FIRST CHIEF DIVISION OF THE POEM. THE ENTANGLEMENT-OR THE CONTROVERSIAL DISCOURSES OF JOB AND HIS FRIENDS. CHAPTERS III-XXVIII. The Outbreak of Job's Despair as the Theme and Immediate Occasion of the Colloquy. CHAP. III. a. Job curses his existence. CHAP. III. 1-10. 1, 2 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. and said, 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, And Job spake, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived! 4 Let that day be darkness; 5 let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it! Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; 6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months! 7 Lo, let that night be solitary; 8 let no joyful voice come therein! Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning! 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day. 10 because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. b. He wishes that he were in the realm of the dead rather than in this life. 11 Why died I not from the womb? VERS. 11-19. why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? 12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain still, and been quiet; I should have slept, then had I been at rest, 14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; c. He asks why he, being weary of life, must still live. 20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, 21 223 which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22 which rejoice exceedingly, 23 and are glad, when they can find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? 24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. 25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. 26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came! EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL. 1. The caption or prose introduction of Job's gushing lamentation. Vers. 1-2. Ver. 1. After this opened Job his mouth and cursed his day. : after the appearance of the friends, their seven days' silence, and after their conduct had wrought its "Opened his mouth; in conformity to the sensuous and poetic nature of Hebrew speech and thought, which uses the physical action to represent the mental." DAV.]. "His day," viz.: his birthday-the day on which he had come into the world. Comp. ch. i. 4. full effect on the mind of Job.-E. not to any question, nor to any uttered remark of theirs.-, with Pattach in the final sylout-lable, although the word is Milel, is found only in the prose captions of the discourses in our book; here, however, in every case: comp. ch. iv. 1; vi. 1; viii. 1, etc.-After these brief words of introduction, begins the poetic part of the book, distinguished by the poetic accentuation of the Masoretes. Comp. Introd. 3. "From this point on the epic calmness with which the hero has suffered, and the poet told his story, yields to the pathos of the drama." DILLMANN. The contents of this first tragic, high-soaring, poetic discourse of Job are expressly given in the caption in ver. 1 as being the cursing of the day of his own birth, an ardently expressed longVer. 2. And Job began and spake.-The ing for death. Comp. Jeremiah's abbreviated verse consists only of these three words: imitation in chap. xx. 14-18. [“There is a pasThe literal meaning of is, "and he answered;" for is, in general, to begin to speak when incited to it, whether the antecedent occasion consist of words or of actions; precisely the same as the New Testament árokρivεaai. [See Conant's note in loco, proving that "in most of the cases quoted in support of the signification to speak up, to begin speaking (Ges. Lex. 2, and others), the reference to something prior, as the occasion of speaking, is clear, and in all of them there is ground for the writer's choice of this form of expression."] Here accordingly it is the persistent and expressive silence of the friends to which Job replies, .