9 10 11 12 13 Be dark its twilight stars. For light let it look forth, and look in vain ; Nor may it ever see the eyelids of the dawn. For that it did not shut the womb when I was born, Why at the birth did I not die When from the womb I came-and breathe my last? The men who build their mouldering' monuments— Their homes with treasure filled), Or, like the hidden birth, had never lived; Like still-born babes that never saw the light. For there the wicked cease from troubling; 6 Ver. 12. The nursing knees.-An affecting image of the preparation made for the coming birth. The tenderest care becomes the object of the direst imprecation. 7 Ver. 14. Mouldering Monuments.-. DELITZSCH, ruins. So UMBREIT. Monuments so called because now abandoned to neglect,-mouldering like the memories of those who built them. There is here a bitter irony, as UMBREIT says. 8 Ver. 16. Had never lived.—' ' in sense connects back with '', ver. 13, and what intervenes may be regarded as parenthetical comparisons: The first N, ver. 15, is simply connective of vers. 14 and 15. Ver. 20. Why does He?-God is evidently the subJect of . It is as though Job feared to name him other wise than by the pronoun. There is no need of taking it passively, as in E. V., and thereby destroying much of the power and pathos of the passage. Such avoidance in Hebrew of the direct naming of the subject almost always denotes something fearful in the thought of the act or the agent. 10 Ver. 23. Were it not for the Masoretic accentuation and division, p, end of ver. 22, might be taken with the clause that follows: the grave is for the man, etc. In that case, however, the preceding verb would have needed an ob jective suffix representing, ver. 21. The force of the word p may, at all events, be regarded as carried over into the following verse, as the still sounding refrain: the grave-it is for the man whose way is hid, etc. loquizing. It may be regarded as a resuming, after a pause 11 Ver. 25. Did greatly fear.-The language is soli in which there occurs to the mind of Job this silent protest, anticipating, as it were, something of the kind of charge 26 For I was not at ease, nor felt secure, that might, perhaps, be brought against him by the friends. | presents, as though he then feared some other terrible thing as coming upon him. So DELITZSCH renders it, although the verbs in the next verse, having precisely the same form, and standing in precisely the same grammatical connection (namely, ', op, etc.), he takes in the past. It seems like treating the Hebrew tenses as though they could be made to mean anything which a commentator might wish to bring out. 12 It is as I have seen, that they who evil plough- By the blast of his fierce wrath are they consumed. The fierce old lion perishes from want; The lion's whelps are scattered far and wide." 4 To me, at times, there steals a warning" word; 1 Ver. 6. Plous fear. The epithet is used in order to give the distinctive meaning. ' DX is the Hebrew phrase for religion, and becomes used elliptically. Ver. 7. The emphasis here is on the verb, 18 and 1. both strong words. The first might be rendered lost, utterly gone. The second is well expressed, in the English version, by the Jewish phrase, cut off. Instead of as yet charging Job with crimes, or even insinuating them, this language is meant to be encouraging. "The just, such as thou claimest to be, and as we believe thee to be, are never utterly lost, destroyed, cut off from God's people. Therefore, hope thou for healing and restoration." 3 Vers. 10 and 11. MERX puts these verses in the margin of his text, in smaller letters, and regards them as a displacement. They certainly have that look, unless we may regard them as a specimen of the way in which animated Arabian speakers run out their comparisons, as Homer sometimes does, until they seem to lose sight of the primary idea. What seems, too, to favor this view of MERX is the apparent lack of any verb, or verbs, for the nouns in the first clause, unless they are connected with an, which seems only applicable to the teeth. The translator has en deavored to supply this by the words in brackets. Such ellipses seem allowable when it is easy to understand a verb agreeable to the nature of the nouns, and suiting the context. It may, however, be regarded as a case of zeugma. T: TT 4 Ver. 12. Although the Hebrew here is so very short in expression 1771, only three words, the translator would defend his version as neither superfluons nor deficient. The latter charge would seem to be against the omission of the conjunction: but 1, here, is only a transition particle. It connects nothing, and, therefore, as any full English rendered by being