9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said: Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast thou not made a hedge1o about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side. Thou hast blessed the work of his hands: his wealth has

10

11 spread abroad in the land. But put forth thy hand now and touch all that he 12 hath, and see if he will not curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said to Satan : Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only against his person put not forth thy hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.

13 Now it was the day that his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking 14 wine in the house of their brother, the first-born. And there came a messenger to

Job and said: The cattle were ploughing, the she asses were feeding beside them, 15 when the Sabæans fell upon them and took them; The servants also have they smitten with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

16

17

18

While he was still speaking, there came another and said: The fire of God fell from heaven, and burned the flocks and the young men, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

While he was still speaking, there came another, and said: The Chaldæans made three bands, and set upon the camels and took them. The servants also have they slain with the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

While he was still speaking, there came another and said: Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their brother, the first19 born. And behold, there came a great wind from the direction of the wilderness, and struck upon the four corners of the house, so that it fell upon the young people, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Then Job arose and rent his garment, and shaved his head; and he fell to the earth and worshipped. And he said:

All naked from my mother's womb I came,
And naked there shall I again return.

Jehovah gave, Jehovah takes away;
Jehovah's name be blessed.

In all this Job sinned not, nor charged cruelty" upon God.

10 Ver. 10. Made a hedge about him. Among the striking epithets which the Greek poets affix to the name of the supreme god Zeus, no one is more suggestive of certain scriptural ideas than that of Zevs 'Epkeios (derived Latin Jupiter Herceus) literally, "the God of the household," of the enclosure" (from Epxos, a fence, hedge, or wall)—the “God of families," of the domestic relations. It is thus the style of Scripture not to shrink from placing side by side, as it were, the two extremes in the divine idea: the "God Eternal, Almighty, Most High" (see the names El Olam, El Shaddai, El Elyon, as they occur in Genesis) in close connection with epithets denoting patrial, local, and even family relations. He is the God of the universe, Tаνтокрáтшр, and at the same time, a beòs warpulos, God of Israel, the God of His people, of his elect, in a closer sense than was ever dreamed of in any Grecian mythology. This epithet is a gem from the ancient mine of ideas. The thought it carries is from the patriarchal days. "Thou hast made a hedge about him and about his house, and all that he hath." God does not deny what Satan says, although, for his own transcending reasone, He gives him permission to enter that sacred enclosure, and lay it waste for a season, that it may be restored to a

state of more perfect security. He is called Zevs 'Epκeios, say the Scholiasts, because his statue stood in the epkos, and that these frigid souls, and many modern critics with them, think to be enough. They never think of asking the question that lies back of this: why was his statue placed in that spot? There was in it the same idea that is represented in those words of the Latin poet :

"Sacra Dei, sanctique patres "—

so pregnant with a meaning of which he himself perhaps had a very inadequate conception,-the sacred family idea, now so fiercely assailed in some quarters-those holy domestic relations so closely allied to religion, and where Righteous ness lingers last when taking its departure from the earth: "extrema per illos

"Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit."

CHAPTER II.

1

Again it was the day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord; and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 2 Then said the Lord to Satan: Whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord and said: From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and 3 down in it. Then said the Lord to Satan: Hast thou observed my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a man pure and just, fearing God and shunning evil? And still he holds fast his integrity, though thou didst move me against him to destroy him without cause.

4

5

6

7

9

And Satan answered the Lord and said: Skin after skin'; yea all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thy hand now, and touch his bone ; touch his flesh; and see if he will not curse thee to thy face! And the Lord said to Satan: Behold, he is in thy hand, only spare his life.

Then Satan went forth from the presence of the

Lord, and smote Job with a

And he took a potsherd to

Then said his wife to him:

8 grievous sore, from the sole of his foot to his crown. scrape himself therewith, as he sat among the ashes. 10 Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? Curse2 God and die. But Job said to her: Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we, then, accept good at the hands of God, and shall we not accept evil? In all this Job sinned not with his lips.

11

Now three friends of Job heard of all this evil that was come upon him. And they came, each one from his place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, for they made an appointment together to go 12 and mourn with him, and to comfort him. And they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not; and they wept aloud, and rent, each one, his mantle, and

or skin for skin, if we wish to take in the same way as at the end or the verse, 1 ya, for his life. But it comes to the same thing. From the sense of after, which certainly belongs to T, and, in Arabic, is the prominent sense, comes that of exchange, one thing after another, or taking the place of another; the preposition coming before either the price or the thing exchanged. But what is the meaning of it? It would require a large space to give the different views that have been entertained. The reader will find a very full list of them, as given by Dr. CONANT: Skin for skin-skin of another for skin of one's self-skin for the body--skin for skin, a proverbial saying, like for like-skin after skin, as Schultens explains it; that is, a willingness to be flayed over and over again, that is, figuratively, to be stripped of all his possessions, etc. It seems strange that none of them seek the explanation of the language in any thing beyond itself. After so much discussion, it is with diffidence the translator makes the suggestion that the whole difficulty is cleared up by simply adverting to the words 3 and ("his bone and his flesh ") in the next verse.

