"for wrath, i. e. something to be dreaded, are prevails more and more, until at last it remains the punishments of the sword," for i can supreme and alone." Ewald.]

:Gesenius) הֵכָּה to חֵמָה

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, as-umes that the passage predicts a resuscitation of the body by Christ on the last day. This assumption rests on the rendering 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 Dip', ver 25 b, (instead of which it read DP), and ending with

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 My, than either to change for such, i. e. such transgressions as yours, are crimes of the sword) or to introduce the constr. state before ny, 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 (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-TO EOTI abrov in (or according to the Cod. Alex. ört ovdaμov avτivi ioxis tor) 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 E), to read ":"that ye may know the Almighty;" nor (which is moreover linguistically inadmissible) as a variation of (Eichhorn, NI, ver. 26 a, which it combines together so as Hahn, Ewald, 1st Ed.), which would yield the to form one sentence, it renders thus: avaσrýσEL same meaning. [" has everywhere else the dé pov тò σiua tò avavrhovv poi ravτa (Cod. Alex.: signification judicium, e. g. by Elihu, ch. xxxvi. ava-ñcai μov тò dépμa pov tò ȧvavíkovv Tavτa). 17; and also often in the Book of Proverbs, e. g. tion after death of the sorely afflicted body of Job According to this rendering a future resuscitach. xx. 8 (comp. in the Arabizing supplement, is as distinctly as possible expressed. The Tarch. xxxi 8). The final judgment is in Aramaic 87; the last day in Heb. and Arabic, I know that my Redeemer lives," and heregumist expresses essentially the same meaning: pa, jaum ed-din. To give to 1, "that after my redemption will arise (i. e. be made, (there is) a judgment," this dogmatically defi- actual. become a reality) over the dust, and nite meaning, is indeed, from its connection after that my skin is again made whole (or with the historical recognition of the plan of according to another reading "is swollen 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.]

שְׁרִין to regard

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66

up") this will happen, and out of my flesh shell 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 [Thus does this lofty tragical discourse LXX], Clemens Romanus (1 Cor. 26), Origen combine in itself the deepest humiliation and (Comm. in Matth. xxii. 23 seq.), Cyril of Jerusadepression with the highest Divine elevation, lem (Catech. XVIII.), Ephraem, Epiphanius the most utter despair with the most animated (Orat. Ancorat), and other fathers before Jeoverflowing hope and the most blissful certainty. rome, found in the passages a proof of the Not only does it occupy the lofty centre of the church doctrine of the áváστασiç TŶę σαрkóç. Still human controversy and of the whole action, but more definitely and completely did the passage it also causes the first real and decisive revolu-acquire the character of a Scriptural proof of tion in Job's favor, because in it Job's two ruling this doctrine from Jerome, as the author of the thoughts and tendencies, the unbelief springing authorized Latin translation, which was adopted from superstition, and the higher genuine faith by the Western Church during the Middle Ages, just forming itself come into such sharp and as well as by the Catholic Church of recent happy contact that the latter rushes forth out times. While the predecessor of his work, the of its insignificance with irresistible might, and Itala, had somewhat indefinitely expressed a although the discord is not as yet harmonized, meaning approximating that of the LXX. (“sufrom this time on it maintains itself, gradually per terram resurget cutis mea," e c.), the Vulgate

קיף = נקף

and quite recently the Catholic Welte, think that
notwithstanding the various amendments which
following the original text they make to the ver-
sion of the Vulg., or in a measure to that of Lu-
ther, the passage must still be held to teach, at
least in general, the Church doctrine of the re-
surrection, in that they favor the inadmissible
rendering of b
as = neque ego alius (“and
truly I not as another, I as unchanged"), or un-
derstand 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).

