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[The following additional considerations, suggested by the passage, and the context, may be urged in favor of the view here advocated. (1) Job, as the context shows, is, while uttering this sublime prediction, painfully conscious of what he is suffering in the body. Note the whole passage, vers. 18-20, where the estrangement of his most intimate friends and kindred is associated with the loathsome condition into which his disease has brought him. Note again how in the heart of the prophecy itself (ver. 26), he is still unable to repress the utterance of this same painful consciousness of his bodily condition. If now he anticipates here a Divine Intervention which is to vindicate him, is it not natural that he should include in that vindication, albeit vaguely and remotely, some compensation for the physical wrong he was suffering? If God would appear to recompense the indignity to his good name, would He not appear at the same time to recompense the indignity from which his body had so grievously suffered? In a word, would not the same experience which here blosof a justification of his spiritual integrity, bear soms so gloriously into the prophetic assurance at least the bud of a resurrection hope for the body, although the latter would be, ex necessitate Surely the Day of Restitution, which he knows rei, less perfectly developed than the former? is to come, will bring with it some compensation for this grievous bodily ill, the dark shadow of which flits across even this bright vision of faith! This presumption is still further heightened when we note that he himself, with his own eyes, is to witness that restitution.

has no hope in such an appearance? What | to the future state. Its relation to the perfected would the artistic plan of the poem in general eschatology of those prophets of the exile, as gain by allowing the hero in the middle of it to well as to the post-exilic literature of the Apopredict the final issue, but afterwards to assume, crypha (for example the II. Book of Maccabees) even as he had already done before, that the is like that "of the protevangelium to the perexact opposite of this is the only possible issue? fected soteriology of revelation; it presents only 3. Seeing then that every consideration favors the first lines of the picture, which is worked up most decidedly the view which interprets the in detail later on, but also an outline, sketched passage in accordance with a moderate escha-in such a way that all the knowledge of later tology, the question still remains: whether that times may be added to it" (Delitzsch)—as from beholding of God after this earthly life, which Job of old the Church has been doing, and still is here anticipates as taking place concurrently doing, in her epitaphs, hymns, liturgies, and with the vindication of his honor and his redemp-musical compositions, and this too with some detion, is conceived of by him as something that is to be gree of right, although largely in violation of the realized in the sphere of abstract spirituality, or law of exegetical sobriety. whether his conception of it is more concrete, realistic, in analogy with the relations of this earthly life? In other words, the question is: whether his idea of immortality is abstractly spiritualistic, or one which up to a certain point approximates the New Testament doctrine of a resurrection? We have already declared above (on ver. 27 b) in favor of the latter opinion; because (1) The mention of the eyes with which he expects to see God admits only of that pneumatico-realistic meaning, under the influence of which the Old Testament speaks even of eyes, ears, and other bodily organs as belonging to God, and in general furnishes solid supports to the proposition of Oetinger touching corporeity as the "end of the ways of God." To this it may be added that (2) the absolute incorporealness of Job's condition after death is in no wise expressed by the phrase , notwithstanding the privative meaning which in any case belongs to P, that this expression merely indicates the object of Job's hope to be a release from his present miserable body of flesh, and that accordingly what Job here anticipates is (gradually accomplished to be sure, but) not specifically different from that which the Apostle calls τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος μv (Rom. viii. 23; comp. ch. vii. 25), or what on another occasion he expresses in more negative form by the proposition: ort σàp kai aina βασιλείαν Θεοῦ κληρονομῆσαι οὐ δύνανται οὐδὲ ἡ popà Thν àpapoiav Knpovoμel (1 Cor. xv. 50). Still further (3) the concluding verse of ch. xiv. shows that Job conceives even of man's condition in Sheol as by no means one of abstract incorporeality, but rather invests this gloomy and mournful stage of his existence after death (2). The phrase is not without sigwith two factors of being ( and D), con-nificance. It certainly means something more ceiving of them as existing in conjunction, and as standing in some kind of a relation to each other (see above on the passage). Finally (4): The perfected realistic hopes of a resurrection, found in the later Old Testament literature from the time of Ezekiel and Daniel on, would be absolutely inconceivable, they would be found drifting in the air without attachment or support, they would be without all historical precedent, if in the passage before us the hope of immortality be understood in the light of an abstract spirituality. What Job says here is certainly nothing more than a germ of the more complete resurrection creed of a later time, but it must indubitably be regarded as such a germ, as such a seminal anticipation of that which the Israel of a later period believed and expected in respect

