Such is a general outline of the three colloquies, but it must not bo understood that the progress thus sketched is uniform and unbroken. Neither Job nor his friends speak ' by the card.' Their utterances contain reasoning of a kind, but they are for the most part the outpourings of deep and earnest feeling, which cannot be reduced to syllojjisms, and which neccssjirily imply much repetition and occasional inconsist<:ncies. Job travels back upon his own course, varies in his moods, speaks now to God, now to the friends, now to himself; he is sometimes inconsistent, if not self-contriidictory, as a sull'ercr wrestling with such a problem was likely to be. The speeches form part of a (loem, not of an abstract demon- stration, though the poot is artist enough to pro- serve order in the midst of variety, and never lo:>es
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JOB, BOOK OF
JOB, BOOK OF
the thread of his argument amidst the outpourings of sjieakers whose feelings are sometimes at wliito heat. The first speecli of Eliphaz is undoubtedly the most moderate, being almost apologetic in tone, whilst the lost speeches show that the argu- ment has come to a deadlock, and the resources of the friends fail them. IJejond this itisdillicult to trace any cleiuly defined or steadily maintained idvanco in the arguments on either side. The jonclusion shows each speaker aa only more fully confirmed in his original position.
3. Here, according to the arrangement of the book as it has come down to us, an episode occurs, in which a previously unmcntioned speaker, named Eliliu, intervenes, and gives at considerable length his judgment upon the question in dispute (clis. 32 to 37). After a somewhat tedioua introduction (32'"''), Elihu blames the friends for the in- suiBciency of their arguments, but still more severely condemns Job for justifying himself, and undertakes to correct his many mistakes. The address to Job may be divided into four parts, corre- sponding with chs. 33. 34. 35 and 3(3-37 respectively. '1 he gist of the whole may, however, be described as an attempted vindication of God, as at the same time a just and a merciful ruler of the world, who is great and glorious above man's power to comprehend, and who sends afllictions upon His own peoiile as a chastisement, or as a means of purification, or as a divine warning against sin. In the stress laid upon affliction as discipline, lies Elihu's chief contribution to the discussion.
4. In the next section of the poem, J" intervenes and 'answers Job out of the whirlwind.' Two addresses of the Almighty are given — the first in chs. 38'-40^ followed by a brief reply from Job 40'-'j the second in chs. W^l**, tollowed by another act of submission on Job's part, 42'-". The chief subject of the divine address is the glory of God in creation, the sublime and awe-inspiring features of which are recounted in order to impress Job with the greatness of God and the littleness of man, and the unsearchable wisdom and incon- ceivable power of God compared wth man's utter i^orance and weakness. Sometimes the descrip- tion enters into minute detail, as in the picture of Behemoth (the hippopotamus) in 40""^, and Levi- athan (the crocodile) in 41'"". The description of the war-horse also in 39'""" is elaborate and highly poetical. The object of the whole address, how- ever, as indicated from time to time by a series of ironical questions, is to overwhelm Job with a sense of the irresistible majesty and resource of that God the justice of whose government he has ventured to impugn. How can one who is so utterly unable to subdue a single one of God's creatures, whose knowledge of even a comer of creation is so hopelessly inadequate, dare to arraign the procedure of tiim who holds a universe of such creatures in the hollow of His hand ? The efi'ect of these addresses is immediate and complete. Job first confesses himself silenced and justly rebuked, and at last in full contrition acknowledges his sin and folly, repents of his ill-advised com- plaints, and bows low in submission beneath the irresistible hand of the Almighty.
5. In the epilogue, the story which was begun by a scene in heaven ends with a cKnoument visiole on earth. The friends who had thought themselves representatives of the divine cause are rebuked, because they had not spoken of God ' the thing that is right,' as His servant Job had done. They are forgiven at Job's intercession, while on Job himself is bestowed prosperity precisely double that which he had previously enjoyed. Job lived long after all his troubles were over, saw 'four generations ' of descendants, and died ' being old
and full of days ' — a sure mark of divine approval
and favour (42'"").
iiL FoiiM. — The first question which falls to be considered under this head is whether the author intended to convey the idea that he was writin« literal history. His narrative begins willi the matter-of-fact statement, ' There was a man in the land of Uz,' etc., and both jjrologue and epi- logue at first sight appear to be simple statements of actual fact. This view was held by a large proportion of early Jewish interpreters, but not universally. R. Resh Lakish is quoted in the "Talmud (liaba Balhra, § 15. 1) as having said, 'Job existed not, and was not created, but ho is (only) a parable.' This was altered later into 'was not created except to bo a parable.' Tlie prevailing opinion amongst both Jews and Chris- tians for many centuries was that the Bk. of Job was strictly historical. Luther questioned, not the existence of Job, nor the substantial accuracy of tlie story told in the book, but its literal inter- pretation throughout as a record of actual facts. Some recent critics (Reuss, Merx, Hengstenberg) liave gone to the opposite extreme, and represent the book as entirely imaginative. The majority of modern interpreters, however, view the book as ' poetically treated history' ; some (e.g. Clieyne) finding in it but a smaU kernel of fact ; otlieis, from Grotius and Lowth to Delitzsch, Davidson, and Driver, being content to read the poem as a free and imajjinative rendering of facts lianded down by tradition and here substantiallj' repro- duced. It is hardly necessary to argue at length that the book cannot be read as literal histoiy from beginning to end. The descriptions of the heavenly council in the prologue are clearly sym- bolical. The numbers used in the prologue, and tlie exact doubling of Job's possessions in the epilogue, indicate an ideal rather than an actua. picture. Job's calamities come upon him in such a sudden and dramatic form, and are described in so poetical a fashion, with a sort of refrain, ' I, even I only, am left to tell thee,' that we readily understand we are not too literally to interpret every word. And never was it known that suft'erer in the extremity of his anguish delivered his soul in highly elaborated poetical phraseology. If, then, the view of the book aa ' poetically treated history ' be taken as the most probable hypothesis, it is clear that considerable room is left for diversity of judgment as to where the solid substance of fact ends and the drapery of the poet's imaginative treatment begins. The names of the hero and hia friends, the country in which he dwelt, the afflictions which befell him, the patience with which he endured them, and his emergence out of his difficulties, may perhaps be considered a kind of irreducible minimum of history used by the inspired genius of the autlior in his wTestling with the age^onsc problem before him.