set aside the last remnant of a possibility that the passage should be understood of a restitution or a restoration of Job in this life. This it did by introducing into the text of vers. 25 and 26 three inaccuracies of the most glaring sort. For Dip (or D'p) it substituted without more ado DP, surrecturus sum; it rendered, in novissimo 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 re- b. A one-sided anti-eschatological view which commended by Augustine (De Civ. Dei XXII., limits the object of Job's hope and longing wholly 29), held its ground through the Middle Ages to this life, which may also be called the skeptical among all Christian expositors, and all the more or hypercritical rationalistic view has for its prenecessarily that a revision of the same after the cursors in the Ancient Church Chrysostom, John Hebrew could not be undertaken by any one of of Damascus, and other fathers of the Oriental them. Neither does Luther's translation-"But Church. By an allegorizing interpretation of I know that my Redeemer liveth, and He will the language of the LXX. avaorýσet dé μov тồ hereafter raise [or quicken] me out of the earth, and oua rò avavrhovν μoi ravтa, these writers refine I shall thereupon be surrounded with this my skin, away the eschatological meaning which undoubtand shall see God in my flesh"-break through edly belongs to the passage as pointing to the the spell of this doctrinally prejudiced interpre- hereafter, and refer it to the removal of his tation; and just as little as Luther do the dis- disease which Job hoped for, and the rehabilitinguished Reformed translators of the Bible, e. tation of his disfigured body; and they saw g.,eo Juda, Joh. Piscator, the authors of the that the phraseology of the Septuagint in the English Version, etc., exhibit any substantial de- remaining verses of the passage favored this parture from the meaning or phraseology of the interpretation. Most of the Jewish Exegetes Vulgate. Thus the rendering under considera- during the Middle Ages adhered to their view tion succeeded in acquiring the most important so far as the principle was concerned, the prininfluence even in the evangelical theological tra- ciple, to wit, of excluding from the passage any dition. It came to be cited in Church symbols messianic and eschatological application while (e. g., Form Conc. Epit., p. 375 R.) [Westmin- in respect to many of the details they hit upon ster Conf. of Faith XXXII. 2], catechisms and novel expedients, which were in part of a most doctrinal manuals as a cardinal proof-text for wonderful and arbitrary character. The more the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and freely inclined theologians of the Reformed occasionally even for the divinity of Christ (on Churches also, such as Mercier, Grotius, Le account of the of ver. 26). It became a Clerc, substantially adopted this view. leading theme of sacred poets (e. g., of Louisa the time of Eichhorn (Allg. Biblioth der Bibl. Henrietta v. Brandenburg, who wrote "Jesus, Literatur I. 3, 1787) it acquired even a tempomeine Zuversicht" [Jesus, my Trust], of Prary ascendency over the opposite opinions, and that not only with commentators of rationalistic Gerhard, the author of "Ich weiss dass mein Er öser lebt" [of Charles Wesley: "I know tendencies, such as Justi, v. Cölln, Knobel, Hirthat my Redeemer lives "]), and in general itzel, Stickel, etc., but even with supra-naturalists, 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 ver-
sion, advocate strenuously the direct christolo-
gical and eschatological reference of the passage
(comp. also Jablonsky, De Redemptore stante su-
per pulverem, Francof. ad V. 1772: Gude and
Rambach: De Jobo Christi incarnationis vale,
Hale 1730, etc.).
A number even of able Ori-
entalists, and independent Hebrew scholars since
the last century, such as Schultens, J. H. and J.
D. Michaelis, Velthusen, Rosenmüller. Rosen-
garten, the English writers Mason, Good, Hales,
J. Pye Smith [Scott, Lee, Carey, Wordsworth],*

[Among other prominent English theological writers

After

such as Dathe, Döderlein, Baumgarten-Crusius,
Knapp, Augusti, Umbreit, and even with Hahn,
strictly orthodox as he is elsewhere (De spe im-
his 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 theolo-
gians Wemyss, Stuart, Barnes [Warburton,
Divine Legation, Book VI., Sec. 2; Patrick,
Kennicott, Noyes, Rodwell; to whom may be
Almost
added Elzas and Bernard], and others.
all the advocates of this view agree in holding
who interpret the passage of Christ and the final resu-rec-
tion, may be ment oned Owen, Vol. XII., Stand. Lib, of Brit,
Divines, p 50S seq.; Bp. Andrews' Sermons, Vot II., p. 251
seq. in Lib. 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, Con-
nec. and Harm. of O. and N. Tests., p. 153 seq.-E.]

has no hope in such an appearance? What | to the future state. Its relation to the perfected would the artistic plan of the poem in general eschatology of those prophets of the exile, as gain by allowing the hero in the middle of it to well as to the post-exilic literature of the Apopredict the final issue, but afterwards to assume, crypha (for example the II. Book of Maccabees) even as he had already done before, that the is like that "of the protevangelium to the perexact opposite of this is the only possible issue? fected soteriology of revelation; it presents only 3. Seeing then that every consideration favors the first lines of the picture, which is worked up most decidedly the view which interprets the in detail later on, but also an ou line, sketched passage in accordance with a modera e escha- in such a way that all the knowledge of later tology, the question still remains: whether that times may be added to it" (Delitzsch)—as from beholding of God after this earthly life, which Job of old the Church has been doing, and still is here anticipates as taking place concurrently doing, in her epitaphs, hymns, liturgies, and with the vindication of his honor and his redemp- musical compositions, and this too with some detion, is conceived of by him as something that is to be gree of right, although largely in violation of the realized in the sphere of abstract spirituality, or law of exegetical sobriety. whether his conception of it is more concrete, realistic, in analogy with the relations of this earthly life? In other words, the question is: whether his idea of immortality is abstractly spiritualistic, or one which up to a certain point approximates the New Testament doctrine of a resurrection? We have already declared above (on ver. 27 b) in favor of the latter opinion; because (1) The mention of the eyes with which he expects to see God admits only of that pneumatico-realistic meaning, under the influence of which the Old Testament speaks even of eyes, ears, and other bodily organs as belonging to God, and in general furnishes solid supports to the proposition of Oetinger touching corporeity as the "end of the ways of God." To this it may be added that (2) the absolute incorporealness of Job's condition after death is in no wise expressed by the phrase

