condemn each other with a degree of harshness which, although perfectly natural, was not by any means called for by their respective arguments and positions. Job, in the struggle with adversity, is, for a time,

overcome by it, without having lost the consciousness that the entire submission which had, at first, been so nobly exhibited in his own conduct, was far more becoming.

10. The roaring of the lion,' etc.-Eliphaz is here very strong in his references to lions, which here form a body of images which shew that the lion was well known to the speaker. The purport of these images is the same; the lion is taken as the impersonation of strength and fierceness, is cited to illustrate the fact that the violent and unjust reap their own in kind, and are destroyed in the very act and prospect of the enjoyment they had prepared for themselves. The images by which this is conveyed are most forcible and significant:-The roaring of the lion and the voice of the fierce lion (the most appalling sounds in animated nature) are silenced,' (the last words being understood). "The teeth of the young lions (so terrible and strong) are broken out: "The fierce lion perisheth for lack of prey-not 'old lion,' as in the Authorized Version, for it is in the course of nature that an old lion should perish for lack of prey, but, more signally, a lion in the vigour of his strength and fierceness, even he perisheth for lack of prey. And then, to form a perfect climax, even the whelps of the lioness (so well protected by her natural ferocity and care, even they) are scattered abroad.' Here is the finest set of images extant in poetry with reference to the lion, all drawn from the same sources and yet enlivened by variety, and exhibiting no character of sameness.

19. Them that dwell in houses of clay.'-This refers to the mortal body, the unworthy habitation, for a season, of the immortal spirit. It answers to the soul's dark cottage' of one of our own poets. There is, however, a

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