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THE POETRY OF JOB

THE POETRY OF JOB

BY

GEORGE H. GILBERT, PH.D.
Professor of New Testament Literature and Interpretation
in the Chicago Theological Seminary

"A NOBLE BOOK, every man's book." — Carlyle

[n\i divinity school!
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1889

DtASb

Copyright
By A. C. McCmjrg and Co.
a.d. 1889

TO
Professor Franz Delitzsch,
Prof. Charles A. Briggs and Prof. Francis Brown,
This little volume
is respectfully and affectionately inscribed.

PEEFACE.

IT has pleased God to send His truth to us
by way of human minds and hearts, permit
ting the lights and shadows of earthly experi
ence to mingle with the radiance from His
throne. His truth has never been published
on earth save in an earthly garb. Even as
Christ, the supreme and absolute Word of the
Father, took upon Him the seed of Abraham
and tabernacled in the flesh, looking out upon
hfe and death and immortality through human
eyes, so the word from heaven in olden times
had its earthly side, its tabernacle of flesh. It
is indeed the word of God, but it is none the
less truly the word of man. We honor the
Lord by recognizing this fact, by accepting the
methods of His tuition, and we also make a
larger helpfulness and enjoyment of His word
possible. The Bible has resources adapted to
exert a beneficent influence which are only thus
reached. For it not only contains a revela
tion of Divine truth and grace which infinitely

viii PREFACE.
transcends the best dreams of the classic world,
but it is also the treasure-house of poetry whose
literary excellence ought to share the highest
honors with Homer, with Sophocles and Sappho,
and the bards of later ages. The following
treatise, while aiming, especially in the trans
lation, to make the spiritual lessons of Job
plainer and more effectual, would call attention
to the surprising beauty of the human elements
in this portion of the Bible. There is httle
danger that, by so doing, the Divine teaching
would receive less honor and become less dear ;
on the contrary, such attention would in the
main lead to a more appreciative estimate of
the heavenly message. It does not detract
from the beauty of the rainbow to know that
it did not come down out of the skies perfect
and complete, but that only the wonderful light
came down, and found in our earthly atmos
phere the lenses which could make its hidden
riches visible to our mortal eyes. It is still
God's bow, and though it should be arched
through human tears.
In studying the Book of Job as poetry, the
first and most difficult duty was to render the
poem into English. It has been my endeavor
to make this as perfect as the present state of

PREFACE. ix
Semitic studies in general and of the poem
of Job in particular would permit. There
are words in the poem whose meaning is still
uncertain, and many passages whose thought
is more or less obscure. As it lay outside of
the purpose of this essay to give the grounds
of the translation from step to step, it may be
proper to say that the interpretation here given,
in the case of each word and sentence in the
poem, has been adopted only after repeated
and careful examination of all the philological
evidence, and only after a repeated and careful
examination of each detail in the light of the
manifest aim and thought of the poem as a
whole. Every conclusion has been reviewed
and tested several times. The text that has
been translated is that edited by L. Baer and
Franz Delitzsch, Leipzig, 1875.
With regard to the form of the translation
three remarks should be made. First, the trans
lation is rhythmical, or, at least, constantly aims
to be. Not metrical, for all that is claimed
for the original is a carefully preserved rhythm.
It is a mistake, I think, to endeavor to render
the poem into metrical verse ; but any transla
tion of it that aims at perfection must be
rhythmical. As we are not satisfied with a

x PREFACE.
prose translation of the Faust or the Divine
Comedy, so we should not be satisfied with a
prose translation of Job.
Second, this translation aims to give the
particular rhythmical movement of the orig
inal. The Hebrew lines in Job generally have
three tones, the only important exceptions
being the two-toned and the four-toned lines,
about fifty-nine of the former and eighty-five
of the latter.* The number of syllables belong
ing to the sphere of a single tone varies con
stantly, producing what would be designated,
according to our canons of meter, a mingling
of iambic, trochaic, dactylic, and anapaestic
feet ; but the rhythm is not often disturbed by
this freedom. The present translation avails
itself of the same hberty that is found in the
original. The three-toned Hebrew lines have
been rendered into three-toned English lines,
and the rhythm of the two-toned and four-
toned lines also has been preserved. As an
example of three-toned lines, we may take
this: " The wicked have ceased there from troubling,
And there are the weary at rest." [Chap. iii. 17.];
* Vide Professor Briggs's "Biblical Study," Chapter ix.

PREFACE. x;
Examples of the four-toned and two-toned lines
are the following :
" The wicked man is in pain all his days,
And the sum of the years reserved for the tyrant."
[Chap. xv. 20.}
" My spirit is broken,
My days are extinct.
The grave-yard is mine." [Chap. xvii. l.J
Where it was not possible to give the thought
of the original closely, and at the same time
secure a flowing rhythm, the rhythm has been
sacrificed to the thought. But I trust this has
not often been found necessary.
Third, no attempt has been made to divide
the poem into stanzas, inasmuch as it still
seems very doubtful whether a regular stroph
ical arrangement belonged to the original.
The names of God have been transliterated or
translated, accordmg to the requirements of the
English line : a freedom which, in poetry at
least, should need no apology.
For the study of the poetical conceptions of
the Book of Job the literature is exceedingly
meagre. The work of Bishop Lowth, De Sacra
Hebrmorum Poesi, 1753, and that of Herder,
Der Geist der Hebraeischen Poesie, 1782-3,,

xii PREFACE.
contain appreciative suggestions, though neither
gives special study to the poem of Job. It has
been my aim in this essay to contribute some
what to the interpretation of the Book of Job
as poetry. This greatest product of the Hebrew
mind has been and still is a more closely sealed
book than is any one of the illustrious poems of
history ; yet, surely, considered even as a liter
ary creation, it should be ranked with the
highest efforts of human genius.
. G. H. G.
Chicago Theological Seminary,
May, 1889.

CONTENTS.

Part I.
A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION OF JOB.
CHAPTER PAGE
I-II. THE PROLOGUE  17
III. JOB'S CURSE  23

THE FIRST CYCLE OF THE POEM.
iv-v. eliphaz 
VI-VII. JOB 
VIII. BILDAD 
IX-X. JOB 
XI. ZOPHAR 
XII-XIV. JOB 

THE SECOND CYCLE OF THE POEM.
XV. ELIPHAZ
XVI-XVII. JOB . .
XVIII. BILDAD
XIX. JOB . .
XX. ZOPHAR
XXI. JOB . .
THE THIRD CYCLE OF THE POEM.
xxii. eliphaz 
xxiii-xxiv. job  . .
xxv. bildad 
xxvi-xxviii. job 
xxix-xxxi. the soliloquy of job . .
xxxii-xxxvii. elihu 
xxxviii-xlii. jehovah's address and job's
ANSWERS 
XLII. THE EPILOGUE 

2529 33
343941

47 49
53 54
5759

62
64686874
82

107

xiv CONTENTS.
Part II.
INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF JOB  Ill
II. NATURE IN THE POEM OF JOB ... 137
III. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM IN THE POEM OF
JOB  160
IV. HUMAN LIFE IN THE POEM OF JOB . . 179
V. THE POET'S CONCEPTIONS OF GOD . . 203

PART I.
A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION OF JOB

THE POETRY OF JOB.

PART I.
A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION OF JOB.

THE PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER I.
THEEE was a man in the land of Uz, by the
name of Job, and that man was blameless
and upright, and one who feared God and turned
away from evil. Now there were born unto
him seven sons and three daughters. And his
substance was seven thousand sheep, and three
thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen,
and five hundred she-asses, and very many
servants ; and that man was greater than all
the sons of the East. Now his sons used to go
and make a feast in the house of each one on
his day, and they used to send and call their
three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
5] And it came to pass, when the days of the
Note. — The Prologue, with the exception of chapter i. 21,
also the Introductory verse of many chapters, together with
chapter xxxii. 1-5, and the Epilogue, chapter xlii. 7-17, are in
prose. 2

18 THE POETRY OF JOB.
feast had circled round, Job sent and sanctified
them ; and he arose early in the morning, and
offered burnt-offerings according to the number
of them all, for Job said, Perhaps my children
have sinned, and have parted with God in their
heart. Thus did Job continually.
Now the day arrived when the sons of God
came to present themselves before Jehovah,
and the Adversary also came among them.
And Jehovah said unto the Adversary, Whence
comest thou? And the Adversary answered
Jehovah and said, From going to and fro on
the earth, and from walking about upon it.
And Jehovah said unto the Adversary, Hast
thou considered my servant Job? for there is
none like him on the earth, a man blameless
and upright, one who feareth God and turneth
away from evil. Then the Adversary answered
Jehovah and said, Doth Job fear God for
10] naught ? Hast not Thou thyself set a hedge
about him, and about his house, and about all
that he hath, on every side ? Thou hast blessed
the work of his hands, and his substance has
increased in the land. But put forth now Thy
hand and touch all that he hath: verily, he
will renounce Thee unto Thy face. And Jeho
vah said unto the Adversary, Behold, all that

