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النشر الإلكتروني

CHAPTER XXIII.

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Then answered Job and said:

Again, to day, my plaint-rebellious1 still;
The hand' upon me heavier than my moans.
O that I knew where I might find Him3-knew
How I might come, even to His judgment seat.
There would I set my cause before His face;
There would I fill my mouth with arguments;
Would know the words that He would answer me,
And mark what He would say.

'Gainst me would He set forth His mighty' strength?
Ah, no-not that-but He would look on me.
A righteous one there pleads with Him;
And from my Judge shall I be ever free.

GENERAL NOTE. Chap. xxiii. seems to mark an interval, or a new scene, or simply a new day, in the dramatic movement. EWALD thinks the discussion extended over several days. This is very probable. When the friends first came, they sat in silence with the sufferer, "seven days and seven nights," a mode of expression denoting a number of days at least. What is there improbable in the supposition that days, with intervening nights, were occupied with the discussion itself. Still less improbable is the thought that there were intervals of silence. It would be in harmony with the ways of the Arabian Consessus, marked by patience, and a deliberate waiting of one party for another, to give time for reply or silent thought. And how appropriate would this be in the case of the suffering, exhausted Job. The pauses of silence in the midst of his speeches are elsewhere alluded to, but more or less of an interval may come between some, or all of them, taken as wholes. This chap. xxiii. with its peculiar commencement, certainly does not look like an immediate reply to the preceding speech of Eliphaz. In the very first words, Job seems absorbed in himself, in his own sad case, and although, in the course of it, there are some things which seem to have been suggested by the previous speaker, yet, in the main, it has very much the character of an outburst of feeling, betraying little consciousness of any antecedent or present outward surroundings. Again-they must have had some time to sleep-the friends, at least, though Job could not sleep for pain (see vii. 4)-and the preceding speech of Eliphaz seems evidently to have been in the evening, or in the night somewhat advanced, when the crown" of brilliant stars, right over head, presented such an appearance of extraordinary altitude. As shown in the notes to xxii. 12, the language in which that vivid night scene is painted reveals emotion, such as must have been felt by actual spectators. Such words were never used by any one speaking in the daytime. Then, again, there is in the close of the speech of Eliphaz a falling off, as it were, from the former harshness, especially as shown in ver. 5 and onwards. A more soothing tone is adopted, as though, soothed himself by the contemplation of the silent heavens, he meant to calm the mind of Job, by a picture of returning prosperity and new gifts of grace,-thus leaving him to get what rest he could. How the others pass the night we are not told, although they must have been very near him. Thus viewed, the commencing words of ch. xxiii. may be taken in their most literal sense of hodie, to-day, and not as a mere intensive expression for the present moment: "Even now,” as DELITZSCH takes it, or "after all our efforts." That makes a fair sense, though the one here given is not only the more literal, but the more impressive. Job has been moaning all the night upon his couch of ashes (see vii. 4), and when morning breaks, the first thing heard from him is that mournful refrain, that wailing complaint of God's estrangement, which makes all their labored advice indifferent to him. It may be noted, too, that the stricter sense of hodie is expressed by denoting addition, again, still more, another day of sorrow and reproach. So RENAN:

Encore, une fois ma plainte.

And thus he sends up that cry of the first verse which he had been laboring though unable to repress.

1 Ver. 1. Rebellious still. The weight of authority is in favor of giving the sense which would naturally come from instead of 7, although the two forms are allied. In the present passage, too, they would come to very much the same thing. DELITZSCH renders it, biddetk defiance. ZÖCKLER, in a similar way, as also EWALD and UMBREIT. RENAN, appeleé révolte. Still it does not necessarily mean rebellion against God, but rather rebellion against all his own efforts to suppress his impassioned grief. It bursts forth in spite of all he can do. And this is in harmony with the second clause: heavier than my groaning.

