DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL.

1. The history of the interpretation of vers. 25-27, the passage of greatest theological importance in this chapter, exhibits three principal views of the meaning. Of these the two oldest rest on the texts of the ancient versions, and particularly of the LXX. and Vulg., which are more or less erroneous, and yield results which are one-sided and partially perverted. It is only the latest of these which, resting on the original text, avoids these one-sided results and sets forth the poet's thought with unprejudiced objectivity.

a. A rigidly orthodox, or if the phrase be preferred, an ultra-orthodox (ultra-eschatological) view, which can be traced back into the earliest periods of the church, assumes that the passage last day. This assumption rests on the renderpredicts a resuscitation of the body by Christ on the ing of ver. 25 b, and ver. 26 a by the LXX., partly indeed also on the Targum, but more especially on the rendering of the passage in the Vulgate-a rendering which flows out of the older version, and which pushes still further its misinterpretation. The LXX presents a version of the words which for the most part indeed is opposed, rather than otherwise, to the eschatological view, which limits Job's expectations to the present earthly life, which in fact almost wholly precludes the reference to the future. But the words beginning with D'P', ver 25 b, (instead of which it read D'p), and ending with

"for wrath, i. e. something to be dreaded, are prevails more and more, until at last it remains the punishments of the sword," for Milly can supreme and alone." Ewald.] scarcely be taken in the sense of punishments, chastisements; even in Ps. xxxi. 11; xxxviii. 5; Lam. iv. 6, ¡y signifies not so much punishment, as rather evil-doing, sin together with its mischievous consequences. The above interpretation is not, it is true, altogether satisfactory; nevertheless, if we should attempt to amend the passage, it would be better to introduce a before y, than either to change Пn to Пn (Gesenius: "for such, i. e. such transgressions as yours, are crimes of the sword) or to introduce the constr. state before , which is the construction given by the Pesh. and Vulg., the latter of which reads: quoniam ultor iniquitatum gladius est. A difficulty is also presented in the word (K'thibh) or ja (K`ri) at the end of the last member, occasioned by the fact that does not elsewhere occur in the Book of Job, as also by the fact that the rendering of the LXX.—TOV ČσTIV avrov i vin (or according to the Cod. Alex. ör oνðaμov avτāv i ioxic ori) probably points to another text in the original. The above rendering, however: "that ye may know that there is a judgment," is in general accord with the context, and corresponds well to the meaning of these closing verses. It is not necessary with Heiligst., Dillmann, Ewald (2d Ed), to read : "that ye may know the Almighty;" nor (which is moreover linguistically inadmissible) to regard as a variation of (Eichhorn, Hahn, Ewald, 1st Ed.), which would yield the same meaning. [" has everywhere else the signification judicium, e. g. by Elihu, ch. xxxvi. 17; and also often in the Book of Proverbs, e. g. ch. xx. 8 (comp. in the Arabizing supplement, ch. xxxi 8). The final judgment is in Aramaic 77; the last day in Heb. and Arabic, Oi, jaum ed-din. To give to 1, "that (there is) a judgment," this dogmatically definite meaning, is indeed, from its connection with the historical recognition of the plan of redemption, inadmissible; but there is nothing against understanding the conclusion of Job's speech according to the conclusion of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which belongs to the same age of literature." Delitzsch.]

T

[Thus does this lofty tragical discourse combine in itself the deepest humiliation and depression with the highest Divine elevation, the most utter despair with the most animated overflowing hope and the most blissful certainty. Not only does it occupy the lofty centre of the human controversy and of the whole action, but it also causes the first real and decisive revolution in Job's favor, because in it Job's two ruling thoughts and tendencies, the unbelief springing from superstition, and the higher genuine faith just forming itself come into such sharp and happy contact that the latter rushes forth out of its insignificance with irresistible might, and although the discord is not as yet harmonized, from this time on it maintains itself, gradually