T:

bone is used for the very substance of a thing, in distinction from its outside, or incidental properties. See Exodus xxiv. 12. So, sometimes. But take it here for bone, as something more interior than the skin, or as containing the medulla, or as connected with the flesh which has in it more of the life, the feeling, than the skin, and we have just the comparison desired. It is the interior flesh, the quick flesh, as contrasted with the less sensible skin. So in xix. 25, it is the contrast between the raw flesh to which he points (NT), as yet remaining, and the skin which the crawling worms, bred by his disease, had already nearly devoured. The comparison seems obvious. The skin is outside

to the bone, and to the quick or tender flesh. It represents the outside goods, ra ¿¿w, such as property and even children. These may be stripped off, like one cuticle after another, but the interior life, the bone and the quick-flesh, Touch that and see if he will not cry out

is not reached.

in a different strain. Satan wanted to try the effect of severe bodily pain. He knew how intolerable it was, and that other afflictions, though deemed greater, perhaps, when estimated as matter of loss, could more easily be borne. The history shows that it was not the fear of death that was so terrible to Job, since he sometimes expresses a desire to die. then, here rendered the life (end of ver. 4) is not life, as existence, but life as feeling, feeling of severe pain. At the end of ver. 6, the context demands the other sense. He will give any thing, says Satan, to get relief from that when it becomes excruciating. See Remarks on this idea of unendurable pain in the Introduction on the Theism of the Book, p. 28.

2 Ver. 9. The reasons for this rendering are still stronger here than in the other passage, i. 5. The wife's vehemence, and apparent bitterness, demand the strongest expression. 3 Ver. 10. Accept. This is a more suitable word, and denotes more than receive. The latter word does not determine the manner, being, like the Hebrew p. hap

occurs in Daniel and Ezra, and may be called an Aramaism; but such examples, as has been fully shown, prove little or nothing in respect to the date of the Book. There are still more decided Aramaisms in Genesis and Judges. There are reasons, in some cases, for regarding them as marks of antiquity rather than of the contrary.

4 Ver. 10. With his lips. The Jewish commentators infer from this that while Job preserved correctness of speech, he was already sinning, or beginning to feel a want of submission, in his heart. But there hardly seems any good warrant for this. See Int. Theism, p. 28.

13 sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. And they sat down with him upon the earth, seven days and seven nights; and none spake a word to him; for they saw that his pain was very great.

6 Ver. 13. Pain was very great. , means, properly, bodily pain, although used sometimes for affliction generally, or dolor cordis, the aching of the soul (see Isa. Ixv. 14). But even this is on account of the dolor corporis, which may become so great as to overpower everything else. This has not been sufficiently attended to by commentators. See remarks Int. Theism, p. 28, etc. Job's grievons cry, ch. iii., was simply the expression of this intoler

able pain, which the fell disease was bringing upon him. Satan was now touching his bone and his quick-flesh, instead of his skin, that is, any outward good. See Note on ver. 4. The conduct of the friends shows this. Had it been mental sorrow alone, however severe, there would have been no reason why they should not have spoken to him. But to a man writhing in such extreme bodily anguish, speech would be useless, if not an aggravation,

T

Lo! let that night be barren evermore,
And let no sound of joy be heard therein.
Who curse the day, let them forever curse it,―
They who are doomed to rouse Leviathan.

1 Ver. 3. 13 TX. When I was to be born.-We follow Raschi, who gives the future here its prospective sig nificance. The post-anticipating imagination goes back of birth, and takes its stand before the coming event, as though deprecating, praying against, its appearance. "The day on which I was going to be born," he renders it " IN

"and was then not yet born." Unless there had beer. some such idea as this it is not easy to see why the preterite would not have been used, as it is in the parallel passage,

the day in which I was born.""

* Ver. 3. The night that said.—More grammatical as well as more significant than our English Version. Night is personified. This is now generally acknowledged.

Ver. 5. Call it back.—UMBREIT, einlösen, redeem it, buy it back. Darkness and Tzalmazeth are called upon to take it back as something which had been loaned or mortgaged-reclaim it as their own-a terrific image.-The other sense of, namely, that of staining, which some give it here, will not do at all.

