24 25 25 26 With it the topaz gem of Cush holds no compare But Wisdom,-whence, then, doth it come? Veiled even to birds" (that gaze) from heaven's height? "A rumor of it hath but reached our ears." God understands its way; He knows its place. For He to earth's remotest ends looks forth, 24 Ver. 21. Birds (that gaze). They are taken as the symbol of the keenest intelligence, as they actually exhibit the highest perfection of mere sense vision, aided by the vast height to which some of them, especially birds of prey, as before mentioned ver. 7, rise in the air. The words in brackets only give the clearly implied idea. UMBREIT here, under a show of learning, utters a great deal of absurdity: "In the East," he says, "a deep knowledge and an extraordinary power of divination was ascribed to birds. They were regarded as intrusted with the interpretation of the Divine will. We are only to call to mind the personification of the good spirits of Ormuzd through the birds, as we find it in the Persian religion, or think of Simurg, the primeval king of the birds, who represented the highest wisdom, and who dwelt on the mountain Kaf, or of the bird language as set forth by FERIDEDD IN ATTAR, the great mystical poet of the Persians, etc., etc." This is all rationalistic nonsense, or "the higher criticism" run mad. Such an idea of the birds' intimacy with the gods, in consequence of their apparent nearness to heaven, (towards which they seem to soar), very probably entered into all old systems of bird divination, whether in the East or in the West; but there is not the least trace of it in the Bible, and it has left no mark on the Shemitic languages, like oiwvós (bird omen) in Greek, or auspicium (aves specio) in Latin. Especially preposterous is this idea of UMBREIT when viewed in relation to a theism so reverentially pure, as to make a pious man like Job actually jealous of the effect of the heavenly bodies, "the sun in its brightness, the moon walking in glory" (xxxi. 26), lest it might detract from what is due to "Him who setteth His glory above the heavens." There is no doubt, too, that im Morgenlande, or in some parts of it, there was a superstitious regard to precious stones. Certain gems were regarded as having magical or divining properties; and UMBREIT might just as well have made the same remark (Man denke nur an) in respect to Job's use of these in his comparisons of the value of Wisdom. The meaning, too, of the bird comparison is so obvious. The keenest sense vision, Job means to affirm, cannot discover it. What is this but saying that its perception does not belong to the sense world at all, even though sought by the keenest and most microscopic science, but to the sphere of things "unseen and eternal”—that world of supersensual being which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, (unless it be an ear that hath passed beyond the bounds of mortality, see ver. 22) nor hath it ever ascended in the heart of man to conceive. 25 Ver. 22. Death and Abaddon. Compare this with the 2d clause of ver. 13, and also with remarks on that verse in note 19. The language implies a bare whisper in respect to this ineffable wisdom,-a rumor, something said about it, and which first reaches the soul in that land beyond death, whether it be the region of the rest secure in Hades, or of the irrecoverably lost in Abaddon, “the bottomless pit," Rev. ix. 2. 26 Ver. 25. The wind its weight: The air (as might be rendered) its gravity. The sublimity of Job is only lessened by studied attempts to find in it any of our modern scientific conceptions; but this is evidently selected from other parts of creation, as furnishing a wonder. The light 27 est of these known substances, or rather one which, to the chapter of GESENIUS, LANGE series, Vol. I, page 143. In this 28 Ver. 26. A way. Here, too, ZöсKLER'S conception seems inadequate. He rende.s a way, a path, ein Bahn, which would do very well, were it not for his commeut, namlich durch die Wolken, through the clouds. Poetically this is expressive, and is favored by the context Xxxviii. 25, where the whole language is intended to be in the highest degree phenomenal. But here the train of contemplation which is produced by this description of the ineffable Wisdom seems to demand something more than the mere conception of a passage through the clouds. As pin TT TT ing there. But every thing of this kind is shut out in the most express ter us. It is not a priori knowledge, or any ru diments of such knowledge, through which we may laudably inquire, though to a very feeble extent, how God made the worlds? It is not in na ure at all, whether viewed a priori or inductively, and, terefore, through nature can it never be revealed. The deep saith-not in me; The sea-it dwel'eth not with me. These are evidently put for nature's most unexplored and inaccessible departments. Although, therefore, we cannot affirm what it is, or go beyond the fact of a mystery, ineffable, yet having a most intimate practical relation to the human moral destiny, yet this may be said. and every one who believes God's Word should fearlessly assert it, that the humblest Christian, the most ignorant man. who