chapter xxxvi

, (verses 15, 16, Douay,) we see that Job was shut up in something like a cavern:

"15. He shall deliver the poor out of his distress, and shall open his ear in affliction.

"16. Therefore he shall _set thee at large out of the narrow mouth, and which hath no foundation under it_; and the rest of thy table shall be full of fatness."

That is to say, in the day when he delivers the poor out of their misery, he will bring thee forth from the place where thou hast been "hiding," (see chap. xiii, 20,) from that narrow-mouthed, bottomless cavern; and instead of starving, as you have been, your table, during the rest of your life, "shall be full of fatness."

"27. He" (God) "lifteth up the drops of rain and poureth out showers like floods.

"28. Which flow from the clouds which _cover all from above_."

The commentators tell us that this expression, "which cover all from above," means literally, "the bottom of the sea is laid bare"; and they confess their inability to understand it. But is it not the same story told by Ovid of the bottom of the Mediterranean having been rendered

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a bed of dry sand by Phaëton's conflagration; and does it not remind us of the Central American legend of the starving people migrating in search of the sun, through rocky places where the sea had been separated to allow them to pass?

And the King James version continues

"32. _With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt_.

"33. _The noise thereof_ sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapor."

This last line shows how greatly the original text has been garbled; what have the cattle to do with it? Unless, indeed, here, as in the other myths, the cows signify the clouds. The meaning of the rest is plain: God draws up the water, sends it down as rain, which covers all things; the clouds gather before the sun and hide its light; and the vapor restores the cows, the clouds; and all this is accompanied by great disturbances and noise.

And the next chapter (xxxvii) continues the description:

"2. Hear ye attentively the terror of his" (the comet's) "voice, and the sound that cometh out of his mouth.

"3. He beholdeth under all the heavens," (he is seen under all the heavens?) "and his _light is upon the ends of the earth_.

"4. After it a NOISE SHALL ROAR, he shall thunder with the voice of his majesty, and shall not be found out when his voice shall be heard."

The King James version says, "And he will not stay them when his voice is heard."

"5. God shall _thunder wonderfully_ with his voice, he that doth great and unsearchable things."

Here, probably, are more allusions to the awful noises made by the comet as it entered our atmosphere, referred to by Hesiod, the Russian legends, etc.

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"6. _He commandeth the snow to go down upon the earth_, and _the winter rain_ and the shower of his strength "--("the _great rain of his strength_," says the King James version).

"7. He sealeth up the hand of every man."

This means, says one commentator, that "he confines men within doors" by these great rains. Instead of houses we infer it to mean "the caves of the earth," already spoken of, (chap. xxx, v. 6,) and this is rendered more evident by the next verse:

"8. And _the beast shall go into his covert_ and shall _abide in his den_.

"9. Out of the inner parts" (meaning the south, say the commentators and the King James version) "_shall tempest come_, and _cold out of the north_.

"10. When God bloweth, there cometh _frost_, and _again the waters are poured forth abundantly_."

The King James version continues:

"11. Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud."

That is to say, the cloud is gradually dissipated by dropping its moisture in snow and rain.

"12. And it is turned round about by his counsels that they may do whatsoever be commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth.

"13. He causeth it to come, whether for _correction_, or for his land, or for mercy."

There can be no mistaking all this. It refers to no ordinary events. The statement is continuous. God, we are told, will call Job out from his narrow-mouthed cave, and once more give him plenty of food. There has been a great tribulation. The sun has sucked up the seas, they have fallen in great floods; the thick clouds have covered the face of the sun; great noises prevail; there is a great light, and after it a roaring noise; the snow

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falls on the earth, with winter rains, (cold rains,) and great rains; men climb down ropes into deep shafts or pits; they are sealed up, and beasts are driven to their dens and stay there: there are great cold and frost, and more floods; then the continual rains dissipate the clouds.

"19. Teach us what we shall say unto him; for we can not order our speech _by reason of darkness_.

"20. Shall it be told him that I speak? If a man speak, surely _he shall be swallowed up?_"

And then God talks to Job, (chap. xxxviii,) and tells him "to gird up his loins like a man and answer him." He says:

"8. Who shut up the sea with doors, when it broke forth as issuing out of the womb?

119. When I made a _cloud the garment thereof_, and wrapped it in _mists_ as in swaddling-bands,

"10. I set my bounds around it, and made it bars and doors." . . .

"22. Hast thou entered into _the storehouses of the snow_, or hast thou beheld the treasures of the _hail?_" . . .

"29. Out of whose womb came the _ice_? and the _frost_ from heaven, who hath gendered it?

"30. The waters are hardened like a _stone_, and _the surface of the deep is frozen_."

What has this Arabian poem to do with so many allusions to clouds, rain, ice, snow, hail, frost, and _frozen oceans_?

"36. Who hath put wisdom in the inward part? Or who hath given understanding to the heart? "

Umbreit says that this word "heart" means literally "a shining phenomenon--a meteor." Who hath given understanding to the comet to do this work?

"38. When was _the dust poured on the earth_, and the _clods hardened together_?"

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One version makes this read:

"Poured itself into a mass by the rain, like molten metal."

And another translates it--

"_Is caked into a mass by heat, like molten metal_, BEFORE THE RAIN FALLS."

This is precisely in accordance with my theory that the "till" or "hard-pan," next the earth, was caked and baked by the heat into its present pottery-like and impenetrable condition, long before the work of cooling and condensation set loose the floods to rearrange and form secondary Drift out of the upper portion of the _débris_.

But again I ask, when in the natural order of events was dust poured on the earth and hardened into clods, like molten metal?

And in this book of Job I think we have a description of the veritable comets that struck the earth, in the Drift Age, transmitted even from the generations that beheld them blazing in the sky, in the words of those who looked upon the awful sight.

In the Norse legends we read of three destructive objects which appeared in the heavens one of these was shaped like a serpent; it was called "the Midgard-serpent"; then there was "the Fenris wolf"; and, lastly, "the dog Garm." In Hesiod we read, also, of three monsters: first, Echidna, "a serpent huge and terrible and vast"; second, Chimæra, a lion-like creature; and, thirdly, Typhœus, worst of all, a fierce, fiery dragon. And in Job, in like manner, we have three mighty objects alluded to or described: first the "winding" or "twisting" serpent with which God has "adorned the heavens"; then "behemoth," monstrous enough to "drink up rivers," "the chief of the ways of God"; and lastly,

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and most terrible of all, "leviathan"; the name meaning, the twisting animal, gathering itself into folds."

God, speaking to Job, and reminding him of the weakness and littleness of man, says (chap. xl, v. 20):

"Canst thou draw out the leviathan with a book, or canst thou tie his tongue with a cord? "

The commentators differ widely as to the meaning of this word "leviathan." Some, as I have shown, think it means the same thing as the crooked or "winding" serpent (_vulg_.) spoken of in