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 19
he hath is in thy power : only against him
thou shalt not put forth thy hand. And
the Adversary went out from the presence of
Jehovah. Now the day came when his sons and his
daughters were eating and were drinking wine
in the house of their eldest brother. And a
messenger came to Job and said, The oxen
were ploughing, and the she-asses were feeding
15] beside them, and the Sabaeans made an at
tack and carried them away, and the young
men they smote with the edge of the sword ;
and I escaped, only I alone, to tell thee.
While this one was speaking, another came
and said, The fire of God fell from heaven,
and kindled upon the sheep and the young men,
and consumed them ; and I escaped, only I
alone, to tell thee. While this one was speak
ing, another came and said, The Chalctaeans
made out three bands, and came against the
camels, and carried them away, and the young
men they smote with the edge of the sword ;
and I escaped, only I alone, to tell thee. While
this one was speaking, another came and said,
Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and
were' drinking wine in the house of their eldest
brother ; and, behold, a great wind came from

20 THE POETRY OF JOB.
beyond the desert, and smote the four corners
of the house, and it fell upon the young people,
and they died ; and I escaped, only I alone, to
20] tell thee. And Job rose up, and rent his
garment, and shaved his head, then fell upon
the ground and worshipped.
And he said :
Naked came I from my mother's womb,
And naked shall thither return :
Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken ;
The name of Jehovah be blessed !
In all this Job sinned not, neither ascribed
folly to God.
CHAPTER II.
NOW the day arrived when the sons of God
came to present themselves before Jeho
vah, and the Adversary also came among them to
present himself before Jehovah. And Jehovah
said unto the Adversary, Whence comest thou ?
And the Adversary answered Jehovah and
said, From going to and fro on the earth, and
from walking about upon it. And Jehovah
said unto the Adversary, Hast thou consid
ered my servant Job ? for there is none like
him on the earth, a man blameless and upright,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 21
one who feareth God and turneth away from
evil ; and still he holdeth fast his integrity : so
thou hast moved me against him, to destroy
him, without cause. Then the Adversary
answered Jehovah and said, Skin for skin, and
5] all that a man hath will he give for his life.
But put forth now Thy hand, and touch his
bone and his flesh : verily, unto Thy face will
he renounce Thee. And Jehovah said unto
the Adversary, Behold, he is in thy hand : only
his life preserve.
Then the Adversary went forth from the
presence of Jehovah, and smote Job with a
grievous sore from the sole of his foot to his
crown. And he took him a potsherd with
which to scratch himself, sitting in the midst of
the ashes. And his wife said unto him, Dost
thou cling to thine integrity still ? Renounce
10] God, and die ! Then he said unto her, As
one of the f oolish women speaketh, so dost thou
speak. The good shall we receive from God,
and the evil shall we not receive ? In all this
Job sinned not with his lips.
Now the three friends of Job heard of all
this evil that had come upon him, and they
came each from his place, Eliphaz the Teman
ite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the

22 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Naamathite, and they met together, as agreed,
to come and lament for him and comfort him.
And they lifted up their eyes afar off, and they
recognized him not ; then they lifted up their
voice and wept. And each man rent his mantle,
and they scattered dust upon their heads to
ward heaven. Then they sat down with him
on the earth seven days and seven nights, no
one speaking unto him a word, because they
saw that the pain was very great.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 23
JOB'S CURSE.
CHAPTER III.
AFTERWARD Job opened his mouth and
cursed his day. And Job answered and
said :
0 PERISH the day in which I was born,
And the night that said, A man is conceived !
That day — O let it be darkness !
May Eldah not seek it from heaven,
And o'er it let brightness not shine !
5 May darkness and gloom redeem it !
Let a cloud make its dwelling upon it !
Affright it the dark'nings of day !
That night — let obscurity seize it !
In the days of the year let it joy not,
Nor come into the number of months !
Behold, that night — be it barren !
A joy-cry enter it not !
Let the cursers of day curse it,
Those ready to stir up the dragon !
Be darkened the stars of its dawning ;
Let it wait for the Hght, and there be none,
And dawn's eyelashes may it not see !
10 For it shut not the doors of the womb,
And hid not toil from my eyes.
Why could I not die from the womb,
From the womb come forth to expire ?
Wherefore did the knees come to meet me,

24 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And why the breasts, that I sucked ?
For now I had lain undisturbed,
I had slept : then should I have rest,
With kings and with councillors high,
Who built for themselves mausoleums ;
15 Or with princes possessed of gold,
Who filled up their houses with silver.
As a still-birth, hid, I'd not be ;
As babes who have not seen the light.
The wicked have ceased there from troubling,
And there are the weary at rest.
Together in peace are the captives,
They hear not a taskmaster's voice.
There small and great are the same,
And the servant is free from his lord.
20 Wherefore gives He light to the weary,
And life to the bitter of soul ?
Who hope for death, but there is none,
Who dig for it more than for treasure ;
Who joy with joy exceeding,
Who exult when they find a grave ;
To a man whose pathway is hid,
Whom Eloah hath hedged round about.
For instead of my bread my sigh doth come,
And my roarings are poured out like waters.
25 If I sorely fear, it befalls me ;
And that which I dread comes upon me.
I have not peace, or quiet, or rest ;
Yet trouble comes.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 25

THE FIRST CYCLE OF THE POEM.

A

Eliphaz.
CHAPTER IV.
ND Eliphaz the Temanite answered and
said:

SHOULD one venture a word unto thee,
wouldst thou fret ?
But to hold back his words who is able ?
Lo, many hast thou corrected,
And feeble hands hast made strong ;
Him who staggered thy words did restore,
Thou confirmedst the tottering knees :
5 But now unto thee it doth come, and thou f rettest,
It reaches to thee, and thou'rt frightened.
Is not thy true fear thy reliance ;
And thy hope, thine innocent ways ?
Think now, what just one has perished,
And where were the upright cut off ?
As I see, the ploughers of falsehood
And sowers of mischief — they reap it.
By the breath of Eldah they perish,
By the wind of his anger they vanish.
10 Lion's cry and the voice of the roarer,
And the young lions' teeth are broken.
The strong one dies without prey,
And the whelps of the lioness scatter.

26 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Now a word came stealing upon me,
And my ear caught the murmur thereof
In thoughts from the visions of night,
When faileth on men heavy sleep.
Fear fell upon me and terror,
And caused all my bones to shake.
15 And a wind goes floating before me ;
The hair of my flesh riseth up.
It stands, but I know not its shape ;
A form is before my eyes,
A whisper and voice I hear :
" Can a mortal be juster than God,
Or a man than his Maker more pure
Behold, in His servants He trusts not,
And chargeth His angels with error :
Much more the clay-house dwellers,
Who have their foundation in dust,
Who are crushed for a moth.
20 From morning till eve they are shattered,
Unnoticed they perish forever.
When their tent-cord within them is loosed,
They die, do they not ? in unwisdom."

CHAPTER V.
f~~* ALL now, is there any to hear thee ?
^* And to which holy one wilt thou turn ?
Nay, anger slayeth a fool,
And a simple one passion doth kill.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 27
I myself saw a fool taking root,
And straightway I cursed his abode.
His sons are far distant from help,
And are crushed in the gate, while none saves.
S Whose harvest the hungry doth eat,
And plucketh it e'en from the thorns,
And a noose doth seize on their wealth.
For sorrow comes not from the dust,
Nor doth trouble spring out of the ground.
Nay, man unto trouble is born,
As the children of flame fly aloft.
Yet I would seek unto El,
And bring my cause unto God,
Who doeth great things, and past searching,
Miraculous deeds without number ;
10 Who dispenseth rain on the earth,
And water sends over the fields,
To set the lowly on high,
And mourners are lifted to freedom ;
Who frustrates the thoughts of the crafty,
That their hands can achieve nothing real ;
Who captures the wise by their craft,
And the plan of the cunning is routed.
By day they hght upon darkness,
And at midday they grope as at night.
15 So He saves from their sword-like mouth,
And the poor from the hand of the strong.
So hope doth arise for the weak,
And iniquity shutteth its mouth.

28 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Lo, happy the man whom Eldah corrects,
And th' Almighty's reproof do not scorn.
For when He wounds, He binds up ;
He hurts, and His hands do heal.
In six distresses He'll save thee,
And in seven shall touch thee no evil.
20 In famine He saves thee from death,
And in war from the might of the sword.
At the scourge of the tongue thou shalt hide,
Shalt not fear when oppression comes.
Thou shalt laugh at destruction and hunger,
And the beast of the field, fear thou not.
For with stones of the field is thy league,
And with thee the wild beast is at peace.
And thou'lt know that 'tis well with thy tent,
Shalt thy dwelling inspect, nor miss aught ;
25 And shalt know that great is thy seed,
And thine offspring as grass of the earth.
Thou shalt come to the grave in strength,
As a sheaf goeth up in its time.
Lo, this we have searched : thus it is.
Observe it, and know for thyself.

