The Almighty, however, does speak. It is an old complaint with students of the Bk. of Job, that He says so little, according to men's concep-
tions, of what ought to be said. But much more ii said than appears upon the surface. The addresses of Jehovah out of the whirlwind are a powerful plea for the probability that God's providence ii right and man's indictment of it wrong. The Creator and Preserver of such a world as we see may surely be left to conduct its atliiirs un- challenged by the puny creature who knows but one comer of one field in a vast universe, ami knows that imperfectly and ill. So far from ' binding the cluster of Pleiades or loosing the bands of Orion,' man does not know 'when the wild goats bring forth,' nor can he even ' loose the bands of the wild nss.' Thou who complainest against Me, 'where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth — hast thou an arm like God?' It is replied, though not in the poem, that this is no answer to Job's nuestions. Hy such arguments the Almighty may silence, but He does not convince. The poet juifgos otherwise. He represents Job as not only submissive, but contrite. Job acknowledges that he lias been wrong in reasoning and in temper ; he not only gives up his arguments, but repents him of his sin. And the inspired i>oet disnl.ays deeper insight into truth and more profound knowledge of the human heart than the self-sufficient reasoner of later days. .Mozley, in his masterly study of Job (Essni/x, vol. ii. p. 219), suggests that the ex- planation is that ' amazing power softens him, and he feels himself within its grasp a poor and feeble creature, to be dealt with just as that Power pleases ' : but this is surely only half the truth. Submission of soul is not satisfaction of mind. Job has learned to rest in God at last. His former attitude was wrong, and only now for the first time does he see Tight and find peace. Why is this, when no definite answer has been given to his passionate question. Why do the righteous sutler? First, because he has seen and heard God Him- self. What is meant by that phrase it would be lianl to explain, for it can only be understood by one who has heard that Voice and seen that Vision. But the experience of mankind attests that there is a whole iieaven between listening to the most conWncing human arguments and receiving a message which is as the very voice of God to the soul. There is a difference between hearing of God and seeing Himself. That, Job says (42=), is the essential diflerence between his former and his later state. Further, Job is convinced of God's perfect wisdom in his own case by the spectacle of His combined wisdom, power, righteousness, and goodness in creation around. It is the argument from the analogy of nature before Butler and before Origen. An indirect argument is more cogent against some forms of scepticism than a direct dealing with the difficulty. A contempla- tion of all that my friend is and has done — hij course, his career, his character — may convince me that he is right in a particular instance which I cannot understand, more eflectively than any amount of discussion concerning the case itself. Further still. Job's attitude of penitent submission is represented as the real solution of all his difficulties. Only in that attitude of spirit can man really rest. If he could reason out all the causes of all events — he cannot, but we may sup- pose it possible — he would still be further from the state of mind in which best to face the problems of life than Job was in ch. 42*. The ultimate solution is not intellectual, but moral, since the problem is more moral than intellectual. ' I re- tract— and repent in dust and ashes.' The words do not mean that Job does not think, does not feel ; but that he has risen above the level of keen resentment of physical pain, above the level of quick-witted dialectic and cut-and -thrust argu- ment, soaring into the lofty altitudes or sinkmg
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into the peaceful depths where aloue the godly- man finds peace — in the shelter of the everlaslinj; arms. The reasoner and the sceptic complain that tlie issue lias been evaded ; the reli<;ious man knows that he has not shirked it, hut left it behind and beneath him, when he bows his head in self-abasing prayer, after a face-to-face vision of God.
After this, the epilogue might well appear to be a kithos indeed. Diat a man who has borne the extremity of anguish and fought the fiercest of battles and had a vision of the Ahnighty and come out conqueror, should descend to the level of an unusually prosperous sheikh who owns a few thousand more sheep and o.xen than he did before, seems too humiliating. Tlie irony could hardly go further tlian in the words, ' every man also gave him a piece of silver, and every one a ring of gold ' — as if^ an answer to the soul's questionings were to be expressed in terms of coins and jewellery. The writer of the postscript to the LXX Version seems dimly to have felt this, for, to the words of ch 42" 'Job died an old man and full of days,' he adds that ' it is writ ten that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up.' From a modern puint of view the epilogue is impossible; it does not move on the same plane as the prologue and the speeches of the Almighty. But the inter- preter of Job should not occupy a modern point of view. The writer of the book could not say ' he will rise again at the last day.' If the light shed upon this life's tangles bj' the clear prospect of a future life had been vouchsafed to him, his book would have been very dillerent. The ei)ilogue is the author's way of saying the same thing. Under a dispensation in which there was no clear revelation of a future state. Job's subsequent pro- sperity was only the outward expre-ssion of the divine judgment expressed in 42" 'ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.' The men who had prided themselves on imderstanding God's methods and defending Him against aspersion were condemned, and for- given only at Job's intercession ; whereas Job, wlio had fouglit against the God of narrow tradition in defence of the (Jod of righteousness and truth was commended. His restoration to more than his former prosperity is but the outward expression of this divine sentence— a kind of 'poetic justice' which, under the conditions of the time, was felt to be needful to the vindication of Job's character and the justification of Job's arguments. And, as Froude suggests in liis impressive study of this bonk. Job was now for the first time prepared fully to use prosperity ariglil [Short Stui/ies, vol. i. p. 32.")). liut the epilogue is not necessary in order to point the chief moral le.tsons of the book. These are indt'|>endeut of circumstances, and belong to all time.