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whatever sort. [As Dillmann observes, that or Ding of warlike invasions—still which is communicated by a direct revelation nothing could be deduced from the passage in from God does not need to be supported by the favor of the post-solomonic origin of our book: wisdom of antiquity]. comp. on ch. xii. 24.

Ver. 18. That which wise men declare without concealment from their fathers. -This verse, which is an expression of the object of D, coördinate with -, is added without i, because it is substantially identical with that which Eliphaz

:

זז

"had seen.

(so the ancient logically domi

:

66

is sub

3. Second Division: An admonitory didactic discourse on the retributive justice of God as exhibited in the fate of the ungodly: vers. 20-35. [ Now follows the doctrine of the wise men, which springs from a venerable primitive age, an age as yet undisturbed by any strange way thinking, as we should say), and is supported by of thinking (modern enlightenment and free Eliphaz's own experience.' Delitzsch. "It is not so much the fact that the evil-doer receives his punishment, in favor of which Eliphaz apthers, as rather the belief in it, consequently in a peals to the teaching handed down from the facertain degree the dogma of a moral order in the world." Wetzstein in Delitzsch].

inward discontent and the restless pain of an First Strophe: Vers. 20-24. Description of the earthly-minded and wicked man who defies God, and cares not for Him.

lence, as in ch. xxvii. 13; vi. 23; Ps. xxxvii. 35; Is. xiii. 11, etc.). The second member, in which DP is an [adverbial] accusative clause, and a relative clause depending upon it, resumes the temporal clause, "all the days of the wicked," which for the sake of emphasis stands at the beginning of the entire sentence. The LXX. renders differently: črn dè

belongs not to versions, and Luther) but to the nant verb 7, to which the joined as an adverbial qualification. To declare and not to hide" is equivalent to a single notion, "to declare without deception," precisely like John i. 20, dμohoyɛiv kaì ovк ȧyvětoval. Ver. 19. A more circumstantial description of DAN:-To whom alone the land was given (to inhabit), and through the midst of whom no stranger had forced his way. -[Zöckler takes the verb y here not in the Ver. 20. So long as the wicked liveth, sense of a chance sojourning in a land, or tra- (lit., all the days of the wicked) he suffereth veling through it, but in the sense of a forcible intrusion, war gedrungen; a national amalgama- torment (in, lit. he is writhing and twisttion resulting from invasion. The language willing, viz., from pain), and so many years as include a foreign admixture from whatever are reserved for the oppressor ["which acsource.-E.]. Seeing that denotes here cording to ver. 82, are not very many," Dillm.] with much more probability "the land" rather, tyrant, one who commits outrageous viothan "the earth" (and so again in ch. xxii. 8; xxx. 8), and that what is expressly spoken of is the non-intrusion of strangers (D), Schlottmann's view that the passage refers to the first patriarchs, the nobler primitive generations of mankind," who as yet inhabited the earth alone, is to be rejected. The reason why Eliphaz puts forward the purity of the generation of his forefathers as a guarantee of the sound-apμntà dedoμéva dvváσrn; and similarly Deness and credibility of their teachings is that "among the sons of the East' purity of race was from the earliest times considered as the sign of highest nobility" (Del.) ["The meaning is, I will give you the result of the observations of the golden age of the world, when our fathers dwelt alone, and it could not be pretended that they had been corrupted by foreign philosophy; and when in morals and in sentiment they were pure." Barnes. "Eliph.," says Umbr., "speaks here like a genuine Arab." The exclusiveness and dogmatic superciliousness which are to this day characteristic of Oriental nationalities are doubtless closely associated with the race-instinct which here finds expression. In proportion as a people, either from lack of courage, or from an effeminate love of luxury, or from a sordid love of gain prostrates itself to foreign influences, and carries the witness of its degradation in the impurity of its blood, it cannot, in the judgment of an oriental sage, produce, or transmit, pure and sound doctrine.-E.]. It is unnecessary herewith to assume that the age of Eliphaz, in contrast with the boasted age of the fathers, was a period of foreign domination, like the Assyrian-Chaldean period in the history of Israel (Ewald, Hirzell, Dillmann). Or granting that such a period is referred to-although we are under no necessity of understanding either

litzsch: "and a fixed number of years is reserved for the oppressor," a rendering however which gives a much flatter thought than our exposition. Against the rendering of the Targ., Pesh., and Vulg. [also E. V.] " and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor," it may be urged that in that case the reading must have been . [Not necessarily.— is often used as a sign of the dativus commodi or incommodi where we should expect .-E. g., Mic. ii. 4, where the removal of the nation's portion from it, is represented by the preposition, because of the injurious consequences to it. So here the hiding of the number of the oppressor's years from him is represented by, because of the misery this causes to him. On the other hand it may be said in favor of this construction that it is much simpler and stronger, that it introduces an additional thought, such as the change of y for y might lead us to expect (Del.), and that it is in entire harmony with the context. The central thought of the passage, the essential element of the oppressor's misery is apprehension, anxiety, the premonition of his doom. How the darkness of this feature