N, ver. 26 a, which it combines together so as to form one sentence, it renders thus: ávaoriOEL dé μov тò σwua tò ávaνтhový μoi tavra (Cod. Alex.: ἀναστῆσαι μου According to this rendering a future resuscitaτὸ δέρμα μου τὸ ἀναντλοῦν ταῦτα). tion after death of the sorely afflicted body of Job is as distinctly as possible expressed. The TarI know that my Redeemer lives," and heregumist expresses essentially the same meaning: after my redemption will arise (i. e. be made, actual. become a reality) over the dust, and after that my skin is again made whole (or

according to another reading "is swollen up") this will happen, and out of my flesh shall I behold God. On the basis of these interpretations, which were rooted in the hopes of a resurrection cherished by the Jews after the exile, and especially on the basis of the former [that of the LXX. ], Clemens Romanus (1 Cor. 26), Origen (Comm. in Matth. xxii. 23 seq.), Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. XVIII.), Ephraen, Epiphanius (Orat. Ancorat), and other fathers before Jerome, found in the passages a proof of the church doctrine of the ἀνάστασις τῆς σαρκός. Still more definitely and completely did the passage acquire the character of a Scriptural proof of this doctrine from Jerome, as the author of the authorized Latin translation, which was adopted by the Western Church during the Middle Ages, as well as by the Catholic Church of recent times. While the predecessor of his work, the Itala, had somewhat indefinitely expressed a meaning approximating that of the LXX. (“super terram resurget cutis mea," etc.), the Vulgate

נקף

=

קיף

rendering of

as neque ego alius (“and truly I not as another, I as unchanged "), or understand the appearing of the Redeemer on the dust" as having for its object the quickening of the dead, and hence as referring to the Second Advent of Christ, or find denoted in the glorified flesh of the resurrection body, or adopt other explanations of a like character (against which see above in the Exegetical and Critical Remarks).

b. A one-sided anti-eschatological view which limits the object of Job's hope and longing wholly to this life, which may also be called the skeptical or hypercritical rationalistic view has for its precursors in the Ancient Church Chrysostom, John of Damascus, and other fathers of the Oriental Church. By an allegorizing interpretation of the language of the LXX. avaorhoet de μov TÒ oua rò avavrhovν μo тavra, these writers refine away the eschatological meaning which undoubtedly belongs to the passage as pointing to the hereafter, and refer it to the removal of his disease which Job hoped for, and the rehabilitation of his disfigured body; and they saw that the phraseology of the Septuagint in the remaining verses of the passage favored this interpretation. Most of the Jewish Exegetes during the Middle Ages adhered to their view so far as the principle was concerned, the principle, to wit, of excluding from the passage any messianic and eschatological application while in respect to many of the details they hit upon novel expedients, which were in part of a most wonderful and arbitrary character. The more freely inclined theologians of the Reformed Churches also, such as Mercier, Grotius, Le Clerc, substantially adopted this view. After Literatur I. 3, 1787) it acquired even a tempothe time of Eichhorn (Allg. Biblioth der Bibl.

set aside the last remnant of a possibility that | and quite recently the Catholic Welte, think that the passage should be understood of a restitution notwithstanding the various amendments which or a restoration of Job in this life. This it did following the original text they make to the verby introducing into the text of vers. 25 and 26 sion of the Vulg., or in a measure to that of Luthree inaccuracies of the most glaring sort. For ther, the passage must still be held to teach, at Dap (or D'p) it substituted without more ado least in general, the Church doctrine of the reDIP, surrecturus sum; it rendered, in no-surrection, in that they favor the inadmissible vissimo die! and rendering p as Niphal of "to surround, to circle," it gave to it no less arbitrarily the meaning of circumdabor, so that the whole passage is made to read thus: ver. 25: “scio enim, quod redemptor meus vivit et in novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum; ver. 26: et rursum circumdabor pelle mea et in carne mea videbo Deum meum; ver. 27: quem visurus sum ego ipse et oculi mei conspecturi sunt et non alius; reposita est hæc spes mea in sinu meo."-This interpretation, which was emphatically approved and recommended by Augustine (De Civ. Dei XXII., 29), held its ground through the Middle Ages among all Christian expositors, and all the more necessarily that a revision of the same after the Hebrew could not be undertaken by any one of them. Neither does Luther's translation-"But I know that my Redeemer liveth. and He will hereafter raise [or quicken] me out of the earth, and I shall thereupon be surrounded with this my skin, and shall see God in my flesh"-break through the spell of this doctrinally prejudiced interpretation; and just as little as Luther do the distinguished Reformed translators of the Bible, e. g., Leo Juda, Joh. Piscator, the authors of the English Version, etc., exhibit any substantial departure from the meaning or phraseology of the Vulgate. Thus the rendering under consideration succeeded in acquiring the most important influence even in the evangelical theological tradition. It came to be cited in Church symbols (e. g., Form Conc. Epit., p. 375 R.) [Westminster Conf. of Faith XXXII. 2], catechisms and doctrinal manuals as a cardinal proof-text for the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and occasionally even for the divinity of Christ (on account of the of ver. 26). It became a leading theme of sacred poets (e. g., of Louisa Henrietta v. Brandenburg, who wrote "Jesus, meine Zuversicht" [Jesus, my Trust], of P.rary ascendency over the opposite opinions, and Gerhard, the author of "Ich weiss dass mein Erloser lebt" [of Charles Wesley: "I know that my Redeemer lives"]), and in general it has received the most manifold application alike in the domain of speculative theology, and in that of practical and ascetic piety. Even such thorough exegetes as Cocceius, Seb. Schmidt, Starke, while in subordinate details occasionally departing from the traditional ecclesiastical version, advocate strenuously the direct christological and eschatological reference of the passage (comp. also Jablonsky, De Redemptore stante super pulverem, Francof. ad V. 1772: Gude and Rambach: De Jobo Christi incarnationis vate, Halæ 1730, etc.). A number even of able Orientalists, and independent Hebrew scholars since the last century, such as Schultens, J. H. and J. D. Michaelis, Velthusen, Rosenmüller. Rosengarten, the English writers Mason, Good, Hales, J. Pye Smith [Scott, Lee, Carey, Wordsworth],*