2 Ver. 1. The hand upon me. It is only a true translation of ", and of its possessive suffix of the 1st person, if we take T, hand, for the plague sent upon him,as the weight of authority, old and new, seems to require. Severe affliction is so frequently denoted in Hebrew by the words T, the hand of the Lord, that the ellipsis naturally arises, and the word hand alone is used for the whole phrase. See Ps. xxxix. 11, where 11, blow or plague, in the 1st clause, is equivalent to, the attack of thy hand, in the second. It may seem harsh to us, but to the Hebrews it would be more easy and natural than to use hand liter

T

ally, as DELITZSCH does, for the organ as the instrument for
heavily on my groaning."
the outward suppression of inward feeling: “my hand lieth

3 Ver. 3. O, that I knew where I might find him! The Psalmist would have said, find my God,

or

...

The absence of such personal expressions in Job's speeches is a peculiar feature of the book. It is an evidence all though, of the great want which made Job's chief affliction-that hiding of God's countenance he so mourns for here. There is something, too, very significant in his apparent avoidance, sometimes, of the Divine name: might find HIM. It has occasionally, something of an angry look, as however, there is a deep pathos in it: "O that I might find in iii. 20: "Why does He give light to the wretched?" Here, Him"-Him, my estranged God, whom my soul seeketh, but whom I hardly dare to name.

4 Ver. 6. His mighty strength. The reference does not seem to be to the idea sometimes expressed, that a man could not live if God appeared to him in His majesty. There is meant rather the strength of argument ('7'). Would He "be strict to mark iniquity?" Would He set out the tremendous claims of His law and justice? Something inspires Job to say, Ah no ; He would just look at me ( put His heart upon me, as the ellipsis is usually filled up), have regard to me,-see my misery; He would "remember that I am but dust."

6 Ver. 7. There pleads with him. This is the simplest and most literal rendering of the four Hebrew words of the text. There is no need of putting in any potential or subjunctive signs, such as may, might, could, would,

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Lo, to the East I go; He is not there;

Toward the West, but I perceive Him not.

To His wondrous working on the North, I look, but look in vain;
In the void South" He hides Himself, where nought can I behold.
But my most secret way, He knows it well;

He's trying me; I shall come forth as9 gold.
My foot hath held His steps.

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His way have I observed, nor turned aside.

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The precepts of His lips I have not shunned;

More than my own behest, His counsels have I prized.
But He is ever One;10 who turneth Him?

And what His soul desires, 'tis that He does.
The law ordained for me He now performs;
And many a like decree remains with Him.
Therefore it is I tremble so before Him;
I think of Him, and I am sore afraid.

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cret chambers of the South, ix. 9. Job points to the Southern region of the heavens which seems to be over Teman. It is because few constellations appear there as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. It is more like void space as compared with the brilliant North. Or there may be some idea of the hidden underworld toward which that region is imagined to be the way. See VIRG. Georg. I., 242.

würde, etc. They may be inferred, if the reader chooses, since, in English, pleads (indicative in form) may be equivalent to may or would plead, if the context demands it; as though it were said, that is the place where a righteous one pleads, (may plead) with Him. It may also be remarked that is also used impersonally for justice, integrity, as in Psalm cxi. 8, where it is joined with truth; so that it might be rendered: there justice pleads, or is pleading with Him. But such a personification is hardly to be expected in Job. It may be Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum held that the sense usually given is the nearer one, and the Sub pedibus Styx atra videt, Manesque profundi. Rationalist may, therefore, be content with it; but that does It is to be lamented that this sublime passage should be not prevent one from taking a higher and wider idea, if the marred by two of our best commentators. This is done by language fairly suggests it; since Holy Scripture, regarded UMBREIT, who most unnecessarily goes to an Arabic word, as given by God whatever may be the method of inspiration, which is really not cognate, to get the sense of covering for may be rationally treated as having a vast fulness of mean-y, common Hebrew verb as it is, and by DELITZSCH, who ing.-not double senses strictly, or enigmatical, but ascending ideas, or stories of thought, the lower the basis of the higher, according to the spiritual-mindedness of the biblical student. When the clause is rendered in its simplest form: " a righteous One there pleads with Him," it suggests the thought of the Great Intercessor. It is, too, not altogether foreign to the book. It brings up again that mysterious idea which somehow came into the mind of Job, xvi. 21, born in him, and forced out of him, as it would seem, by his extreme anguish or a sense of his spiritual desolation:

