יז་

• Ver. 6. On the omission of conjunctions, see Note xiv. 2. Ver. 6. My heart shall not reproach me. RENAN: Mon cœur ne me reproche pas un seul de mes jours. S DELITZSCH: My heart reproacheth not any one of my days. This may do if we take in ' in its partitive sense: any one of my days. But the other view which regards the expression as denoting the time how long is easier and saves a difficulty. The reader sympathizes with Job's general vindication of himself; but the assertion that nothing to cause self-reproach had ever occurred in any single day of his life is extravagant and repelling.

10 Ver. 7. Mine accuser. Literally, one who riseth up against me-his adversary in the litigation. This idea is in the Hithpoel, like the Greek Middle participle ó KaTadikaÇóμevos. It is not an imprecation, nor even a harsh wish, personally, except so far as it affords a vehement way of repelling the charge from himself. It simply means: if he cannot make it out, then he is the wicked man, he the unjust.

Ver. 8. The false man. Such a one as they would make Job to be, and such a one as he would truly be, should he make a false confession. GESENIUS gives to the general sense of profane, impious, impure, which is almost the direct contrary of the Arabic . Most of the later commentators follow this. The old rendering hypocrite, however, is almost everywhere used by E. V., and the idea of falseness of some kind, which the context generally connects with the word, gives it countenance, especially in such a place as this. It furnishes, too, a better ground of agreement with the Arabic sense of devotee, which might easily come from it, or give rise to it, by that reverse association which has great influence in language.

12 Ver. 8. That he should gain. This corresponds to the old versions, to the Syriac especially, and, in general, to the views of the older commentators. The rendering,

ened;" that is, he zealously strengthened; as in other cases where one verb is qualificative of another. 3. It would make a feeble repetition, besides changing the figure: "cut off-draw out his soul." 4. It destroys the parallelism, as it

breaks the clauses. The other view is very easy and natu

ral, besides most perfectly preserving the parallelism and

in

the harmony of contrasted ideas. It is certain that
Kal has this sense of gaining, gathering wealth, though coming
from the sense of seizing, plundering, in a word, of rapine
(rapuit); that, too, derived from the still more primary sense
of cutting. The pure primary sense, however, is quite rare,
and is mainly confined to the Piel, though even there the
sense of rapine is predominant. The idea of gaining wealth
by violent means is the most common, especially in Kal,
and as it appears in the noun y, which comes to mean
gain acquired in any way. In Job vi. 9, we have the Piel
with the sense of carrying or taking away. Had it been
Piel here, it would have been more favorable to the view of
DELITZSCH; and it is not easy to see why, if such had been
the intended meaning, there should have been used another
form more commonly associated with the other idea.
RASCHI gives the same idea as we have in E. V. He renders
it by to plunder (when he hath plundered). This, too,
has the primary sense of excision, and gives the same play
of words, or rather of ideas, which is one of the elements of
the parallelism: the rapine of the wicked man (his evil gain)
and his own raptus or carrying off, when death makes a prey
of him. DR. CONANT aims at preserving this in his transla-
tion, whilst preserving also the old idea. The rendering
above given calls up the picture drawn by our Saviour,
Luke xii. 20, of the rich man congratulating himself upon
his gains at the very time when his soul is required of him,
or literally when they demand back his soul (amarovou);
"then whose shall those things be," etc. The rendering
which this demands for the first is certainly its most

תקוה כי יבצע :usual and natural one before a future

hope that he shall gain." or may gain. In the next clause, where this connection ceases, it has the other and very frequent rendering of when, which is both temporal and causal. There is no difficulty about this. connects as motive, as reason, or as occasion: that-for or because-when. All these uses come from its original pronominal sense, and are ana. logous to the two senses of or in Greek (that and because), and to the closely allied ore (when), all of which flow out of the pronoun like the double sense of quod in Latin (that and because, also quum when, neuter of old form quus for qui), and the similar double use of that in English.

