• Many commentators take the word in these passages in the •ense of outward justitlcation. But the panillelism in 51~ (' in whose heart is my law') stronjcly (avoum the more ethical meaning, and this ought in fairness to rule the interpretation of 511. 46'- is more doubtful.
t On an Aramaic inscription of the 7th cent. B.c. (Nerab it 2) the following words are put into the mouth of a de&d priest ; ' For my righteousness before him, he (the god) gave me a good name »nd lengtliened my daj-s' (UoSmann, ZA, ISM, p. 221 f.X
injustice in the ■world? ' Too righteous art tliou, O J", for me to contend with thee; yet of judg- ments would I .-^peak with thee : Wherefore is tlit way of the wicked prosperous?' etc. (12').
kzekid. — Besides tlie general tendency of thought referred to in the last paragraph, there were two special reasons for the rapid growth of individual- ism in the exilic and post-exilic ages. One was the dissolution of the State, in consequence of which the principle of collective retribution was oeces- sarily suspended, and each man became directly accountable to God for his own sins (Jer SI*"-, Ezk 18-"''). But another and more permanent cause was the introduction of the written Law as the basis of religion. The Law makes its appeal in the first instance to the individual conscience, and, although the aim of the Deuteronomic covenant was to make of Israel a righteous nation through obedience to the Divine wul (Dt 6'°), its immediate effect was only to set up a standard of righteous- ness which served as a test of the individual's relation to God. The influence of these two facts is very apparent in the conception of righteousness which meets us in the Bk. of Ezekiel. Except in a few instances ( 16°"- 23" 45"-) the words 'righteous' and ' righteousness ' are there used solely to denote the religious condition of individual persons in the sight of God (S-"*- 13" 14'^- =» 18"*- 2P'- 33'=»-). Sometimes even the plu. nipi? is employed of the separate virtues or good deeds, which when ii>teg- rated make up the religious character (3-" IS-** 33'*; cf. Is 33"> 64°). In form the idea is purely legal, consisting in obedience to the precepts of the written Law; its content, as given in 18°"' 33" etc., is mainly but not exclusively ethical. And to thi'i conception of righteousness there is attached a rigorous theory of individual retribution; accord- ing as a man's state is when the judgment over- takes him, so will his destiny be : the righteous shall live, and the wicked shall die.
Book of Job. — Ezekiel's doctrine of retribution was formulated with express reference to the final judgment which determines whether a man is to be admitted into the perfect kingdom of God or excluded from it. When the principle was ex- tended to the ordinary course of providence, it was found to be contradicted at many points by experi- ence. Hence arose the most serious stumbling- block to the faith of OT believers — the inequalities, the seeming injustice, of God's providential deal- ings with men. This problem emerges in many forms (see Hab l-"*- 1^ Is 53, Mai 3"- •», Ps 37. 39. 49. 73, etc.), but nowhere is it treated with such
Senetration and such intensity of feeling as in the k. of Job. Job, a typically pious man, acknow- IwlgL'd to be such by the Almighty and the Satan, as well as by his fellow-men, is suddenly visited by a series of calamities which, on the current view of providence, could onlj- be explained as the punish- ment due to heinous sins. This view is upheld, in the discussion which ensues, bj' the three friends, and is partly shared by Job liimself. His mind is dominated by the thought of God as his adversary in a law.suit ; or rather his chief com- plaint is that the Almighty constitutes Himself both accuser and judge, while there is no umpire who can lay his hand upon them both (9 '-"■). He feels himself to be the victim of an accusation brought against him by an all-powerful antagonist ; and his contention is that the accusation is un- just— that he is in the right and God in the wrong in this unequal quarrel. This, of course, as the other disputants are quick to point out (8* 34" 36»37*'40"), is to impugn the judicial righteous- ness of God ; and such a position is to them simply inconceivable. ' How can a man be in the right against God?' they ask (4' 5'* 25*) ; and Job retorts with bitter irony, ' How indeed ! seeing He is th«
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Omnipotent against mIioiu there is no redress' (9-). Thus to the friemls tlie question at issue is tlie righteousness of Job, whicli they ultimately deny ; nhile to Job himself it is the righteousness of God in His providential dealings with men : 'he condemns God that he himself may be in the right' (40*, cf. 34'). Although he is forced to acknowledge that God has pronounced him guilty, he is nevertlieless perfectly sure of his own right- eousness (27'), by which he means in the first instance his 'just cause against God' (35-), his innocence of the unknown transgressions laid to his charge by his irresistible opponent. ' I am innocent — in the right' is his constant cry (9-"'' 13"* 34' etc. ). But behind this formal and purely forensic sense of righteousness there lies a deeper question, viz. What constitutes the righteousness of a man before God, or what entitles him to a sentence of justitication in the shape of temporal prosperity ? On that point there does not appear to be any fundamental diil'erence between Job and his friends. Righteousness means morality com- bined with piety — loyal and wholehearted obedi- ence to the will of God. Observance of the written Law is obviously excluded by the conditions of the poem ; but it is assumea that God's will is known, and that a man may so fulfil it as to be righteous. Job is a man perfect and upright, fearin" God and shunning evil (I'etc.). That his outer life had been morally correct was known to all the world ; what wat known to himself alone and God was that there had been no hypoc- risy or secret infidelity in his heart (29'-"'- 31'-'') ; his morality had been ins|iired by religion, by reverence, and perfect allegiance to his Creator. On that point the testimony of his conscience is c't-'ar and unwavering; and it is the undoubted teiiching of the book that this p'oa of Job's is valid, and that the real problem lies where Job's argument places it, in the mystery of the Divine government. We are not here concerned with the solution which the author intends to suggest, but it can hardly consist, as some have thought, in the undermining of Job's consciousness of innocence, and his being convicted of a subtle kind of sin in the shape of suif-righteousness. It is rather to be looked for in the remarkable distinction which the patriarch is led to draw between the God of Providence who condemns and persecutes hira, and the God to whom his heart bears witness, who is even now his friend, and must yet appear as his avenger, though it be after his death {16'»--' lO*"-"). Job 13 enabled in some degree to maintain his fellowship with God apart from outward tokens of His favour, sust.aincd only by the witness of his conscience, and the nascent hope of seeing Him as He is, in another state of being.