left out (see note on the omission of the conjunction would only encumber the thought, the 1 is best conjunction xiv. 2). The Pual is rendered deponently; the passive form denoting merely ease or gentleness of motion, as though from no agency of the subject. Literally was stolen; but the idea is evidently the same as we sometimes express by the active steal, as in Milton's lines: A soft and solemn breathing sound Rose like the scent of rich distilled perfumes, And stole upon the air. T: 13 14 15 16 In troubled thoughts from spectres of the night, And made my every bone to thrill with awe,—— Deep silence!12 then a voice I hear: IS MORTAL'S MAN MORE JUST THAN GOD? IS BOASTING 14 MAN MORE PURE THAN HE WHO MADE HIM? 17 18 IN HIS OWN SERVANTS, LO, HE TRUSTETH NOT, 19 Much more to them who dwell in homes of clay, At times. This is justified, and even demanded in | order to give the true conception of the future form in the effect produced by the presence of spirits, when William of Deloraine disturbed the grave of the wizard. Michael Scott (Lay of the Last Minstrel, Cant. ii. 16): 8 Ver. 15. A breathing form. Some render here a spirit (a spectre, phantasm); others. simply a wind. The rendering above given combines both ideas-not for the It is the frequentative future, denoting repeated happening, sake of compromise, but because it is supposed to be most a coming of things, one after another, and therefore future descriptive of the fact intended: a stirring, or movement in to each other as a picture, though all past as a narration. the air, produced by a spiritual presence, thus, as it were, The pictorial Hebrew language uses this future in prose, taking form and position for the sense, or, in this way, ansometimes, as well as in poetry. There is an example of it, nouncing itself. Walter Scott may not have thought of Job, ch. i. 5: "Thus did Job continually," ' but he has something of the same conception in respect to (thus would he do, “all the days "-time after time). We may render it by a past tense; but there is a subjective or relative futurity in it. There is, moreover, something in this form, as here used, that gives an anticipatory, a looking-out sense to the whole passage. It is painted as something coming on, as though the speaker placed himself in medias res, or rather back of all, and regarded the events as they appeared to him in each time of his having this clairvoyant experience; for the whole style of the language seems to convey such an idea; as in the case of the Batuóvior of Socrates which so frequently appeared to him, though not always, perhaps, in the same way. The plural nouns in the first clause of ver. 13 confirm this view: "in seasons of serious thought-in visions of the night;" as though it had often happened. T: To render in the past, without any wau conversive, or any affecting particle, or any thing in the context to justify it, seems very arbitrary, besides overlooking the whole spirit of the passage. As the formal future (“will steal") would not suit our idiom, or our Occidental modes of expressing relative time, the best thing we can do is to imitate the pictorial manner by putting it in the present, with some word to denote its repetitive idea as an experience, and something to express the subjective anticipatory feeling. To this latter service, no word is better adapted than our word seems, as used in vers. 12 and 15. Similar remarks are applicable to the futures that follow, a peculiarly visionary word, and D, ver. 15, and y, ver. 16. The præterites mingled with Strange sounds along the chancel past, The banners waved without a blast. We have, along with this, that most peculiar verb n, generally denoting some mysterious, indescribable change. The simplest word, however, answers the purpose here. It itself perceptible to the sense. was a stirring in the air, just making, or seeming to make, • Ver. 15. Made my hair rise up: DA. There is no reason why this Piel verb should not have its transitive sense, though most commentators render it intransitively, making hair the subject. If taken transitively, (wind or spirit) is the subject: or the feminine may denote general or indefinite subject, the event itself. 10 Ver. 16. It stands. "y-takes position after the breathing motion, and before the announcement. 11 No face. , aspectus, visage, something that has features. It is a more distinct word than in the next clause, and makes a contrast with it stronger than the words form and image as used by E. V. and CONANT. It is the mere outline without any look, or any internal lineaments. 12 Ver. 16. Deep silence! DDT might, perhaps, be taken interjectionally, as we sometimes use the noun silence for hush! as though the narrator, in his vivid apprehension, is carried back, and loses himself in the scene: "Hush! 