has in his soul a true reverence for God, and a true hatred of sin, is nearer to this great secret of the Universe, even in the present life, than the proudest philosopher, the proudest man of science, who neither knows nor prizes such a state of 30 Ver. 27 And built it firm, ♬ Here, too, the objective pronoun must be taken as referring to the phenomenal creation, though grammatically related to the Wisdom which it represents, or rather, tor which it was made, (τὰ πάντα δὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται—καί τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκε, Coloss. i. 16, 17). ZOCKLER interprets soul. , and especially, above, as an “evolution of the everlasting Wisdom, or an unfolding of its contents before men and other rational beings, the whole creation being nothing else than such an Entfaltung and display of its adaptedness" (Vergeschichtlichung). But this certainly makes it, after all, only a knowledge of God in nature, or of His ways in nature, and seems to contradict the idea so expressly set forth in other verses of its being utterly unknown to men in the present life. lt moreover buries all in nature, and leaves no moral end or moral world wholly above it, the great heresy, and the source of all the irreligious positions of our modern science. There is found in a few manuscripts the reading, he understood it. It seems decree (primarily, mark, line, terminus) may be taken for the in ward law or idea, so suggests, not so much the space way, or direction, as the phenomenal order of causalities. In this sense it is yet a way to science. More and more facts, or links, are constantly making themselves known, but they are only additional steps in the way of which Job speaks. This is not ascribing to Job any measure of what would be called science, or philosophy. It is a distinction belonging to the common thinking, to every contemplative mind in all ages. There is another scriptural term for law in nature which goes deeper than all. It is the word (covenant) as applied to nature; as in Jerem. xxxiii. 20, "My covenant of the day and my covenant of the night," the established order of time, of the seasons, of nature's courses. It is God's covenant with His rational beings, that they may trust nature, with its order of sequences established by Him for their moral benefit, or for ends higher than nature itself. It is appealed to as a kind of oath, confirming the constancy of His moral an 1 spiritual purposes by the constancy He has established in the physical world: "If ye can annul My covenant of the day and of the night (see Gen. i. 14, 15; viii. 22; ix. 12-17) then may ye annul my covenant with David": The great promise of the Messiah and of His eternal kingdom, confirmed, as it is, by an oath, having for its pledge the constancy of nature. Here is a higher constancy. Here is an order of things in respect to which the dictum of the naturalist, asserting invariability, holds true. The moral and spiritual system can admit of no breaks, no suspensions or deviations in its eternal laws. For it all lower law was made. Ver. 27. He saw, 8. There is a Masoretic note indicating another reading with Mappik X, he saw it, which ZÖCKLER adopts. It would seem a plausible emenda-strange that it should have been adopted by EWALD, as it tion, until we think of the resemblance here suggested to the i. of Genesis, the repeated declaration as made with this same verb without a pronoun, 'x x), and God saw, Gen. i., vers. 3, 10, 12, etc., and especially the closing one ver. 31, "And God saw all that He had made, and lo it was good, very good." The word here: and He declared it, suggests the same great announcement, and, therefore, the translator has ventured to add the word in brackets. It might, however, be regarded as actually contained in the verb itself, which has the sense of praising, celebrating, as in Ps. xix. 1, where the response to Gen. i. 31 seems sent back: "the heavens are telling (DD) the glory of God"-the greatness and goodness of Him who pronounced them good, His glorious handiwork. The pronoun in " must refer grammatically to on, the ineffable Wisdom, but the more immediate reference must be taken as being made to these works of Wisdom, or the creation as its outward phenomenal representative. But the whole chapter is involved in a contradiction, unless a distinction is made between such manifestation of its effects, and the eternal Wisdom itself. Of this it cannot be said, thut sie kund, as ZÖCKLER and UMERKIT translate, or erzählte sie, as others render it. The phenomenal representation (and so in some sense the thing itself as an ineffable fact) is made known, narrated, reported, but not so can it be said of the Wisdom itself, whose place is ere so earnestly inquired after as something hidden from all the living, and of which the afterworld and underworld have barely heard a rumored whisper. Neither can Wisdom here be the Divine architectural skill in the construction of the world. It is not the wisdom shown in the adaptation of natural means to natural ends, such as that which forms the subject of natural science, and even of natural theology. It is not nature, or Gods