A

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 29
Job.
CHAPTER VI.
ND Job answered and said :

0 THAT fully weighed were my plaint,
And my woe too held up in the scales !
For now it would weigh down the sand of the
seas:
Therefore did my words speak rashly.
For th' Almighty's arrows are in me,
Whose poison my spirit doth drink ;
God's terrors are ordered against me.
5 Doth a wild ass bray over grass,
Or loweth an ox o'er his fodder ?
Can one eat what is stale, not salted ?
Is there taste in the white of an egg ?
My soul refuseth to touch them ;
As the taint of my food are they.
O that my request might come,
And Eloah my hope would grant !
That Eldah would will to crush me,
Loose His hand, and so cut me off !
10 Then should my solace still be —
And I'd joy in pain that He spares not —
That I hid not the Holy One's words.
What's my strength, that I should have hope,
What my end, that I should be calm ?

30 THE POETRY OF JOB.
My strength — is it strength of stones,
Or is the flesh on me brass ?
Or am I not utterly helpless,
And is not true strength thrust from me ?
Love is due the oppressed from his friend,
Though the fear of th' Almighty he leaves.
15 As a brook are my brethren deceitful,
As the bed of vanishing brooks,
Which fail by reason of ice,
While the snow hides itself upon them.
When they are troubled, they vanish ;
Is it hot, they dry up from their place.
The caravans alter their course,
They ascend in the desert, and perish.
The bands out of Tema beheld,
The trav'lers of Sheba longed for them.
20 They blushed because they confided,
They came there, and shame was upon them.
For now ye are hke unto it :
Ye see something frightful, and fear.
Is't that I have said, Give to me,
And out of your wealth make me gifts ?
Or rescue me out of distress,
And save me from tyrants' hand ?
Instruct me, and I will be silent ;
Wherein I have erred make me know.
25 How pleasant are straightforward words !
Yet what doth your proving prove ?
Mere words do ye seek to refute ?

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 31
But a crazy man's words are the wind's.
Ye would even cast lots o'er an orphan,
And bargain over your friend.
But now be pleased to look on me,
And, indeed, I'd not He to your face.
Turn now, let there not be a wrong ;
Yea, turn, my right's in it still.
30 Is iniquity under my tongue,
Or cannot my palate teH evil ?
CHAPTER VII.
TTAS not mortal a warfare on earth,
¦*• •*¦ And his days — are they not as a hireling's ?
As a servant who longs for the shadow,
And a hirehng who waits for his pay :
So I have received months of ill,
Sad nights have been counted to me.
As I lay me to rest, then I say,
When rise I ? but eve groweth long,
And till dawn I am fuU of tossings.
5 My flesh is clothe'd with worms and earth-clods,
My skin groweth hard, and then breaks.
My days fly more swift than a shuttle,
And they vanish away without hope.
Reflect that my Hfe is a breath ;
Npt again shall my eye behold good.
Eye that sees me shaU see me no more :
Upon me are Thine eyes, and I'm not.
As a cloud melts away and is gone,

32 THE POETRY OF JOB.
So who goes to Sheol shall not rise ;
10 He shall not come again to his house,
And his place shaU know him no more.
I also wiU not hold my peace,
I will speak in my spirit's distress,
Will lament in my anguish of soul.
A sea am I, am I a whale,
That a watch Thou should'st set over me ?
When I say that my couch shaU console me,
My bed shall ease my complaint ;
Then with dreams Thou dost frighten me sore,
And with visions dost make me afraid.
15 Ajid so my soul prefers strangling, —
Death before my bones !
I loathe it ! I would not Hve alway :
Cease from me, for vain are my days.
What is man that Thou makest him great,
And settest Thy heart upon him ?
That Thou seekest him morning by morning,
From moment to moment dost prove him ?
How long wilt Thou not look from me,
Not desist till I swallow my spittle ?
20 Have I sinned, what do I to Thee,
Observer of men !
Why hast Thou set me for Thine onset,
That a burden I am to myself ?
Why wilt Thou not pardon my trespass,
And cause my sin to pass by ?
For now I lie down in the dust,
And seekest Thou me, I'll not be.

A

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 33
Bildad.
CHAPTER VIII.
ND Bildad the Shuhite answered and
said:

HOW long wilt thou utter these things,
And thy words be a violent wind ?
As for God, perverteth He judgment,
And th' Almighty pervert what is right ?
If thy children against Him transgressed,
He gave them o'er to their sin.
5 If thou dost seek unto God,
And to th' Almighty dost pray ;
If clean and upright thou art :
Yea, then wiH He rouse up o'er thee,
And thy righteous dwelling restore ;
Thy former state shaU be smaU,
And thy latter become very great.
For ask now of past generations,
And seek out their fathers' deep things ;
For of yesterday we, and we know not,
Since our days are a shadow on earth.
10 Will not they instruct thee, speak to thee,
And out of their heart bring forth words ?
Can a rush grow save in a marsh,
Can a flag without water spring up ?
'Tis yet fresh, it cannot be plucked,
But it withers before any plant :

34 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Such the paths of aU who leave God,
And the wicked man's hope shaU die,
He whose trust is a fragile thing,
And a spider's house is his hope.
15 He leans on his house, and it stands not ;
He grasps it, it doth not endure.
He is full of sap in the sunshine,
And his shoots o'er his garden come forth ;
Round a mound are his roots interlaced,
Between the stones he crowds through.
If He blots him out from his place,
It denies him, " I never have seen thee."
Lo, that is the joy of his path,
And others spring forth from the dust.
20 Lo, God contemns not the perfect,
And grasps not the hand of the wicked.
He wiU yet fill thy mouth with laughter,
And thy lips with the sound of joy.
With shame shaU thy haters be clothed,
And the tent of the wicked shaU perish.

A

Job.
CHAPTER IX.
ND Job answered and said :

I KNOW of a truth it is so :
How can mortal be righteous with God ?
Should he wish to contend with Him,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 35
He could answ'r Him not one of a thousand.
Wise of heart and strong in might,
Who has dared Him, and yet remained whole ?
5 Who the mountains removes, and they know not,
Because in His wrath He o'erturned them ;
Who shaketh the earth from its place,
And its pillars do reel to and fro ;
Who speaks to the sun, and it shines not,
And setteth a seal on the stars ;
Who spreads out the heavens alone,
And walks o'er the heights of the sea ;
Who maketh the Bear, Orion,
The Cluster and Chambers of Teman ;
10 Who doeth great things beyond searching,
And wonderful deeds without number.
Lo, He passeth before me, I see not ;
And ghdes by, but I do not observe him.
Lo, He seizeth, and who can restrain Him ?
Who say to Him, What doest Thou ?
E16ah restrains not His wrath :
Beneath Him have bowed Rahab's helpers.
Much less could I make Him an answer,
Could choose out my words with Him,
15 I who could not reply, had I right ;
I should have to pray to my Judge.
Had I caUed, and He made me an answer ;
I'd not trust that my voice He had heard,
He who bruiseth me sore with a tempest,
And adds to my wounds without cause.

36 THE POETRY OF JOB.
He suffers me not to take breath,
But sates me with bitternesses.
If the strength of the mighty [decides], " Be
hold ! "
Or if judgment, " Who summoneth me ?"
20 Were I righteous, my mouth would condemn me j
Were I blameless, would prove me perverse.
I am blameless ! — care not for my soul !
I abhor my Hfe !
'Tis aU one, and so I declare it :
He destroys both the blameless and wicked.
If a scourge doth suddenly slay,
The despair of the guiltless He mocks.
Given up is the land to the wicked ;
The face of its judges He veils :
If not, who then is it ?
25 And my days are swifter than couriers ;
They flee, they see nothing good.
They ghde by as boats of bulrushes,
As an eagle swoops down on its prey.
If I say, I'll forget my complaint,
WiU relax my face and look glad ;
Then I shudder at aU of my pains,
I know that Thou wilt not acquit me.
I must be bad !
Why wear myself out then in vain ?
30 If I should wash me with snow,
And with potash my hands should make clean ;
Then into the pit Thou wouldst dip me,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 37
So that my clothes would abhor me.
For He is not man like myself,
That I might reply unto Him,
That we might come together in judgment.
Between us there standeth no judge,
To lay his hands on us both.
O let Him take from me His rod,
And His dread — let it not cause me fear ;
35 Then I'll speak, and will not be afraid ;
For I am not thus with myself.

CHAPTER X.
/\/\ Y soul is sick of my life;
* ' *¦ I wiU loosen within me my plaint,
I wiU speak in my anguish of soul,
Say to God, O do not condemn me !
Let me know why Thou strivest with me.
Is't becoming in Thee to oppress,
To scorn the fine work of Thy hands,
And shine on the counsel of sinners ?
Eyes of flesh hast Thou,
As the seeing of man dost Thou see ?
As the days of frail man are Thy days,
Or Thy years as the days of a man ?
For Thou seekest my wickedness out,
And Thou searchest after my sin ;
Though Thou knowest I am not guilty,
And none from Thy hand can release.