[Among other prominent English theological writers

that not only with commentators of rationalistic tendencies, such as Justi, v. Cölln, Knobel, Hirzel, Stickel, etc., but even with supra-naturalists, such as Dathe, Döderlein, Baumgarten-Crusius, Knapp, Augusti, Umbreit, and even with Hahn, strictly orthodox as he is elsewhere (De spe imhis Comm. on the passage), with v. Hofmann mortalitatis sub V. T. gradatim exculta, 1845, and (concerning whose peculiar rendering of p see above on ver. 26), with the English theologians Wemyss, Stuart, Barnes [Warburton, Divine Legation, Book VI., Sec. 2; Patrick, Kennicott, Noyes, Rodwell; to whom may be added Elzas and Bernard], and others. Almost all the advocates of this view agree in holding who interpret the passage of Christ and the final resurrection, may be ment oned Owen, Vol. XII., Stand. Lib, of Brit, Divines, p 508 seq.; Bp. Andrews' Sermons, Vol II., p. 251 seq. in Lab of Ang.-Cath. Theol.; Bp. sherlock, Works 1830, Vol. II, p. 167 seq.; John Newton, Works, Vol. IV., p. 435 seq.; Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art. X.; Dr. W. H. Mill, Lent Sermons, Cambridge, 1845; Dr. W. L. Alexander, Connec. and Harm. of O. and N. Tests., p. 153 seq.-E.]

that in ver. 25 seq. Job, having just before expressed the wish that he might see his protestation of innocence perpetuated, utters his conviction that such a perpetuation for posterity would not be necessary, that he himself would yet live to see the restoration of his honor and of his health, and that even though he should waste away to a most pitiful skeleton, he would be made to rejoice by the appearance of God to benefit him and none others.

c. An intermediate view, or one exhibiting a moderate eschatology, which resting on the most exact philological and impartial treatment of the original text, avoids the one-sided conclusions of the two older interpretations, has been advanced and defended by Ewald (Die Dichter des Alten Bundes, 1st Ed., Vol. III., 1836), and substantially adopted by Vaihinger, Schlottman, v. Gerlach, Hupfeld (Deutsche Zeitschrift, 1850, No. 35 seq.). Oehler (Grundzüge der alt-testamentlichen Weisheit, 1854), König (Die Unsterblichkeitsidee in B. Job, 1855, Hoelemann (Sächs. Kirchen-, und Schulbl. 1853, No. 48 seq.), Del. (Art. Job in Herzog's Real-Encycl., and in his Commentary), Dillmann, Davidson (Introduction II. 224 seq.) [Conant, Canon Cook in Smith's Bib. Dict. Art. "Job;" MacClintock & Strong's Cyclop. Art. "Job"], and even by the Jewish expositors Arnheim and Löwenthal. According to the unanimous opinion of these investigators, Job here expresses the hope, not indeed of a bodily resuscitation from death, but neverthe less of a future beholding of God in a spiritual glorified state. It is not the hope of a resurrection; it is, however, the hope of immortality, to which he is here lifted up, and that too with great clearness and the most vivid definiteness, above the ordinary popular conception of the ancient Israelites, as it has been previously declared even by himself.

