THE exegetical principles which the author has applied in this exposition of the Book of Job require no preliminary statement to be made of them here. They continue t› be the same with those which we followed in our exposition of the Solomonic Scriptures, which has already made its appearance in this Series (Vol. X. of the Old Testament), and they rest on the fact, of which we are most firmly convinced, that both as to substance and time the book here treated of belongs to the Literature of Wisdom peculiar to the Solomonic age. That which we have already briefly set forth on this subject in the General Introduction to this group of writings (Vol. X., p. 14 seq.) has been confirmed to our mind by a more thorough examination of the poem as to its contents, form and purpose-except that we have again receded from the hypothesis there presented as an admissible one of its having originated in the age immediately following that of Solomon, and have declared ourselves more unqualifiedly than heretofore in favor of the opinion held at present by the majority of those commentators who believe in revelation, that the book proceeded immediately from the Solomonic epoch. For neither the arguments advanced by a number of critics of the liberal school in favor of the opinion that the book originated in the age of Manasseh, in the first half of the Seventh Century before Christ, nor those advanced by the latest commentator, A. MERX (Das Gedicht von Hiob; hebr. Text, kritisch bearbeitet und übersebzt, nebst sachlicher und kritischer Einleitung, Jena, Mauke, 1871, p. 41 seq.), in favor of the closely related hypothesis that it was composed about the year 700 B. C., in the time of Hezekiah, have been able to convince us. The many bold innovations in the line both of textual criticism and of exegetical and Biblical theology which the latter writer has sought in some instances to establish, in others at least to suggest, in respect to the composition, and the scientific treatment of the book, may be of service doubtless in stimulating and advancing the future exegesis of Job in some directions, and especially in the criticism of the text. In general, however, and on the whole, the views which have for years now prevailed in the various circles of commentators on our book, will receive no radical modification from these hypotheses of Merx's, least of all from any which are so thoroughly arbibrary as e. g. that which is advanced on p. 44, that ch. xxviii. contains a "concealed polemic" against the Old Testament doctrine of Wisdom (!), or the ingenious, but totally unfounded fancy (p. 100 seq.), that the two animal descriptions in the last discourse of Jehovah (ch. xl. 15—xli. 26 [34]) are to be regarded as being in a measure “Paralipomena to Job,” i. e. "rejected fragments which had been jotted down by the poet while engaged in the work of production." On this account we cannot indulge in excessive regret that the printing of this exposition having begun as far back as the middle of the present year, and having made slow progress in consequence of various hindrances, it has been practicable to refer to the book of Merx only in a few passages on the last sheets. It has been a cause of more serious regret that of the posthumous work of the sainted Hengstenberg-Das Buch Hiob erläutert (Berlin, Schlawitz, 1870)—a manual which is especially valuable for the purposes of practical and homiletic exposition, and which we might class with the most solid exegetical productions of the highly esteemed theologian of Berlin, we have been able to use for comparison only the first half, reaching, so far as the expository part is concerned, to the end of the 14th chapter. With the exception of these two helps, the latest which have appeared, and of some foreign com

mentaries, which we have been unable to procure, but the omission of which can scarcely be regarded as an important deficiency in the prosecution of our work, all the modern and latest exegetical literature on the subject has been consulted by us with due care, and that portion of it which is of special value has been examined and compared with the utmost possible thoroughness. At the same time we have not allowed this dependence on our predecessors to prejudice in any degree the independence of our own conclusions, as may be seen, e. g., in the position we have taken respecting the discourses of Elihu, which, notwithstanding the opposition of many moderns, we cannot otherwise than regard as an integral constituent of the poem according to its original construction.

May this work, of the deficiencies of which no one can be more sensible than we are, be not altogether barren of fruit as a contribution to the exposition and to the seasonable application of the oldest "Cross and Comfort-book" of God's people! May it be valued as to some degree a useful help in particular to that class of Scripture students who, while they do not blindly surrender themselves to certain traditional prejudices of the modern critical theology, labor with unfeigned zeal for the reconciliation of faith in the Bible revelation with the verified results of the scientific investigations of the day, especially into the questions which concern the history of religion and civilization!

GREIFSWALD. November, 1871.

DR. ZÖCKLER.

THE BOOK OF JOB.

INTRODUCTION.

1. NAME AND CONTENTS OF THE BOOK.

THE name which our Book has borne from antiquity, and without any variation whatever on the part of the sources by which it has been transmitted, is that of its principal hero -Job [Hebrew 1, Germ. Hiob, of which, however, Dr. Zöckler remarks that it less accurately represents the Heb. than the form Job (Ijob, Ijjob)]. This name is no free poetic invention of the author, but without doubt a proper name assigned to him by primitive tradition, the name of a particular person belonging to the history or the legend. The supposition that it was the product of poetic fiction on the part of the author is contradicted by the circumstance that the book nowhere contains any allusion to the signification of the name, notwithstanding that the religious and ethical tendency of the book, and especially its aim, which is rightly to explain and to justify the suffering which overtakes innocence, would have furnished abundant occasion for such allusions. It is to be sure a question how the name is to be etymologically explained; whether, with most expositors, ancient and modern, we form it after the Hebrew, in which case would seem to be a passive participle from (Ex. xxiii. 22), and to signify accordingly "the assailed, persecuted one," or with some of the moderns, we base it on the Arabic verb -, with the signification, "he who turns around, who repents, who returns to God." But whichever of these two significations, which are equally admissible, may be the original one, the poet would have had opportunity enough to introduce some reference to it if it had lain at all within his plan to make such allusions, or even if a moralizing nomenclature had belonged to the circle of his vision and to his individual poetic style. For in the other names of his book as well, whether of persons, or of countries, or of races, he abstains wholly from all such attempts at etymological characterization. Whence it is sufficiently apparent that the name of the hero, which has given name to the entire book, has its origin in a concrete historical tradition. The Theme and Contents of the book are briefly as follows:

Ch. i.-ii.: The Prologue, or the Historical Introduction to the poem. Job, an inhabitant of the land of Uz, noted for his piety, riches and position, being accused before God by Satan, is, in accordance with the divine decree, subjected to a severe trial. A series of sudden calamities robs him in a very short time of his possessions, his children, and his health, and in an instant plunges him, afflicted with the most terrible species of leprosy, elephantiasis, from the height of earthly prosperity into the deepest misery. He endures this visitation, however, with wonderful equanimity; and even when his wife, overcome by doubt, urges him to renounce God, he allows no blasphemous, nor even an impatient word to pass from his lips.-Three friends of Job, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, who come to visit him from sympathy, are so powerfully affected at the sight of his misery, that for seven days and nights they sit down with the sorely afflicted man in silence, without giving him a word of comfort.

Ch. iii.-xxxi.: The Dialogue, or the dialectic discussion of the problem. Job, having at last himself broken the long silence by a violent outburst, beginning with a curse on the day of his birth (Ch. iii.: Theme, or immediate occasion of the dialogue) there springs up

a long colloquy between him and his three visitors in respect to the question whether his suffering is unmerited, or whether it has come upon him as the just punishment of his sins. The friends maintain the latter; they defend the position that God never imposes suffering otherwise than by way of retribution for particular moral offenses and transgressions of His law; and they accordingly urge on the sorely afflicted man in a tone now of milder, now of more violent accusation, the necessity of knowing himself and turning to God in true penitence. Job, on the contrary, finds no connection whatever between his suffering and his guilt, declares himself to be conscious of no sin at all by which he could have incurred such calamity; he even goes so far as to utter violent, almost desperate accusations against God, in that he doubts His justice, and represents himself as innocently persecuted by Him. Presently, however, he rises to a state of greater calmness and composure, when, supported by the consciousness of his innocence, and at the same time humbly submitting himself beneath the inscrutable dispensations of the wise and just God, he declares his purpose faithfully and reverently to cleave to Him, while he none the less expresses his yearning hope for a manifestation of God, in which, as he distinctly anticipates, He will bring to light his innocence, and restore him out of his misery.-The colloquy runs through three series of discourses (Ch. iv.-xiv.; Ch. xv.-xxi.; Ch. xxii.-xxxi.), which exhibit in each successive stage a heightening of the conflict between the friends as his accusers, and Job as he replies to them one by one. Especially do the discourses in which Eliphaz arraigns Job, which open each new Act [or Series], indicate an advance in the direction of more and more direct assaults on the personal character of the sufferer, and stronger suspicions of his innocence. The discourses of Bildad and Zophar are in each instance shorter than those of Eliphaz. In the third series of discourses (Ch. xxii. seq.) Zophar no longer takes part in the colloquy; but Job, having forcibly repelled the assaults of Eliphaz and Bildad (Ch. xxiii., xxiv., and Ch. xxvi.-xxviii.), proceeds in a kind of appended monologue (Ch. xxix.-xxxi.), elaborately contrasting with an apologetic purpose his former and present condition, continually asserting his innocence in the most emphatic language, and expressing his firm confidence in the final interposition of God for his vindication; and thus he holds the field victorious over all the assaults of his adversaries.

Ch. xxxii.-xxxvii.: The discourses of Elihu, or the attempt to settle the controversy by means of human wisdom.-A fourth opponent of Job now makes his appearance, Elihu, inferior to the former three in age, but not in wisdom and eloquence. He seeks to show that Job in his vindication was guilty of great one-sidedness in totally repudiating any guilt on his part, and in casting doubt on God's justice by representing himself as cruelly tormented and persecuted without cause. He censures the polemic of the friends against Job as inadequate and inconsequential, recognizes him as the victor, who has reduced them to silence; but having done this, he controverts his right to utter accusations and doubts against God's justice, seeks to glorify this cardinal attribute of God by showing that He, moved not by anger, but by love, often decrees suffering for His human children with a view to chasten and purify them, and admonishes him to submit reverently and humbly under all dispensations of the Most High, whose wondrous power and majesty he most vividly describes and extols at the end of his discourse.

Ch. xxxviii.—xlii.: The Divine decision, or God's judgment in respect to the contending parties, together with the historical epilogue, or closing act. The exhibitions of one-sidedness, which characterize this attempt of a human arbiter to mediate in the controversy, serve to set forth in its proper light the appearance of God on the scene, the way for which has now been sufficiently prepared. Jehovah appears, and in a powerful discourse addressed to Job out of a storm shows (ch. xxxviii-xli.) that it is folly to doubt His wisdom and justice in ruling the destinies of men on earth, and for this reason, that to the man who utters such doubt not even the simplest, commonest processes in the external life of nature are clear and comprehensible, at the same time that in those processes those Divine attributes are supremely and most gloriously revealed. With this exposition, which is directed more especially against Job, is connected the condemnation of the three friends on account of their shortsighted, harsh, unfriendly view of the relation in which he stood to the Divine righteousness.