38 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Thy hands did fashion and form me
AH round, and Thou Hottest me out !
CaU to mind that as clay Thou didst form me,,
And Thou bringest me back to the dust !
10 Didst Thou not pour me forth as milk,
And cause me to thicken Hke curd ?
Thou didst clothe me with skin and with flesh,
With bones and with sinews didst hedge me ;
Life and mercy Thou gavest to me,
And Thy care has guarded my breath :
Yet this Thou didst hide in Thy heart,
I know that this was in Thy mind.
If I sinned, then Thy watch was upon me,
And Thou didst not acquit me of wrong.
15 If I wickedly dealt, woe was me !
Were I just, I could not Hft my head,
FuU of shame and seeing my grief.
If it rose, Thou didst Hon-Hke hunt me,
And dealt with me strangely again.
Thou renewedst Thy witnesses 'gainst me
And increasedst Thine anger at me,
Fresh troops and an army against me.
And why brought'st Thou me from the womb ?
I ought to have died, and unseen :
As had I not been I should be ;
From the womb to the grave borne away.
20 Are not my days few ? Let him cease,
Turn away that I cheer up a Httle,
Ere I go — and I shaU not return —

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 39
To a land of darkness and gloom,
To a land of blackness Hke midnight,
[A land] of gloom and disorder,
Where it shineth Hke midnight.

A

ZOPHAE.
CHAPTER XI.
ND Zophar the Naamathite answered and
said:

SHOULD a myriad of words go unanswered,
And a man of mere talk be held just ?
Thy boastings, they bring men to silence ;
And so thou dost mock unrebuked.
And thou sayest, My doctrine is pure,
And clean have I been in Thine eyes.
And yet, O that Eldah would speak,
And would open His lips with thee ;
And would teU thee the deep things of wisdom,
That twofold in counsel they are ;
And know that God drops for thee part of thy
sin.
Canst thou find out the depth of Eldah,
Or fathom th' Almighty's perfection ?
Heights of heaven ! what canst thou do ?
Than Sheol it is deeper ! what know ?
Its measure is longer than earth,
And broader is it than the sea.

40 THE POETRY OF JOB.
10 When He glideth by and arrests,
And summons to judgment, who stays Him ?
For men of mischief He knows,
And badness He easfly sees :
So a hoUow head might grow wise,
And a wild ass's foal become man.
If thou dost make ready thy heart,
And spread out thy palms unto Him ; —
Is there sin in thy hand, cast it hence,
Nor let wickedness dweU in thy tents ;
15 Yea, then shalt thou Hft up thy face without
stain,
Shalt be steadfast, nor have any fear.
For trouble shalt thou forget,
Shalt remember as waters that pass :
And Hfe shaU rise brighter than midday ;
Is there gloom, it shaU be as the morning.
And thou shalt trust, for there's hope ;
Thou shalt spy round, shalt lie down secure.
Thou shalt rest with none making afraid,
And many thy face shaU caress.
20 But the eyes of the wicked languish,
And refuge has ceased for them :
Their hope is to breathe out the soul.

A

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 41
Job.
CHAPTER XIL
ND Job answered and said :

OF a truth, now, ye are the people,
And wisdom wiH perish with you !
Even I have a mind, as you have ;
Not second am I unto you :
But who does not know things Hke these ?
A jest for his friend, that am I !
One who caUed upon God and was heard,
The righteous, the upright a jest!
5 IH has scorn in the lucky man's thought ;
It is ready for tottering feet.
In peace are the robbers' tents,
And provokers of God have rest,
He who takes in his hand El<5ah.
But ask now the beasts, and they shaU instruct
thee,
And the fowl of the heaven, and they shaU thee
teU:
Or speak to the earth, and it shaU instruct thee,
And relate it to thee shall the fish of the sea :
Who knows not in aU of these things
That the might of Jehovah hath done this,
10 In whose hand is the breath of aU creatures,
And the spirit of aU human flesh ?
The ear, should it not try words,

42 THE POETRY OF JOB.
As the palate tasteth its food ?
Among aged men there is wisdom,
And with length of days understanding.
With Him is wisdom and might ;
To Him belong counsel and prudence.
15 Behold, He pulls down, and it is not built up ;
He locks up a man, and the door is not opened r
Lo, He shuts in the waters, and they are dried up j
Sends them forth, they destroy the earth.
With Him is strength and true wisdom,
Deceived and deceiver are His,
Who leads away councillors barefoot,
And judges He rendereth fools ;
The fetter of kings He doth loose,
And bindeth a belt round their loins ;
Who leads away priests without shoes,
And causeth the ancient to f aU ;
20 Who takes away speech from the trusty,
And depriveth the elders of judgment ;
Who poureth out scorn upon princes,
And looseth the belt of the strong ;
Who uncovers the depths out of darkness,
And bringeth thick gloom unto Hght ;
Who exalteth the nations, and smites them ;
Who enlargeth the nations, and bans them ;
Who disheartens the leaders of earth,
Makes them stray in a pathless waste.
They grope in the gloom without light,
He lets them stray Hke a drunkard.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 43
CHAPTER XIII.
DEHOLD, mine eye hath seen aU ;
*— Mine ear hath heard, and hath marked it-
As you know, I also do know ;
Not second am I unto you.
Yet I to th' Almighty would speak,
And would Hke to reason with God.
But ye are devisers of falsehood ;
Menders with Hes are ye aU.
5 0 would you but keep utter sUence,
And that should serve you as wisdom.
I pray you, hear my reproof,
And heed the rebukes of my Hps.
WUl ye speak what is bad for God's sake,
And for Him wUl ye utter deceit ?
WUl ye flatter Him,
WUl ye plead for God ?
Is it good He should thoroughly search you ?
Or as one mocks a man mock ye Him ?
10 Right sharply wiU he rebuke you,
If secretly ye are partial.
WUl not His majesty fright you,
And upon you His terror descend ?
Your maxims are proverbs of ashes ;
Your defences, defences of clay.
Give me sUence, that I may speak,
And let come upon me what may.
Why bear I my flesh in my teeth,
And take my life in my hand ?

44 THE POETRY OF JOB.
15 Behold, He wiH slay me ; I hope not :
But my ways I wUl prove to His face.
This too is deliv'rance for me,
That a wicked one comes not before Him.
0 hearken weU to my word,
And be my defence in your ears.
Lo, now I have ordered the suit ;
I know I shall stand justified.
Who is he that can argue with me ?
For now I would hush and expire.
20 But two things do not unto me,
Then will I not hide from Thy face :
Thy hand from upon me remove,
And let not Thy dread cause me fear.
Then caU Thou, and I wUl reply :
Or I'U speak, and answer Thou me.
My crimes and my sins are how many ?
Make me know my transgression and sin.
Wherefore dost Thou cover Thy face,
And why dost Thou count me Thy foe ?
25 The wind-tossed leaf wUt Thou scare,
And chase the dry stubble away ?
For Thou writest against me harsh things,
Mak'st me heir of the sins of my youth.
And Thou puttest my feet in the stocks,
And dost carefuUy watch all my ways ;
Mak'st a line round the soles of my feet, —
I who f aU like a worm-eaten thing,
As a garment that moths have consumed.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 45
CHAPTER XIV.
'"THE man of woman born,
•*¦ Short Hved and f uU of unrest !
He comes forth as a flower, and is withered ;
Like a shadow he fleeth, and stays not.
E'en on this Thou hast opened Thine eyes,
And brought me to judgment with Thee !
O came a clean one from unclean !
Not one!
5 If a Hmit is set to his days,
His number of moons known to Thee ;
His bounds Thou hast set that he pass not ;
Turn away from him that he rest,
TU1 he joy in his day as a hireling.
For there is hope for the tree ;
If feUed, it still can sprout forth,
And its tender shoot doth not fail.
Though its root should grow old in the earth,
And its stump should die in the dust ;
At the scent of water it sprouteth,
And bringeth forth shoots Hke a plant.
10 But a man doth die, and is prostrate :
When a mortal expires, where is he ?
The waters do fail from the sea,
And a stream groweth utterly dry ;
So a man Heth down, not to rise :
TiU the skies be no more, they awake not,
And are roused not up from their sleep.

46 THE POETRY OF JOB.
O that in Shedl Thou would'st hide me,
Conceal me tUl past be Thy wrath,
Wouldest set me a bound and recaU me !
If man die, shaU he Hve again ?
All the days of my warfare I'd wait,
Until my release should come.
15 Thou wouldst caU, and to Thee I'd reply ;
For the work of Thy hands Thou wouldst yearn.
But now Thou countest my steps.
Dost Thou not spy out my sin ?
My transgression is sealed in a bag,
And Thou fastenest up my sin.
But a mountain that faUeth is shattered,
And a rock is removed from its place ;
The waters do wear away stones,
Its floods sweep the earth's dust away :
And the hope of fraU man Thou destroyest.
20 Thou subdu'st him for aye, and he goes ;
Marring his face Thou reject'st him.
If his sons come to honor, he knows not ;
And regards them not if despised.
His flesh only on him is pained,
And his soul within him doth weep.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 47
THE SECOND CYCLE OF THE POEM.

