Commentary on the Holy Scriptures

In troubled thoughts from spectres of the night,
When falls on men the vision-seeing trance,—
And fear has come, and trembling dread,

And made my every bone to thrill with awe,—
'Tis then before me stirs a breathing form;8
O'er all my flesh it makes the hair rise up."
It stands;10 no face" distinct can I discern;
An outline is before mine eyes;

Deep silence! then a voice I hear:

IS MORTAL13 MAN MORE JUST THAN GOD?

IS BOASTING MAN MORE PURE THAN HE WHO MADE HIM?

IN HIS OWN SERVANTS, LO, HE TRUSTETH NOT,

EVEN ON HIS ANGELS DOTH HE CHARGE15 DEFECT.

Much more to them who dwell in homes of clay,
With their foundation laid in dust,

And crumbled like the moth.

the effect produced by the presence of spirits, when William of Deloraine disturbed the grave of the wizard. Michael Scott (Lay of the Last Minstrel, Cant. ii. 16):

At times. This is justified, and even demanded in 8 Ver. 15. A breathing form. Some render order to give the true conception of the future form in . here a spirit (a spectre, phantasm); others. simply a wind. The rendering above given combines both ideas-not for the It is the frequentative future, denoting repeated happening, sake of compromise, but because it is supposed to be most a coming of things, one after another, and therefore future descriptive of the fact intended: a stirring, or movement in to each other as a picture, though all past as a narration. the air, produced by a spiritual presence, thus, as it were, The pictorial Hebrew language uses this future in prose, taking form and position for the sense, or, in this way, ansometimes, as well as in poetry. There is an example of it, nouncing itself. Walter Scott may not have thought of Job, ch. i. 5: "Thus did Job continually," ' but he has something of the same conception in respect to (thus would he do, `n “all the days"-time after time). We may render it by a past tense; but there is a subjective or relative futurity in it. There is, moreover, something in this form, as here used, that gives an anticipatory, a looking-out sense to the whole passage. It is painted as something coming on, as though the speaker placed him. self in medias res, or rather back of all, and regarded the events as they appeared to him in each time of his having this clairvoyant experience; for the whole style of the language seems to convey such an idea; as in the case of the Saiuóvior of Socrates which so frequently appeared to him, though not always, perhaps, in the same way. The plural nouns in the first clause of ver. 13 confirm this view: "in seasons of serious thought-in visions of the night;" as though it had often happened.

To render in the past, without any wau conversive, or any affecting particle, or any thing in the context to justify it, seems very arbitrary, besides overlooking the whole spirit of the passage. As the formal future (will steal") would not suit our idiom, or our Occidental modes of expressing relative time, the best thing we can do is to imitate the pictorial manner by putting it in the present, with some word to denote its repetitive idea as an experience, and something to express the subjective anticipatory feeling. To this latter service, no word is better adapted than our word seems, as used in vers. 12 and 15.

Similar remarks are applicable to the futures that follow, namely, a peculiarly visionary word, and

ver. 15, and T. ver. 16. The præterites mingled with

Strange sounds along the chancel past,
The banners waved without a blast.

We have, along with this, that most peculiar verb ↳n,
generally denoting some mysterious, indescribable change.
The simplest word, however, answers the purpose here.
was a stirring in the air, just making, or seeming to make,
itself perceptible to the sense.

9 Ver. 15. Made my hair rise up: Dn. There is no reason why this Piel verb should not have its transitive sense, though most commentators render it intransitively, making hair the subject. If taken transitively, (wind or spirit) is the subject: or the feminine may denote a general or indefinite subject, the event itself.

10 Ver. 16. It stands. -takes position after the breathing motion, and before the announcement. 11 No face. , aspectus, visage, something that has features. It is a more distinct word than in the next clause, and makes a contrast with it stronger than the words form and image as used by E. V. and CONANT. It is the mere outline without any look, or any internal lineaments.

