the question may still be raised, whether, in the declaration, xlii. 7, 8 On7 NÝ, Ye have not spoken," &c., there was not intended a more special saying, a particular and noted declaration standing by itself, as outside of the long discussion-not something which Job had said better than they, but something which he had said, and they did not say at all, —not something said about God, but directly to Him, and according to the almost exceptionless usage of that most frequent preposition,. Meaning of, xlii. 7. This is, in the first place, an almost purely philological question. The particle is one of the most common in Hebrew, and we might also add, one of the most uniform in its meaning 'and application. Let us, therefore, examine whether ', in this place, has been rightly translated by the makers of the English and other versions. If not, it might be asked, why have so many commentators taken the wrong direction? The answer may be found in the influence of the view, so early entertained, that the Book was intended as the solution of a problem, and the decision of a debate. The supposed dramatic character and construction aided this idea. The tendency thus given would at once affect this passage, and the same feeling would perpetuate the peculiar interpretation it had originated. Instead of taking as a key the clear and usual sense of the preposition, they made it subservient to a hypothesis derived from other sources. This inverse method appears very plainly in one of the notes of Tympius (285) to Noldius' Concordance of the Hebrew Particles: "Luth., Anglic., Trem., Piscat., Belgic., Schmid, Glass, Geier, de me. Nam amici Jobi, non ad Deum loquuti sunt, sed de Deo." Here it is taken for granted that there is a decision of something said concerning God, and the preposition is rendered accordingly. Tympius, with the LXX., Syriac and Vulgate, would render it before me, but it is from the same idea of a judicial debate, only carried still farther in that direction; "for the friends," he says, non sinistre loquuti sunt de Deo tantum, sed et de Jobo, de cruce fidelium, de impiorum in hac vita prosperitate," &c. Some commentators, when they come to this place, simply say for y, or ' for 'hy and that is all the notice they take of it; or they content themselves with rendering it about, concerning, in respect to, von mir, in Beziehung auf mich (see Dillmann, Delitzsch, Rosenmüller, et al), without giving any reasons. But for hy is as rare in the Hebrew as ad for de in Latin, or the English to in the same sense. We say, indeed, speak to a question, or to a point in debate, but this is a technical sense; it is figurative, moreover, denoting direction, or keeping the mind intent upon a thing, and never used with a person or a personal pronoun. How infrequent in Hebrew is this supposed use of for y, may be seen from the few cases* given by Noldius, and of out many hundreds adhering to the common usage. *From these we may at once exclude those in which follows the verb 3, or 3, to prophesy. They may be rendered, prophecy concerning; but the preposition does not lose its original idea of direction-prophecy to, or at, or against. So also where Noldius renders it propter as Lam iv. 17: "our eyes are consumed," 1, "on account of our help." The idea is, looking to or for our help, elliptically expressed. There is the same kind of ellipsis in the few other examples he gives, as 1 Sam. iv. 21: "this she said (looking to, in view of) the taking of the ark," &c. There is no need of rendering it propter; the vivid pathos is lost by so doing. 2 Sam. xxi. 1: "And the Lord said," hinu 4xthere is an ellipsis any way. "And the Lord said-to Saul "—that is, look to Saul. Noldius fills it up tamely: "(it is) on. account of Saul and his bloody house." 1 Kings xix. 3: "He went, 1, for his life "-a peculiar phrase, but may be rendered literally, instead of by propter, on account of. Ps. lxxxiv. 3, "My heart and flesh cry out," "ņ dered by Noldius: "On account of the living God," but far better literally, "to the living God." So in the cases where he would render it de, it will be found that the object is ever present, and there is the idea of direct reference, or pointing to it. As 1 Sam. i. 27, where Hannah says, "I prayed, ny, for this child," as something present—the direct object. 2 Kings xix. 32, "Thus saith the Lord," -ren ,אל־אל . It was indeed about the King of Assyria, but how much more vivid is it when taken directly, to, at, against; Deodat. French Version, touchant le roi. The two or three others under that head can all be resolved in the same manner. 2d Psalm 7, p, cannot be rendered “concerning , to Sarah, she is my wife." Sarah was present, and the saying ness: preceptive truth of the highest value, far beyond anything to be found in Seneca or Epictetus. In this view it may be said of each one of them, that they are Sacred "Scripture, profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness," or that they are divine words "most pure," as the Psalmist says, "like silver tried in an earthen vessel, and seven times purified." Thus regarding them, the practical expositor, and the preacher, may study them with confidence, as golden sentences containing golden truth, and which, when "opened up," as the old lovers of Scripture used to say, will furnish, each by themselves, most profitable themes of meditation. It would be difficult to point out a single utterance made by the three friends of Job that does not contain, in itself, such a golden thought, and worthy of a writing for which there is claimed a divine authorship. All ancient and modern books, Oriental or Occidental, will be searched in vain for a purer or loftier theism than that set forth in these speeches of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. The same may be said of Job's language, when regarded as a calm utterance, or something more than a dramatic groan. His impassioned assertions of his integrity, his casting away of all false humility, his vehement expostulations with God, so almost terrifying us by their bold"Wilt Thou put in fear the driven leaf; wilt Thou pursue the withered chaff?”