are by no means wanting in preparatory intimations of a clear and well-defined hope in future retribution and a blessed immortality: see especially ch. xiv. 18–15, and ch. xvi. 18–21.

c. Nor finally can the fact that neither by Job's friends, nor in the historical issue of the colloquy in the Epilogue is there any direct reference made to this expression of Job's hope of immortality, be urged against our interpretation; for "it is a general characteristic of all the discourses of the friends, that they-spellbound as they are within the circle of their external, legal views-scarcely enter at all in detail upon the contents of Job's discourses; and in ch. xxxviii. seq. God does not undertake the task of a critic, who passes judgment, one by one, on all the propositions of the contending parties. That the poet, however, should have framed for the drama a different issue from that which it has, is not to be desired, for the theme of the poem is not the question touching the immortality of man's spirit, but the question: how is the suffering of the righteous to be harmonized with the Divine justice" (Dillmann)? Such a change of the issue, moreover, would be undesirable for the reason that the very contrast between the deliverance and exaltation which Job here hopes for as something which lies after death, and the favor which God visits upon him even in this life, a favor infinitely surpassing all that he hopes and waits for, prays for or understands—this is one of the most striking beauties of the poem, con. stitutes indeed the real focus of its splendor and its crowning close (comp. v. Gerlach in the Homiletical Remarks on ver. 25 seq.). Such a sudden unexpected blazing up of the bright light of the hope of immortality, without frequent references to it afterwards, and without other preparations or antecedent steps leading to it than a wish (in ch. xiv. 13 seq.), and a demand of similar mean2. We have, in our Exegetical Remarks above, ing (ch. xvi. 18 seq.)-corresponds perfectly to expressed our concurrence in this modified the style of our poet, who, having assigned his eschatological or futuristic exposition of the hero to the patriarchal age, does not ascribe to passage, because, on the one side, the unmodi-him his own settled certainty of faith, reprefied doctrinal orthodox rendering presents too senting him as possessing such a certainty in many linguistic errors and arbitrary construc- the same clear, complete measure as himself; tions to have any scientific value whatever he aims rather to represent him as striving after attached to it, and because on the other side the such a possession To this it may be added that view which excludes every reference to the Hirzel's view, which places the object of the hereafter can be established only by allegori- sufferer's hope altogether in this life is contracally or rationalistically refining away the dicted by the fact that Job in what he has obvious phraseology of the passage. The latter already said has repeatedly described his end interpretation, which Hirzel in particular has as near, his strength as completely broken, his attempted to support with great argumentative disease as wholly incurable, his hope of an acuteness, cannot be successfully maintained. earthly restoration of his prosperity as having altogether disappeared (ch. vi. 8-14; vii. 6; xiii. 13-15; xiv. 17-22; xvii. 11-16). With such extreme hopelessness, how would it be possible to reconcile the expression in ver. 25 seq. of the very opposite, as is assumed to be the case by the interpretation which refers that passage to this life? And why again hereafter, in ch. xxx. 23, does the gloomy outlook of a near and certain death find renewed expression in a way which cuts off all possibility of cherishing any hopes in regard to this life (see on the passage)? Wherefore such an unseemly wavering between the solemnly emphasized certainty of the hope in an appearance of Eloah, and the not less emphatic expression of the certainty that he

a. The connection with vers. 23, 21 cannot be urged in its favor, for Job by no means contradicts the wish here expressed that the protestation of his innocence might be preserved for posterity, when in ver. 25 seq. he declares the assurance of his triumphant justification by God hereafter; rather in proclaiming this assurance he but takes a new step upward in the inspired conviction that God will at last interpose as the Avenger of his inno

cence.

b. Job's former hopelessness, as he contemplates the mournful lot of him who goes down into Sheol, cannot be used as an argument in favor of that view; for Job's former discourses

First," of which, though the singer understands it not, he is yet triumphantly assured, may be chanted by the Christian believer with no less confidence, and with a truer and more precious realization of what it means.