'tis a voice I hear!" or, am about to hear (subjective .(אשמע future יחלף,namely have more of the marrative in (הִפְחִיד and קְרָאנִי) them distinction from the descriptive style; but these, too, may be regarded as subjective retro-transitions, or shiftings of scenic event. It may be maintained, also, that they are all affected by the peculiar subjective character given to the whole passage by the starting future, ver. 12. TT 5 Ver. 12. Warning word.-77, here, has its sense oraculum, as in Num. xxiii. 5, 16, and frequently in the Prophets. Ver. 13. Vision-seeing.-On the propriety of this word, see remarks INT. RHYTH. VER., p. 51. 7 Ver. 14. Thrill with awe. " is an intensive verb of fear, but does not, of itself, mean to shake, as E. V. renders it. The Hiphil form makes it here peculiarly strong. -"not found in the land of the living," that is, among mortal men at all. Or it may be referred to the highest wisdom of which man is capable, "the fear of God," xxviii. 28, but which comparatively few men possess. It is not exactly certain where the metaphor ends. Critics of the Lowthian school might deem this a fault. In the sacred writings, however, metaphors are not employed for embellishment. It may be thought, too, that in this case the effect is strengthened by the very uncertainty. We hardly know where the moth ends and the man begins, or where the one fades away into the other. ! Ver. 3. The foolish. 18 here, if taken in the milder yet still morally culpable sense of foolish, may be personally applicable to Job for his violent outcry, although Eliphaz does not sufficiently consider, or understand, his extreme bodily anguish. In the harsher sense of great criminality, such as seems to be denoted in the description following, we cannot regard them as imputing great crime to Job, or holding him out as a fit subject for such a retribution. The controversy has not yet come to that, and such a sudden and unwarranted imputation upon one who had been known as "sincere and upright, one who feared God and eschewed evil," even as God Himself describes him, would certainly be a gross dramatic inconsistency, to say the least. Job's outcry astonishes them. Whether rightly or not, they understand him as implying that God is unjust, that He even favors the wicked, or, at least, that He has no regard, in His providential dealings, to the character or destiny of men. It is a defence of God against such a supposed charge rather than an attack upon Job personally. In this idea we find a key to much that is afterwards said, though it must be admitted that as the dispute grows warm there comes more and more of personal crimination. 2 Ver. 5. Even from the thorns. This intensive rendering is demanded by the union of the prepositions and -to and from. They glean close, even the stray heads of grain that grow among the thorns. D'Y is best made here from DY with the sense of NY to thirst (ZÖCKLER, UMBREIT, EWALD, MERX). One version has robber, with little or no authority, unless regarded as metaphorical from the idea of the thirsty, with which we have combined it in the version above. DILLMANN, DAVIDSON, CONANT, render it the snare, as in xviii. 9, though it seems quite forced here, and entirely out of harmony with N, to gape or pant after. The VULG. has armatus for robber. The Syriac renders it thirsty, which certainly seems to make the clearest contrast with hungry (y), and therefore to be preferred notwithstanding xviii. 9. 8 Ver. 7. Ah, no! is not only strongly adversative here, but evidently implies a negative; où un aλλá. Children of the flame; literal rendering of 13, whether regarded as metaphorical of sparks, or of ravenous birds, as GESENIUS and others take it. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 The mourning souls in safety are exalted. He snares the wise in their own craftiness; Whilst the dissembler's plot is hurried on to ruin. God rescues from the sword, from their devouring mouth, And foul injustice shuts her greedy mouth. O blessed is the man whom God reproves; The Almighty's chastening, therefore, spurn thou not. In seven-still no harm shall touch thy soul. From the tongue's smiting thou art hidden safe; Lo this; we've pondered well; this is our thought. 4 Ver. 12. Reality, win. See Note 7, vi. 13. 5 Ver. 20. Death here is represented as a tyrant or a conqueror, and therefore there is used the word to redeem. 6 Ver. 22. Forest Beasts: NM, beasts of the earth; wild beasts in distinction from ', beasts of the field, or domestic animals. 7 Ver. 24. No . E. V., not sin. Primary sense here: not miss. |