him who regards its plan as a whole and its arrangement, the division of its principal dialogue into three acts or movements, the increase of the entanglement toward the end, and the purely dramatic solution by the appearance and judicial intervention of God Himself. No wonder therefore that the attempt has been made to subject the poem in a one-sided and exclusive manner to one or another of these classifications. It has been viewed as an epic poem by Stuss (De Epopaia Jobæa, Commentatt. III., Goth., 1753), Lichtenstein (Num liber Jobi cum Odyssea Homeri comparari possit, Helmst., 1773), Ilgen (Jobi antiquissimi carminis hebraici natura atque virtus, Lips., 1789), Augusti (Einleitung ins A. Test., p. 268), Good (Version of Job, Introductory Dissertation, sect. 2), etc. Its lyric character has been specially emphasized by Stuhlmann, Keil (the former of whom calls it a "religious poem," the latter a "lyric aphoristic poem "), and several others; while J. D. Michaelis (who in his Prolegomena zum Hiob endeavors with unusual zeal to exhibit the practical utility of the doctrinal contents of this "moral poem "), Herder (who calls it the "most ancient and exalted didactic poem of all nations"), and others, look at it chiefly in the light of a didactic poem; so also Diedrich (Das B. Hiob kurz erklärt, etc., Leipzig, 1858), who calls it a "parable" (against which see Vilmar, Past.-theolog. Blatt., Vol. XI., p. 59 seq.). The book was already recognized as a drama by Luther, who after his homely striking fashion says of it: "It is just like what you see in a play;" and by Leibnitz, whom it strikes as being a musical drama, as being indeed altogether operatic (comp. Schmidt's Zeitschr. f. Geschichte, 1847, for May, p. 436); so also Brentius, Joh. Gerhard, Beza, Mercier, Cocceius, and others, who have spoken of it as a "tragedy," and have undertaken to compare with it those works of Eschylus and Sophocles, which describe conflicts similar to those of our book carried on by suffering heroes against the dark powers of destiny, or against the wrath of the gods (thus recently A. Vogel in the Inaugural Dissertation: Quid de fato senserint Judæi et Græci, Jobo et Sophocli Philoctete probatur, Gryphisw. 1869, in which an interesting parallel is drawn between Job and Philoctetes). Most moderns also recognize this dramatic character, especially Umbreit (Introd. to his Commy., p. xxxiii.), Ewald who calls it "the divine drama of the ancient Hebrews" (Dichter des A. Bundes, III. p. 56), Hupfeld (Deutsche Zeitschr. f. christliche Wissenschaft, 1850, No. 35 seq.), Davidson (Introduction to the O. T., II., p. 179), Delitzsch (Art. "Job" in Herzog's Realencykl. VI., p. 123 [and Commy. I., p. 15 seq. See also Schlottmann, p. 40 seq.; A. B. Davidson, I., p. 16 seq.; Lowth, Lectures XXXII.-XXXIV.; Dillmann, Introd. to Commy., p. 21; Froude, Westminster Review, 1853, reprinted in Short Studies on Great Subjects, p. 228 seq.]). The objections urged to this view by G. Baur (Das B. Hiob und Dante's Göttl Komödie, eine Parallele, in the Studd u Kritiken, 1856, Part. III.) are valid only in so far as they deny that the poem was intended for actual scenic representation, and thus justify the use of the word drama only in the wider sense, that of an epico-dramatic poem, of the same class with Dante's masterpiece.* In this more general sense, however, it deserves beyond question, and with scarcely less right than the Song of Solomon, to be called a drama; especially seeing that it introduces characters which are clearly defined and sharply discriminated, and consistently maintains their several individualities down to the final absolute adjudication by God. Even the attempt to exhibit in detail the principal scenes or acts of this epic or didactic religious drama, which Deliizsch has made (I., p. 15), cannot be condemned, so far at least as the principle is concerned. That writer, agreeing

