chapter iii
, verses 18-15.]
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pelting of the pitiless storm, as, if he had done so, he would be now lying dead with kings and counselors, who built places for themselves, now made desolate, and with princes who, despite their gold and silver, have perished. Kings and counselors do not build "desolate places" for themselves; they build in the heart of great communities; in the midst of populations: the places may become desolate afterward.
Eliphaz the Temanite seems to think that the sufferings of men are due to their sins. He says:
Even _as I have seen_, they that plough wickedness and sow wickedness, reap the same. _By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed_. The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. _The old lion perisheth for lack of prey_, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad."
Certainly, this seems to be a picture of a great event. Here again the fire of God, that consumed Job's sheep and servants, is at work; even the fiercest of the wild beasts are suffering: the old lion dies for want of prey, and its young ones are scattered abroad.
Eliphaz continues:
"In thoughts, from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on me, _fear came upon me_, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit _passed before my face_, the hair of my flesh stood up."
A voice spake:
"Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly: How much less them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth. _They are destroyed from morning to evening; they perish forever without any regarding it_."
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The moth can crush nothing, therefore Maurer thinks it should read, "crushed like the moth." "They are destroyed," etc.; literally, "they are _broken to pieces in the space of a day_."[1]
All through the text of Job we have allusions to the catastrophe which had fallen on the earth (chap. v, 3):
"I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I," (God,) "cursed his habitation."
"4. His children are far from safety," (far from any place of refuge?) "and they are _crushed in the gate_, neither is there any to deliver them.
"5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance."
That is to say, in the general confusion and terror the harvests are devoured, and there is no respect for the rights of property.
"6. Although affliction _cometh not forth of the dust_, neither doth trouble _spring out of the ground_."
In the Douay version it reads:
"Nothing on earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground" (v, 6).
I take this to mean that the affliction which has fallen upon men comes not out of the ground, but from above.
"7. Yet man is born unto trouble, _as the sparks fly upward_."
In the Hebrew we read for sparks, "sons of _flame_ or burning coal." Maurer and Gesenius say, "As the sons of lightning fly high"; or, "troubles are many and fiery as sparks."
[1. Faussett's "Commentary," iii, 40.]
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"8. I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause;
"9. Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number:
10. Who _giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields_."
Rain here signifies the great floods which cover the earth.
"11. To set up _on high_ those that be low; that those which mourn may be _exalted to safety_."
That is to say, the poor escape to the high places--to safety--while the great and crafty perish.
"12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands can not perform their enterprise.
"13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness," (that is, in the very midst of their planning,) "and the counsel of the froward is _carried headlong_," (that is, it is instantly overwhelmed).
"14. They MEET WITH DARKNESS IN THE DAY-TIME, and _grope in the noonday as in the night_." (Chap. v.)
Surely all this is extraordinary--the troubles of mankind come from above, not from the earth; the children of the wicked are crushed in the gate, far from places of refuge; the houses of the wicked are "crushed before the moth," those that plow wickedness perish," by the "blast of God's nostrils they are consumed"; the old lion perishes for want of prey, and its whelps are scattered abroad. Eliphaz sees a vision, (the comet,) which "makes his bones to shake, and the hair of his flesh to stand up"; the people "are destroyed from morning to evening"; the cunning find their craft of no avail, but are taken; the counsel of the froward is carried headlong; the poor find safety in high places; and darkness comes in midday, so that the people grope their way;
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and Job's children, servants, and animals are destroyed by a fire from heaven, and by a great wind.
Eliphaz, like the priests in the Aztec legend, thinks he sees in all this the chastening hand of God:
"17. Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty:
"18. For he _maketh sore_, and bindeth up: he _woundeth_, and his hands make whole." (Chap. v.)
We are reminded of the Aztec prayer, where allusion is made to the wounded and sick in the cave "whose mouths were full of _earth_ and scurf." Doubtless, thousands were crushed, and cut, and wounded by the falling stones, or burned by the fire, and some of them were carried by relatives and friends, or found their own way, to the shelter of the caverns.
"20. In _famine_ he shall redeem thee from death: and in war from the power of the sword.
"21. _Thou shalt be hid_ from the scourge of the tongue: neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh." (Chap. v.)
"The scourge of the tongue" has no meaning in this context. There has probably been a mistranslation at some stage of the history of the poem. The idea is, probably, "You are hid in safety from the scourge of the comet, from the tongues of flame; you need not be afraid of the destruction that is raging without."
"22. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth.