איוֹב וַיֹּאמַר sage of Jeremiah so exactly similar that it might almost be imagined a direct imitation: the meaning is the same, nor is there any very great difference in the phraseology; but Jeremiah fills up the ellipses, smooths and harmonizes the rough and uncouth language of Job, and dilates a short distich into two equal distichs, consisting of somewhat longer verses. . . . The impre cation of Jeremiah has more in it of complaint than of indignation; it is milder, softer, and more plaintive, peculiarly calculated to excite pity, in moving which the great excellence of this prophet consists: while that of Job is more adapted to strike us with terror than to excite our compassion." LowтH. And to the same effect Michaelis: Jobi est tragica illa et regia tris- | follows each of these two epochs of the life is titia, dicam, an desperatio: Jeremiæ flebiles elegi, made the object of a separate and vehement misericordiam provocantes, nec lacrimis major luc- curse; to wit, first, in vers. 4, 5, the day of tus."] In respect of form, this mournful lamen- birth, and then, in vers. 6-10, the night of contation, which contains the theme and starting ception. For this sharp and obviously intenpoint of the following discussions, falls into tional distinction between these two initial three strophes of about equal length; vers. 3-10; points of the life, comp. Ps. li. 7. [7, "not a vers. 11-19; and vers. 20-26, of which the last man-child, Eng. Ver., but a man, the name proalone gives evidence of a slight abridgement at per to the mature state being applied by anticithe end, and that no doubt intentional, as the pation to the infant or embryo. The emphasis short, blunt breaking off of the second member is not upon the sex, implying greater joy at the of ver. 26, which consists of only two words, birth of a son than a daughter; Job says, 'a , gives us to understand. That, with man,' because he is speaking of himself." the majority of modern expositors, we are to GREEN. HEB. CHREST.] adopt this three-fold division of the strophes, and not, with Stickel and Delitzsch, a greater number of divisions, longer or shorter, is made certain by the , which recurs at the beginning of the 2d and 3d strophes (comp. Introd. 1. c.). 2. First Long Strophe: Job curses his existence; vers. 3-10-First strophe: vers. 3-5. Ver. 3. Perish the day wherein I was born.-72, with Pattahh in the last syllable, the accent having been retracted on account of the tone-syllable following (Ewald, 139, b).The elliptical relative clause, 1, as also the like clause (D) in the following member, are to be explained by the excited, rapid movement of the poetic style. The Imperf. [alias Fut. ], (instead of which the parallel passage in Jeremiah xx. 14 exhibits the Perf. [Præt.] 7), is the Imperf. of the Past, as is DN ver. 11. Comp. Ewald, 136, b [who calls it the præsens præteriti, nascendus eram: and see Green, Gr. 263, 5: "the speaker, by a bold figure, places himself before his birth, and prays that the day which was to give him existence might be annihilated, so that he might be saved from the misery of living."]-And the Vers. 4, 5. A special curse of the day of birth: an expansion of ver. 3 a. Ver. 4. That day-let it be darkness.— Let it be a dies ater s. infaustus. Whether the thought particularly intended is, that at each annual return of the birth-day darkness, that is to say, stormy weather, should prevail instead of bright and clear weather (Hirz., Dillmann), may well be doubted in view of the indefinite brevity of the language. Moreover such a meteorological interpretation would have something trivial about it.-Let not God from above ask after it: i. e. let not God, who is throned on high above (chap. xxxi. 2, 28), interest himself in it from thence (comp. 77 in Deut. xi. 12), let him not bring it forth out of its dark hiding-place. ["Let it pass away as a thing lost and unsought." CON.] And let not light shine forth upon it.-, "radiance of light, brightness of day," found only here; one of the many feminine forms of nouns peculiar to our book, such as ver. 5; chap. iv. 6; nhan, chap. iv. 18; 727, chap. v. 8 (Hirz.). TT: T Ver. 5. Let darkness and death-shade reclaim it. to redeem, reclaim, to make good one's right to (noty, to defile, Targ.), ["stain" E. V. The expression seems to refer night which said: A man-child is conceived. The night of Job's conception is poet- darkness, out of which by the Divine Fiat the back to Gen. i. 2, which mentions the primeval ically personified, as a living being, endowed light, together with its product, the day, was with the gift of speech (comp. Ps. xix. 3). It evolved. That Darkness was thus the original weakens the expression, and furthermore is by proprietor of the days, and is here called on to no means required by the masc. 1 (for reclaim Job's birth-day. E. "The idea being is masc.), to supply that that day was a stray portion of the kingreclaimed again by death." DAV.] The concepdom of death in the midst of light, and to be tions "darkness and death-shade" form a sort the deepest death-gloom :" comp. chap. x. 21; of hendiadys, signifying "the thickest darkness, xxxiv. 