great skill in nature itself, or in utilitarian happiness-producing final causes, as they are called, but the great ineffable reason why nature, why man, why the world at all, was ever made. If it were natural knowledge, then it might be said that men like Newton, Laplace, and Faraday, made some advance in it, though infinitely small in comparison with the vast unknown. If it were any speculation about ideas, and an ideal world, then Pythagoras, and Plato, and Cudworth, might claim some stand T: makes a barren repetition of what is said in ver. 23, besides 81 Ver. 27. Its testings. We certainly cannot render here, as we would when used of man, as in ver. 3, or as E. V. has given it, and many others: He searched it out. It would not be applicable either to the creation, as the work, nor to the Wisdom as the pattern, unless taken anthropopathically, not in the sense of discovering the unknown, but of testing the work, or the model, when made. There is something of this kind of representation in the creation account itself. It is an emphatic mode of conveying to the finite mind a sense of its excellence and perfection. God appoints the heavenly bodies as denoters, among other things, of times and seasons. He is represented as trying them, pui ting them in the Heavens for that purpose. What rightfeeling and right-thinking mind would lose the sublimity of all this for any assurance of scientific accuracy, which, after all, is no accuracy, for science is never finished. Again, God locks at the whole, as the maker would survey his machine : TTT after he has set it in motion, and pronounces it admirable,, ideas as much as it transcends our limited inductive science. , kada díar, valde bona-good-VERY GOOD. We 82 Ver. 28. Unto man. Some would render DN7 of would not think of charging PLATO with anthropopathism, when in a similar way he represents (Timæus 37, c) the great man: So PAREAU, de homine, concerning man. The direct Swov, with its animal life, or plastic nature, as the subject address, however, is the more common for the preposition of admiration to the "Generating Father," Harp ò yevvý.. The other may be regarded as implied, and either view σas, when he sees it move on in all its harmony and perfection. So God is said here to test, or try, the world He had made, to see if it answered that great supra-mundane end which is here called Wisdom, transcending all PLATO's would justify the possessive pronoun placed in brackets. It is a special Wisdom for man, leading, at some time, to some glimpse of the great Wisdom. The distinction is demanded by the whole spirit of the chapter CHAPTER XXIX. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Then again' Job lifted up his chant and said: O that it were with me as in the moons of old; And when through darkness by His light I walked; When God's near presence in my tent abode ; 1 Ver. 1. Then again, 0". It certainly seems to indicate a pause of some kind; being said, not after the words of another, but in the course of Job's own speaking. It may have been a waiting for the friends to resume their argument. There is, however, no contradiction between the close of the xxviii., and the opening of the xxix. The under-current of thought can be easily traced, and yet the difference in style between this and the resumption demands the idea of some intervening silence, aside from this expression in the caption. In the xxviii. Job's thought of God's ineffable wisdom came from the contemplation of his own mysterious sufferings, bringing him to the grand conclusion that it is man's wisdom to believe and adore where he cannot understand. This high train of thought carries him, for a season, out of and above himself. Such a pitch, however, cannot be sustained, and so he comes down again to his own sorrows, his ever smarting pains, and that leads to the contemplation of former happiness which that same unsearchable wisdom had so bountifully conferred upon him. This is far from being an unnatural transition, although it is emotional rather than logical. It may be said, too, that the cescent, if we may call it such, is all the more pathetic as thus succeeding a meditation so glorious and profound. 2 Ver. 3. When shone his lamp. Lit.: In its shining of his lamp. The first suffix pronoun does not refer to God, as though the verb had a Hiphil sense: in His making to shine. Neither is it to be taken as DELITZSCH renders it: "when He, when His lamp shone, etc." It is the pleonastic use of the pronoun so common in Syriac, and if it were of much importance this might be called one of the Aramaisms of the book. It denotes not only a very intimate communion, or a con- "for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they sustain Ver. 6. The flowing milk. The epithet is needed here to give the proper emphasis, and, thereby, bring out the fair meaning which might, otherwise, be mistaken. This emphasis is on the words milk and oil, as both, from their 3 Ver. 4. Near presence. D, consessus, familiar in-smooth-flowing nature, suggestive of exuberance. It is not tercourse. See Ps. lv. 15; Job xix. 19. D, God's faror. The rendering of our translators, the secret of God is very happy, giving the idea of a heart intercourse unknown to others. 