A

Eliphaz.
CHAPTER XV.
ND Eliphaz the Temanite answered and
said :
SHOULD a wise man reply with vain knowledge,
And with winds from the east fiH his breast,
Striving with words unavaUing,
And with speeches by which he serves naught ?
Thou art even destroying fear,
And diminishing prayer before God.
5 For thy wickedness teacheth thy mouth,
And thou choosest the tongue of the subtle.
Thy mouth, not I, condemns thee,
And against thee bear witness thy lips.
As the first of men wast thou born,
And before the hUls wast brought forth ?
In the councU of God didst thou Hsten,
And wisdom withdraw to thyself ?
What dost thou know that we know not,
What markest that is not with us ?
10 With us are the hoary and aged,
Exceeding thy father in days.
Too Httle for thee are God's comforts,
And a word gently spoken with thee ?
Wherefore does thy heart bear thee on,

48 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And why roU thine eyes to and fro ?
That thou turnest thy spirit 'gainst God,
And mere words bringest forth from thy mouth.
What is mortal, that he should be clean,
That the woman-born one should be just ?
15 Behold, in His pure ones He trusts not,
And the heavens are not clean in His eyes :
Much less is the vile and corrupt,
A man who drinks mischief like water.
I wUl teach thee ; heed me :
And what I have seen I wUl teU,
That which wise men have declared
From their fathers, and have not hid.
To them was the land whoUy given,
And there passed not among them a stranger.
20 The wicked man is in pain aU his days,
And the sum of the years reserved for the tyrant.
A terrible sound in his ears —
In peace comes the robber upon him.
He expects no return from the darkness,
And chosen is he for the sword.
He roams for his bread, " Ah where ! "
He knows that near by stands the day of gloom.
Distress and anxiety fright him ;
It vanquishes him like a lance-trained king.
25 For he stretched out his hand against God.
Was defiant against the Almighty.
He ran with the neck against Him,
With the bosses thick of his shields ;

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 49
For he covered his face with his fat,
And fatness he put on the loin.
And he dwelt in cities laid waste,
In houses where men should not live,
Which in ruins were destined to lie.
He shall save not ; his wealth shaU not stand ;
Nor their substance bend down to the ground.
30 He doth not escape from the darkness ;
A flame doth wither his branch ;
He departs by the breath of His mouth.
Let him trust not in wrong, he's deceived ;
For wrong shaU be his exchange.
It is finished, or e'er his day comes,
And his curving branch is not green.
He shakes off as the vine his sour grapes,
And casts as the olive his bloom.
For the clan of the godless is barren,
And fire eats up the tents of corruption.
35 They mischief conceive, and bear sin,
And deceit they devise in their breast.

A

Job.
CHAPTER XVI.
ND Job answered and said:

MANY things like these I have heard:
Ye aU are wretched consolers.
Have windy discourses an end,

50 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Or what excites thee to answer ?
I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in place of my own ;
Could put words together against you,
And over you shake my head ;
5 I could give you help with my mouth,
And my Hps' compassion would soothe you.
WiU I speak, my pain is not soothed ;
If I cease, in what am I eased ?
But now he hath wearied me sore :
Thou hast wasted aU of my house ;
And hast seized me — it was for a witness ;
And against me my leanness arose,
To my face it accused.
His anger tore, and He fought me ;
He gnashed upon me His teeth :
My foe whets His eyes against me.
10 They opened against me their mouths ;
My cheeks they shamefuUy smote :
They fiU up their ranks against me.
God doth give me over to fools,
And hurls me to hand of the wicked.
Secure was I, and He crushed me ;
He seized on my neck, then He brake me,
And He set me up for His mark.
His archers encompass me round,
He cleaveth my loins and spares not,
He poureth my gaU on the ground,
He breaks me with breach upon breach.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 51
He runs Hke a warrior upon me.
15 Sackcloth I sewed o'er my skin,
And defiled my horn in the dust ;
My face hotly glows from my weeping,
On my eyelashes lieth deep shade :
Though wrong there is not in my palms,
And my supplication is pure.
O earth, do not cover my blood,
And be there no place for my cry !
E'en now, behold, in heaven my witness,
In the heights my affiant !
20 My friends are my mockers ;
To Eloah my eye doth weep,
To decide for a man by E16ah,
For the son of man 'gainst his friend.
For very few years wiU come,
And a way I shaU go once for all.

M"

CHAPTER XVII.
Y spirit is broken,
My days are extinct,
The graveyard is mine.
Of a truth, there are mockings around me,
And mine eye on their quarrel must dweU !
Give a pledge, be my bad with Thyself !
Who else wiU strike hands with me ?
For their heart Thou hast hidden from knowl
edge;

52 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Therefore Thou wilt not lift them up.
5 One informs against friends for a portion,
While the eyes of his own children fail.
And I'm made a byword for aU,
And a thing of contempt I must be ;
So my eye from sorrow grows dim,
And my limbs are aU like a shadow.
Astonished at this are the upright,
And the pure is aroused 'gainst the godless.
Yet a righteous one holds on his way,
And a man of clean hands addeth strength.
10 But now, come ye aU again, I pray,
I shaU find not a wise man among you.
My days are passed,
My plans cut off,
The wealth of my heart.
The night they explain as day :
Light is nearer than manifest darkness.
If I hope for Sheol as my house,
Have spread in the darkness my couch,
Have caUed to the grave, Thou'rt my Father I
My mother ! my sister ! to worms :
15 Then where, O where is my hope ;
Yea, my hope, who shaU ever behold it ?
To the bars of Sheol they go down,
When at once there is rest in the dust.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 53

Bildad.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AND Bildad the Shuhite answered and
said:
HOW long wiH ye lay the snares for words ?
Consider, and then we wiU speak.
Wherefore are we held as a beast,
Accounted unclean in your eyes ?
One who teareth himself in his wrath, —
ShaU the earth be laid waste for thy sake,
And a rock be removed from its place ?
5 Yet the Hght of the wicked expires,
And the flame of his fire doth not shine.
The light in his tent has grown dark,
And his lamp above him expires.
The steps of his strength are straightened,
And his own advice casts him down.
For his own feet do ensnare him,
And lie walketh over the toils.
A gin layeth hold on his heel,
A noose doth fasten upon him.
10 Concealed on the ground is its cord,
And its net is hid on his path.
Fears make him afraid round about,
And scare him away, pursuing.
Hungry becometh his trouble,
And calamity waits at his side.

54 THE POETRY OF JOB.
There eateth the limbs of his frame,
Eats his members the first-born of death.
He is dragged from his tent, his trust ;
To the king of terrors must march.
15 There abides in his tent what he owns not,
O'er his dweUing-place brimstone is sown.
Beneath, his roots are dried up,
And his branch is withered above.
His memory fades from the earth,
And nameless is he o'er the plain.
They drive him from Hght into darkness,
And thrust him out of the world.
Not a sprout has he, nor shoot in his tribe,
And there's no escaped one in his tents.
20 The West is amazed at his day,
And shuddering seizes the East.
Yea, these are the homes of the wicked,
And this is the godless man's place.

A

Job.
CHAPTER XIX.
ND Job answered and said :

HOW long wiU ye weary my soul,
And crush me down with words ?
Already ten times ye revile me,
Unblushingly ye deride me.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 55
Yet, verUy, if I have erred,
With me shaU my error abide.
5 If indeed ye wiU boast against me,
And wUl prove against me my shame ;
Then know that Eloah hath wronged me,
And me in His net hath enclosed.
Lo, I cry out, Oppression ! but am not heard ;
CaU for help, but right there is none.
My way He hath hedged that I pass not,
And darkness He puts on my paths.
My glory from me He hath stripped,
And put off the crown from my head.
10 He destroys me aU round, and I go ;
And He tears up my hope like a tree ;
And He kindles against me His wrath,
Esteems me for Him as His foes.
Together His troops come on,
And cast up against me their way,
And encamp round about my tent.
He has put my brothers far from me,
And my friends are but foreign to me.
My kinsmen have ceased,
And forgotten me they whom I knew.
15 They who lodge in my house, and my maids,
Esteem me as foreign,
A stranger am I in their eyes.
I caU to my servant unanswered ;
With my mouth I must pray unto him.
My breath to my wife is offensive,

56 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And my sigh to the sons of my flesh.
Even young chUdren despise me ;
Do I rise, then against me they speak.
AU my intimate friends abhor me,
And those I have loved turn against me.
20 To my skin and my flesh my bone doth cleave,
I escape with the skin of my teeth.
Pity me, pity me, ye my friends !
For the hand of Eldah hath touched me.
O why pursue me like God,
And be not filled with my flesh ?
O now that my words were writ down,
O were they inscribed in the book !
With an iron pen and with lead
Forever engraved in the rock !
25 But I know my Redeemer doth live,
And later shaU rise o'er the dust.
Then after my skin, thus beat off,
And free from my flesh, I'll see God ;
Whom I for myself shaU see,
And mine eyes behold, and no stranger.
My reins pine with longing within me.
If ye say, How can we pursue him,
As the root of the thing is found in me :
Then be ye afraid of the sword ;
For a fire are sins of the sword,
That ye may know there's a judgment.

