The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 5

regard enot and complete symmetry as imperative, and will not sacrifice it to any other consideration. Zophar's silence at the close of eh. xxvi., like Bildad's short speech in eh. xxv., is probably intended to mark the exhaustion of Job's opponente in the controversy, and to prepare the way for their entire collapse at the end of eh. xxxi. Zophar's silence is sufficiently accounted for by his having nothing to say; if he had spoken, the place for his speech would have been between eh. xxvi. and xxvii., where evidently a. pause occurred, Job having waited for him to speak, if he were inclined to do so. As for the supposed facility with which speeches in a dramatic form might be transferred from one speaker to another by inadvertence-if the speeches were merely headed by a name, it would, no doubt, be possible; but not where they are introduced, as in the Book of Job, by a formal statement "Tµen answered Zophar the_ Naamathite, and said" (eh. xi. 1; xx. 1). Four consecutive words do not readily drop out; not to mention that, in tha case supposed, three more must have fallen out at the beginning of eh. xxviii. Moreover, the style of the disputed passage is entirely unlike that of Zophar'a two speeches. As for the marked contrast between the matter of the passage and Job's former utterances, it must be freely and fully admitted; but it. is sufficiently explained by the supposition that Job's previous utterances on the subject had been tentative and controversial, not the expression of his real sentiments, and that he would naturally wish to supplement what he had said, and correct what was faulty in it, before he brought his part in the controversy to a close ( eh. xxxi. 40, " The words of Job are ended"). As for the passage being a mere interpolation, it is enough to observe that no critical basis has been assigned for this view; and that a scholar so competent as Ewald remarks, in winding up his judg- ment upon the subject,1 "Only a grievous misunderstanding of the whole book would have misled the modern critics who hold that this passage is interpolated or misplaced." Another supposed "interpolation" is the passage commencing with ver. 15 of eh. xl. and terminating at the end of eh. xli. This has b.Jen regarded, first, as inferior to the rest of the book in style, and, secondly, as superfluous, not having any bearing upon the argument. The latter objection is cer- tainly strange, since the passage has exactly the same bearing upon. tha argument as the whole of eh. x.xxix., which is not objected to. The argu- ment from supposed difference of style-al ways a delicate one-is sufficiently met by the criticism of Renan, who says/ "Le style du fragment dont nous parlons est celui des meilleurs endroits du poeme. Nulle part la coupe n'est plus vigoureuse, le parallelisme plus sonore; tout indique que ce singulier morceau est de la meme main, mais non pas du meme jet, que le reste du, discours de Jehovah." But the principal attack upon the integrity of the Book of Job is directed against the long harangue of Elihu, which commences in eh. xxxii. (ver. 7), 1 Quotod by Canon Cook, iu the 'Speaker'& Commentary,' vol. iv. p. 7. 1 'Le Livre de Job,' p. 1,  :I JNTRODU(lTION TO -------------------- -- - ---- --- and does not terminate until the close of eh. xxxvii., thus occupying llix chapters, 11.nd forming nearly one-seventh of the entire treatise, It is urged here R,ga,in thR,t the difference of le.ngnage and style between these chapters and the l'est of the book indicates a totally distinct and much later aut,hor, while the tone of thought and the doctrinal views are also thought to be markedly different, and to suggest a comparatively late date. Further, it is maintained that the "long dissertation " adds nothing to "the progress of the argument," and "betrays not the faintest conception of the real cause of Job's sufferings.'' 1 It is thus otiose, superfluous, quite unworthy of the place which it occupies. Some critics have gone so far as to excise it. It is necessary to consider those arguments seriatim. (1) The difference of s~~~t~~dmitted; it is unquestionable, and allowed on all sideS:~e language is obscure and difficult, the Chaldaisms numerous, the transitions abrupt, the arguments rather indicated than worked out. But these characterii;tics may have been intentionally given to the speech by the author, who assigns to each of his interlocutors a marked individuality, and in Elib u introduces a young man, impetuous, rude of speech, full of thoughts which struggle for utterance, and embarrassed by the novelty of having to find words for them in the presence of persons superior to him in age and position. That the difference of style is not such as to necessarily indicate another author, may be concluded from the suggestion of ~ - a n !xcelJent judge of Hebrew sty le-that the passage was written by the author of the remainder of the book in his old age. (2) The tone of thought and the doctrinal views, though certainly in advance of those assigned to Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, cannot be truly said to surpass those of Job, though in some points additional to, and an improvement on, them. Job he.s really a deeper insight into Divine truth, and into the scheme of the universe, than Elihu, and his doctrine of a "Redeemer " ( eh. xix. 25) goes beyond that of the "angel-interpreter" of the Buzzite (eh. xxxiii. 23). (8) It may be true, as Mr. Fronde says, that Elihu's speech "betrays not the faintest conception of the real cause of Job's sufferings," 1 but this was inevitable, since none of the interlocutors on earth is supposed to have known anything of the antecedent colloquies iu heaven (eh. i. 7-12; ii. 2-6) ; but it is certa.inly very far from the truth to say that the speech "adds nothing to the progress of the argument." 8 Elihu brings forward and establishes the view only just indicated (eh. v.17, 18), and never dwelt; on, by any other interlocutor, that the afflictions wherewith God visits his servants are, in comparatively few cases, penal, being generally of the nature of chastisements, dealt out in love, and designed to be remedial, to check departures from the right path, to "keep back from the pit" ( eh. xxxiii, 18), to purify, refine, and bring about moral improvement. He opens the view, nowhere else put forward in the book, that life is a discipline, pros- perity and adversity being intended equally to serve as" instruction" (oh. 1 F'roude, 'Short Studies on Great Subjecta,' vol. i. p. 319, note. - • Ibid. 1 Ibid.  THm BOOK OF JOB. xl