4 Ver. 5. My stay. Lit.: With me. But always seems to have something more than its preposition sense. a mere effeminate luxury that Job has in mind. It is true that in the case of a rich man of old, possessed of vast flocks and herds, such a luxury as actually bathing the feet in milk would be neither incredible nor improbable. In the case of Job, however, we must take it as a byperbolical expression figurative of great abundance, and not only that, but as something peculiar to him beyond others. This latter em 7 When up the city's way, forth' from my gate, I went, And in the place of concourse fixed my seat; phasis is given by the strong preposition Ty, which denotes something more than mere adjacency, as some take it, the rock, "near Job," or "in his neighborhood." It has a close personal sense: with me in distinction from others,-in my case, as something peculiar, or beyond the case of men generally. And this puts a still stronger emphasis on the substances mentioned. It was milk, in distinction from other fluids, in which the feet might be laved; or as though he intended to say, it was oil instead of water, the usual product of the rocky fountain, that the rock poured forth. Nature gave to Job her richest abundance. So UMBREIT seems to take it: Statt Wasser strömte der Fels Oel. See the same hyperbole Deut. xxxii. 13.777 occurs only in this place. 9 Ver. 11. And blessed. UMBREIT ruhmte mich, made good report of me. This is very touching. In such assemblies there was not only the honor paid to him by the orators, and the leading men, but here and there some poor man's ear arrested by his voice, some eye that testified to acts of beneficence of which public fame made no report. 10 Ver. 12. That I had saved. To render for or because, in this place, as most commentators do, seems greatly to mar the effect of the passage. It makes it a reason, and a somewhat boasting one, asserted by Job, instead of a testimony to the fact: That I had saved, etc. The latter view is not only in harmony with the more usual sense of as a connective (quod, öri — that instead of because, see Note 12, ver. 8, ch. xxvii., pa.113), but seems also demanded by the future following and denoting a subjective succession of event, or idea, dependent on a preceding governing word, such as It is rendered steps by some, feet by others. UMBREIT admits that the feet are here intended, even though the rendering in this case. Thus Jerome in the VULGATE renders be steps or goings. And indeed the other makes a most extravagant idea-a walking or wading in milk. It is rather strange that this whole verse is omitted in the Syriac.. it eo quod, as dependent on testimonium reddebat. If denotes a reason independently, it is not easy to see why it should not have been followed by the præterite, or why 7 Ver. 7. Forth from my gate. Does here , as it stands, should not be rendered in the future. mean the gate of Job's dwelling or the gate of the city? It would seem that such places as Gen. xxxiv. 24, and Job xxxi. It may be said that the exigentia loci demands the other sense, 34, ought to settle it. They can only mean the gate or door but if the view taken of be correct, then the saving is a to the place of departure, or of one's abode. DELITZSCH, how-dependent idea, and the word takes properly the Future, that ever, rejects it on the ground that "the place where Job is, the Subjunctive form. If it is an independent assertion, it dwelt in the country is to be thought of as without a gate." But private dwellings in the country may have had gates to is impossible to distinguish it from, ver. 14, below. protect them against marauding banditti, and this would be has no conversive power except as it connects, not as a especially necessary in the case of a man of great wealth, reason, but as an assertion of dependence on a preceding verb whose sense is incomplete without it. like Job. The preposition may be rendered simply to, 11 Ver. 13. On me came. The Future form of the verb but its etymology suggests the idea of ascent, up to. It may, is because of the train of thought being still under mean position merely, by the city; but that requires the supposition that is the city gate. The other is the more natural from the fact that a city, with its acropolis, was an ciently built on the higher ground, as making, in that way, a better place of defence for its inhabitants, as well as for persons coming into it from without, and who, in time of peace, dwelt in the plain below. T the influence of the recital, ver. 11. Though it may be regarded as grammatically independent of the ", it still keeps the direction thereby given to it. So is it in respect to the 2d clause (17). It is all a part of that which made "the ear to bless and the eye to testify." 