specific than "on the earth." The Goel is to stand "on dust" (or "on the dust"-article poetically omitted), the place where lies the dust of the body gathered to the dust of the earth. This is the only exegesis of Dy that is either etymologically admissible, or suited to the con-" text. The Vindication is thus brought into local connection with the grave. And this can mean only one thing. It shows at least that Job could not conceive of this future restitution as taking place away and apart from his dust. His body, his physical self, was in some way-he has no conception how-to be interested in it.

(3). The expression is no objection to this view, even with the privative sense which our Commy. (and correctly I think) attaches to

p. It does not mean,—it is doubtful, as Zöckler remarks, whether for a Hebrew it could mean, -an abstract unqualified spirituality. At all events the connection shows that here, as often elsewhere in Job (comp. ch. vii. 15; xiv. 22; xxxiiii. 21, etc.), is used specifically of the body as the seat of suffering and corruption, the Tò аρTÒν TOUTO of Paul. Twice indeed in this immediate connection it is used in this sense, to wit, in ver. 19, and ver. 22 (figuratively, however). Observe particularly that in ver. 19, as in ver. 26 the "flesh" is associated with the "skin" in describing his emaciated condition. When therefore he describes his physical condition at the time of his ultimate restitution first by the clause "after my skin, which shall have

been destroyed-even this!" and then by the clause," and without my flesh," what he means evidently is, when skin and flesh are both no more, when the destruction, the decay, begun by disease, and to be continued in the grave, has finished its course; then would he behold God. -"After my skin "-and "without my flesh" are thus parallelistic equivalents, of which still another equivalent is found in " dust," the last result of bodily decay.-These elements of the passage thus fix the place and the time of the coming restitution; the place-the grave, the time-the remote future, when his body should be dust.

First," of which, though the singer understands it not, he is yet triumphantly assured, may be chanted by the Christian believer with no less confidence, and with a truer and more precious realization of what it means.

cation of Job to this life is sufficiently refuted (4) The interpretation which refers the vindi. above. The argument, urged by Zöckler as by others, that such an anticipation of a vindication before death is inconsistent with Job's frequent declarations that he had no hope, and that he was swered by Noyes: "As if a person, who is reprenear his grave, is perhaps fairly enough ansented as agitated by the most violent and opposite emotions, could be expected to be consistent in his sentiments and language. What can be depression, arising from the thought of his more natural than that Job, in a state of extreme natural tendency of his disease, should express wrongs, the severity of his afflictions, and the himself in the language of despair, and yet that he should be animated soon after by conscious innocence and the thought of God's justice, goodof hope and confidence?" Job's utterances are ness and power, to break forth into the language he is swayed by this feeling or by that. The in fact marked by striking inconsistencies, as following considerations are, however, decisive against this view.

a. It furnishes a far less adequate explanation of the remarkable elevation and ardor of feeling which Job here exhibits than the other view, which refers it to the hereafter.

of the expressions used, there are others with b. However well it may harmonize with some which it is altogether irreconcilable. This is