Ver. 21 seq., describe more in detail the restless pain of soul, or the continual of the wicked. [It is doubtful whether the follow-156, b) is correctly given on the whole by the ing description is to be limited to the evil-doer's Pesh. and Vulg., although not quite exactly by anxiety of spirit, or whether it includes the realization of his fears in the events of his life. it better by "the round of conflict, the circling proelium. The Rabbis, Böttch., Del., etc, render On the whole Delitzsch decides, and apparently of an army" ["the conflict which moves round with reason, that as the real crisis is not intro- about, like tumult of battle," Del.]; but Dillduced until further on, and is then fully demann best of all, after the Arabic 17 by "onscribed, the language in vers. 21-24 is to be unset, storming, rush of battle;" for this is the derstood subjectively.-E.]. only meaning that is well suited to Tлу, paratus ad, as well as to the principal subject

,נָכוֹן) . .lit לֹא יִשְׁבוּ לָמוֹ | here not of external, but of internal צַר וּמְצוּקָה

=

habitanda) which are destined for ruins.—cordance with the interpretation now prevalent We are to think of an insolent, sacrilegious, of p hap, (with the suffix D-) from a mocking, avaricious tyrant, who fixes his resi= : Arab. dence-whether it be his pleasure-house, or his root (which is not to be met with), fortified castle-in what is and should remain nal, "to attain, to acquire," and so used in the according to popular superstition, an accursed sense of quæstum, lucrum (comp. the post-biblical and solitary place, among the ruins, it may be, i, pauwvas). A possession "bowing down to of an accursed city; Deut. xiii. 13-19; comp. the earth" is e. g. a full-eared field of grain, a Josh. vi. 26; 1 Kings xvi. 34; also what is refruit-laden tree, a load of grain weighing down ported by Wetzstein (in Delitzsch I. 267 n.) conthat in which it is borne, etc. In view of the cerning such doomed cities among modern ori- fact that all the ancient versions present other entals. Hirzel altogether too exclusively takes

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66

and he does not bow * וְלֹא יִטֶה לָאָרֶץ שִׁבָּלִים

the reference to be to a city cursed in accord-readings than Dhip—e. g., LXX. : Dhy [adopted ance with the law in Deut. (l. c.)—against which by Merx]; Vulg. Dx, radicem suam: Pesh. Löwenthal and Delitzsch observe quite correctly that what is spoken of here is not the rebuilding, words; Targ., etc.—the attempts forbidden in that law, but only the inhabiting of of several moderns to amend the text may to such ruins Possibly the poet may have had in some extent be justified. Not one of these howmind certain particular occurrences, views, or ever, yields a result that is altogether satisfaccustoms, of which we have no further knowledge. Perhaps we may even suppose some such widely- tory, neither Hupfeld's (non extendet in spread superstition as that of the Romans in re- terra caulam), nor Olshausen's ("their lation to the bidentalia to be intended. [Noyes, sickle does not sink to the earth "), nor BöttchBarnes, Renan, Rodwell, etc., introduce ver. 28 with "therefore," making it the consequence of er's ("their fullness"), nor Dillmann's what goes before. -Because of his pride and self-indulgence, the sinner will be driven out to dwell among ruins and desolations. To this view there are the following objections. (1) It deprives the language of the terrible force which belongs to it according to the interpretation given above. (2) It leaves the description of the sin referred to in ver. 27 singularly incomplete and weak. This would be especially noticeable after the climactic energy of the description of the sin previously referred to in vers. 25, 26. Having seen the thought in ver. 25 carried to such a striking climax in ver. 26, we naturally expect to find the thought suggested rather than expressed in ver. 27 carried to a similar climax in ver. 28. (3) After dooming the sinner to dwell an exile among "stone-heaps," (D), it seems a little flat to add, "he shall not be rich," if the former circumstance, like the latter, is a part of the penalty.-E.].