[The same may be said of the criticisms of Renan, Hengstenberg and Merx, which otherwise are interesting and suggestive. "The Shemites," says the former, "were unacquainted with those species of poetry which are founded on the development of an action, the epopee, the drama, as well as with those forms of speculation which are founded on the experimental or rational method, philosophy, science. Their poetry is the canticle; their philosophy is the parable (Mashal). Their style lacks the period, as their thought lacks the syllogism. Enthusiasm, and reflection as well, express thems Ives with them in brief and vivid strokes, for which it is needless to seek anything analogous in the rhetorical arrangement of the Greeks and the Latins. The poem of Job is beyond contradiction the most ancient chef-d'œuvre of that rhetoric, as on the contrary the Koran is the specimen which stands nearest to us. We must abandon all comparison between forms of treatment and movement so far removed from our taste, and the solid and continuous texture of classic works. The action, the regular march of the thought, which are the life of Greek compositions, are here wanting entirely. But a vivacity of imagination, a force of concentrated passion, to which nothing can be compared, shoot forth, if I may say so, into a thousand scintillations, and make every line a discourse or a thesis (philosophème) complete in itself." Le Livre de Job, introductory Etude, p. 63 seq.]

substantially with the arrangement and partition of the poem, which we have given above, distinguishes eight parts, or acts of the dramatic action, as follows:

1. Chap. i.-iii.: The opening [Anknüpfung, which may also be rendered: The tying of the knot].

2. Chap. iv.-xiv.: The first course of the controversy; or the entanglement beginning. 3. Chap. xv.-xxi.: The second course of the controversy; or the entanglement increasing.

4. Chap. xxii.-xxvi.: The third course of the controversy; or the entanglement at its height.

5. Chap. xxvii.-xxxi.: The transition from the entanglement to the unravelment (from the dous to the 2vos): Job's monologues.

6. Chap. xxxii.-xxxvii.: The completion of the transition from the déos to the vois; the discourses of Elihu.

7. Chap. xxxviii-xlii. 6: The unravelment in the consciousness.

8. Chap. xlii. 7-17: The unravelment in outward reality.

In this enumeration of eight acts too little prominence is given to the threefold division on which the author unmistakably founds his arrangement of the book, and that intentionally, a division which is observable not only in the three movements of the colloquy between Job and his friends, but also in the threefold groups of discourses which follow, to wit, those of Job, of Elihu, and of Jehovah (on this triadic arrangement of the poem comp. Baur, l. c., p. 642 seq.). ["The ruling number three is most visible in all its parts. (1) The whole book falls into three sections: Prologue, Poem, Epilogue. (2) The poem strictly, also into three parts: Job and the Friends, Elihu, God. (3) The discussion between Job and the friends again into three cycles. (4) Each cycle falls into three pairs: Eliphaz and Job, Bildad and Job, Zophar and Job; only in the last cycle Zophar fails to appear, and Job speaks twice. (5) Job sustains three temptations. (6) Elihu makes three speeches. (7) And, finally, very many of the speeches fall into three strophes " A. B. Davidson.-To which add that in the interim between the controversy with the friends, and the appearance of Elihu, Job utters three monologues]. For this reason it is more correct to regard the two epic narrative sections, the Prologue and Epilogue (1 and 8 according to Delitzsch), as standing outside of the partition of the poem proper, and forming, as it were, only its outer frames. We shall then have for the dramatic kernel of the whole (chap. iii.—xli.) six scenes or acts, the same number which Delitzsch has assumed for the Canticles (see Vol. X. of the Old Testament Series in this Comm'y., p. vi., of Introd. to Cant.). Comp. below, 11, the more detailed outline of the contents.

It must not of course be forgotten in this connection that our book is an essentially oriental poem, exhibiting only an incomplete and partial analogy to the various forms of poetic art produced by the classic nations of the West. Draw if you will a parallel, reaching to the minutest detail, between the most famous products of the ancient, and of the modern occidental drama; look on the idea of a hero struggling with the divine destiny as pre-eminently Eschylean or Sophoclean; compare the Prologue, with its predominance of narrative, and the presence of the dialogue as only a partial element, with the prologues of Euripides, which also form "epic introductions" to the accompanying dramas; be it that the description of the celestial council in this Prologue anticipates the famous "Prologue in Heaven" of Goethe's Faust;* or be it that in another sense, in that namely which concerns the representation of spiritual conflicts and physical movements as themes of dramatic art, we should be justified in comparing it rather with the Iphigenia and Tasso of our greatest poet, and in saying with Delitzsch that, as in those poems, "the deficiency of external action is compensated by the richness and precision with which the characters are drawn:"-it must not be

