^ I call the Book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew ; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble Book ; all men's Book ! It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending Problem — man's destiny, and God's ways with him here in this earth. And all in such free -flowing outlines; grand in its
^ J. A. Froude, SJiort Studies, i. 296.
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sincerity, in its simplicity, in its epic melody and repose of reconcilement.
There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true, everyway ; true eyesight and vision for all things ; material things no less than spiritual : . . . Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation ; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind ; — so soft, and great ; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars ! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.^
2. In its essential feature the Book of Job is thus, in the first place, the history of a great moral struggle and victory. It is the powerful poetic presentment of the ascent of a man's soul from darkness into light, from a narrow and failing creed into a bolder, broader, and truer one. Everything about the book, as it has been said, speaks of a man who had broken from the narrow littleness of the peculiar people. It is in some measure the story of a good man's life, who lived in days when good and pious men believed that sin and suffering were almost identical terms — that goodness and prosperity always went together.
II The nearest approach to the desolation and sublime sorrow of Job is the blasting misery and grief that falls upon the old, discrowned Lear of Shakespeare. But Lear, under the weakening of age, is the active instrument in the procurance of his troubles. Upon Job, radiant in his integrity and unfailing humaneness, the catastrophe descends as a bolt out of the blue.^
3. But the author has a wider practical design. He considered his new truth regarding the meaning of affliction as of national interest, and to be the truth needful for the heart of his people in their circumstances. But the teaching of the book is only half its contents. It contains a history, and this history furnishes the profoundest lesson to be learned. It exhibits deep and inexplic- able affliction, a great moral conflict, and a victory. The author meant the history which he exhibits and his new truth to inspire new conduct and new faith, and to lead to a new issue in the national fortunes. In Job's sufferings, undeserved and inexplic- able to him, yet capable of an explanation most consistent with
' T. Caiiyle, Heroes and Hero- Worship, 45. a J. Vickery, Ideals of Life, 103.
I50 HEARSAY AND EXPERIENCE
the goodness and faithfulness of God, and casting honour upon His steadfast servants ; in his despair, bordering on unbelief, at last overcome ; and in the happy issue of his afflictions — in all this Israel should see itpelf, and from the sight take courage and forecast its own history.
I.
The HEARmG of the Ear.
" I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear."
1. Job does not mean to say that before his affliction he was entirely destitute of all knowledge of God. The words, " I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear," taken by themselves, and without reference to Job's history, might mean this. It is language which one might use of days spent in entire ignorance of God, when darkness reigned in the heart. How many there are who hear of God by the hearing of the ear and nothing more! What they hear makes no impression upon their hearts. They never realize the presence and attributes of God. There is no contact between God's mind and theirs. The words which they hear are but a sound, conveying no ideas or thoughts. Was this the case with Job ? His whole history seems to us to say most distinctly, " No." He is described in the very beginning of this book as one who " feared God " ; and all the workings of his mind under his affliction show, at any rate, some real knowledge of God. What Job means to describe is his progress in the knowledge of God, which he does by comparing it to the two senses of hearing and sight. The ear, as compared with the eye, is a very imperfect medium of knowledge. When we hear the description of any- thing, it always requires some previous knowledge, as well as some imagination, to realize the picture set before us. If a person has not the previous knowledge requisite, or the imagination necessary to realize the thing or things described, the description, however beautiful and vivid, is to them mere sound. In sight, on the contrary, there is no such difficulty — no such effort of the imagination is required — and hence it is found that the only
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