Vers. 29, 30. The apodosis: (Therefore) he does not become rich (los. xii. 9 [8]), and his wealth endures not (has no stability, comp. 1 Sam. xiii. 14), and their possessions (i. e., the possessions of such people) bow not down to the earth.-This rendering is in ac

"As no one ventures to pronounce the name of Satan because God has cursed him (Gen. iii. 14), without adding 'alah el-la'ne. 'God's curse upon him!' so a man may not presume to inhabit places which God has appointed to desolation. Such villages and cities, which, according to tradition have perished and been frequently overthrown by the visitation of Divine judgment, are not uncommon on the border of the desert. They use places, it is said, where the primary commandments of the religion of Abraham (Din Ibrahim) have been impiously transgressed. Thus the city of Babylon will never be col nized by a Semitic tribe, because they hold the bel of that it has been destroyed en account of Nimrod's apostasy from God, and his hostility to His favored one Abra

ham. The tradition which has even been transferred by the tribes of Arabia Petræa into Islamism of the d solation of the city of Higr (or Medain Salih) on account of disobedience to God, prevents sny one from dwelling in that remarkable city, which consists of thousands of dwellings cut in the rock, some of whh are richly ornamented; without looking round, and muttering prayers, the desert ranger hurries through, even as does the great procession of pilgrims to Mekka, from fear of incurring the punishment of God by the lightest delay in the accursed city."

down ears of corn to the earth." [Carey suggests that there may be a transposition here, and that instead of Dh we should read D from root to cut ;" the translation then being: "neither shall the cutting (or offset) of such extend in the earth." The verbal root found only in Isa. xxxiii. 1 (7, Hiph. Inf. with Dagh. dirimens for

seems to signify

perficere, to finish; hence E. V. here renders the noun "perfection." Bernard likewise "accomplishment, achievements." For the meaning "to spread, extend," is preferred by Good, Lee, Noyes, Umbreit, Renan, Con., Rodwell, etc. (E. V., "prolong"). The preposition

however suits better the definition "to bow down," ," which on the whole is to be preferred. -E.]

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Ver. 30. He does not escape out of the darkness (of calamity, ver 22); a fiery heat [lit, a flame] withereth his shoots, and he passes away (D" forming a paronomasia with the of the first member) by the blast of His [God's] mouth; comp. ch. iv. 9. In the second member the figure of a plant, so frequent throughout our book previously used also by Eliphaz (comp. ch. v. 3, 25 seq.) [and already suggested here according to the above interpretation of 29 b], again makes its appearance, being used in a way very similar to ch. viii. 16 seq.; comp. also ch. xiv. 7. The parching heat here spoken of may be either that of the sun, or of a hot wind (as in Gen. xli. 6: Ps. xi 6).

Third Strophe: Vers. 31-35. Describing more in detail the end of the wicked, showing that his prosperity is fleeting, and only in appearance, and that its destruction is inevitable.

Ver. 31. Let him not trust in vanity-he is deceived (n), Niph. Perf. with reflexive sense: lit. he has deceived himself) [Renan:

A re

Insensé!] for vanity shall be his possession | maging" (Dņ as in Lam. ii. 6; Prov. viii. 36, [; Ges., Fürst., Con., etc., like E. V. "re- etc.), proceeds from the wicked himself. compense:" Delitzsch: "not compensatio," but ference to the process of cutting off the sour permutatio, acquisitio; and so Ewald and Zöckler grape for the manufacture of vinegar (Wetzstein, -Eintausch, exchange]. N, written the first Delitzsch) is altogether too remote here. In retime, is used here essentially in the same gard to the variety of figures here derived from the vegetable kingdom, comp. further Ps. xcii. sense as in ch. vii. 3, and hence delusion, va- 13 (12) seq.; Hos. xiv. 6 seq.; Sir. xxiv.; and nity, evil. In the first instance the sense of emp; in general my Theol. Naturalis, p. 218 seq. tiness, deception predominates, in the second that of calamity (the evil consequences of trusting in vanity). For the sentiment comp. ch. iv. 8; Hos. viii. 8; and the New Testament passages which speak of sowing and reaping; Gal. vi. 7 seq.; 2 Cor. ix. 6.

Ver. 32. While his day is not yet (lit. "in his not-day," i. e., before his appointed time has yet run its course; comp. ch. x. 22; xii. 24), it is fulfilled, viz., the evil that is to be exchanged, it passes to its fulfillment; or also: the exchange fulfills itself, referring back immediately to in, ver. 31,-so Hirzel, Dillmann. And his palm-branch (7 as in Isa. ix. 13; xix. 15) is no longer green, is dry, withered. The whole man is here represented as a palm-tree, but not green and flourishing, as in Ps. xcii. 13 (12), but as decaying with dried up branches by which branches we are not to understand particularly his children, especially seeing that only one is mentioned instead of several.