* Comp. Ewald, p. 57: "Whether Goethe's Faust is to be compared with this book or not, does not need to be considered here; so much however is clear that without the Book of Job its brilliant opening scene would never have been what it is." See also Baur, l. c., p. 588 seq. [and for a comparison of the two poems, see Merx, xxxiii.-xxxiv. and Froude, Short Studies, p. 268 seq.]

forgotten after all that the book is an intellectual creation, the conception and the elaboration of which are thoroughly oriental; that it is the work of one of those profoundly religious sages, endowed with an imagination mighty and lofty in its scope, and with pre-eminent poetic genius, in which the whole East, whether Shemitic or Perso-Indian, so remarkably abounds. If accordingly we are to seek analogies with which to compare the poem as to its idea, character, and plan, we must put in the front Arabic and Hindû poems, such as on the one side the Consessus of the celebrated Makama-poet Hariri, already referred to, which at least exhibits a noteworthy parallel to the dialogue form of the middle divisions of our book (comp. Umbreit, p. XXXI.), and on the other side the ancient Hindû narrative of the sufferer Hariçtschandra, sorely tempted and tried by Çiva, which in its oldest and simplest, as yet undramatized form may be found in the Aitareya-Brahmana, VII. 18, and in the Bhagavata-Purâna, IX. 7, 6, but which in its complete artistic development in the form of a religious drama is found only in much more recent sources, as e. g. in the Markandeya,—and Padma-Purâna (out of Sec. 8-10 of our chronology), as also in modern Hindû popular dramas, which are still regarded with favor.* It is indeed a nearer line of comparison to seek for parallels in the religious and poetic literature of the Old Testament people of God. And here we find on the one side Solomon's Song of Songs, which presents itself as a drama, artistically correct, elaborate, and harmoniously complete; on the other side the Solomonic Book of Proverbs, which presents itself as a pearl-like string of numerous ethical and religious apothegms, arranged in part at least in the form of a dramatic dialogue. As to its didactic contents and purpose, our book resembles more the latter of these writings, as to form and composition the former. Nevertheless the profound earnestness of its fundamental thought and of its didactic purpose necessitates important deviations in form and diction from the Song of Solomon, the only representative of a scriptural drama which can be considered along with it. For while the plan of the latter is melo-dramatic, and its principal affinities seem to be with the erotic lyrics of the classic nationalities, Job, especially in view of the narrative character of the prologue and epilogue, bears the stamp of an epic drama, and in its lyric element resembles most closely the elegiac poetry of the Greeks. Comp. the General Introduction to the Solomonic Literature of Wisdom, Vol. X. of this series, p. 12.

Furthermore in respect of its external poetic structure, and especially of the verse and strophe-structure of its discourses, the book may be most nearly compared with the Proverbs and the Song of Solomon. In these its poetic parts it consists throughout of short verses, mostly of two members; each member contains on an average not more than three to four words. This structure is carried out with the most rigid consistency and great skill through all the discourses, so that in many respects we are reminded of the five-feet iambic lines of the modern drama, and we can understand, or at all events we are inclined to excuse the remark which Jerome once made, although as to the main point it is certainly erroneous, that the book is written in versus hexametri (Præfat. in Job, T. IX., Opp. p. 1100; comp. my book on Jerome, p. 347).- It cannot escape the sharp observer, moreover, that a greater or less number of single verses everywhere group themselves together in strophes or stanzas, which coincide with the logical arrangement, or sub-divisions of the thought; and that this strophic division is carried out with tolerable regularity throughout all the discourses. Here and there this strophic structure is indicated even by external signs, e. g. in chap. iii., where the second and third strophes alike begin with eight stichs each, are severally introduced by