It seems clear therefore that the passage cannot be regarded on the one hand as a distinct formal enunciation of a literal resurrection, for the last view which he gives us of his body is as that which is no more, as dust. Just as little on the other hand is it a mere vindication of his memory, a declaration of the integrity of his especially true of Dippy and the prepocause, an abstract spiritual beholding of God, sition in ". It may also be said that for he is conscious of physical suffering-he an--which is best explained as a preposition beticipates a complete restitution-one therefore which will bring some reparation of the wrong fore-implies a state wherein the skin has which he has suffered in the body, the grave ceased to be, in like manner as before where his dust lies is to be the scene of his vin- Both these prepositions carry us forward to an dication, and he, the now speaking, the per- indefinitely remote period after death, and are sonal I contrasted with "a stranger," as com- thus inconsistent with the idea of a physical replete realistic a personality, therefore, as any storation before death. It is especially inconthen living, he is to be there, seeing with his ceivable that the poet should have used Dy-hy own eyes, and exulting in the sight. This neces- to describe the place where the God should apsarily implies a rehabilitation of the man, as well pear, if the appearance was to be before death, as of his cause, a rehabilitation after death, as the when it is remembered how invariably elseterms and internal scope of the passage prove, as where, when mentioned in connection with Job, well as the external plan and scope of the book; it is associated with the grave. Comp. chap. and if not a resurrection, it at least carries us a vii. 21; viii. 19; x. 9; xvii. 16; xx. 11; xxi. long way forward in the direction of that truth. 26; xxxiv. 15.* It is, as Delitzsch says above, an outline of that doctrine which needs but a few touches to com-rious artistic fault, were Job at this point to be c. It would be, as Zöckler well argues, a seplete the representation. Indeed it may be said that if the passage had contained one additional introduced predicting the actual historical sothought, more definitely linking the dust of Job's lution of the drama in language so definite, and body with that future, that vaguely foresha- this while the evolution of the drama is still godowed organism with the eyes of which he was and the logical entanglement is at its to see God, the enunciation of a resurrection height. According to the eschatological theory, would be almost complete. But that thought is the passage before us is a momentary gleam of wanting. It is not in the Book of Job. That brightness from the Life Beyond, which lights which is given, however, points to the resurrec- up with preternatural beauty the lurid centre tion; and the pean of the Old Testament saint, of the dark drama before us, which, however this old "song of the night," breathing forth faith's yearning towards the "glorious appearing" of Him who is "The Last" as He is "The

ing on,

it

may modify the development which fol

Even in chap. xli. 25 [33] it suggests, as Umbreit correctly observes, earth as a transitory state of activity for leviathan.

lows, leaves it essentially unchanged, moving on the whole discourse closes (vers. 28, 29), will fail towards its historic consummation, according to of being set forth in the proper light and in their the plan which our poet has so grandly conceived organic connection. It is fitting accordingly to and so steadfastly pursued thus far. The light show that it is one who feels himself to be forwhich here breaks through the clouds is from a saken by God and men, to be cast out by this source much further than the setting of Job's world, and even by all that he held dearest in earthly day. It is a light even which sends for- it, who here suddenly leaps up to that hope out ward its reflection to the final earthly consum- of the most painful agitation and the profoundest mation, and which rests on the latter as an in- depression of spirit, being supported in this effable halo, giving to the radiant eve of the pa- flight by the train of thought developed in vers. triarch's life a sacred beauty such as without 21-24:-that when his contemporaries refuse to this passage could not have belonged to it. If, hear his appeals for compassion, and when the on the other hand, it were an anticipation of acknowledgment of his innocence, which he has Job's earthly restoration, it would be a sudden, reason to expect from posterity, presents itself violent, inexplicable thrusting of the solution as something which he can by no possibility live into the heart of the conflict, leaving the conflict to see for himself, God, the Everlasting One, who nevertheless to struggle on as before, and the is above all time, still remains to him as his only solution itself to be swallowed up and forgotten, consolation, although, indeed, a consolation all until it reappears at the close, having lost, how-the more sure and powerful. Not less is it to be ever, through this premature suggestion of it, shown how Job, feeling himself to be, as it were, the majesty which attends its unexpected coming. sanctified and lifted high above this lower It is true that the poet, with that rare irony earthly sphere by the thought of this God and which he knows so well how to use, introduces the joy of future union with Him, which he waits the friends as from time to time unconsciously for with such longing, immediately after the utterprophesying Job's restoration. But those inci-ance of his hope turns all the more sharply against dental and indirect anticipations have a very different signification from what this solemn, lofty, direct, and confident utterance from the hero himself would have, if it were referred to the issue of the poem.

