I would answer thee (see tho Revised Ver- oro.sh. There is also a remove.\ of rocks to sion). In that case, whon I quitted Hades, much grllater distnnces. by means of !{lC\eiers o.nd renewed my llfo, thou wouldst assuredly o.nd icebergs; but of these Job i~ not likely summon me to thee, o.nd I would respond to to have known. tho summons. There would be sweet col- Ver. HJ.-The waters wear the stones. loquy between us; for thou wilt (or, rather, The power of the soft element of water, by wouldest) have a desire to the work of thine continual washing or dripping, to wear hands (oomp. eh. x. B-11). Job assumes n way the hardest stone, has often been that God must lovo who.lever he has creC\tcd, noticed, and is n. frequent topic in poetry. ond be dro.wn towards it by o. secret, strong Deep ravines have been worn in course of desire. time, through broad and lofty monnfain Ver. 16.-For now thou numberest my ranges by rivers, the stone yielding little by steps; mther, but now. Job, at this point, little to the action of the water, until nt proceeds to contrast his actual condition Inst a broad chasm is made. So the con- with the ideal one which (in vers. 13-15) tinual wearing action of calamity often In.ye his imngination has conjured up. God's low the prosperous. Thou washest away tha actuo.l attitude towards him he regards o.s things which grow out of the dust of the one, not of protecting love, but of jealous earth; rn.ther, as in the Revised Version, hostility. His "steps" are observed, the overflowings thereof wash away the dust eounted-evory divergence from the right of the earth; i.e. "overflows of water, in- path is noted-a fa.lee step, if he makes one, undations, floods, not only make a way is at once punished. Dost thou not watch through rocks, but often carry off great over my sin 1 (comp. eh. x. 14). Job's sins, tracts of rich soil, hnrrying the alluvinm he thinks, a.re watched for, spied out, taken down to the sea, and leaving in its place a note of, e.nd remembered age.inst him. marsh or a waste." And thou destroyest the Ver. 17.-My transgression is see.led up hope of man. Even thus from time to time in a bag (comp. Dent. xxxii. 34); i.e. God does God ruin and destroy the hopes of a keeps account of e.11 my transgressions. It prosperons man. is as if he put them all into e. bag (compare Ver. 20.-Thou prevailest for ever against "Put my tee.re into thy bottle," Ps. lvi. 8), him, e.nd he passeth; rather, thou puttest whence they ce.n be taken out e.nd brought forth thy pO'Wer against him perpetually; i.e. age.inst me at e.ny moment. They a.re thou a.rt continually oppressing him, and "see.led up" in the bag for greater security. crushing him by afflictions; and the con- And thou sewest up mine iniquity. (So sequence is that "he passes;" i.e. •· he Ewald, Dillma.un, Canon Cook, e.nd the passes nway, disappears, ceases to be." Revised Version.) Others think the mean- Thou changest his countenanoe. " Al terest," ing to be, "Thou addest to my iniquity i.e., "its expres,ion from cheerfulness to [ oontinua.lly] ; " i.e. by placing fresh sins sadness, and its complexion from the hue of to my account. (So Schultens and Rosen- health to the sickly pallor of disease ; set test miiller.) . the stamp of death upon it, and further dis- Ver. 18.-And surely the mountain falling figurest it in the dreadful process of decay." cometh to nought. Job here resumes the And sendest him away. That is to say, lament over human infirmity, with which "Thou removest him from the earth, dis- the oho.pter opens (vers. 1-12); but he has, missest him to Sheol, where thenceforth he perhaps, in this passage, his own oose more remninsa" distinctly presented to hie consciousness. Ver. 21.-His sons oome to honour, and With the wealth of metaphor which cha- he knoweth it not. The me:i.ning seems to racterizes hie utter1mces, he compnres the be, " If his sons come to honour, it is of no ruin of e. prosperous me.n (I) to the sudden advantage to him; in the remote and collapse of a mountain ; (2) to the removal wholly separate region of Sheol he will not of o. rock out of its place ; (3) to the wee.r- be a.ware of it." Tbo view is more dismal ing away of stones by the constant flow of than that of Aristotle, who argues that the streams; and (4) to the destruction of allu- fa.to of those whom they have loved and vial tracts by floods. Mountains collapse, left on earth will be sure to penetrate, in either by volcanic agency, which is quite as course of time ( brl T<va xp6vov), to the de- r:auoh shown in the subsidence as in the parted, and ea.use them a certain amount of elevation of the soil, or by landslips, which joy or sorrow (' Eth. Nie.,' i. 11 ). And they are most usually the results of heC\VY mins. are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of And the rook is removed out of his plaoe. them. Equally, in the opposite case, if Rooke are sometimes split by frost, und top- hie sous aro brought low, he is ignorant of ple over when u thaw comes; at other times, it, und unaffected by their fate. heavy floods remove them from their uccus- Ver. 22.-But his fiesh upon him shall tomed plooe; occosionolly ea=thquakes over- have pain. The best rendering is probably turn them, and cause theJJ to fall with u that which is placoll in the margin of th~ 246 THE BOOK OF JOB. [oH, XIV, 1-22.
Revilled Ve1'8ion, only for himulf hu jf,e&h suffering nnder God's afflicting hand, either 1«tth pain, and for himself his ,oul mourneth. in this life or afterwards, He cannot bnt Not~ing more is intended than to negative be oocupied eolely with himself. Hie ol+n the idea that the future condition of his sufferings, whether of body or mind, will ab- ohildren will eeriowdy a:ffeot a man who ie sorb all hie attention.