; in ch. xxx., where three strophes, of

; in chap. xxxvi. 22-33, where three

*See in Schlottmann, p. 18 seq. an analysis of the legend of Hariçtschandra, according to these more recent sources, and especially of a drama in the modern Hindû popular dialect, extracts from which have been furnished by Roberts (Oriental Illustrations, p. 257 seq.). According to this authority the fundamental idea common to both these productions, the Job-legend and this Hindû poem, seems to be that "the righteous man can obtain the victory with the powers of temptation which advance against him out of the unseen world of spirits." A still more particular point of correspondence lies in the fact that "all the temptations which befall Hariçtschandra aim at extorting from him the one falsehood that he had not promised the hish reward for the offering presented to the gods by Viçmânitra (Çiva);"—precisely as in the Book of Job Satan is ever on the watch for the one word, by which the sorely tried sufferer is to bid God farewell, and to reBounce His service. It is true that our Bible poem represents with incomparably greater depth and purity the inward truth of the sufferer triumphing over these temptations.

series of thoughts in succession begin with ¡, each forming an eight-line strophe, etc. The Masoretes have as in the Psalms and Proverbs used a peculiar system of accentuation to indicate both the divisions of stichs and verses, and also this strophe-arrangement throughout the entire poetical sections of the book (i. e., from chap. iii. 2 to chap. xlii. 6). This accentuation, however, which rests on the tradition of the synagogue, important as we must adjudge it to be for the rhythmical adjustment of the composition, and in connection therewith for the exegetical interpretation of these sections, does not nevertheless exclude all doubt in respect to these divisions of thought and of verse in detail. For the authors of the masoretic system of accentuation themselves did not always possess a clear and accurate insight into the strophe-structure, as is shown by the fact that they have almost everywhere erroneously applied their [poetic] accentuation to the prose passages which have occasionally found their way into the poetic sections. The later tradition accordingly has quite generally "the notation-value only of the prose or rhetorical accents, not that of the metrical or poetical." For which reason the more recent commentators differ both in respect to the question whether attempts to restore the strophe-structure are at all permissible, and also in respect to the bounds to be assigned to particular strophes. Stickel and Delitzsch, e. g., assume a constant change of the strophic structure, similar to that which obtains in the lyric poems of the Book of Psalms, and, as a consequence, a somewhat marked inequality in the extent of particular strophes, which are built now of four stichs, now of eight, now of six, or of any greater number of lines. Schlottmann, Köster, Ewald, Vaihinger, and Dillmann, on the contrary maintain that the structure of the strophes is, at least in general, equal and regular, and would determine the law of their construction more in accordance with the Mashalpoetry of the Proverbs, than with the lyrical rhythm of the Psalter. In the accompanying translation and explanation of the poem we shall follow in the main the principles which guide the latter class of commentators, for the reason that their greater simplicity seems to us to be pre-eminently in agreement with the character of the poem, which in particular passages indeed is lyrical, but which is predominantly gnomic and didactic (of the Mashal genus). Here and there however, and particularly in the discourses of Elihu, the strophic structure of which is in many places wont to be incorrectly rendered, we shall feel constrained to give the preference to the divisions of Stickel and Delitzsch.

[Merx has propounded in his Introduction (p. LXXV. seq.) an ingenious and elaborate theory of the syllabic and strophic structure of Hebrew poetry, which claims for that poetry, especially in its lyric and musical forms, a degree of regularity and symmetry far higher than is usually attributed to it. He finds the true law of its form to be the number of syllables in the stich, or line, the norm being eight syllables to the stich, and the strophes being composed of an equal number of stichs, or of a number symmetrically alternating. Without denying all merit to the theory, or that its author has in not a few instances used it with striking results, it is certain that the sweeping application which he, has made of it to the Book of Job, necessitates or invites the most arbitrary treatment of the text, by the assumption of lacunæ or interpolations, simply at the demand of the rhetorical structure. Assuredly in Hebrew, as in all Oriental poetry, where "the thought lords it over the form," a far greater degree of liberty and elasticity must be accorded to the form than this theory presupposes.-E.].