[The following additional considerations, suggested by the passage, and the context, may be urged in favor of the view here advocated. (1) Job, as the context shows, is, while uttering this sublime prediction, painfully conscious of what he is suffering in the body. Note the whole passage, vers. 13-20, where the estrangement of his most intimate friends and kindred is associated with the loathsome condition into which his disease has brought him. Note again how in the heart of the prophecy itself (ver. 26), he is still unable to repress the utterance of this same painful consciousness of his bodily condition. If now he anticipates here a Divine Intervention which is to vindicate him, is it not natural that he should include in that vindication, albeit vaguely and remotely, some compensation for the physical wrong he was suffering? If God would appear to recompense the indignity to his good name, would He not appear at the same time to recompense the indignity from which his body had so grievously suffered? In a word, would not the same experience which here blosof a justification of his spiritual integrity, bear soms so gloriously into the prophetic assurance at least the bud of a resurrection hope for the body, although the latter would be, ex necessitate Surely the Day of Restitution, which he knows rei, less perfectly developed than the former ? is to come, will bring with it some compensation for this grievous bodily ill, the dark shadow of which flits across even this bright vision of faith! This presumption is still further heightened when we note that he himself, with his own eyes,

is to witness that restitution.

, notwithstanding the privative meaning which in any case belongs to ?, that this expression merely indicates the object of Job's hope to be a release from his present miserable body of flesh, and that accordingly what Job here anticipates is (gradually accomplished to be sure, but) not specifically different from that which the Apostle calls τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος huv (Rom. viii. 23; comp. ch. vii. 25), or what on another occasion he expresses in more negative form by the proposition: ort oap kai aina βασιλείαν Θεού κληρονομῆσαι οὐ δύνανται οὐδὲ ἡ popà Th apapoiav kпpovoμei (1 Cor. xv. 50). Still further (3) the concluding verse of ch. xiv. shows that Job conceives even of man's condition in Sheol as by no means one of abstract incorporeality, but rather invests this gloomy and mournful stage of his existence after death with two factors of being ( and 5), conceiving of them as existing in conjunction, and as standing in some kind of a relation to each other (see above on the passage). Finally (4): The perfected realistic hopes of a resurrection, found in the later Old Testament literature from the time of Ezekiel and Daniel on, would be absolutely inconceivable, they would be found drifting in the air without attachment or support, they would be without all historical precedent, if in the passage before us the hope of immortality be understood in the light of an abstract spirituality. What Job says here is certainly nothing more than a germ of the more complete resurrection creed of a later time, but it must indubitably be regarded as such a germ, as such (3). The expression is no objection to a seminal anticipation of that which the Israel this view, even with the privative sense which of a later period believed and expected in respect our Commy. (and correctly I think) attaches to

(2). The phrase - is not without significance It certainly means something more specific than "on the earth." The Goel is to stand "on dust" (or "on the dust"-article poetically omitted), the place where lies the dust of the body gathered to the dust of the earth. This is the only exegesis of y that is either etymologically admissible, or suited to the context. The Vindication is thus brought into local connection with the grave. And this can mean only one thing. It shows at least that Job could not conceive of this future restitution as taking place away and apart from his dust. His body, his physical self, was in some way-he has no conception how-to be interested in it.

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.

cation of Job to this life is sufficiently refuted (4) The interpretation which refers the vindi. above. The argument, urged by Zöckler as by before death is inconsistent with Job's frequent others, that such an anticipation of a vindication

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 body as the seat of suffering and corruption, the τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο of Paul. Twice indeed in this immediate connection it is used in this sense, to 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

T

swered by Noyes: "As if a person, who is reprerear 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, goodness and power, to break forth into the language of hope and confidence?" Job's utterances are he is swayed by this feeling or by that. The in fact marked by striking inconsistencies, as following considerations are, however, decisive

against this view.

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

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

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.*

the other hand is it a mere vindication of his memory, a declaration of the integrity of his especially true of Dappy 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 fore "y-implies a state wherein the skin has which he has suffered in the body, the grave ceased to be, in like manner as before where his dust lies is to be the scene of his vin- Both these prepositions carry us forward to an dication, and he, the now speaking, the per- indefinitely remote period after death, and are sonal I contrasted with "a stranger," as com- thus inconsistent with the idea of a physical replete realistic a personality, therefore, as any "storation before death. It is especially inconthen 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 an 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 com-rious artistic fault, were Job at this point to be plete the representation. Indeed it may be said that if the passage had contained one additional introduced predicting the actual historical sothought, more definitely linking the dust of Job's lution of the drama in language so definite, and body with that future, 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 wanting. It is not in the Book of Job. That brightness from the Life Beyond, which lights 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.