en He cutteth off, given to the Kal y (DELITZSCH, ZOCKLER, UMBREIT and others), is presented with great confidence; but there are to it very serious objections. 1. It makes, in 13 Ver. 8. Re-demand, Great difficulty is found fact, an intervening clause, to which, however short, the accents ought to have conformed. 2. It gives one subject with, which cannot be made, grammatically, from (God) to two verbs, in two separate clauses, each beginning,, nor from, whilst the attempt to derive it from nnnecessarily, with the particle-a thing certainly very unusual, if not unexampled in Hebrew. The rarity of such fails to give any suitable sense, unless we borrow it a construction seems admitted in the fact that DELITZSCH can only cite two cases: Job xx. 19; Neh. iii. 20. But a careful examination of those places shows very essential differences, rendering them quite inapplicable here. In both, the verbs are preterites and follow each other immediately in the same clause. What is still more important, in each example the first verb is evidently used as adverbfally qualificative of the other. Thus xx. 19,

from a similar Arabic verb, as GESENIUS and others do for this occasion. They would thus render it draws out his soul, as from the body its sheath-a conception having little warrant in the Hebrew psychology, and only a seeming one-as connected with a totally different word-in the Chaldaic of Daniel vii. 15. If, however, the Arabic is to be resorted to, then is there a very strong warrant for SCHNURRER's view, which GEENIUS says "is not to be contemned." Regarding it as pure Hebrew in sense and etymology, he would treat it as taking a form prevailing in the corresponding Arabic word. Thus it would be from, to ask, demand, or is abbreviated for with a falling out of the weak X, and

the vowel of the preformative lengthened by the usual law

of compensation. In Arabic the abbreviation comes from

Ver. 19. Once opens he the eye. One glance, his place. But the translation of E. V., which is nearly that one look, and he is gone. Or as RENAN gives it:

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Breaks from the settler's view the deep ravine;

And there, forgotten of the foot-worn path,

They let them down10,-from men they roam afar.

Earth's surface (they explore) whence comes forth bread,

Its lowest depths, where it seems" turned to fire;

Its stones the place of sapphire gems,

Where lie the glebes of gold.

A path's the bird of prey hath never known,

Nor on it glanced the vulture's piercing sight,
Where the wild beast hath never trod,
Nor roaring schachal" ever passed it by.

Against the granite's sends he forth his hand;
He overturns16 the mountains from their base.
He cutteth channels in the rocks;
His eye beholdeth every precious thing.
From weeping bindeth he the streams,"
The deeply hidden brings he forth to light.

But Wisdom,-where shall it be found?
And where the place of clear intelligence ?18

lying near Tzalmaveth or the confines of the underworld
(the terra umbrarum).

8 Ver. 4. Settler's. The word is a modern one, and yet seems to give the idea here. is rendered inhabitant, but it means rather a resident, a dweller merely, as distinguished from a born native. is rendered stranger pilgrim, one away from home; but in fact the two words are nearly the same. One of them is used to define the other, as in Leviticus xvii. 12, DONE 7, the stranger that sojourneth in the midst of you." The idea here, as colored by the context, seems to be that of one dwelling in a remote region, the last inhabitant, in fact, on the very frontier of this wild mining

-ז

district. If so our word pioneer, or settler would convey just

that idea of remoteness required, and the double preposition,
Dy, would intensify the meaning (from with, from his so-
ciety, to the desert wild). From this last border of civiliza-
tion they go, letting themselves down the precipices, lost to the
beaten road, and far away in the trackless solitude. The de-
scription, though very abrupt and concise, suggests almost
literally the similar language with which ESCHYLUS de-
scribes the wild Caucasian region.

Χθονὸς μὲν εἰς τηλουρὸν ἥκομεν πέδον,
Σκύθην ἐς οἶμον ἄβατον εἰς ἐρημίαν.
πρὸς πέτραις

ὑψηλοκρήμνοις

τῷδ' ἀπανθρώπῳ πάγῳ.

"A frontier land-an untrodden desert-high beetling rocks -a craggy region far from human haunts." On the words and, and the differing interpretations given to them, see EXCURSUS VIII., pa. 199.