—all this may be regarded even with reverence as viewed from the stand-point of the sufferer. There is no cant about Job; no affected piety; no mere sentimentality; no cold and showy theorizing. All this seeming irreverence, nevertheless, is consistent with a manly piety, most anxious to understand its true relation to the Holy One. He seems, at times, upon the borders of profanity. He makes the boldest declarations; but they are all renounced afterwards, when a new aspect of the matter is presented to his mind, leading him to say DND, "I reject;" I throw them all away; I cannot bear them now. He argues no more; neither does he remain silent like the others; but falls upon his face, saying, only: "I repent in dust and ashes." Here he said "the thing that was right," wholly right; but even during the calmer periods given to him from suffering, he seems to rise immediately to a higher position. It is after such pauses that he brings in those impassioned soliloquies in which the disputants around him seem wholly lost sight of; as in that meditation on the unsearchable Wisdom, ch. xxviii., or when he breaks out with that sublime appeal: "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" or when he says, "O that I knew where I might find Him;" or when he shows that he can surpass Zophar and Bildad in magnifying the divine glory, whilst he is behind none of them in sententious wisdom. The right "sayings about God" for which Job is commended. If, however, there are to be found in the Book any utterances in themselves false or evil, they are to be looked for in those passages in which Job seems to pass almost entirely beyond the bounds of reverence, if regarded as speaking of God (as in ch. xvi.), and not rather of the evil being, of whom, in some way, he seems conscious as a great and malignant antagonist. (See note, page 7.) But the exposition which proceeds upon the idea of the Book being the solving of a problem, or the decision of a debate, must find these false things "said about God," or to God (), in the utterances of the three friends. This might, perhaps, be maintained if there is intended, not their abstract truth, but their practical application to the sufferer; but then they could hardly be called, with consistency, "wrong things about God." They would have been, rather, wrong things said about Job. Now it may be admitted, that, with all his errors and extravagances, there was a general rightness belonging to Job's position. In spite of his expostulations and vehement upbraidings, even of Deity Himself, there was something in his impassioned sincerity, that called out the divine pity, the divine admiration, to speak anthropopathically, so as to give even his errors, in the divine sight, an interest beyond that of the cold, theoretical, unappreciative, casuistical wisdom of his antagonists. In reference to the whole action of the drama, instead of the mere dialectical merit, it might have been said, in the old patriarchal style, that "Job found favor, or grace, in His sight;" and in this way the traditional exposition may be accepted. We may take it as implied also in any form of the decision, and it may stand, if insisted on, as the leading solution of the Book: " Job found grace in the sight of God." With this, however, the question may still be raised, whether, in the declaration, xlii. 7, "Ye have not spoken," &c., there was not intended a more special saying, a particular and noted declaration standing by itself, as outside of the long discussion-not something which Job had said better than they, but something which he had said, and they did not say at all, -not something said about God, but directly to Him, and according to the almost exceptionless usage of that most frequent preposition, .אל. Meaning of, xlii. 7. This is, in the first place, an almost purely philological question. The particle is one of the most common in Hebrew, and we might also add, one of the most uniform in its meaning 'and application. Let us, therefore, examine whether ', in this place, has been rightly translated by the makers of the English and other versions. If not, it might be asked, why have so many commentators taken the wrong direction? The answer may be found in the influence of the view, so early entertained, that the Book was intended as the solution of a problem, and the decision of a debate. The supposed dramatic character and construction aided this idea. The tendency thus given would at once affect this passage, and the same feeling would perpetuate the peculiar interpretation it had originated. Instead of taking as a key the clear and usual sense of the preposition, they made it subservient to a hypothesis derived from other sources. This inverse method appears very plainly in one of the notes of Tympius (285) to Noldius' Concordance of the Hebrew Particles: "Luth., Anglic., Trem., Piscat., Belgic., Schmid, Glass, Geier, de me. Nam amici Jobi, non ad Deum loquuti sunt, sed de Deo." Here it is taken for granted that there is a decision of something said concerning God, and the preposition is rendered accordingly. Tympius, with the LXX., Syriac and Vulgate, would render it before me, but it is from the same idea of a judicial debate, only carried still farther in that direction; "for the friends," he says, "non sinistre loquuti sunt de Deo tantum, sed et