22, etc.; also Luke i. 79 (♫y is, with Ew. י:ז before, the night in which it was said" (Pesh., Vulg. [E. V.j, etc.). In the deep excitement of feeling which now possesses him, all the objects of his thought become living powers, concrete, plastic forms. This is the case here with the night of his conception. For this is the night which is meant-not that of his birth, as the invariable usage of the verb 1, "to be conceived," shows. Had the second member been intended to be synonymous in thought and expression with the first, would have been used, the 270 c, and with Dillm., to be ready, and defined "black darkness"). Let clouds encamp above it: continually to hide it [y, collective: 1, to pitch one's tent; fig. for יוֹם עָנָן וְעַרָפֶל .It settling or spreading]. Comp .נולד usual synonym elsewhere in poetry of is not only the language, however, which may be urged in favor of the literal construction of , but the general style of the discourse, which is characterized by poetic vividness and restless alternation. To this add that in what Joel ii. 2.-Let the obscuration of the day ["the Chireq is an attenuated Pattach from the lessening of the tone in the construct state:" CON.]), we are to read, and take the sing. of this construct plural as a synonym of (“duskiness"), a noun of the same formal structure (comp. also ", "tapestry," and other similar words of like structure in Ewald, 8 157, aj: ["with the third radical repeated, as is customary in words descriptive of color." DILLMANN]. The "darkening," blackening of the day (from the root 3, "to be burnt, blackened") is a result produced in a specially marked and striking manner by the eclipse of glad of its existence among the days of the year." ["The night is not considered so much to rejoice on account of its own beauty fingitur pulchra nox de se ipsa gandere, Ges.-as to form one of the joyous and triumphant choral troop of nights, that come in harmonious and glittering procession." DAV.] More insipid is the sense given by the reading followed by the Targum and Symmachus: "let it not be joined to the days of the year, let it not be enrolled among them," Comp. Ges. xlix. 6. [So E. V., Ren., Merx], ["Of course not natural days, as in vers. 3, 4, but civil days, embracing the entire diurnal period, in which sense they not come into the number of the months: include the night." GREEN. CHREST.] Let it i. e. let it not be numbered among the days, the the year (LXX. correctly: undè ȧpio unbein eis sum of which constitutes the twelve months of solar the sun; for which reason we are here to associate solar eclipses with the dark mass of clouds, thus intensifying the effect (Olsh., Dillm., Del., etc.). If we adhere to the Masoretic reading we should have to follow Aquila, the Targum, the Vulgate, in translating: terreant eum quasi amaritudines diei [Marg. of E. V.: "let them pas univ). Comp. Wieseler, Beiträge zur terrify it, as those who have a bitter day." richtigen Würdigung der Evangelien und der evanHengst. May whatever is bitter to a day ter- gel. Geschichte, Gotha, 1869, p. 291; which corrify it:" according to his explanation, Job would rectly finds here a reference to the fact that the ancient Hebrews reckoned according to the have retribution overtake that day; and as he himself had been filled with bitternesses, he lunar year; i. e. by years of 354 days (consistwould have the day from which all his suffering of twelve months, alternating in length ings took their origin, be afflicted with whatever between 30 and 29 days, and equalized with the might be bitter to it. E.]. But this instead of year by an intercalary month of 30 days a strengthening, would be a weakening of the about every three years). thought. Umbreit's explanation: "let it be terrified as by incantations (comp. Arab. marîr, incantamentum), which darken the day," antici-, lit. "stony hard," here and also in Isaiah pates that which is not expressed until further on, in ver. 8, and is furthermore chargeable with being excessively artificial. [With Umbreit's may be classified the rendering of Merx, who, reading Dip, translates: "May the priests of day frighten it away!" There can be little doubt that the rendering "darkenings of the day" is the one best suited to the context, and this whether with Ges., Con., etc., we retain the Masoretic Chiriq, or with Ewald, Zöckler, etc., change it to Pattach.