12 Ver. 16. Deep silence! 7 might, perhaps, be taken interjectionally, as we sometimes use the noun silence for hush! as though the narrator, in his vivid apprehension, is carried back, and loses himself in the scene: "Hush! 'tis a voice I hear!" or, am about to hear (subjective

.(אשמע future

6 Ver. 12. Warning word.-17, here, has its sense oraculum, as in Num. xxiii. 5, 16, and frequently in the Prophets.

6 Ver. 13. Vision-seeing. On the propriety of this word, see remarks INT. RHYTH. VER., p. 51.

7 Ver. 14. Thrill with awe. is an intensive verb of fear, but does not, of itself, mean to shake, as E. V. renders it. The Hiphil form makes it here peculiarly strong.

18 Ver. 17. The announcement of the Spirit is put in capitals; but it is not certain where it ends, or where Eliphaz resumes his moralizing. Ver. 19, beginning with , looks as though it might be the application that the speaker makes of the Spirit's message, which either stops here or goes through the chapter.

14 Ver. 17. Boasting man. The epithet is used to mark the contrast intended between N, weak man, mortal man, and, strong man, hero, ávýp, vir.

15 Ver. 18. Defect: a, ignorance.

-"not found in the land of the living," that is, among mortal men at all. Or it may be referred to the highest wisdom of which man is capable, "the fear of God," xxviii. 28, but which comparatively few men possess.

It is not exactly certain where the metaphor ends. Critics of the Lowthian school might deem this a fault. In the sacred writings, however, metaphors are not employed for embellishment. It may be thought, too, that in this case the effect is strengthened by the very uncertainty. We hardly know where the moth ends and the man begins, or where the one fades away into the other.

1 Ver. 3. The foolish. 1 here, if taken in the milder yet still morally culpable sense of foolish, may be personally applicable to Job for his violent outcry, although Eliphaz does not sufficiently consider, or understand, his extreme bodily anguish. In the harsher sense of great criminality, such as seems to be denoted in the description following, we cannot regard them as imputing great crime to Job, or holding him out as a fit subiect for such a retribution. The controversy has not yet come to that, and such a sudden and unwarranted imputation upon one who had been known as "sincere and upright, one who feared God and eschewed evil," even as God Himself describes him, would certainly be a gross dramatic inconsistency, to say the least. Job's outery astonishes them. Whether rightly or not, they understand him as implying that God is unjust, that He even favors the wicked, or, at least, that He has no regard, in His providential dealings, to the character or destiny of men. It is a defence of God against such a supposed charge rather than an attack upon Job personally. In this idea we find a key to much that is afterwards said, though it must be admitted that as the dispute grows warm there comes more and more of personal crimination.

2 Ver. 5. Even from the thorns. This intensive rendering is demanded by the union of the prepositions

and to and from. They glean close, even the stray heads of grain that grow among the thorns. D'py is best made here from DDY with the sense of NY to thirst (ZÖCKLER, UMBREIT, EWALD, MERX). One version has robber, with little or no authority, unless regarded as metaphorical from the idea of the thirsty, with which we have combined it in the version above. DILLMANN, DAVIDSON, CONANT, render it the snare, as in xviii. 9, though it seems quite forced here, and entirely out of harmony with , to gape or pant after. The VULG. has armatus for robber. The Syriac renders it thirsty, which certainly seems to make the clearest contrast with hungry (y), and therefore to be preferred notwithstanding xviii. 9.

8 Ver. 7. Ah, no! is not only strongly adversative here, but evidently implies a negative; ov any aλλá. Children of the flame; literal rendering of 1, whether regarded as metaphorical of sparks, or of ravenous birds, as GESENIUS and others take it.

He foils the cunning in their vain device;

Their hands are powerless to work reality."
He snares the wise in their own craftiness;

Whilst the dissembler's plot is hurried on to ruin.
These are the men who meet the darkness in the day;
Who grope at highest noon as in the night.