Note 1.-In respect to the artistic beauty and completeness of the poetic sections, and especially in respect to the skilfulness shown in the dramatic evolution and delineation of character, comp. Delitzsch I., p. 16 seq.: "Satan, Job's wife, the hero himself, the three friends, everywhere diversified and minute description. The poet manifests, also, dramatic skill in other directions. He has laid out the controversial colloquy with a masterly hand, making the heart of the reader gradually averse to the friends, and in the same degree winning it towards Job. He makes the friends all through give utterance to the most glorious truths, which however, in the application to the case before them, turn out to be untrue. And although the whole of the representation serves one great idea, it is still not represented by any of the persons brought forward, and is by no one expressly uttered. Every person is, as it were, the consonant letter to the word of this idea; it is throughout the whole book

taken up with the realization of itself; at the end it first comes forth as the resulting product of the whole. Job himself is not less a tragic hero than the Edipus of the two tragedies of Sophocles. What is there an inevitable fate, expressed by the oracle, is in the book of Job the decree of Jehovah, over whom is no controlling power, decreed in the assembly of angels. As a painful puzzle the lot of affliction comes down on Job. At the beginning he is the victor of an easy battle, until the friends' exhortations to repentance are added to suffering, which in itself is incomprehensible, and make it still harder to be understood. He is thereby involved in a hard conflict, in which at one time, full of arrogant self-confidence, he exalts himself heavenward; at another time sinks to the ground in desponding sadness.

"The God, however, against which he fights, is but a phantom, which the temptation has presented to his beclouded eye, instead of the true God; and this phantom is in no way different from the inexorable fate of the Greek tragedy. As in that the hero seeks to maintain his inward freedom against the secret power which crushes him with an iron arm; so Job maintains his innocence against this God, who has devoted him to destruction as an offender. But in the midst of this terrific conflict with the God of the present, this creation of the temptation, Job's faith gropes after the God of the future, to whom he is ever driven nearer the more mercilessly the enemies pursue him. At length Jehovah really appears, but not at Job's impetuous summons. He appears only after Job has made a beginning of humble self-concession, in order to complete the work begun, by condescendingly going forth to meet him. Jehovah appears, and the Fury vanishes The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unabolished, is here reconciled. Human freedom does not succumb; but it becomes evident that not an absolute arbitrary power, but divine wisdom, whose inmost impulse is love, moulds human destiny."

Dillmann expresses himself similarly in respect to the surpassing skill shown in the dramatic development, and the fine as well as sharp individualization of character (p. xxi. seq.). He also groups together with these qualities the magnificent power of description, and splendor of diction which characterize this book: "In freshness and power of poetic perception and sensibility, in wealth and splendor of imagery, in inexhaustible fulness of ideas, in fineness of psychological insight and observation of nature, in the faculty of picturing the most manifold movements of the world of nature and of humanity, in the ability to reproduce the same thing appareled in a form that is ever new, in the art of modulating the tone and complexion of the speakers, according to their various moods, of adapting himself equally to sorrow and lamentation, to anger and passion, to scorn and bitterness, to yearning and hope, to rest and contentment, in the art of setting forth with peculiar impressiveness the majesty, dignity, power, and clearness of God, when He speaks, and finally in mastery of language, in beauty, weight, and terseness of expres ion, this poet may be put on an equality with the best models of all ages. His work is artistically wrought down to its every detail. Each of the four discourses of the book is a masterpiece of itself, and full of fine relations to the rest," etc.-Comp. also Ewald, p. 54 seq.; Vaihinger, p. 15 seq.; Schlottmann, p. 40 seq.; 44 seq.; 54 seq.; 66 seq. [A B Davidson, xxiii. seq.; Merx, xvii. seq., xlvii. seq.; Lowth, Lecture xxxiv.; Renan, Etude, etc., p. lxi. seq.; Princeton Rev., Vol. xxix. p. 325].

Note 2.-Special consideration should be given to the peculiar beauty and loftiness of the poetic art of the book, as these qualities are seen in its descriptions of nature, its physical images and similes, and as they impart to it a mode of perception, thought, and composition characterized by a peculiar primitive power and freshness, an antique, as it were patriarchal simplicity, depth, and pungent power. The Catholic theologian Gügler, a thoughtful pupil of Herder's remarks on this peculiarity: "Nature stands everywhere before the soul in its primeval form, touching as it were on chaos The mountain ranges, the roaring waters, the outstretched heaven, the sun, the constellations, these are the wonders, surpassing number, which take the feeling by storm. The unveiled abysses, the outspread night, the earth hanging on nothing, the water gathered up in the clouds, the quaking pillars of heaven, the thunder, the lightning shining to the ends of the world, these are the phenomena, not to be numbered, these are the wonders not to be searched out, which occupy the aroused faculty of thought. Nature in its primitive vastness and depth lies before the wondering struggling