Whilst unto God mine eye is dropping tears, That He Himself would plead for man with God, As one of Adam's race doth for his brother plead. There may be here, also, something of that same "melancholy conceit" (as UMBREIT styles it) which Job gets into his crazy head, of " tod's standing by him against God." (see Note xvi. 21). This righteous One personates, or is personated by, every other one who thus 'pleads for man on earth. The more near sense suits here, and may be taken, therefore, as the true exegetical interpretation on which all else must be grounded; but what right has this "higher criticism," as it calls itself, to shut out that greater idea to which the lower mounts, and which so touchingly appears in the other passage: God only can help us with God. On the rendering plead, see Note xvi. 21. D may refer to circumstance or condition as well as place. See Pss. cxxxii. 17; cxxxiii. 3.

T

whilst refuting UMBREIT commits a similar fault in respect to the y' of the second clause,-giving it the Arabic sense of turning aside, instead of the Hebrew sense of covering, wrapping (Pss. lxv. 14; civ. 2). Between them they have effaced two plain Hebrew words, and blotted out a most glorious contrast so conspicuously set forth in the celestial appearances themselves.

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8 Ver. 10. But my most secret way: '73 777. The word denotes something nearer, more familiar than by would have done. See Ps. xxiii. 4, "¶py 7nx *Ɔ, "for thou art with me." My way that is nearest to me, most familiar to me, and yet better known to him than it is to myself. The phrase "777, as used here, may help us to the meaning of that controverted place, ix. 35, jɔ xs,

of de-rangement, or being not one's-self-on of himself—as there not so with me, which would seem to give us the opposite idearendered. It is there the wild, confused, delirious state, instead of the well-known familiar way of the soul's movements. Hence the same metaphor of de-rangement, in so many languages. See Note on ix. 35. But he knows. This is another example of a sudden rising of hope and confidence following immediately after the expression of great darkness or bewilderment. The thought of being known to God, of God "looking at him "(ver. 6) though he cannot see his beholder,-this immediately revives his sinking spirits by assuring him of the Divine providence, as well as his own seeing God would have done. It was the skeptical feeling, the dark shadow of a theism, or fatality, coming over his soul that so distressed him. De profundis clamavit.

6 Ver. 9. On the North. The North is the region of the most brilliant celestial phenomena. It is probably suggested to Job by what Eliphaz had said, the night before, about "the crown of stars." It is not, however, a view of the vastness of God in space which Job so much desires, as nearness, or a sense of His spiritual presence. See Note xii. 12. n here (in his working) must refer to some special manifestations of the Divine creative and supporting power in the constellations that surround the pole; and, therefore, the epithet in the translation is necessary to bring out what in the original speaking had sufficient emphasis without it. 7 Ver. 9. In the void South. Here, too, the epithet is used as really belonging to the significance of the lanIn guage, and as justified by the figure contained in . It 10 Ver. 13. Ever one. : Literally, in one. is the same as that given by the phrase, the seone way, it may be; but the best commentators regard it as beth essentia.

Ver. 10. As gold. i, aurum purissimum, the shining gold, by way of contrast, and in reference, probably, to what Eliphaz says of 33 xxii. 24. The true gold is Job himself -the true "silver from the mine" (xxii. 25) that God is so mysteriously working.