God rescues from the sword, from their devouring mouth,
Yea, from the very hand, so strong, He saves the poor.
And thus the weak has hope;

And foul injustice shuts her greedy mouth.

O blessed is the man whom God reproves;

The Almighty's chastening, therefore, spurn thou not.
'Tis true he woundeth, yet he bindeth up.

He smiteth, yet 'tis his own hand that heals.

In troubles six will he deliver thee;

In seven-still no harm shall touch thy soul.
In famine, he from death will thee redeem,—
In war, from the sword's edge.

From the tongue's smiting thou art hidden safe;
Nor shalt thou fear war's wasting when it comes.
At devastation and at famine shalt thou laugh;
Of forest beasts thou shalt not be afraid.
For with the very stones hast thou a covenant;
All creatures of the field hold peace with thee.
So shalt thou know thy tabernacle safe;
Thine household muster, and find nothing gone."
Then shalt thou learn how numerous thy seed,-
Thine offspring as the earth's green growing herb.
And thou thyself, in ripened age, unto thy grave shalt come,
As sheaf that in its season to the garner mounts.

Lo this; we've pondered well; this is our thought.
O hear and know it; take it to thyself.

♦ Ver. 12. Reality, ¡win. See Note 7, vi. 13.

6 Ver. 20. Death here is represented as a tyrant or a conqueror, and therefore there is used the word to redeem.

6 Ver. 22. Forest Beasts: NM ♫'n, beasts of the earth; wild beasts in distinction from 'n, beasts

of the field, or domestic animals.

7 Ver. 24. NO here: not miss.

. E. V., not sin. Primary sense

CHAPTER VI.

Then Job replied

O could my grief be weighed,

And poised' against it, in the scale, my woe!
For now it would be heavier than the sand;
And thence it comes, my incoherent speech.
For Shaddai's arrows are within my flesh;
Their poison drinketh up my soul;
God's terrors stand arrayed before my face.

Brays the wild ass when the green herb is nigh?
Or lows the ox when fodder is before him?
Unsalted, tasteless-how can it be eaten?

What relish is there in the white of eggs ?

[So with your words]. My soul refuses taste.
"Tis food' I loathe.

But what then is my strength, that I should hope?
And what mine end that I be patient still?

My strength is it the strength of stones?

Or is my flesh of brass?

Is not my help within me gone,

And driven from me life's reality?"

Unto the faint, love still is due from friends,"
Even though he had the fear of God forsaken

1 Ver. 2. Poised. 18, implying weight-lifting up, so as to hang in free suspension. There may refer to the grief and suffering laid together, or as denoting coincidence; at one-like 17; the two ends of the beam in one horizontal line; expressive of great exactness.

for, great misfortune,—extreme wretchedness-a sighing onomatope, like our word woe. See HUPFELD's very fuli explanation of the word Ps. v. 10.

1 Ver.3. Incoherent. Primary sense of 7 is swallowing, as our translation gives it. The secondary sense is confused and difficult utterance, as though the words were choked or swallowed.

3 Ver. 6. The white of eggs. This comparison that seems so little poetical, is evidently significant of the unsavoriness and tastelessness of the counsel just given. How vapid is all your moralizing as contrasted with the pungency of my insupportable anguish! See the remarks of A. B. Davidson, a late but most admirable commentator, who is very full on this and the following verse.

5 Ver. 9. Comp. iv. 21, and Isaiah xxxviii. 12.

6 Ver. 10. Endure: 77. Most modern commentators follow Schultens in his deduction of this once occurring word from the Arabic 77, to paw the ground as a horse, thence getting the sense of exultation. It seems ex. travagant, and out of harmony with the other language. Better take it from the Chaldaic, which has the sense of burning. Hence also, as senses in use, those of contracting drawing ones-self firmly up. See the example given, BUXTORF, Chald. Lex. 1481, from BERESCHITH RABBA, DJ rhy o anima ejus contrahitur, retrocedit in eo. Eng. Ver. harden myself is not far from this idea. Though He spare not, or, let Him not spare. The 3d clause. Literally: For I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 7 Ver. 13., from the substantive verb . Anything substantial and real in distinction from the failing and the evanescent.

