The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur Part 29

The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur Part 29

[208] This entire speech is ironical.

[209] Allusion to a myth.

[210] In the light of my own conscience I am not an evil-doer.

[211] Ironical.

[212] _Lit_., the man of lips.

[213] Wisdom.

[214] _I.e_., G.o.d's wisdom enables him to discern the deceit of those who appear just, and the punishment which he deals out to them makes the result of his knowledge visible to the dullest comprehension.

[215] A name for G.o.d.

[216] The current versions of the Bible make Job say the contrary: "With the ancient _is_ wisdom; and in length of days understanding" (Job xii. 12, Authorised Version). _Cf. ante_, "Interpolations."

[217] _I.e_., Will ye persist in maintaining that G.o.d rewards the good and punishes the wicked (as Zophar has just done, strophe xcvii.) in spite of the fact that ye know it is untrue?

[218] _I.e_., not on grounds obvious to all, but because your own particular lot is satisfactory.

[219] Compare this with the extraordinary verse in our Authorised Version: "Thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet"! (Job ii. 27).

[220] This is one of the very few pa.s.sages in the Poem which throw light upon the date of its composition.

[221] _I.e_., the object for which he bartered righteousness.

[222] Host of evils which has attacked me from all sides.

[223] Ironical.

[224] An allusion to the promises made by the friends on the part of G.o.d that Job would, if he repented and asked for pardon, recover his former prosperity.

[225] _Lit_., the pieces of his skin.

[226] Probably an allusion to elephantiasis.

[227] The personification of death.

[228] Either "the sons of the womb which has borne me," as in iii. 10, or else "my own children," the poet forgetting that in the prologue they are described as having been killed.

[229] _I.e_., when it is too late.

[230] Zophar discerns perfect moral order in the world.

[231] G.o.d.

[232] _I.e_., by man.

[233] _I.e_., be silent.

[234] Job's ideal of a happy death was identical with that of Julius Caesar--the most sudden and least foreseen.

[235] Literally, "his."

[236] _I.e_., after his death.

[237] _I.e._, G.o.d.

[238] Ironical.

[239] If there be a G.o.d who rules the world, punishes evil, and rewards good, how comes it that we descry no signs of such just retribution?

[240] About seven strophes in the same quasi-impious strain, characterising the real reign of Jehovah upon earth as distinguished from the optimistic delineations of Job's friends, are lost. The verses that have taken their place in our ma.n.u.scripts are portions of a different work, which has no relation whatever to our poem. They are not even in the same metre as Job, but contain strophes of three lines only.

[241] Conjecture of Professor Bickell; these two lines are not found in the MSS.

[242] I will judge ye out of your own mouths. Ye maintained, all of you, that the principles on which the world is governed are absolutely unintelligible. How then can ye reason as if the moral order were based upon retribution, and from my sufferings infer my sins?

[243] The miner who descends into the abyss of the earth, and carries a lamp.

[244] Wisdom is here identified with G.o.d, of whom we know nothing and have only vaguely heard from those who knew less, i.e., former generations, for whom Job has scant respect.

[245] To mete out justice.

[246] Two strophes are wanting here, in which Job presumably says that this great change of fortune is not the result of his conduct.

The LXX offers nothing here in lieu of the lost verses; but the Ma.s.soretic text has the strophes which occur in the Authorised Version (x.x.xi. 1-4), and which would seem to have been subst.i.tuted for the original verses. The present Hebrew text is useless here. If the four Ma.s.soretic verses which it offers had stood in the original, so important are they that they would never have been omitted by the Greek translators, who evidently did not possess them in their texts. They remind one to some extent of certain pa.s.sages of the Sermon on the Mount, and are manifestly of late origin.

[247] _I.e._, my servant.

[248] The concourse of people and partisans at the gate where justice was administered.

[249] _I.e._, I never adored them as G.o.ds.

[250] Of the n.o.bles.

[251] This is the pa.s.sage become famous in the imaginary form: "That mine adversary had written a book!" (x.x.xi. 35).

[252] Daylight is hostile to criminals, and the manner in which it operates is here compared to a tossing of them off the outspread carpet of the earth.

[253] On a carpet, to which the earth is still compared.

THE SPEAKER

TRANSLATION OF THE RESTORED TEXT