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Not from" the darkness am I thus cast down,

Nor yet because thick darkness veils

11 Ver. 17. Not from the darkness. The rendering given of this verse in E. V., and which corresponds to that of UMBREIT and other commentators of repute, makes no intelligible sense. It would represent Job as having this awful dread upon his soul because God had not "cut him off before the darkness" came, and then, with a feeble tautology besides, because He, God, "covered the darkness from his face." It all turns upon the rendering of (or rather the Idea for which gives the reason), and on preserving the analogy between the and then of ver. 15, and and of ver. 17. The gives a protest rather than a reason. It was not the darkness that he dreaded so much, as a thing personal to himself, or the difficulty of understanding his own case, as that awful feeling which came over him when thinking of the confusion, blind disorder, apparently, which seems to prevail in all the affairs of the world, especially human affairs. This protest seems to be in reply to what Eliphaz had said, xxii. 11, about the darkness which covered Job, and which, he intimates, had been brought upon him by his sins:

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יזז

Or darkness that thou canst not see,

Or water floods that overwhelm thy soul.

See the conclusive reasons for the rendering here adopted, as given by DELITZSCH, EWALD, DILLMAN, and ZöcKLER. The other rendering: "Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither hath He covered the darkness from my face,"

my face.

would require a sudden change in the use of
ver. 17, as compared with

and

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from the causal sense, 66 'on account of,” to the avertire sense of "before," besides the wrong rendering of 3. In the second clause of ver. 17, the in may have its force on immediately following, as CONANT well remarks, or on the whole clause: not for myself, whose face darkness has covered-or: not on account of the fact that darkness ( black midnight darkness) hath covered my face. This gives a sense most grand as well as significant. Job had lost the spiritual vision of God. He could not find Him,-could not trace Him in his works or in his providences,-all was dark in respect to himself. But there was still support in the belief that God knew him, looked upon him, ver. 6, knew his way perfectly, ver. 10. Whilst this hope remained, he was not altogether lost. But the other thought of fixed law which is nothing else than arbitrary decree (vers. 13, 14), in other words, a blind fatality, whether called God or nature, which had no regard to human affairs at all, no moral concern for man, this was anguish unalleviated. It was this that weakened,, in modern phrase, broke his heart (ver. 16). It was when he thought of this, that "trembling seized all his flesh." xxi. 6. x, ver. 17. Not cut off, but reduced to silence, awed, confounded.

CHAPTER XXIV.

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How is it,'-times from God are not concealed-
That they who know Him do not see His days?

1 Ver. 1. How is it? EWALD, UMBREIT, HEILIGSTEDT, SCHLOTTMANN, DELITZSCH, ZÖCKLER-a formidable array of authorities-take this as a direct question: "Why are not times reserved (laid up, appointed) by the Almighty?" In the same way, most of the older commentatore cited in POOLE's Synopsis. The English Version, CARTWRIGHT, LUD. DE DIEU, and others, give it a different turn: Quare quum Deo non sint occulta tempora, nihilominus tamen, etc.: "Why, seeing times," etc., or "why if," etc. The Vulgate makes it a direct declaration: ab Omnipotente non sunt abscondita tempora. The Syriac has it: Why are not the wicked hid from God? as though there had been read Dy, instead of 'ny. The ȧreßeis ávôpes of the LXX. looks the same way. The authorities just cited generally take 153] in its secondary sense of laid up, hence reserved, appointed; though some of them give it the primary meaning; Why are times not hidden from the Almighty As though Job meant to intimate, que rulously, that it were better to think He knew nothing about human affairs than that He let things go on in such darkness and disorder. CONANT adheres here, substantially, to our E. V.: "Why, if times are not hidden, etc." The translator is inclined to go with him. Job is speaking according to the hypothesis of his friends. The question, taken directly according to the usual force of y (which means more than why-rather for what reason, Gr. rí ualuv), would be a strong affirmation of the certainty of the fact, that times are not reserved by the Almighty-a position which Job would hardly dare to take directly, and which, certainly, he would not address to the others as an admitted truth, or one they would not controvert. There is no difficulty about D'n and 1. All understand them, the first, as denoting events, according to a frequent Biblical usage, and the second, days of retribution or of divine manifestations. The hypothetical idea is certainly very natural to the context, but what grammatical ground, it may be said, is there for it? An answer to this is found in the peculiar nature of the particle ya, before adverted to. Another reason arises from the fact, that this particle certainly has an influence upon the

