The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 57

• ,rind arises, we are told, "The eky in- Rction by their sorceries the great power of atantly becomes black and heavy ; the sun evil, symbolized in Oriental mythologies by loees its splendour, and appears or a dim a huge serpent, or dragon, or crocodile. .-iolet hne; a light, warm breeze is felt, On the whole, the second and d~pet senso which gntdnfl.lly incr8N!es in heat till it seems preferable; and we may conceive of almost equale thnt of an oven. Though no Job as believing in the power of sorcery, vapour darkens the air, it becomes 80 grey and. wishing it used against the night whioh and t.hick with the floating clouds of im- he so much dislikes. palpable sand, thl\t it is sometimes neccs- Ver. 9.-Let the stars of the twilight l!llry to use cnndles at noonday " (Russell, thereof be dark; i.e. "let not even the light 'Ancient and l\lodern Egypt,' p. 55). of a st11r illuminate the morning or ovening Ver. 6.-As for that night. The night, twilight of that night; let it be dark from that is, of Job's conception (see above, beginning to end, uncheered even by the ver. 3). Let darkness seize upon it. The ray of a star." Let it look for light, but Revised Version has thick da,·kness, but this have none. Again a personification. The ie unnecessary. Let it not be joined unto night is regarded o.s consciously wo.iting the daya of the year, Aocording to the in hope of the appearance of morning, but Massorites' pointing, we should translate, continuo.lly disappointed by the long linger- ...Let it not rejoioe among the days of the ing of the darkness. And let it not see the '988r;" and eo the Revised Version. But dawning of the day; rather, as in the margin many of the best critics prefer the pointing and in the Revised Version, let it not behold which is followed by the LXX. and by the eyelids of the morning (oompare Milton's King James's translators. The suooeeding 'Lycidas,' "Under the opening eyelids of clause strongly supports this interpretation. the morn," and Soph., 'Antigone,'"'ll xpucr- Let it not oome into the number of the crl11s l,.µlpa.s /311. ltf>a.pov), • month.a (comp. \'er. S, and the comment Ver. 10.-Beoause it shut not up the doors on it). Job wishes the day of his birth and of my mother's womb; ·literally, of my womb; the night of his conception to be utterly i.e. "of the womb which bnre me." By 11, blotted out from the calendar; but, aware stretch of imagination, the night is supposed that this is impossible, he subsides into 11, to have power to open or shut wombs, and is milder class of imprecations. blamed for not having shut up the womb in Ver. 7.-Lo, let that night be solitary; which Job was conceived. Nor hid sorrow or, sterile; "let no one be born in it." Let from mine eyes; i.e. "and did not so pre- Ill> joyful voioe oome therein; literally, no vent all the sorrows that have befallen me." «mg. Perhaps the meaning is, "Let no V~r.11.-WhydiedI not from-the womb I. auch joyful announcement be made," as that "From the womb" must mto.n, "as soon as mentioned in ver. 3. I came out of the womb," not" while I yet Ver. 8.-Let them curse it that curse the remained within it" (comp. Jer. xx. 17, clay. Very different explanations ue given "Because he slew me not frorn the womb"), of this passage. Some suppose it to mean, Many or the ancients thought tho.t it was "Let those deeperat.e men curse it who are best not to be born ; and next best, if one in the habit of cursing their day," like Job were born, to qnit the earth as soon as pos-y himself (eh. iii. I) and Jeremiah (xx. H). sible. Herodotus says that with the Trauri, Others suggest a reference to such as a tribe of Thraeians, it was· the custom, claimed power to curse days, and to divide whenever a child was born, for all its kindred them into the lucky and the unlueky. In to sit round it in a circle, and weep for the this c&ae Job would mean, "Let the sorcerers woes that it would have· to endure now that who curse days'. curse especially this day," it was cornc into the world; while, ·on .the and would thus seem, if not to sanction the other hand, whenever a person died, they practice, at any rate to express a certain buried him with laughter and rejoicings, amount of belief in the sorcerers' power. since they said that he was now free from a The second clause has also a double inter- host of sufferings, and enjoyed the com- pretation., which o.dapts it to either of these pletest happiness (Herod., v. 4). Sophocles two suggested meanings (mde infra). Who expresses the feeling with great terseness are read7 to raille up their mourning. and foree: M~ tf>uva., .,-011 l/.,ra.v:ra. v11tti 11.&-yo11· This is en impossible rendering. 'franslate .,-o 8', br,l tf>a.vff, ffijva, ,cii9,v /le,., .,,.,p i!"" (with the Revised Version), who are ready ,roll.u 8,6.... pov, C:.s 'T4X«T'Ta (•<Ed. Col.,' 1225- to ro!Llle wp IMrio.than. ".Rousing leviathan" 1228): "Not to be born is best of all; once may be nnde?Btood in two ways. It may be bom, next best it is by far to go back there regarded 1111 apoken in the literal sense of from whence one came as speedily as pos- those who are rash 'enough and deapera.te sible.'' Modern pessimism sums up all in enough to stir up the fury of the crooodile tbe phrase that " life is not worth livir:ig," (aee the comment on oh. rli. 1), or in a Why di4 I not give up the ghost wheJ\ I metaphorioal sense of weh as sti? up to came qut of the bel171 As 80 often, the OH, III, 1-26,] 'EBE •BOOK OF JOB. 51