1. It does not mean,—it is doubtful, as Zöckler remarks, whether for a Hebrew it could mean, -an abstract unqualified spirituality. At all events the connection shows that here, as often elsewhere in Job (comp. ch. vii. 15; xiv. 22; xxxiiii. 21, etc.), is used specifically of the cation of Job to this life is sufficiently refuted (4) The interpretation which refers the vindi. body as the seat of suffering and corruption, the above. The argument, urged by Zöckler as by Tò aρTÒν TOUTо of Paul. Twice indeed in this others, that such an anticipation of a vindication immediate connection it is used in this sense, to before death is inconsistent with Job's frequent wit, in ver. 19, and ver. 22 (figuratively, how-declarations that he had no hope, and that he was ever). Observe particularly that in ver. 19, as in ver. 26 the "flesh" is associated with the "skin" in describing his emaciated condition. When therefore he describes his physical condition at the time of his ultimate restitution first by the clause "after my skin, which shall have been destroyed-even this!" and then by the clause, and without my flesh," what he means evidently is, when skin and flesh are both no more, when the destruction, the decay, begun by disease, and to be continued in the grave, has finished its course; then would he behold God. "After my skin "-and "without my flesh " are thus parallelistic equivalents, of which still another equivalent is found in "dust," the last result of bodily decay.-These elements of the passage thus fix the place and the time of the coming restitution; the place-the grave, the time-the remote future, when his body should be dust.

It seems clear therefore that the passage cannot be regarded on the one hand as a distinct formal enunciation of a literal resurrection, for the last view which he gives us of his body is as that which is no more, as dust. Just as little on

the other hand is it a mere vindication of his

swered by Noyes: "As if a person, who is reprenear his grave, is perhaps fairly enough ansented as agitated by the most violent and opposite emotions, could be expected to be consistent in his sentiments and language. What can be more natural than that Job, in a state of extreme depression, arising from the thought of his natural tendency of his disease, should express wrongs, the severity of his afflictions, and the himself in the language of despair, and yet that he should be animated soon after by conscious innocence and the thought of God's justice, goodof hope and confidence?" Job's utterances are ness and power, to break forth into the language in fact marked by striking inconsistencies, as he is swayed by this feeling or by that. The following considerations are, however, decisive against this view.

a. It furnishes a far less adequate explanation which Job here exhibits than the other view, of the remarkable elevation and ardor of feeling which refers it to the hereafter.

b. However well it may harmonize with some which it is altogether irreconcilable. This is of the expressions used, there are others with

T TT

T:

fore-implies a state wherein the skin has
ceased to be, in like manner as before a
Both these prepositions carry us forward to an
indefinitely remote period after death, and are
thus inconsistent with the idea of a physical re-
storation before death. It is especially incon-
ceivable that the poet should have used
to describe the place where the God should ap-
pear, if the appearance was to be before death,
when it is remembered how invariably else-
where, when mentioned in connection with Job,
it is associated with the grave. Comp. chap.
vii. 21; viii. 19; x. 9; xvii. 16; xx. 11; xxi.
26; xxxiv. 15.*

memory, a declaration of the integrity of his especially true of Dpy and the prepocause, an abstract spiritual beholding of God, sition in . It may also be said that for he is conscious of physical suffering-he an--which is best explained as a preposition beticipates a complete restitution-one therefore which will bring some reparation of the wrong which he has suffered in the body, the grave where his dust lies is to be the scene of his vindication, and he, the now speaking, the personal I contrasted with "a stranger," as complete realistic a personality, therefore, as any then living, he is to be there, seeing with his own eyes, and exulting in the sight. This necessarily implies a rehabilitation of the man, as well as of his cause, a rehabilitation after death, as the terms and internal scope of the passage prove, as well as the external plan and scope of the book; and if not a resurrection, it at least carries us a long way forward in the direction of that truth. It is, as Delitzsch says above, an outline of that c. It would be, as Zöckler well argues, a sedoctrine which needs but a few touches to comrious artistic fault, were Job at this point to be plete the representation. Indeed it may be said introduced predicting the actual historical sothat if the passage had contained one additional thought, more definitely linking the dust of Job's lution of the drama in language so definite, and body with that future 18, that vaguely foresha- this while the evolution of the drama is still going on, and the logical entanglement is at its dowed organism with the eyes of which he was to see God, the enunciation of a resurrection height. According to the eschatological theory, would be almost complete. But that thought is the passage before us is a momentary gleam of brightness from the Life Beyond, which lights wanting. It is not in the Book of Job. That which is given, however, points to the resurrec- up with preternatural beauty the lurid centre tion; and the pan of the Old Testament saint, of the dark drama before us, which, however this old "song of the night," breathing forth it may modify the development which folfaith's yearning towards the "glorious appearing" of Him who is "The Last" as He is "The

* Even in chap. xli. 25 [33] it suggests, as Umbreit correctly observes, earth as a transitory state of activity for leviathan.