second clause, even if we take 1, in 11, as a mere copulative. "Why are times not reserved, and why do those who know Him not see?" This would make it a negation of both propositions, whereas from the context, or rather from the whole chapter, the thing denied or doubted would rather seem to be the connection between them, or some truth admitted in relation to God which is regarded as inconsistent with another having relation to man. There is, however, no absolute need of supplying any such particles as if or seeing that. The broken style of Job's utterance becomes clear when literally and closely followed. It is simply taking the words as they stand, only throwing the force of 1 on the second clause, and thus giving the intervening part a parenthetical character. In this way, bethoughts rather than words. It may then be thus fairly comes inferential, that is, it connects by way of inference, or paraphrased: "How is it?-times are not hidden from God, you say-and yet (1 connecting illatively, or one fact with another) those who know Him, or claim to know Him, as you claim to know Him, and to speak for Him, do not see His days of retribution?" y, how is this?, Tí μalov, as GESENIUS gives its etymology. "Times (events) not hidden from the Almighty:" that this idea 18 intended by Job in this first verse, appears from the fact of its pervading his argument and all the pictures he draws of bad men and their incomprehensible impunity. This is the burthen of his complaint: God sees it all, knows it all, yet seems to pay no attention to it (see ver. 12)-does not heed the enormity, lets it go on-"lets the wicked feel confidence" in their impunity (ver. 23), though all the time "His eyes are upon them," and upon their doings. It should, however, never be forgotten that all these strong pictures of Job are by way of protest against the representations of the others. He himself has some dream of a great dies retributionis, according to the best interpretation of xxi. 30, but here he confines himself to their views of the present state of things, maintaining that to all appearance, whether the wicked prosper, or whether they meet with misfortunes (there being no real inconsistency, or such as troubles many

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commentators, in his presenting both sides), God seems to have nothing to do with it, does not interfere with it, leaves things to take their own course, though seeing it all the while. Job is in a strange state of mind, bordering on a kind of fatalism; but his extreme positions are not so much his own better feeling as they are the ground to which he is driven in showing up the fallacies and one-sidedness of their views. This thought, kept in mind, will furnish a key to much that has seemed dark and contradictory in the chapter.

2 Ver. 2. Yes, landmarks. Here Job enters abruptly upon specifications of events showing the disorders God permits in the world. The whole chapter is a vivid picture of this, although the items are strangely mixed together, as though the passionateness of the speaker carried him out of all method. We have here the wretched vagabond wicked, the rich and powerful wicked, the suffering poor, the bold and dastard criminals, the murderer, the adulterer, the thief, characters of every grade, their prosperity and their misfortunes, the flight of the bad man (ver. 18), whether it be the thief pursued by the popular curse, or the fallen tyrant fleeing from the hootings of the proletaires, his rising again to power (ver. 22), his dying like all other men, the common grave, the worm, the oblivion, all set before us in a few touches that no effort of Dickens or Victor Hugo could rival. In the midst of it comes the brief-sketched scene of the stormed city (ver. 12), the dying groans, the wailing of the departing spirits of the slain, and what rans through ali, and affects us more than all, the thought of God above, who sees, yet seemingly "cares for none of these things." This is the polemic aim of the picture as against the friends. Job's darkness has a background of truth, and we need not therefore fear to say, that it is better than their false light.

8 Ver. 4. Their right. Heb. 777, their way, their home. That to which they have been accustomed. DEL. 4 Ver. 5. The barren wild their bread, Description of a wild gypsy life.

5 Ver. 6. Reap his fodder. The general sense clear, the particular applications uncertain. DELITZSCH seems to give the best interpretation: "The bad rich man has these vagabond proletaires to cut his fodder, but does not entrust to them the reaping of the better kinds of grain. So also he prudently hesitates to employ them as vintagers, but makes use of their labor to gather the straggling, late ripening grapes. In this and the following verses, the transitions from the one class to the other are very rapid. The most concise way to express it in a translation was to italicise one of the classes.

Ver. 7. Naked they lodge. The vagabonds again. The transition very abrupt, but all the more vivid.