9 Ver. 4. Forgotten of the foot. 717 denotes here a well trodden, well-known way. To this they are lost, if we may take the Niphal participle deponently; but the literal passive is far more poetical. Instead of their having lost their way, or wandered from it, the way itself is personified as having forgotten them. It is in accordance with such expressions as we have, Job vii. 10; Ps. ciii. 16; "the place thereof knoweth it no more."

10 Ver. 4. They let them down (themselves down), by ropes, or other means from the precipices: a. On this see EXCURSUS VIII., pa. 199.

11 Ver. 5. Seems turned to fire. See EXCURSUS VIII., pa. 199.

12 Ver. 6. Place of sapphires; near this region of fire or affected by it. There may be here, perhaps, some idea of sapphires and other precious stones being the pro

Iuct of fire, pyritic, pyrogenous; or, in some way, of a fiery formation. See Exc. VIII., pa. 201.

13 Ver. 7. A path. The place where or whither, for all these researches preceding it; or it may be confined to what follows, to the 12th verse. Or it may denote, g ne rally, the scene of every thing narrated or described from the, the entering valley, wady, or ravine, ver. 4. Such a view would be conclusive against the idea of its meaning the narrow shaft of a mine. The eagle's glauce, the vulture's eye, the wild beast's tread, suggest something more than this. They give the thought of deep and dark places on the earth, difficult of access, indeed, but foreign to the idea of channels sunk under the earth. ', a word of place, used as is used, ver. 4, Dipp ver. 6, and 7, ver. 5, "above."

14 Ver. 8. Roaring Schachal. There are so many different names for lion in Hebrew, and especially in the book of Job, that it was thought best to transfer this, as bas been done also iv. 10. The sense of roaring, which GESENIUS gives, is adopted, although founded on slender authority, from the Arabic. Still less satisfactory, however, is the other view, which would regard

,שחר as equal to

T:

is ever

used of the larger kind of streams, and often of the mighti-
est rivers. It never denotes a mere vein, or trickling flow
in the rocks, unless the sense be manufactured for it just to
suit the supposed exigency of this place, as GESENIUS seems
to do. The word alone is sufficient to show that the opera-
tions here described, from ver. 4 to 12, cannot be confined to
so narrow a place as the artificial shaft of a mine. Though
mining explorations do certainly form a chief part, yet the
language gives rather the idea of extended wilds, precipices,
inaccessible places, where they are carried ou. What is said
about the birds and the wild beasts shows this. The refe-
rence here, then, would rather be to the damming of large
streams, so as to leave their channel dry for "prospecting
to use an Americanism. The poetical expression aceeping,
would have all its force when applied to the percolations
from dams, as well as to the oozings from the rocky veins.
18 Ver. 12. Clear intelligence. Our word under-
standing is hardly the right one here. It is too vague, and
taken in too many different senses. The German Einsicht
carries with it too much of the idea of mere sagacity, skill, as

; though something is gained when we understand that they differ as truth, and the faculty or power of discerning that truth. It is something which man has not in this life, as is most clearly expressed in the next verse. It is, however, an intelligence clear, unmistakable, not admitting the least doubt. The pronoun here, is simply emphatic; to render it by our demonstrative would overload the sense.

אֵין

the great secret of moral destinies; it answers not the ques-
tion: "where shall wisdom be found?"
21 Ver. 14. It dwelleth not. The second clause goes
beyond the first. It has the asserting negative particle
giving a stronger emphasis to the declaration, and also the
more intimate preposition -it is not with me-no-
where with me.

22 Ver. 15. Treasured gold; so rendered from the etymological sense of 110, something shut up, kept secure as very precious. The chief difficulty in rendering this splendid passage, arises from the number of names for gold. In respect to the other precious things, absolute correctness is not required to give the impression of great and incomparable value. Unless, however, we can get reliable diversities for these different names for gold, it is difficult to avoid tautologies, with their weakening effect, such as we know could not have been in the original. Gold is mentioned, in some way, four times. In our E. V. it is first simply gold, (ver. 15). Next, ver. 16, we have what is rendered

"

gold of Ophir," or aurum pretiosum, as GESENIUS very vaguely gives it. Etymologically it would be stamp of Ophir ( D, from a verb, and meaning to mark, cut, etc.). Hence the translator has rendered it bars of Ophir, or Ophir bars, as denoting gold uncoined, too precious for numismatical purposes,-bars with their value marked upon them. In ver. 17 there is a compound expression,