Ver. 33. He loses [or shakes off] like a vine his grapes (lit., his unripe grapes;

oupas, late or unripe grape; comp. Isa. xviii. 5; Jer. xxxi. 29; Ezek. xviii. 2) and casts down, like an olive, his blossoms, i. e., without seeing fruit, this, as is well-known, being the case with the olive every other year, for only in each second year does it bear olives in anything like abundance; comp. Wetzstein in Delitzsch [I. 272 n. "In order to appreciate the point of the comparison, it is needful to know that the Syrian olive-tree bears fruit plentifully the first, third, and fifth years, but rests during the second, fourth, and sixth. It blossoms in these years also, but the blossoms fall off almost entirely without any berries being formed." Add the following from Thomson's Land and the Book: "The olive is the most prodigal of all fruit-bearing trees in flowers. It literally bends under the load of them. But then not one in a hundred comes to maturity. The tree casts them off by millions, as if they were of no more value than flakes of snow, which they closely resemble. So it will be with those who put their trust in vanity. Cast off they melt away, and no one takes the trouble to ask after such empty, useless things, etc." I. 72]. The verb D in a is variously rendered by commentators; e. g., "broken [man bricht, impersonal] as from a vine are his unripe grapes," Schlott.; or: "He (God) tears off as of a vine his young grapes" (Del., Hahn); or: "he (the wicked) wrongs as a vine his unripe grapes" (Hupfeld). The rendering given above (Ewald, Hirzel, Dillmann) [E. V., Con., Noy., Carey, Ren., Rod.]. etc.), is favored by the parallelism of the second member, which shows that the "injuring, da

:

Ver. 34. For the company of the profligate is barren.- as in ch. viii. 13; xiii. 16 7 (ch. iii. 7) is here and in ch. xxx. 3 used as a substant. in the sense of "stark death" (LXX. vávaToç), barrenness, hard rock, comp. Matth. xiii. 5; and signifies here not indeed specially the family, as in ch. xvi. 7, but still the family circle, the kinsfolk, tribe, or clan. -And fire devours the tents of bribery: i. e., the fire of the Divine sentence (comp. ch. i. 16) consumes the tents built up by bribery, or the tents of those who take bribes (oikovę dwpoδεκτών, LXX.).

Ver. 35. They (the profligate, for in ver. 34 was collective) conceive (are pregnant with) misery, and bring forth calamity.—

T

and py, synonyms, as in ch. iv. 8; comp. the parallel passages Ps. vii. 15 (14); Isa. xxxiii. 11; lix. 4. The Infinitives absolute in a, which are put first for emphasis, are followed in b by the finite verb: and their body prepares deceit, i. e., their pregnant womb (not their "inward part," as Del. renders it) matures deceit, ripens falsehood, viz., for themselves; comp. ver. 31. For 2, to prepare, to adjust, comp. ch. xxvii. 17; xxxviii. 41; for D, "deception," Gen. xxvii. 35; xxxiv. 13; Mic. vi. 11; Prov. xi. 1, etc.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. Job's persistence in holding what the friends assume to be a delusion, and especially in maintaining an attitude of presumptuous defiance towards God, compels them to enter on a new circle of the discussion with him. This is opened by Eliphaz in the new arraignment of Job before us. In respect of doctrinal contents this discourse exhibits little or nothing that is new, as indeed is the case generally with what the friends produce from this point on. It revolves, as well as that which Bildad and Zophar say in the sequel, altogether about the old thesis, that Job's sufferings have a penal significance. The speakers assume that to have been sufficiently demonstrated by what they have said before, and secordingly do not undertake to prove it further to him, but being themselves unqualifiedly right, they imagine that they have only to warn and threaten and upbraid him in a tone of the harshest reproof. The fact that Job had spoken excitedly, daringly, and inconsiderately against God, is, to their minds, transparent proof, which needs no further confirmation, of the correctness of their coarse syllogism: "All suffering is the penalty of sin; Job suffers severely; therefore, Job is a great sinner." And so assuming him to be impenitent, and hardened in presumption, they break out all the more violently against

him, with the purpose not of instructing him | of the prosperity of the penitent and righteous more thoroughly, but of more sharply blaming and chastising him. The consequence is that these later discourses of the friends become more and more meagre in their doctrinal and ethical contents, and abound more and more in controversial sharpness and polemic bitterness. They give evidence of a temper which has been aroused to more aggressive vehemence towards Job, aiming at his conversion as one laboring under a delusion, and, at the same time, of increasing monotonousness and unproductiveness in the development of their peculiar views, their fundamental dogma remaining substantially unchanged throughout.