(5) Per contra-the view advocated in the Commentary and in these Remarks has in its favor the following considerations:

a. It furnishes by far the most satisfactory explanation of the more difficult expressions of the text. See above.

the friends, in order that-being filled as yet by the thought of God's agency in judicial retribution, through which he hopes one day to be justified he may warn them still more urgently than before against becoming, through their continued harshness and injustice towards himself, the objects of God's retributive interposition, and of His eternal wrath. Essentially thus, only more briefly and comprehensively, does v. Gerlach give the course of thought in the entire discourse: "The pronounced sharpness, visible b. It is most in harmony with the representa-in the speeches of the friends, intensifies also in tions of the future found elsewhere in the book, especially chap. xiv. 13-15, of which this passage is at once the glorious counterpart and complement; that being a prophetic yearning for the recovery of his departed personality from the gloom of Sheol, a recovery which is to be a change into a new life, even as this is a prophetic pæan of a Divine interposition which is not only to vindicate his cause, but also to realize his re-ness-this gives to the sufferer the clear light stored personality as a witness of the scene.

c. It is most in harmony with the doctrinal development of the Old Testament. It carries us beyond the abstract idea of a disembodied immortality to an intermediate realistic conception of the resuscitation of the whole personality, a conception which is an indispensable steppingstone to the distinct recognition of the truth of the resurrection. The development of the doctrine would be incomplete, if not unintelligible, without the Book of Job, thus understood.-E.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL.

In the treatment of this chapter for practical edification, the passage in vers. 25-27 will of course be the centre and the goal of our meditations. It must not, however, be separated from its surroundings in such a way that on the one side the preparation and immediate occasion for the upsoaring of his soul in yearning and hope to God, to be found in the sorrowful plaint of vers. 6-20, and on the other side the stern and earnest warning to the friends, with which

Job the strong and gloomy descriptions which
he gives of his sufferings. But the wonderful
notable antithesis which he presents-God Him-
self against God!-God in His dealings with
him showing His anger, and inflicting punish-
ment, but at the same time irresistibly revealing
Himself to the inmost consciousness of faith as
all-gracious, bringing deliverance and blessed-

of a knowledge in which all his former faint
yearnings shape themselves into fixed certainty.
God appears to him as the holy and merciful
manager of his cause, and even, after a painful
end, as the Giver of a blessed eternal life.
To the friends, however, he declares finally with
sharp words, that although their legal security
and rigor has already made them sure of victory,
God's interposition in judgment will so much
the more completely put them to shame.

Particular Passages.

Ver. 6 seq. BRENTIUS: When conscience confronts the judgment, when it cries out to God in trouble, and its prayer is not answered, it accuses God of injustice. . . . But the thoughts of a heart forsaken by the Lord are in this passage most beautifully described; for what else can it think, when all aid is withdrawn, than that God is unjust, if, after first taking sin away, He nevertheless pays the wages of sin, even death? and if again, after promising that He will be nigh to those who are in trouble, He seems not only not to be affected, but even to be

delighted by our calamities? When the flames | substance of things hoped for, etc. (Heb. xi. 1).

of hell thus rage around us, we must look to Christ alone, who was made in all things like to His brethren, and was tempted that He might be able to succor those who are tempted. ZEYSS: There is no trial more grievous than when in affliction and suffering it seems as though God had become our enemy, has no compassion upon us, and will neither hear nor help. IDEM (on ver. 13 seq.): To be forsaken and despised by one's own kindred and household companions is hard. But herein the children of God must become like their Saviour, who in His suffering was forsaken by all men, even by His dearest disciples and nearest relations: thus will they learn to build on no man, but only on the living God, who is ever true-EGARD: Friends do not (usually) adhere in trial and need; with prosperity they take their departure, forgetful of their love and troth. Men are liars; they are inconstant as the wind, which passes away. But because trial and need come from God, the withdrawal of friends is ascribed to God, for had He not caused the trial to come, the friends would have remained.

...

For in Job nothing is less apparent than life and the resurrection; rather is it hell that is perceived. "Nevertheless," he says, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, however He may now seem to sleep and to be angry; nevertheless I know and by faith I behold beneath this wrath great favor, beneath this condemner a redeemer. You will observe in this place how despair and hope succeed each other by turns in the godly." -STARKE (after Zeyss and Joach. Lange): As surely as that Christ, our Redeemer, is risen from death by His power, and is entered into His glory, so surely will all who believe in Him rise again to eternal life by His divine power. The Messiah is in such wise the Living One, yea more, the Life itself (John xiv. 6; xi. 25), in that he proves Himself to be the Living One, by making us alive. . . . This is the best comfort in the extremity of death, that as Christ rose again from the dead, therefore we shall arise with him (Rom. viii. 11; 1 Cor. xv.).— V. GERLACH: It is remarkable in this passage that Job, after indulging in those most gloomy descriptions of the realm of the dead, which run Ver. 23 seq. WOHLFARTH: The wish of the through his discourses from ch. iii. on, should pious sufferer that his history might be pre-destiny after death. Precisely this, however, here soar up to such a joyous hope touching his served for posterity, was fulfilled. In hundreds of languages the truth is now proclaimed to all the people of the earth-that even the godly man is not free from suffering, but in the consciousness of his innocence, and in faith in God, Providence and Immortality, he finds consola tion which will not permit him to sink, and his patient waiting for the glorious issue of God's