-E.] Second Strophe: vers. 6-10. A special curse of the night of conception: an expansion of ver. 3 b. The reason why this expansion is twice as long as that of ver. 3 a, is found by Hirzel and Dillmann to lie in the fact that it was in particular the night of his conception which gave Job his existence (see ver. 10). ["Twice as many verses, for it was twice as guilty, and the crime of his existence lay chiefly with it." DAV.] This, however, would be attributing to the author altogether too much premeditation and systematic deliberation. Ver. 6. That night-let thick darkness take it; i. e. let everlasting darkness seize on it and hold it fast as its possession, so that it can never come forth into the light of day. an intenser gloom than 1, deepest primitive darkness, chaos and old night."" DAV.] Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. with an auxiliary אַל יִחְךְ for) אַל Pattach [furtive]; comp. Ewald, 224, c. [Green, 109, 2], from , gaudere (Ex. xviii. 9), is evidently equivalent to: "let it not be Ver. 7. Ha, that night!—let it be barren. xlix. 21 (where it is used of [Zion, personified as] a woman), the same as "barren." ["Sitting in the everlasting darkness, that Night remains barren. It utters no shout of joy over the children born to it." SCHLOTT. This sense is in better harmony with the etymology, and the vivid personification of the passage, as well as Job's vindictive feeling over the fact that that night had conceived him, than the "solitary of the Eng. Ver. (Vulg. "desolate," Syr.—E.] Let no shout. of joy come therein.-17, not "a song of the spheres" (Fries), [a conception and expression foreign to the Heb.: see the opposite thought expressed Ps. xix. 3.—E.]; but a jubilant shout of joy over the birth (or conception) of a man. TT: Ver. 8. Let them curse it who curse days, they who are skilled to rouse up the dragon [leviathan]. ["He wishes everything dire and dreadful to be heaped upon it, or employed against it, not only all real evils, but even such as are imaginary and fictitious. He therefore invokes the aid of sorcerers, who curse the day, who claim the power of inflicting curses of the day," i. e. sorcerers, who, according to on it." GREEN, CHREST.] D, "cursers the superstition of the old oriental world, knew how by their ban to make dies infausti, and who, therefore, had the power so to bewitch any particular day as to make it a day of misfortune. This art of sorcery, the actual existence of which the poetic style of the discourse concedes and assumes without going further, is characterized still more particularly, and with vivid gradation in the language, by the following clause: "they who are skilled (capable, empowered) to rouse up ( in poetry for 7, comp. Ewald 285, c) leviathan," i. e. the great dragon, who is the enemy of the sun and the moon, and seeks accordingly by swallowing them up to create darkness. That there is here an allusion to this well-known superstition in respect to solar and lunar eclipses, which is found among several other nationalities, e. g. the ancient inhabitants of India (see Bohlen, Das alte Indien, I. 290). the Chinese (Käuffer, Das chines. Volk, p. 123), the North-African natives of Algeria (comp. Delitzsch i. 79) appears: (1) From the connection, which forbids our taking TT TT: either as in chap. xl. 25 seq.; Ps. civ. 26, in its usual sense, of the crocodile, or again of terrestrial serpents (dragons), and so, with Umbreit and others, to think of snake-charmers or crocodiletamers. (2) From the parallel passage in chap. xxvi. 13, where the mention of "the fleeing serpent" points to the same astronomical superstition. (3) From Isaiah xxvii. 