de Jobo, de cruce fidelium, de impiorum in hac vita prosperitate," &c. Some commentators, when they come to this place, simply say for y, or for y and that is all the notice they take of it; or they content themselves with rendering it about, concerning, in respect to, von mir, in Beziehung auf mich (see Dillmann, Delitzsch, Rosenmüller, et al.), without giving any reasons. But for hy is as rare in the Hebrew as ad for de in Latin, or the English to in the same sense. We say, indeed, speak to a question, or to a point in debate, but this is a technical sense; it is figurative, moreover, denoting direction, or keeping the mind intent upon a thing, and never used with a person or a personal pronoun. How infrequent in Hebrew is this supposed use of for hy, may be seen from the few cases* given by Noldius, and of out many hundreds adhering to the common usage. From these we may at once exclude those in which follows the verb N, or 77, to prophesy. They may be rendered, prophecy concerning; but the preposition does not lose its original idea of direction-prophecy to, or at, or against. So also where Noldius renders it propter as Lam iv. 17: "our eyes are consumed," 1, "on account of our help." The idea is, looking to or for our help, elliptically expressed. There is the same kind of ellipsis in the few other examples he gives, as 1 Sam. iv. 21: "this she said (looking to, in view of) the taking of the ark," &c. There is no need of rendering it propter; the vivid pathos is lost by so doing. 2 Sam. xxi. 1: “And the Lord said," hiru 4xNoldius fills it up tamely: "(it is) on -ren ,אֶל־אֵל there is an ellipsis any way. “And the Lord said-to Saul "—that is, look to Saul. account of Saul and his bloody house." 1 Kings xix. 3: "He went, 15, for his life "--a peculiar phrase, but may be rendered literally, instead of by propter, on account of. Ps. lxxxiv. 3, "My heart and flesh cry out," "ņ dered by Noldius: "On account of the living God," but far better literally," to the living God." So in the cases where he would render it de, it will be found that the object is ever present, and there is the idea of direct reference, or pointing to it. As 1 Sam. i. 27, where Hannah says, "I prayed, ny, for this child," as something present the direct object. 2 Kings xix. 32, "Thus saith the Lord". It was indeed about the King of Assyria, but how much more vivid is it when taken directly, to, at, against; Deodat. French Version, touchant le roi. The two or three others under that head can all be resolved in the same manner. 2d Psalm 7, p, cannot be rendered “concerning the decree." Gen. xx. 2, “And Abraham said,, to Sarah, she is my wife." Sarah was present, and the saying was to her as an intimation to Abimelech. Commentators find it difficult to determine for what sayings, in the general argument, Job is commended. The word, xlii. 7. Another argument for the view here taken is derived from the disagreements among commentators in respect to the things said for which Job is commended and the friends are condemned. According to Ewald and Schlottmann, denotes subjective truth, uprightness, integrity. Zöckler takes the other view: It was Job's correct knowledge, and truthful assertion of his own general innocence, in which he was right, and they were wrong, because they failed to acknowledge it, or were silent about it. So Delitzsch says: "The correctness in Job's speeches consists in his holding fast the consciousness of his innocence without suffering himself to be persuaded of the opposite." This would make it almost contrary, in spirit at least, to the language of his confession, when he says DNON: “I reject (throw away, renounce, recant), and repent in dust and ashes;" or in the other place, xli. 4: "I lay my hand upon my mouth; once have I spoken-twice-I will say no more." Raschi takes this once-twice" as referring specially to Job's two hard sayings,* ch. ix. 22; the first: "He consumes the righteous with the wicked," the second: "When the scourge destroys suddenly, He mocks at the distress of the innocent." It is as though Job meant to specify these, because they were the only ones he could remember. In his Rabbinic particularity, Raschi overlooks the Hebraism: "Once-twice," repeatedly, over and over again, "have I uttered what I understood not, things too hard for me, which I knew not." See, too, how Dillmann strives to make out a case for Job against the friends, and labors with his distinction between the subjective and the objective truth; as though the declaration itself of the Almighty needed defending and clearing up as much as Job's integrity. In some senses, he would maintain, both were right and both were wrong. Not every word he uttered in itself was true, nor were their's all wrong; but only on the whole, or on the question of Job's innocence, was the balance of truth in his favor. Truly this is a very unsatisfactory view of the great matter which God decides, as though it were a mere question as to the weight of argument in a debate about Job's absolute or comparative innocence; it being a fact, too, of which Job had knowledge, whilst they could only judge from outer circumstances. A man should maintain his integrity, if he is not guilty of particular crimes laid to his charge; that is true; but is there no higher lesson taught in this Book? Again, this mere summing up of a balance of right, with so much difficulty about it as to occasion such a diversity of comment, is inconsistent with the clearness and peculiar nature of that word, . It is not used of personal moral character, either subjectively or objectively, like, p, etc. Such a view of the word would seem to confine it to things said about Job, instead of something said about God and addressed directly to