◄ Ver, 5. Dire eclipses.-'7'73. Patach shortened

to Hirek in the construct. state. The other rendering makes comparative, and takes as equal to Hiph. part. of 118: like those who curse the day. This, however, would make what follows in ver. 8 but a tame repetition, which is not likely. From we get the sense of convolution, wrapping or rolling together. Hence the image of any great obscuration, veiling or darkening of the heavens.

5 Ver. 8. Doomed.-The primary sense of Thy is a near futurity, something impending, hence prompt, prepared, and from that the sense of skilled which, however, does not occur elsewhere in Hebrew, and seems to have been made by GESENIUS and others, for this one place. The primary sense, given nearly in E. V., will do here, and, in connection with it, it is easy to take Leviathan in its usual sense of some great monster, and the whole passage as denoting persons exposed to some imminent danger, or in the extreme of misery: let it have the cursing of such-that is, the deepest cursing. DELITZSCH, and others, refer it to a superstition built upon the fable of the dragon swallowing the moon in an eclipse. Those who rouse Leviathan are enchanters, who, in this way, are supposed to produce eclipses. It seems very far-fetched, and has about it an aspect of artificiality quite alien to the deep passionateness of the passage. There is, besides, not the least evidence of any such superstition among the Jews or the ancient Arabians.

26

For I was not at ease, nor felt secure,
Nor rested thoughtlessly-yet trouble came.

that might, perhaps, be brought against him by the friends. I
I was not presumptuous, he seems to say; this trouble could
not have come as a punishment for any such feeling. He
had thought of adversity in the midst of his prosperity;
"his heart had not been haughty, nor his eyes lofty." He
may refer to a fear he had ha-1 of this awful disease, the ele.
phantiasis, which had, at last, come upon him. It is not
easy to discover the reason why some commentators turn
these distinct preterite verbs of fear,, ', into

presents, as though he then feared some other terrible thing as coming upon him. So DELITZSCH renders it, although the verbs in the next verse, having precisely the same form, and standing in precisely the same grammatical connection (namely, ', 'nopy, etc.), he takes in the past. It seems like treating the Hebrew tenses as though they could be made to mean anything which a commentator might wish to bring out.

Is not thy hope the pureness of thy ways?

Call now to mind; when has the guiltless perished?"
And where were just men hopelessly destroyed?

7

8

9

10

11

12

It is as I have seen, that they who evil plough-
Who mischief sow, they ever reap the same.
By the breath of God these perish utterly;

By the blast of his fierce wrath are they consumed.
(Hushed is) the lion's cry, the schachal's roar;
The strong young lion's teeth are crushed.

The fierce old lion perishes from want;
The lion's whelps are scattered far and wide.3

To me, at times, there steals a warning word;
Mine ear its whisper seems to catch.

1 Ver. 6. Pious fear. The epithet is used in order to give the distinctive meaning. ' 8' is the Hebrew phrase for religion, and becomes used elliptically.

* Ver. 7. The emphasis here is on the verb, N and 1. both strong words. The first might be rendered last, utterly gone. The second is well expressed, in the English version, by the Jewish phrase, cut off. Instead of as yet charging Job with crimes, or even insinuating them, this language is meant to be encouraging. "The just, such as thon claimest to be, and as we believe thee to be, are never utterly lost, destroyed, cut off from God's people. Therefore, hope thou for healing and restoration."

3 Vers. 10 and 11. MERX puts these verses in the margin of his text, in smaller letters, and regards them as a displacement. They certainly have that look, unless we may regard them as a specimen of the way in which animated Arabian speakers run out their comparisons, as Homer sometimes does, until they seem to lose sight of the primary idea. What seems, 100, to favor this view of MERX is the apparent lack of any verb, or verbs, for the nouns in the first clause, unless they are connected with, which seems only applicable to the teeth. The translator has en

zeugma.

T.:

TT

deavored to supply this by the words in brackets. Such ellipses seem allowable when it is easy to understand a verb agreeable to the nature of the nouns, and suiting the context. It may, however, be regarded as a case of 4 Ver. 12 Although the Hebrew here is so very short in expression 1771, only three words, the translator would defend his version as neither superfluous nor deficient. The latter charge would seem to be against the omission of the conjunction: but 1, here, is only a transition particle. It connects nothing, and, therefore, as any full English conjunction would only encumber the thought, the is best conjunction xiv. 2). The Pual is rendered deponently; rendered by being left out (see note on the omission of the the passive form denoting merely ease or gentleness of motion, as though from no agency of the subject. Literally was stolen; but the idea is evidently the same as we sometimes express by the active steal, as in Milton's lines:

T::

A soft and solemn breathing sound Rose like the scent of rich distilled perfumes, 'And stole upon the air.