"23. For thou shalt be in league with THE STONES OF THE FIELD: and the beasts of the field shall _be at peace with thee_." (Chap. v.)
That is to say, as in the Aztec legend, the stones of the field have killed some of the beasts if the earth, "the lions have perished," and their whelps have been scattered;
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the stones have thus been your friends; and other beasts have fled with you into these caverns, as in the Navajo tradition, where you may be able, living upon them, to defy famine.
Now it may be said that all this is a strained construction; but what construction can be substituted that will make sense of these allusions? How can the stones of the field be in league with man? How does the ordinary summer rain falling on the earth set up the low and destroy the wealthy? And what has all this to do with a darkness that cometh in the day-time in which the wicked grope helplessly?
But the allusions continue
Job cries out, in the next chapter (chap. vi)
"2. Oh that my grief" (my sins whereby I deserved wrath) "were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
3. _As the sands of the sea this would appear heavier_, therefore my words are full of sorrow. (Douay version.)
'14. For the _arrows of the Almighty are within_ me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit; _the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me_" ("war against me"-Douay ver.).
That is to say, disaster comes down heavier than the sands--the gravel of the sea; I am wounded; the arrows of God, the darts of fire, have stricken me. We find in the American legends the descending _débris_ constantly alluded to as "stones, arrows, and spears"; I am poisoned with the foul exhalations of the comet; the terrors of God are arrayed against me. All this is comprehensible as a description of a great disaster of nature, but it is extravagant language to apply to a mere case of boils.
"9. Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand and cut me off."
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The commentators say that "to destroy me" means literally "to grind or crush me." (Chap. vi.)
Job despairs of final escape:
"11. What is my strength that I can hold out? And what is I end that I should keep patience?" (Douay.)
"12 . Is my strength the _strength of stones?_ Or is my flesh of brass? "
That is to say, how can I ever bold out? How can I ever survive this great tempest? How can my strength stand the crushing of these stones? Is my flesh brass, that it will not burn up? Can I live in a world where such things are to continue?
And here follow allusions which are remarkable as occurring in an Arabian composition, in a land of torrid beats:
"15. My brethren" (my fellow-men) "have dealt deceitfully" (have sinned) "as a brook, and as the stream of brooks _they pass away_.
16. Which are blackish _by reason of the ice_, and wherein _the snow is hid_.
"17. What time they wax _warm_, they vanish: when it is hot, they _are consumed out of their place_.
18. The paths of their way are turned aside; they _go to nothing and perish_."
The Douay version has it:
"16. They" (the people) "that fear the hoary frost, _the snow shall fall upon them_.
"17. At the time _when they shall be scattered they shall perish;_ and after it _groweth hot they shall be melted out of their place_.
"18. The paths of their steps are entangled; _they shall walk in vain and shall perish_."
There is a great deal of perishing here--some by frost and snow, some by heat; the people are scattered, they lose their way, they perish.
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Job's servants and sheep were also consumed in their place; _they_ came to naught, _they_ perished.
Job begins to think, like the Aztec priest, that possibly the human race has reached its limit and is doomed to annihilation (chap. vii):
"1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Are not his days also like the days of an hireling?"
Is it not time to discharge the race from its labors?
"4. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, _and the night be gone?_ and I am full of tossings to and fro unto _the dawning of the day_."
He draws a picture of his hopeless condition, shut up in the cavern, never to see the light of day again. (Douay ver., chap. vii):
"12: Am I sea or a whale, _that thou hast inclosed me in a prison?_"
"7. My eyes _shall not return to see good things_.
"8. Nor shall the sight of man behold me; thy eyes are upon me, and I shall be no more"; (or, as one translates it, thy mercy shall come too late when I shall be no more.)
"9. As a cloud is consumed and passeth away, so he that shall go down to hell" (or the grave, the cavern) shall not come up.
"10. Nor shall he return any more into his house, neither shall his place know him any more."
How strikingly does this remind one of the Druid legend, given on page 135, _ante_:
"The profligacy of mankind had provoked the Great Supreme to send a pestilential wind upon the earth. A pure poison descended, every blast was death. At this time the patriarch, _distinguished for his integrity_, was _shut up, together with his select company_, in the inclosure with the strong door. Here the just ones were safe from injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose," etc.
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Who can doubt that these widely separated legends refer to the same event and the same patriarch?
Job meditates suicide, just as we have seen in the American legends that hundreds slew themselves under the terror of the time:
"21. For now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be."
The Chaldaic version gives us the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of
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