Him. The radical idea of the word is firmness, that which shall stand; hence completeness, security, perfection. When used of an outward object it expresses its best and most finished state, as in the infinitive form, Prov. iv. 18, , the perfection of the day, oтabɛρòv hμap, when the sun has reached its height, and seems to stand-" clearer and clearer unto the perfect day." As a saying, it is here the one most perfect saying that could be said-a saying expressing all. The Real Utterance for which Job is Commended. We must search among Job's sayings for something corresponding to the high and distinguishing commendation expressed by this word -something that stands the test, clear, decided, full. When found there will be no mistaking it. It will have a superlative, a finished, and not a mere comparative excellence. Other things said may have been more or less correct, but this is right, exactly right, the very thing,—something which, if it had not See Raschi Comment. Job xl. 4, xlii. 7. In the latter place he puts his strained interpretation in the mouth of שהרי הוא לא פשע בי כי אם על אשר ,Deity Himself: "Yo have not spoken the right like my servant Job 11i nhɔp xin yun, for lo, he never transgressed against Me except in that he said, The innocent and the wicked He alike consumes," and " of the scourge," etc. been said, would have left all else dark, undecided, insecure. Such was the saying, ch. xl. 4, xlii. 1-6, and for this we may believe that Job was specially commended. It was also said directly to God, and this perfectly suits the preposition 7, xlii. 7, without any necessity of giving it a sense which, to say the least, is very unusual, and only to be resorted to when the context allows no other. This is certainly not the case here. In giving to the same sense which has immediately above, in the words -, there is suggested a reference to Job's confession; and we venture to say, that, had it been so rendered, in the early versions, there would hardly have been a thought of any other interpretation. Commentators, generally, as Aben Ezra has done, would have restricted it to that memorable saying unto God, and so have avoided the never-to-be-settled disputes as to the particular respects in which Job had the better of the argument against his three friends. There is also something in the appointment of Job as the sacrificing and interceding priest for the others that is in beautiful harmony with the view here taken of the difference between him and them. They had not fallen upon their faces, and laid their hands upon their mouths; they had not confessed, and "repented in dust and ashes." This Job had done. He humbled himself, and therefore did God highly exalt him to be a priest and a mediator for the others. We will not say that this might not have been a proper distinction conferred upon him for his success in the argument by which he maintained his own righteousness; but the whole spirit of the Scriptures, old and new, seems more in harmony with the interpretation which regards the other as the prominent, if not the only view to be taken of this great decision. It need only be further said, in this place, that the LXX. have rendered •, ¿vúzióv pov, the Vulgate, coram me, in my presence—before me. To the same purport the Syriac p. These are better than the modern versions, since they leave open the question of reference. They are in better harmony, too, with the usual sense of the preposition than the renderings of, or concerning, in Beziehung auf mich, etc.; but even these translations have been influenced by the idea of a debate held in the presence of a judge, or umpire, who is to decide on the merits of the argument. It is a notion quite plausible, closely connected with the dramatic conception, but receiving no countenance either in the abrupt address of Jehovah, or in anything previously said by the several speakers. THE BOOK OF JOB AS A WORK OF ART. Errors of Interpretation arising from so regarding it. The tendency to this idea of a problem to be solved, or of a debate to be decided, appears especially in those commentators who have most to say about the Book of Job as a work of art, lauding it greatly in this way, as though to make up for what sometimes seems lacking in a true appreciation of its divine merit. It has given rise to supposed plans and divisions as variant as they are artificial. The great outlines of the Book are marked upon its very face; but when the attempt is made to discover, under this main scheme, a more artistic development, the result is very unsatisfactory. Besides the prologue and epilogue, which are evident enough, the main body of the work has been arranged under certain divisions, or stages in the dramatic action, all regarded as having been regularly planned in the mind of the artist. These are described by technical names invented for the purpose. There is the decs and the ios,-the envelopment and the development, the tying up and the loosing. The subdivisions are arranged most artificially, though we can hardly call them artistic, the great excellence of which is the absence or concealment of all studied artificialness. For example, some give as 1st. The Anknüpfung, or Introductory Statement, of which nothing need be said; 2d. The Movement of the Debate, or the Commencing Development, iv. xiv.; 3d. The Second Movement, or the Advancing Development, xv., xxi. ; 4th. The Third Movement of the Debate, or the Most Advanced Development, xxii., xxvi. ; 5th. The Transition from the Development (or rather the maximum Envelopment), to the Solution, or from the déos to the commencing Avous, Job's Vindication, xxvii., xxxi.; 6th. The Consummation, or the Durchbruch, the breaking through, the transition from the decis |