7 Ver. 8. The rock their bed. Literally, they embrace the rock.

8 Ver. 9. Others tear; the widow's child, as mentioned just above. These are the wicked rich as distinguished from the proletaires, or reckless poor.

Ver. 10. Their garments. The pawned garment taken from the poor.

10 Ver. 11. Their: the rich. They: the poor.

11 Ver. 11. Thirsting still. Not allowed to drink of it; even as the hungry laborer not allowed to taste the grain he is carrying. Their thirst aggravated by the sight of the wine flowing from the presses which they turn. the city of the dead. Here comes suddenly a new picture of 12 Ver. 12. The city filled with dead. Literally, a city taken by storm. The accents connect ' closely with "y, and if they are to be regarded, the former cannot be the subject of PN, as EWALD and others render it, whatever may be the meaning of the noun. The vowel pointing, in most copies, is `, generally rendered men, which would give the rendering in the one case, men groan, and, in the other, men from the city-a very feeble sense in both cases. DELITZSCH tries to remedy this by rendering it men of war, with a reference to Deuteronomy ii. 34; iii. 6; Judg. xx. 48. But men in those passages are simply so named in distinction from women. In the translations of EWALD, UMBREIT, DILLMANN, ZÖCKLER, it is rendered Sterbende, the dying, which CONANT also adopts. In this they follow the Syriac, which derived it from the reading D' instead of D'. The English reader will see how slight the difference in the vowel pointing, (**) instead of (:), and how easily the change might be made. The Syriac, from an unpointed text, took the reading that seemed most natural. It also appears in some Hebrew codices, and is well defended by DE Rossi as presenting the best parallelism to, the slain or wounded. Those who have adopted the reading ', which they render the dying, connect it with PN the dying groan, thereby disregarding the accents. These, however, may be observed if we give to D' its true rendering, which is not the dying, but the dead, past participle: From the city of the dead, so called because of the vast numbers of the dead lying within it-from the city filled with dead.

Then there may be given to a general subject, they groan, or it may be taken impersonally, as in the translation

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15

16

And shriek aloud the spirits of the slain;
But God heeds not the dire1 enormity.

15

They, too,-those enemies of light,

Who take no knowledge of its ways,

Who stay not in its trodden1 paths;
The murderer-at the dawn" he rises up,
To slay the poor-the destitute;

By night he plays the thief.

The adulterer's eye waits for the twilight shade.
No one, says he, shall see the way I take;
A masking veil18 he puts upon his face.
Through houses in the dark the burglar digs.
In covert1 do they keep by day,—
All strangers to the light.

given above. The form p as distinguished from the more
usual PIN, and as having more of an onomatopic resem-

blance to the thing signified, is used especially of the groans of the slain, as in Ezek. xxx. 24. "I will break the arms of Pharaoh and be shall groan the groanings of the slain." This greatly favors, too, the reading of D. Here, as in other parts of the Heurew Scriptures, the authors of the accents, if they belong not rather, in some way, to the Divine originals, have shown their spiritual acuteness. By the connection they have made, 1px' stands by itself, as it were; the subject is left to the imagination of the hearer, as something well known, and whose suppression, therefore, is more pathetic than its mention: "they groan." In this position, too, it becomes more strictly the imperfect of description, instead of mere narration: "they are groaning-groans are continually ascending." All this makes it the more emotional. The force of it may have been given by a look or a gesture, but the strongest expression of it in a translation demands some interjectional word or phrase: hark! how they groan as though the narrator brought the scene right before him.

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13 Ver. 12. The spirits of the slain. V may be rendered spirit (or, collectively, spirits) as denoting the going out of the breath or life, or the soul, as DELITZSCH renders it. So UMBREIT: ruft laut die Seele der zum Tod Verwundetn; ZÖCKLER the same way. It need not be relied upon as proof of any peculiar notions about the separate existence of the soul, and yet is in perfect harmony with other ancient descriptions to the same effect. How often does Homer represent the epirits (vxal) of those slain in battle as going out wailing, shrieking, Tpisoval, and often predicting the doom of their slayers, according to that very old belief in the vaticinating power of the departing spirit. So Hector's ghost takes its mourning departure to the Unseen World, Iliad xxii. 362.