gross injustice, and is an abortive attack which recoils on the accuser himself with destructive effect, besides depriving the whole description of its full moral value, and even detracting from

man with which the first discourse of Eliphaz closes (chap. v. 17-27). The contrast between the two descriptions, which are related to each other like the serene, bright and laughing day and the gloomy night, is in many respects suggestive and noteworthy; but it is not to the speaker's advantage. In the former case, in painting that bright picture, he may be viewed as a prophet, unconsciously predicting that which was at last actually to come to pass according to God's decree. But here, in painting this gloomy night scene, which is purposely designed as a mirror by the contemplation of which Job might be alarmed, this tendency to prophesy evil shows 2. Of these arraignments belonging to the se- him to be decidedly entangled in error. Indeed cond act (or stage) of the discussion, and having the point where this warning culminates, to wit, as just stated a polemic far more than a doctrinal the charge of self-deception and of hypocritical significance, the preceding discourse by Eliphaz lying, which having been first introduced in ver. is the first, and, at the same time, the fullest in 5 seq., is repeated in the criminating wordmatter, and the most original. Its fundamental at the close (ver. 35), involves in itself proposition (vers. 14, 15) is indeed nothing else than a repetition of that which the same speaker had previously propounded to Job as truth received by him through a divine revelation (chap. iv. 12 seq.). Here, however, by the parallel jux-its poetic beauty. taposition of "the heavens" with "the angels," 3. None the less, however, does the Sage of there is introduced into the description an ele- Teman, even when in error, remain a teacher of ment which is, in part at least, new, and not un- real wisdom, who has at his disposal genuine interesting (comp. the exegetical remarks on Chokmah material, however he may pervert its ver. 15). The application of the thesis to Job's application in detail. This same gloomy case is thereby made much more direct, wound-picture with which the discourse before us ing him much more sharply and relentlessly than closes, although it fails as to its special occasion before, as ver. 16 shows, where the harsh, "hi-and tendency, contains much that is worth pondeous" (Oetinger) description which El. gives of the corruption of the natural man, is unmistakably aimed at Job himself, as the genuine example of a hardened sinner. It will be seen from the extract from Seb. Schmidt in the homiletical remarks (see on ver. 2 seq.) how the harshness of the charges preferred against Job in the first division (especially in vers. 2-13) reaches the extreme point of merciless severity, and how, along with some censures which are certainly merited (as, e. g., that he braves God, speaks proud words, despises mild words of comfort and admonition, etc.) there is much thrown in that is unjust and untrue, especially the charge that he "chose the speech of the crafty," and hence that he dealt in the deceitful subtleties and falsehoods of an advocate. The discourse, however, presents much that is better, that is objectively more true and valuable, and more creditable to the speaker. Here we must reckon the whole of the second division (vers. 20-35). Here we have a picture indisputably rich in poetic beauties, and in powerful and impressive passages, harmoniously complete in itself withal, and easily detached from its surroundings, the picture of a wicked man, inwardly tormented by the pangs of an evil conscience, who after that he has for a long time enjoyed his apparent prosperity, at last succumbs to the combined power of the torments within, and of God's sentence without, and so comes to a horrible end. This passage-which reminds us of similar striking descriptions elsewhere of the foolish conduct of the ungodly and its merited retribution (as, e. g., Ps. i.; xxxv.; lii.; Prov. i. 18 seq.; iv. 14 seq.; v. 1 seq.)-forms an interesting counterpart to the magnificent picture

dering. It is brilliantly distinguished by rare truth of nature and conformity to experience in its descriptions, whether it treats of the inward torment and distress of conscience of the wicked

(ver. 20 seq.), or of the cheerless and desperate issue of his life (ver. 29 seq.),-the latter description being particularly remarkable for the profound truth and the beauty of the figures introduced with such effective variety from the vegetable kingdom (see on ver. 33). But even in the first division there is not a little that is interesting and stimulating to profound reflection. This is especially true of ver. 7 seq., with its censure of Job's conceit of superiority on the ground of his wisdom-a passage the significance of which is attested both by the recurrence of one of its characteristic turns of expression (ver. 2) in the Solomonic Book of Proverbs, and of another in Jehovah's address to Job (chap. xxxviii. 3 seq.).

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

Ver. 2 seq. SEB. SCHMIDT: He brings against Job the grave accusation of swelling up, as it were with the conceit of too great wisdom, and hence of sinning in more ways than one; thus he would convict him: (1) of vanity; (2) of causing scandal, and of encouraging men to neglect the fear of God-nay more, to fall into atheism; (3) of presumption, or of the conceit of too great wisdom; (4) of contempt for the word of God; (5) of proud anger against God.

WOHLFARTH: The reproaches which we bring against others are often only witnesses to our own guilt!