1, where the collocation of the words 'n designate the same mythical being (the dragon rahu or ketu of the Hindûs). The poet accordingly in the passage before us gives to the curse that is to be pronounced on the day this highly poetic turn, by wishing that the sorcerers might secure the consummation of the curse by instigating the celestial dragon against the sun and moon, thus producing an eclipse of those bodies. identify that dragon here (and in chap. xxvi. 13) with a constellation, by a reference to the dragon whose convolutions lie between the Great and Little Bear, or to any other serpentfigure among the stars (Hirz., Hahn, Schlott., etc.), does not harmonize well with the unmistakable meaning of 7, "to excite, rouse up." [The explanation of Umbreit, Rosenm., Noy., Bar., etc., a little more fully stated, is that “the verse probably refers to a class of persons who were supposed to have the power of making any day fortunate or unfortunate, to control future events, and even to call forth the most terrific monsters from impenetrable forests, or from the deep, for the gratification of their own malice, To son objects that "it cannot be shown that the superstition [above referred to] was current in Semitic lands; it belongs to India." It is true, however, that among the Egyptians, with whose institutions the author of this book was well acquainted, eclipses were attributed to the victory of Typhon over the sun-god, that the crocodile (the leviathan of chap. xli.) was a repre sentative of Typhon, and moreover that Egypt was celebrated above all lands for her sorcery. These three facts taken together would of them selves suffice to account for and to explain Job's language in the passage before us.-E.] In has Ver. 9. Let the stars of the twilight be dark; the stars, namely, of its morning twilight, the precursors of approaching day-light, the meaning accordingly being: Let this night be followed by no genuine day's radiance. favor of this sense of, to wit, morning twilight, crepusculum, may be urged, apart from the two following members of the verse, the analogy of chap. vii. 4; Ps. cxix. 147, where the same signification, though elsewhere certainly it signifies the evening twilight (diluculum), as e. g. chap. xxiv. 15; Prov. vii. 9; 2 Kings vii. 5. And let it not gaze upon the eye-lashes of the dawn. Delitzsch: let it not refresh itself with the eye-lashes of the dawn:" correctly as to the sense; for here, as always denotes beholding with the feeling of pleasure, enjoying the sight of anything. "The eye-lashes of the dawn" (the same expression is found in chap. xli. 10) are the first rays of the rising dawn, opening as it were its eyes: comp. χρυσέης ἡμέρας βλέφαρον, Soph. Antiq. 103. [To be noted is the full form of the fut. 7, instead of the apocopated.] : זז Ver. 10. The with which the verse begins refers back to the beginning of the period in ver. 6, and thus gives the ground of the violent curse just pronounced upon the night of his conception. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb; i. e. did not make the same barren, did not prevent his conception: comp. Gen. xvi. 2; xx. 18; 1 Sam. i. 5. 1, a poetic ellipsis for [Comp. chap. xix. 17, where the expression '1 '1, or that of others. Balaam, whom Balak sent for to curse Israel, affords evidence of the exist- acc. to Ges., means brethren born out of the ence of a class of persons who were supposed to same mother's womb. See, however, on the be capable of producing evil by their impreca-passage. "Juvenal has used the same liberty tions." NOYES. One objection to this view is of expression, Sat. vi. i. 124: Ostenditque tuum, stated above by Zöckler, that it is not favored generose Britannice, ventrem." CoN.]-And by the connection. Another objection suggested so hide sorrow from my eyes. The force by Dav. is that "it is somewhat flat. The of the negation extends out of the first over this, second member, instead of rising in significance, the second member of the verse, as is the case also seems to fall, for to curse the day appears a much in ver. 11. Comp. Gesen. 152 [149], 3. [The profounder exercise of power, reaching much influence of the negative extended here by further, and laying a spell much deeper, even means of Vav consecutive. See Ewald 351 a.] on the hidden principles of nature and time, The indefinite, and, so to speak, absolute term, than any mere charming of an animal, however, denotes some great and fearful affliction terrible." According to the Fathers (whom Lee and Words. follow), Leviathan here is typical of Satan, "the great spiritual Leviathan." When it is remembered that the same writers find the same typical significance in the description of "leviathan" in chap. xli., the extravagance of the fancy will at once appear. David which Job was even then suffering. 3. Second Long Strophe: Job utters his choice to be in the realm of the dead rather than in this life, vers. 11-19. The strophe embraces three sub-divisions, or strophes, of equal length, each consisting of three verses. |