12 Ver. 14. I put on. Here begins an entirely independent clause, and the assertion having no connection, either logical or grammatical, with what precedes, takes the preterite form. There is no tautology in the clause. The latter verb simply explains the figu 8 Ver. 10. Was hushed. Heb. hidden, that is, suppressed For the plural form see ZoCKLER. Vers. 8, 9 and 10 present a very concise yet most graphic picture of the effect produced by the sudden entrance into an assembly of one held in great and universal respect. Its simplicity, its air of truthfulness, and the pathos of its connection with his then state of extreme suffering, divest it of every appearance of vanity and boasting. The language gives the idea of one not in office, but living a most honorable private life. Job would have been called by the Greeks one of the Kaλokaya-glish-habitual to me. Bo, the good men and fair, the good men and true, who held no public station, but still, on that very account, possessed more true influence than the professional politician. rative sense by the literal: yes, it did really clothe me-it became my habit-as the figure has become naturalized in En 13 Ver. 14. Mantle and diadem. These are not mentioned as ornaments, but as expressing the completeness of the clothing: From head to foot attired in righteousness. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 A father to the poor; The cause I knew not, I would search1 it out. So would I break the fangs of evil1 men, And from their very teeth would dash the prey. To me men listened-waited eagerly; After my word, they answered" not again; יב (אִישׁ לֹא 14 Ver. 16. Cause I knew not. Some would render it, "the cause of one I knew not." It requires too great an ellipsis, a double ellipsis in fact. [1] T The rendering given implies the same and more. In the one case it would simply denote impartiality; the other and more literal rendering gives, in addition, that of carefulness to obtain a full knowledge of the case in order to be impartial. 15 Ver. 16. I would search it out. is the subjective Future denoting disposition, and, in that way, habitual or repeated action, such as we denote by our auxiliary would (from will) which never loses its subjectively future idea: "I would do so and so;" it was my way. This is carried into the next verb at the beginning of the next verse, ; its 1, whether we call it conversive or not, giving T: it the exact time force of 1px immediately preceding. The paragogic ending, however, gives it an optative as well as a subjunctive sense: "I would desire to break :" "I took pleasure in breaking the fangs of evil men." 16 Ver. 17. Evil men. by, taken collectively. 17 Ver. 18. Like the palm tree. On the three interpretations of, in this verse, see EXCURSUS IX. pa. 206. 18 Ver. 20. With me. Ty. This seems to be a favorite preposition in Job's speeches. It is stronger than y would have been: My glory, in distinction from that of others. It gives also the idea of permanence. 19 Ver. 20. Ever green. 7, regerminates. It is the same word that is used of the tree, xiv. 7. See Ps. cii. 27; Isai. ix. 9; xl. 31; in Kal Ps. xc. 5, 6. The bow the emblem of vigor, strength, power. See Gen. xlix. 24. lar idea when he represents it as a spiritual infinence: Meine ὡς ἔφαθ' οἱ δ' άρα πάντες ἀκὴν ἐγένοντο σιωπή, Knλnouós, a soothing strain prolonged, still vibrating, un- 21 Ver. 23. For rain. An instance of subtile emotional transition. This mention of the rain is suggested by on in the preceding verse, or rather, the spiritual metaphor contained in it. 22 Ver. 24. That I should mock them. See how the word pr is used xii. 4, in the sense of mocking or scorning. There is no reason why it should not be so translated here. The rendering smile, in the sense of favor, pity, as DELITZSCH and some others would give it, has no example 20 Ver. 22. They answered not again. The reason is given in the 2d clause, commonly rendered, and my in the Scripture. P is used with or, and with speech dropped upon them. To regard 1, however, at the be-y. The two first denote laughing at, in the sense of sport ginning of this second clause, as merely copulative, and thus denoting a subsequent speaking, would be an absurdity. By taking it as illative, that is, as connecting by way of giving a reason, we understand why they answered not. It was on account of the gentle and persuasive manner of his speech disinclining them to make reply. And this suggests another idea closely akin to it, and well deserving of notice as favored by the peculiar sense of "distillation, gentle and repeated dropping, as of dew or rain." It may be taken as describing what may be called the musical effect of his works, the charm they possessed, as though still sounding on, or distilling in the souls of the hearers. UMBREIT gives a simi or mockery, the third carries the stronger idea of laughing against, that is, of scorn, or derision. There are only two places where it even seemingly varies from this. In Job v. 22, it might seem capable of the rendering smile, but it is the smile of contempt ("at destruction and at famine shalt thou laugh" or smile) not of favor or pity. So Prov. xxxi. 25, "she rejoices" (E. V.) " she laughs (CONANT) at the time to come." If rendered smile there, it is the smile of fearlessness. The stronger word laugh is according to the usage of the ancient world generally. They expressed all emotions of the kind, whether of grief or joy, by words and actions of a more violent nature than we exhibit. The sense of smiling for fa |