TT

19 Ver. 13. Among the living. Lit.: in the land of the living. This wisdom is unknown to men in this life. No declaration can be clearer, and it is one of the utmost importance in the interpretation of this wonderful chapter. It is confirmed in ver. 21, hidden from the eyes of all living,-of all living in the present state. In the other world, or in Death and Abaddon, as distinguished from "the land of the living," there first begins to be heard a rumor, a whisper of it. Whatever may be that state of being, it is then that the great secret of God, the great end for which He made the, rendered by E. V. gold and crystals, but by most world and man, begins to disclose itself. Something is learned about it after death, which no amount of natural knowledge, or of human science, can give us here; whether it be the science of Bildad, or of Ptolemy, or of Laplace, or of a thousand years hence. Such merely natural knowledge never has, it never will, shed one single ray of light on the great question of questions. The utmost knowledge of the physical world can only give us the how; and even there, in its own natural department, the darkness and the mystery grow faster than any light it sheds. Nature itself is growing darker the more we study it. It presents more unsolved and unsolvable problems now than in the days of Pythagoras. Its study can never give us the dtà ri, the why, the reason of nature itself. So Natural Theology may discover adaptations, designs term nating in nature, and that without end, but never the design of those designs. And that, perhaps, is the reason why what we call by that name has so little place in the Bible. For we are still in nature. It cannot take us ont of it to the wisdom above, or to the world beyond, or to that remoter end to which the physical is only a means, and without which, or in the ignoring of which, it has nei-gold without a particle of alloy of any kind, like the xpvther a rational nor a moral value. Nature is but subordinate to a higher supernatural world. Science without this idea is leading us to atheism. It is darkening all minds except those who have, in some way, been taught, as from a higher plane, the solemn lesson conveyed in the close of this chap-mended to the reader the work of PAREAU, De Immortalitatis ter, that the fear of God, faith in Him, and in His goodness, whether we can see it in nature or not, is, for man, his highest, and, in a comparative sense, his only wisdom.

29 Ver. 14. The deep saith. The Deep and the sea represent the physical world. They are put for its more unexplored recesses. It is a confirmation of the thought dwelt upon above. There could not be a more express way of say ing: this great wisdom of God is not revealed in the physical world. The broad face of nature, its immensity, even its unsearchableness, proclaim His glory, His greatness, the existence of something immensely above man, and all conceivable being (see Ps. xix. 1; Rom. i. 20), but it reveals not

commentators, and more correctly, perhaps, gold and glass. The difficulty with this, however, is two-fold: We have gold again unqualified, which looks like a coming down, and joined with it a substance, which, however rare and precious it may have been in early times, is now very common. If it be gold and glass, it must be some combination of the two, such as aurated glass, or crystalline (glacial) gold, expressing something once esteemed very rare and precious, but now unknown. The translator has here followed PAREAU, who renders it vitrum auratum, or vitrum auro ornatum, and makes a very good argument for the existence and preciousness of such an article. Transparent gold was thought of; but the other rendering appeared less hazardous. In verse 19, we have again the word D (murk, stamp) as a name for gold, but joined with the pure, the unmixed. Hence it was taken as a superlative expression, denoting the very highest degree of purity-gold in its Dy, or essence

σiov mежVрwμévov of Rev. iii. 18,-the purest and most precious metallic substance, as a type of the spiritual wealth. For the most elaborate and satisfactory dissertation on the precions things mentioned in this chapter, there is recom

ac Vitae Future Notitiis ab Antiquissimo Jobi Scriptore adhibitis. The latter half of the volume (pa. 229-367) is occupied with an exhaustive analysis of this remarkable chapter. According to the view taken, the fourth mention of gold, at the close of the long comparison, ver. 19th, is simply a confession that no conceivable earthly value makes even an approach to the worth of wisdom.

23 Ver. 15. Massive silver. Silver being more common than gold, quantity enters the more into the estimate of its value. The epithet massive, therefore, only gives the emphasis implied in the verb of weighing.