A

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 57
ZOPHAE.
CHAPTER XX.
ND Zophar the Naamathite answered and
said:

THEREFORE do my thoughts give me answer,
And for this is the impulse within me.
Reproof to my shame I must hear !
But the mind answers me from my insight.
Know'st thou this which is from everlasting,
From the placing of man on the earth,
5 That the joy of the wicked is brief,
And swift the dehght of the godless ?
Though his greatness should mount up to heaven,
And his head should attain to the clouds ;
Like his dung he shaU perish forever,
Who see him shaU say, Where is he ?
Like a dream he flies off and is found not,
Scared away as a vision of night.
Eye beheld him, but shaU not again ;
And his place shaU see him no more.
10 His sons must appease the poor,
And his hands must give back his wealth.
His bones were full of his youth ;
Now it rests with him in the dust.
If evU is sweet in his mouth,
If he hides it under his tongue,
If he spares it and lets it not loose,

58 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And keeps it back in his throat ;
His bread in his bowels is changed,
The poison of adders is in him.
15 Wealth he gorged, and then spewed it out j
From his beUy God casteth it forth.
The adder's poison he sucks,
The tongue of the viper doth kUl him.
Let him see not the brooks,
The streams, the rivers of honey and cream.
Restoring the gain, unswaUowed,
As the wealth of his barter he joys not.
For he crushed, he deserted the poor ;
Seized a house, but he buUdeth it not.
20 Since he knew no rest in his greed,
With his dearest he shaU not escape.
There is naught has evaded his hunger,
So his welfare shaU not remain firm.
WhUe his riches are fuU, he is straightened ;
Every sufferer's hand comes upon him.
It shaU happen, to fiU up his maw,
He wiU send His hot anger against him,
And rain down upon him His food.
He flees from the armor of iron,
A brazen bow doth pierce him.
25 He puUs, it goes forth from his back,
And the guttering steel from his gall ;
Terror cometh upon him.
All gloom is reserved for his treasures,
A fire not blown eats him up,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 59
Destroys what is left in his tent.
The heavens uncover his sin,
And earth rises up against him.
Disappear shaU the wealth of his house,
Washed away in the day of His wrath.
This the wicked man's portion from God,
And his dower appointed by El.

A

Job.
CHAPTER XXL
ND Job answered and said :

0 HEAR with attention my speech,
And let this be your consolation.
Permit me, and I wiU speak,
And when I have spoken, mock on.
As for me, does my plaint concern man,
Or why should I not be impatient ?
Turn hither to me and wonder,
And lay the hand on the mouth.
At the mere recoUeetion I shudder,
And terror doth seize on my flesh.
Wherefore do wicked men live,
Grow old, yea, wax mighty in power ?
Their seed is estabhshed with them in their sight,
And their offspring before their eyes.
Their homes are secure from fear,

60 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And the rod of Eldah's not on them.
10 His buU unfailingly genders ;
His cow calves, and doth not miscarry.
They send forth their young as a flock,
And their children leap wUdly for joy ;
They shout to the drum and the cithern,
And rejoice at the organ's sound ;
They spend their days in good,
And go down in a wink to Shedl.
Yet they say unto God, Turn from us !
And, We wish not to know of Thy paths.
15 What is Shaddai that Him we should serve ?
What's our profit in praying to Him ?
Lo, their fortune is not in their hand :
Far from me be the thought of the wicked !
How oft f aUs the lamp of the wicked,
And cometh their ruin upon them,
The lots He assigns in His wrath ?
[How often] are they as straw in the wind,
And as chaff that the storm sweeps away ?
" Eldah reserveth His pain for his sons :"
Requite him may He that he know it !
20 Let his own eyes behold his destruction,
Of th' Almighty's wrath let him drink !
For what recks he his house after him,
When cut off is his number of months ?
Doth any teach God understanding,
Who judgeth the heavenly ones ?
One dies in the fulness of vigor,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 61
Quite tranquil and free from care.
His sinews are fuU of fatness,
And his marrow 's refreshed in his bones.
25 And another dies bitter of soul,
And hath not tasted of good.
Together they lie in the dust,
And the worms do cover them both.
Behold, I perceive your thoughts,
And the plans with which ye would wrong me.
If ye say, Where's the tyrants' house ?
And where is the tent where the wicked dwell ?
Of traveUers have ye not asked ?
And their signs ye cannot despise :
30 That the wicked is spared in the day of woe,
Led away in the day of great wrath.
Who declares to his face his way ?
And that which he does who requites him ?
And he to the graveyard is borne,
And keepeth watch on a mound.
Sweet to him are the clods of the vale,
And after him goes aU the world,
As before him a numberless host.
Then how would ye vainly console me,
Since your answers — mahce remains ?

62 THE POETRY OF JOB.

THE THIRD CYCLE OF THE POEM.

Eliphaz.
CHAPTER XXII.
AND Eliphaz the Temanite answered and
said:
CAN a man be of profit to God?
Nay, a wise one wiH profit himself.
Doth th' Almighty win aught when thou'rt just,
Or get gain when thou Hvest uprightly ?
Because of thy fear doth He chide thee,
Doth He come into judgment with thee ?
5 Is not thy wickedness great,
And are not thy sins without end ?
For thou pledgedst thy brother for naught,
And didst strip off the clothes of the needy ;
Thou gavest the thirsty no water,
And didst hold back thy bread from the hungry.
But the mighty, to him was the land,
And the eminent one dwelt therein. •
Thou hast sent away widows with naught,
And the arms of the orphans were broken.
10 And so spread about thee are nets,
And fear on a sudden confounds thee.
Or dost thou not see the darkness,
And a water-flood cov'ring thee up ?
Is not God as high as the heavens ?

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 63
See the head of the stars, — how high !
And thou sayest, What knoweth God ?
Can He execute right through the gloom ?
Clouds are His veU, that He see not,
And He walks in the heavenly vault.
15 WUt thou keep the pathway of old,
Which men of wickedness trod ;
Who were snatched untimely away,
Their foundation poured forth in a stream ;
Who said unto God, Turn from us !
And what could th' Almighty do for them ?
Yet he fiHed up their houses with good :
" Far from me be the thought of the wicked ! "
The righteous behold, and are glad,
And the innocent laughs them to scorn :
20 " Of a truth our foe is cut off,
And their wealth has a fire devoured."
O, deal friendly with Him, and have peace :
By this shaU good come upon thee.
Take now from His mouth instruction,
And lay up His words in thy heart.
If thou turn unto Shaddai, thou'lt prosper ;
If thou put from thy tent perverseness.
And put in the dust thine ore,
And Ophir mid stones of the brook :
25 Th' Almighty shall then be thine ore,
And guttering sUver for thee.
For in Shaddai shalt thou then delight,
And shalt Hft up thy face unto God.

64 THE POETRY OF JOB.
When thou prayest to Him, He wiU hear thee?
And thou shalt fulfil thy vows.
When thou plannest a thing, it succeeds ;
And over thy paths shineth light.
When they sink, thou wUt say, Be lift up !
And the lowly of eyes He wiH save ;
30 He wiU save one not guUtless,
And save by thy cleanness of hands.

A

Job.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ND Job answered and said :

E'EN to-day my complaint is defiant,
Though my hand lieth hard on my sigh.
0 that I knew where to find Him,
Could come even unto His place !
I would order before Him the suit,
And my mouth with defences would fiU.
I would know the words of His answer,
Would perceive what He'd say unto me.
WiU He strive in great power with me ?
Nay, but He wiH rather regard me.
Then a just man would reason with Him,
And for aye from my Judge I'd escape.
Lo, eastward I go, He's not there,
And westward, I do not observe Him ;

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 65
To the north, when He works, I discern not,
He hides in the south, and I see not.
10 For He knoweth the way with me ;
Should He try me, as gold I'd come forth.
My foot has cleaved fast to His step,
His way I have kept without turning,
The command of His Hps, and swerved not.
More than my own resolution
I laid up the words of His mouth.
Yet He is the same; and who stays Him?
If His soul has wished aught, then He does it.
For He wiH perform my decree ;
And Hke these there are many things with Him.
15 Therefore I am frightened at Him ;
I reflect, and before Him I fear.
So God hath softened my heart,
And Shaddai hath made me afraid;
For I am not hushed 'fore the darkness,
Nor before myself gloom-concealed.
CHAPTER XXIV.
\\ THEREFORE are not times by th' Al-
' ' mighty reserved,
And why see not His friends His days ?
Men move away bounds,
They seize on a flock, and feed it ;
They drive off the ass of the orphans,
They pledge the ox of the widow ;

66 THE POETRY OF JOB.
They thrust the poor from the road ;
All concealed are the meek of the land.
5 Lo, wUd asses in the waste, they go forth
In their labor of seeking for prey.
The steppe yields him bread for the young,
In the field they cut each his fodder,
And the wicked man's vineyard they glean.
Naked they lodge, without garment,
And no covering have in the cold.
They drip with the rain of the mountains,
And shelterless cling to a rock.
Men tear from the breast an orphan,
And they pledge what the needy has on.
10 Naked they go, without garment,
And famishing take up the sheaves.
Between their waUs they make oU,
They tread in the wine fats,- and thirst.
From the city the dying cry out,
And the soul of the pierced pleads for help,
But Eldah regards not the foUy.
These belong to the haters of light,
They have not regarded its ways,
And have not dwelt in its paths.
At light the murderer riseth ;
He kiUeth the wretched and poor,
And at night he becomes Hke a thief.
15 The adulterer's eye waits for dusk ;
He thinketh, No eye shaU behold me,
And he putteth a mask on his face.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 67
In the darkness men break into houses ;
By day they shut themselves up.
They are not acquainted with light,
For morn is thick gloom to them aU,
Since man knoweth the terrors of blackness.
He is swift on the face of the waters, [say you,]
Accursed is his portion on earth,
He shaU turn not the way of the vineyards.
Drought, also heat, the snow waters consume ;
Shedl those that sin.
20 The womb forgets him,
The worm feeds on him,
Remembered is he no more ;
And broken is sin like a tree,
He who robbed the barren that bare not,
And did to the widow no good.
Yet the mighty by might He preserveth ;
He stands up, not beHeving in life.
He calms him, and he is sustained,
And His eyes are upon their ways.
They are high a moment, then gone ;
They sink, they perish like aU,
And they fade as the top of the stalk.
If not, who wUl give me the lie,
And bring to nothing my words.