Our

8 Ver. 14. Such is Dr. CONANT's clear rendering of this difVer. 7. 17. Lit., diseases of my food,ficult passage. D: primary sense, melting. Hence failing sickness of my food, or food of sickness-unsavory, or that (liquescentem), allegoria pereuntis. See Glass. Philologia SaRakes me sick. cra, 1712.

Not so my friends-illusive as the brook,
As bed of streams whose waters pass away;
Whose turbid floods are darkened from the sleet,
As on their face the snowflakes hide themselves.
What time they shrink,10 deserted of their springs,
As quenched in heat they vanish from their place,
"Tis then their wonted ways are turned" aside;
Their streams are lost, gone up in emptiness.
The caravans of Tema look for them.

The companies of Sheba hope in vain.

Confounded are they where they once did trust;
They reach the1 spot and stand in helpless13 maze.
And thus are ye—but nought;

A fearful spectacle ye see, and gaze in terror.
Have I said, give to me?

Or from your wealth be liberal for my sake?
Or save me from the hostile15 hand,

Or from the invader's
power redeem my life?
Give me your counsel, and I'll hold my peace;
And let me clearly know where I am wrong.
How mighty are the words of righteousness!
But your reproving! how does it convince?
At words do ye your censures aim?

At wind-such words as one may utter in despair?
It is as though you cast lots for the orphan's wealth;
Or traffic1 made of one you called your friend.

And now, O turn to me, behold my face.

I will not speak before you what is false.
Return, I pray; let not the wrong prevail.
Return again; there's justice on my side.
Is there perverseness in my tongue?
Cannot my conscience" still discern iniquity?

9 Ver. 16. Hide themselves. It does not represent a frozen stream, but a dark scene of winter, or of the rainy season, when the wadys are full. It is the snow falling on the swollen waters and immediately disappearing; the same exquisite image that Burns so happily employs:

Or as the snow falls in the river,

A moment white, then gone forever.

12 Ver. 20. They reach the spot; y. Right up to it-on its very brink.

18 15', literally, blush with shame. The expression is not too strong when we think of the sickening disappointment of men travelling days in the desert, sustained by the hope of the cooling water, and finding at last only the parched bed of the wady.

14 Ver. 22. For my sake, '. A wider sense than

som or deliverance from an enemy. See note 953 to Noldius' Concordance of Hebrew Particles.

10 Ver. 17. Deserted of their springs. 1: For me, pro me-propter me, as though by way of rancut off from their fountains. The word occurs but once. It is best derived from the Syriac coarctavit. The sense drying up is closely allied to this, and also to that of heating, which is commonly given to the verb. See DILLMANN and UMBREIT.

11 Ver. 18. Zöckler here, we think, is right in referring A to the streams themselves, instead of rendering it caravans like many others. The process is by way of evaporation; "they go up into tohu," the waste atmosphere. It is not easy to apply this language to the caravans, though it is admirably descriptive of the drying up of the streams. The verb 15, they twist to one side, well represents an abandoned channel.

15 Ver. 23. Hostile hand. Job seems to be ever thinking of some great and terrible enemy, who is not God. Comp. xvi. 9, 11.

16 Ver. 27. As though. The language is evidently comparative.

17 Ver. 27. Or traffic made. n with the sense emit, like the corresponding Arabic, and as used Deut. ii. 6 ; Hos, iit. 2. SO SCHLOTTMANN und verhandelt euern Freund. 18 Ver. 29. The rendering of DELITZSCH.

19 Ver. 30. Conscience, the palate, when used metaphorically, denotes the moral rather than the intellectual judgment.

« Poprzednia Dalej »

Książki

Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Tom 8