dark dispensations, is crowned without fail.

Ver. 25 seq. OECOLAMPADIUS: These are the words of Job's faith, nay, of that of the Church Universal, which desires that they may be transmitted to all ages: "And I know," etc.

constitutes the very kernel of the history that become the means, first, of overcoming in himthrough his fellowship with God Job's sufferings self that legal stand-point, with which that gloomy, cheerless outlook was most closely united, and thereby of gaining the victory over the friends with their legalistic tendencies.Moreover, we must not be led astray by the fact that in the end Job's victory is set even for this life, and that he receives an earthly compensation for his losses. The meaning of this turn of events is that God gives to His servant, who has shown himself to be animated by such firm con

We, taking faith for our teacher, and remem-fidence in Himself, more than he could ask or think. bering what great things Job has declared before- Ver. 28 seq. SEB. SCHMIDT: Job's friends hand he is about to set forth here, understand knew that there is a judgment, and they had it of the resurrection. We believe that we shall proceeded from this principle in their discussee Christ, our Judge, in this body which we sions thus far. Job accordingly would speak now bear about, and in no other, with these of the subject here not in the abstract, but in eyes, and no others. For as Christ rose again connection with the matter under consideration: in the same body in which He suffered and was "in order that ye may know that God will buried, so we also shall rise again in the same administer judgment in respect to all iniquities body in which we now carry on our warfare. of the sword, which you among yourselves imaBRENTIUS: A most clear confession of faith! gine to be of no consequence, and not to be From this passage it may be seen what is the feared, and that He will punish them most method of true faith, viz., in death to believe in severely."-CRAMER: God indeed punishes much life, in hell to believe in heaven, in wrath and even in this life; but much is reserved for the judgment to believe in God the Redeemer, as last judgment. Hence he who escapes temporal the Apostle, whoever he may have been, truly punishment here, will not for that reason escape says in writing to the Hebrews: Faith is the | all divine punishment.

III. Zophar and Job: Ch. XX.—XXI.

A.-Zophar: For a time indeed the evil-doer can be prosperous; but so much the more terrible and irremediable will be his destruction.

CHAPTER XX.

1. Introduction-censuring Job with violence, and Theme of the discourse: vers. 1-5.

1 Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said:

2

Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer,

and for this I make haste.

3 I have heard the check of my reproach,

and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.

4 Knowest thou not this of old,

since man was placed upon earth,

5 that the triumphing of the wicked is short,

and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?

2. Expansion of the theme, showing from experience that the prosperity and riches of the ungodly must end in the deepest misery: vers. 6-29.

6

Though his excellency mount up to the heavens,

and his head reach unto the clouds;

7 yet he shall perish forever, like his own dung:
they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?

8 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found;
yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.
9 The eye also which saw him shall see him no more;
neither shall his place any more behold him.
10 His children shall seek to please the poor,
and his hands shall restore their goods.
11 His bones are full of the sin of his youth,
which shall lie down with him in the dust.

12 Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth,
though he hide it under his tongue;
13 though he spare, and forsake it not,
but keep it still within his mouth:

14 yet his meat in his bowels is turned,
it is the gall of asps within him.

15 He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again:

God shall cast them out of his belly.

16 He shall suck the poison of asps;

the viper's tongue shall slay him.

17 He shall not see the rivers,

the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.

18 That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down:

according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.

19 Because he hath oppressed, and hath forsaken the poor;

because he hath violently taken away a house which he builded not;

20 Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly,

he shall not save of that which he desired.

21 There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.

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