68 THE POETRY OF JOB.

A

Bildad.
CHAPTER XXV.
ND Bildad the Shuhite answered and
said:
DOMINION and fear are with Him,
Who maketh peace in His heights.
Is there of His troops any number,
And o'er whom doth not His light rise ?
How can man be just before God,
How the woman-born one be pure ?
Lo, even the moon shines not brightly,
And the stars are not clean in His eyes,
Much less is frail man, a crawler !
And the son of man, a worm !

A

Job.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ND Job answered and said :

HOW hast thou strengthened weakness,
Supported the powerless arm ?
How hast thou counseled unwisdom,
And knowledge in fullness made known?
To whom hast thou made known words,
And whose breath has gone out from thee ?

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 69
5 The shades suffer pain
Beneath the sea and its dweUers.
Shedl is naked before Him,
And no covering hath the abyss.
He spreads out the north o'er the waste,
Suspendeth the earth over chaos.
In His thick clouds He shuts up the waters,
Yet a cloud is not broken beneath them.
He encloseth the front of the throne,
He spreadeth upon it His cloud.
10 A circle He drew on the waters
To the last ray of Hght near the darkness.
The piUars of heaven do quake
And shudder at His rebuke.
In His might He exciteth the sea ;
By His knowledge He shattereth Rahab.
By His breath are the heavens made bright ;
His hand the flying dragon hath pierced.
Lo, these are the ends of His ways ;
But what a mere murmur we hear,
And the roar of His great strength who knows ?

A

CHAPTER XXVII.
ND Job continued his sententious discourse
and said :

AS God lives, who deprives me of right,
And th' Almighty, who vexes my soul —

70 THE POETRY OF JOB.
For all of my life is stiU in me,
And Eldah's breath in my nostril —
My lips do not speak perverseness,
And my tongue doth not utter deceit.
5 Far be it from me to justify you !
TiU I die I wiU not let my innocence go !
I cleave to my right, nor loose it ;
My heart chides no one of my days.
My foe shaU become as the wicked,
And my enemy as the perverse.
For what hope has the bad, when cuts off,
When draws out Eldah his soul ?
His cry for help doth God hear,
When cometh upon him distress ?
10 WiU he in th' Almighty dehght,
WiU he caU upon God at aU times ?
I wUl teach you as touching God's hand,
I'H not hide what is with th' Almighty.
Behold, ye have aU of you seen,
And why are ye utterly vain ?
This is the wicked man's lot before God,
And the portion that tyrants get from the Al
mighty.
If his sons increase, they're the sword's ;
And his seed are not sated with bread.
15 His remnant are buried by death,
And as for his widows, they weep not.
Though he heapeth up silver as dust,
And raiment prepareth as clay ;

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 71
He prepares, but the righteous doth wear it,
And his silver the innocent shares.
He has buUt as a moth his house,
As a booth that a watchman hath made,
He Heth down rich, but not twice ;
He has opened his eyes, and is gone.
20 Terrors o'ertake him Hke waters,
A storm bears him off in the night.
East wind lifts him up, and he goes,
And it sweeps him away from his place.
And He hurls upon him unsparing ;
From His hand he would utterly flee.
Men clap their hands at him,
And hiss him forth from his place.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
"C OR there is a vein for the sUver,
•*¦ And a place for the gold, which they fine.
From the dust is iron obtained,
And a stone is fused into brass.
Man has bounded the darkness,
And to aU completeness he searcheth
The stone of gloom and thick darkness.
Man hath broken a shaft away from the dweller,
Those who by the foot were forgotten ;
They hung far from mortals, they swung.
The earth, out of it cometh bread ;
But its depth is o'erturned as with fire ;

72 THE POETRY OF JOB.
The sapphire's place is its stones,
And in it are nuggets of gold.
A path which the hawk hath not known,
And the vulture's eye hath not spied ;
The sons of might have not trod it,
There has passed not upon it a lion.
On the flint man has put forth his hand,
He has whoHy subverted the mountains.
10 Canals he hath cut in the rocks,
And his eye has seen everything precious.
He has bound fast the rills from trickhng,
And so bringeth to Hght what is hid.
But wisdom, from whence is it found,
And where now is insight's abode ?
Its value frail man has not known,
'Tis not found in the land of the Hving.
The deep said, In me it is not,
And the sea said, It is not with me.
15 Fine gold is not given in its stead,
Nor is silver paid out as its price.
It is weighed not for Ophir's pure gold,
For the onyx of price and the sapphire.
Gold and glass are not equal to it,
Nor are vessels of gold its exchange.
Unthought of are corals and crystal :
To have wisdom is better than pearls.
Not like it the topaz of Cush,
It is not weighed out for fine gold.
20 Yea, wisdom, from whence doth it come,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 73
And where now is insight's abode?
It is veiled from the eyes of aU Hving,
And hid from the fowl of the sky.
Destruction and death have said,
With our ears we have heard of its fame.
God has observed its way,
And He hath known its abode.
For He, to the ends of the earth He beholds,
Beneath the whole heaven He sees,
25 To make a weight for the wind,
While the water He fixes by measure.
When He made for the rain a decree,
And a path for the bolts of the thunder ;
Then He saw it, and published it forth;
Set it up, and fathomed it also.
And he said unto man :
Lo, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
And turning from evil is insight.

74 THE POETRY OF JOB.

THE SOLILOQUY OF JOB.
CHAPTER XXIX.
AND Job continued his sententious discourse
and said :
HAD I Hke the months of the past,
Like the days when Eldah watched o'er me !
When His lamp stiU shone on my head,
By His Hght I walked in the darkness : —
As I was in the days of my prime,
When God's counsel was over my tent,
5 While yet th' Almighty was with me,
Around me my chUdren ;
When my steps were bathing in cream,
And the rock pouring rivers of oU at my side.
When I went tow'rd the gate to the city,
In the market erected my seat ;
The young men beheld me, and hid,
And the old men arose, they stood.
The princes were chary of words,
And the palm they laid on their mouth.
10 The voice of noble ones ceased,
And their tongue clave fast to their throat.
Whene'er the ear heard, then it blessed me ;
And the eye, when it saw, bare me witness.
For I rescued the poor, crying out,
The orphan, and him who was helpless.
The wretched one's blessing came on me,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 75
And I gladdened the heart of the widow.
I put on justness ; it clothed me :
My right was as mantle and turban.
15 Eyes I was to the blind,
And feet to the lame was I.
A father was I to the poor,
And a suit which I knew not, that searched I.
I shattered the jaws of the sinner,
And plucked out the prey from his teeth.
And I said, In my nest I shaU die,
And shaU multiply days like the phoenix.
To the waters my root wiU lie bare,
And dew pass the night on my branch ;
20 My glory stUl fresh wiU be with me,
And my bow wiU grow young in my hand.
Men Hstened to me, and waited,
And they heard my counsel in silence.
They replied not after my word,
And on them dropped gently my speech ;
And they waited for me as for rain,
And their mouth for the harvest-rain opened.
I gave them a smile when despondent,
And they made not my cheerful face sad.
25 I sought out their way, and presided,
And I throned as a king in the troops,
As one who comforteth mourners.

76 THE POETRY OF JOB.
CHAPTER XXX.
DUT now they do laugh me to scorn
*-' Who are younger in days than myself,
Whose fathers I should have abhorred
To set with the dogs of my flock.
And the strength of their hands, what to me,
Since for them robustness has perished ?
By want and hunger made lean,
Who fly to the waste,
To the darkness of desert and waste ;
Who pluck at the bushes salt-purslane,
And the broom-plant's root is their bread.
5 They are driven from men ;
They are shouted at as a thief.
They must dweU in the gorges most dreadful,
In holes of the earth and of rocks.
In the midst of bushes they groan,
Beneath the sharp thorn they are huddled.
Fools' sons, yea, sons without name,
They are scourged away out of the land.
And now their ditty am I,
And I am a by-word for them !
10 They scorn me, far from me they stand,
And spare not my face the spittle.
For my cord He hath loosed and debased me ;
So they cast off before me the bridle.
On my right hand the brood riseth up ;
They have cast at my feet,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 77
And have thrown up against me their ruinous
ways. They demohshed my path,
They help on my faU,
Themselves being helpless.
As through a wide fissure they come,
They roU themselves on with a crash.
15 Against me terrors are turned ;
My honor they chase as the wind,
And my help has gone by like a cloud.
And now within me my soul is poured out,
Sad days seize on me.
Night pierces my bones, that they fall from me,
And my sinews do not obtain rest.
By great might is my garment disfigured,
Like the neck of my tunic it clasps me.
In the mire He hast cast me,
And Hke dust and ashes am I.
20 I cry unto Thee unanswered ;
I stand, and Thou lookest upon me.
Thou'rt changed toward me to a tyrant ;
With strong hand Thou dost persecute me,
Thou dost mount me on wind, mak'st me ride,
And dost let me dissolve into storm.
For I know Thou wUt bring me to death,
And the house for aU living appointed.
Yet, when f aUing, man throws out the hand ?
In his ruin, because of it, cries out ?
25 Or have I not wept for th' oppressed ;

78 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Has not my soul grieved for the poor ?
When I waited for good, evU came ;
When I looked for the light, came the gloom.
My bowels do boil without ceasing ;
Days of affliction befall me.
A mourner I roam without sun ;
I rise in th' assembly, I cry out.
A brother am I unto jackals,
And a friend to the daughters of waUing.
30 My skin groweth black, and faUs off,
And my bones do burn from the heat.
So my cithern is turned into weeping,
And my pipe to the voice of mourners.