ψυχὴ δ' ἐκ ρεθέων πταμένη Αϊδόσδε βεβήκει.
ον πότμον ΓΟΟΩΣΑ-
Bewailing his sad doom.

T'

14 Ver. 12. Dire enormity. The first feeling in the study of this passage is, that the reading, prayer, which the Syriac followed is the right one. It has led UMBREIT and CONANT, with other excellent commentators, so to render it: "God heeds not the prayer." There comes to mind, however, that rule of criticism, sound in the main, that the more rare form is to be preferred, on the rational ground that a change to it from the apparently easier is less likely than the contrary course. The view is strengthened, too, when we look carefully at the idea conveyed by the other , though at first it seems strange. It is an unusual word, and its etymological sense, without salt, ineptum, (see this form Job i. 22; Jer. xxiii. 13; and another from the same root Job vi. 6; Lam. ii. 14) strikes us as poor, and unsuitable to so vivid and impressive a context. From this primary sense, however, of insulsitas, unsaltedness, insipidity, comes that of absurdity, monstrosity, whence it is applied

form

to anything odious and abominable, that which can be reduced to no rule of consistency-abnormal, abhorrent-an anomaly, as DELITZSCH renders it. Hence the term chosen by the translator from a similar etymology, though having more force than the word of DELITZSCH-an enormity (e norma) out of all rule, utterly irrational. The more it is examined, the more it will be seen to give, not only the truer sense lexically, but the more impressive,--the epithet only calling attention to it, without adding to its meaning. It is a monstrous enormity, so considered, a hideous blot on the face of creation; and yet, according to Job's picture, God pays no attention to it. Horrible enough when we think of some feeling of such an enormity increased when we bring to resacked town, or castle, in remote Idumea; but how is the membrance other scenes of slaughter far surpassing it in modern warfare,-of Borodino, for example, or Sedan; or when we call up other bloody pictures from Ancient History, such as THUCYDIDES' account of the terrible defeat of the Athenians in the land and sea fight at Syracuso (close of Book vii. 70, 71). Some of the language is very much like that of this verse of Job, the mingled wailing and shouting of the combatants, "the cry of the slayers and the slain,' ὀλλύντων τε καὶ ὀλλυμένων, in describing which the dry historian is carried up to the Homeric grandeur of language and conception. Another reason for preferring

that

low

would have been the most natural verb to fol

ײ ז

is

(prayer), though D', with the usual ellipsis, would suit either reading. The VULGATE renders, Et Deus σкопην оÙ пежоinтai, which may suit either reading. imultum abire non patitur; LXX. Αὐτὸς δὲ διατί τούτων ἐπι 15 Ver. 13. They too. 9 emphatic. A new class mentioned, but spoken of as well known-those notorious characters. 16 Ver. 13. Trodden paths, well known, i), in distinction from the more general word 777-like Gr. ȧrpаTós. Compare also the same word, Job. xxxviii. 20: "paths to its house," that is, the light.

17 Ver. 14. At the dawn. Literally at the light, the first beginning of day-break. There is no contradiction here, as MERX maintains, of the previous description. They are called enemies of light as much in a moral as in a physical aspect. But even in the latter it is all consistent. The murderer starts at the break of day to surprise and slay the poor as he goes forth to his labor. Or the emphasis, as is most likely, is on D'p', denoting not his rising from his bed, but his sudden rising up from his ambush where he has prises at break of day. been lying all night, waiting for his victim, whom he sur

18 Ver. 15. A masking veil. has more properly the abstract sense of concealment, here put for the instrument of concealment, whether a veil or a mask.

19 Ver. 16. In covert do they keep. Literally, they seal themselves up. 1, by themselves, or giving, as sometimes does, a reflex or hithpahel sense to the verb, though in such cases some call it pleonastic-as

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