CHAPTER XXXI.
A LEAGUE I have formed for my eyes,
**• And how should I look on a maid ?
And what is God's portion from heaven,
Th' Almighty's lot from the heights ?
Is not woe for the wicked,
And ruin for doers of evil ?
My ways doth not He behold,
And doth He not count aU my steps ?
5 If I with falsehood have wanted,
And my foot hasted after deceit —
Let Him weigh me in righteous scales,
That Eldah my virtue may know !
If my step turned aside from the way,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 79
And my heart f oUowed after my eyes,
And a blemish did cleave in my palm ;
Let me sow, and another one eat,
And my shoots, let them be rooted up.
If my heart was befooled for a woman,
And I lurked at the door of my friend ;
10 Then let my wife grind for another,
And above her let others bow down.
For that is a shame,
And that is a crime for the judges.
For, a fire, it eats to the pit,
And in aU of my wealth 't would work ruin.
If I scorned my servant's right
And my maid's in their trouble with me ;
Then what should I do in case God should arise,
And should He examine, how answer I Him ?
15 Did not He who made me in the womb make him,
And us did not One in the bosom create ?
If the wish of the poor I refused,
And the eyes of the widow let faU,
And ate up my morsel alone,
WhUe an orphan partook not of it —
From my youth he revered me as father,
From my mother's womb I led her ; —
If I saw a perishing one, without dress,
And no covering for the poor —
20 In truth, his loins have blessed me,
From the fleece of my lambs he was warmed ; —
If I shook o'er an orphan my hand,

80 THE POETRY OF JOB.
When I saw in the gate my support ;
Let my shoulder-blade drop from its neck,
And my arm be wrenched from its bone ;
For a terror to me is God's bane,
And before His highness I'm weak.
If gold I have made my support,
And to fine gold have said, O my trust !
25 If I joyed that my wealth was great,
And my hand had acquired much goods ;
If I saw the light when it shone,
And the moon in majesty moving;
If my heart became foolish in secret,
And I threw [unto them] a kiss :
This too were a crime for the judges,
For to God above I had lied.
If I joyed in the hurt of my hater,
Sprang up when calamity found him —
30 But I gave not my mouth to sin
By asking his soul with a curse ; —
If the men of my tent have not said,
Who can show one not filled from his food ?
A stranger lodged not in the street,
I opened my doors to the way ;
If I hid as a man my transgression,
That my guUt I concealed in my breast,
Because I feared the great throng,
And the scorn of the clans made me shake,
That I hushed, went not out at the door —
35 O had I some one to hear me !

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 81
Lo, my mark ! Answer me the Almighty !
And [had I] the book my opponent has writ !
Of a truth, on my back I would bear it,
I would bind it on me, a dear crown.
I would teU him the sum of my steps,
As a prince I would come near to him.
If against me my acre cried out,
And together its furrows did weep ;
If I ate up its strength without pay,
And blew out the Hfe of its lord ;
Then for wheat let the thorns spring forth,
And instead of the barley rank weeds.
THE WORDS OF JOB ARE ENDED.

82 THE POETRY OF JOB.
ELIHU.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Introduction op Elihu.
AND so these three men stopped answering
Job, because he was righteous in his own
eyes. And the anger of Elihu was kindled,
the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family
of Ram. Against Job was his anger kindled,
because he had justified himself rather than
God; and against his three friends was his
anger kindled, because they had not found an
answer and condemned Job. And Elihu had
waited for Job with words, because they were
5] older than he in days. And when Elihu
saw that there was no answer in the mouth of
the three men, then his anger was kindled.
And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite
answered and said :
LITTLE am I in days,
And ye are old ;
Hence fearful was I and afraid
To show my opinion to you.
I said to myself, days should speak,
And abundance of years make known wisdom.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 83
Yet it is the spirit in man,
And th' Almighty's breath that instructs them.
Not the great in days are .wise,
Nor are elders acquainted with judgment.
10 So I say, O listen to me ;
I wiU make known my thought, even I.
Behold, for your words I waited,
For your sensible speech I gave ear,
UntU ye should search out words ;
And I gave careful heed unto you :
But, lo, none confuteth Job,
Not one of you answers his words.
Say not ye, We have come upon wisdom !
God can put him to flight, not man !
Since he ordered against me no words,
I shaU answer him not with your terms.
15 They are frightened, they answer no more,
Departed from them are words.
And am I to wait when they speak not,
When they stop, when they answer no more ?
I wUl answer my part, even I ;
Even I wiH make known my opinion,
Because I am fuU of words ;
The spirit within me incites me.
Behold, my breast is Hke wine that 's not vented,
It is ready to burst Hke new flasks.
20 I will speak that myself I may ease,
I wiU open my Hps and reply.
Indeed, I'll be partial to no man,

84 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Nor to man speak flattering words.
For I do not know how to flatter ;
In a trice would my Maker remove me.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
BUT prithee, O Job, my discourses hear,
And give ear unto aU of my words.
Lo, now I have opened my mouth ;
My tongue in my throat has spoken.
My words are the truth of my heart,
And the ken of my lips, distinctly they speak.
The Spirit of God hath made me,
And th' Almighty's breath gives me life.
5 If thou hast the power, refute me :
Prepare, take thy stand before me.
Lo, I stand unto God as thou dost ;
From the clay was I also cut off.
Lo, my fear shaU not make thee afraid,
Nor my stroke be heavy upon thee.
But thou hast said in my ears,
And the sound of the words I perceived :
Clean am I without sin, I am guiltless,
And there is no iniquity in me.
10 Lo, He findeth out charges against me,
He esteems me a foe to Himself.
He putteth my feet in the stocks,
He watcheth aU of my paths.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 85
Lo, in this thou'rt not just, I reply unto thee ;
For Eldah is more than frail man.
Why hast thou contended with Him,
That He answers not aU of man's [his] words ?
But no, God doth speak at one time,
And twice : man observeth it not.
15 In a dream, a vision of night,
When faUeth deep sleep upon men,
In slumberings deep on the couch ;
Then doth He uncover men's ear,
And puts on their warning a seal,
To turn man away from the deed,
And pride to conceal from a man ;
To hold back his soul from the pit,
And his Hfe from a plunge on a spear.
And by pains on his couch he is chastened,
WhUe the strife of his bones is unceasing.
20 And his life makes bread foul to him ;
And his soul, his favorite food.
His flesh disappeareth from sight,
And his wasted limbs are scarce seen ;
And his soul draweth near to the pit,
And his life unto those who destroy.
If there be an angel for him,
Intercessor, one out of a thousand,
To declare his duty to man ;
Then pities He him, and doth say,
Save him from descent to the pit,
I have found a ransom.

86 THE POETRY OF JOB.
25 His flesh is made tender with youth ;
He returns to his boyhood's days.
He prays unto God, He accepts him,
And he looks on His face with delight :
So he gives man his righteousness back.
He singeth to people and saith,
I had sinned and perverted the upright,
But it was not requited to me.
He rescued me from descent to the pit,
And my life doth feast upon Hght.
Behold, aU of this wiU God do,
Twice, thrice with a man,
30 To bring back his soul from the pit,
Make it shine with the Hght of life.
Attend, O Job, give me heed ;
Keep silence and I wiU speak.
But if there are words, answer me ;
Speak thou, for I wish thine acquittal.
If none, do thou Hsten to me :
Hush, and I will impart to thee wisdom.

A

CHAPTER XXXIV.
ND Elihu answered and said :

0 HEARKEN, ye wise, to my words,
And give ear unto me, ye that know ;
For the ear examineth words
As the palate tasteth in eating.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 87
The right let us prove for ourselves,
Among us discern what is good.
5 For Job has said, I am guUtless,
And God has removed my right ;
In spite of my right I must He ;
FuU of pain is my wound without sin.
Who 's a hero Hke Job,
Who drinketh derision as waters ?
And he goes with sinners for partners,
And with wicked men he doth walk.
For he saith, It profits not man
When he stands on good terms with God.
10 Therefore, men of mind, hearken to me :
Far be it that God should be wicked,
Th ' Almighty sinful !
For man's doing he pays back to him,
And after man's path lets him find.
Yea, truly, God doeth not mischief,
And th' Almighty perverteth not right.
Who entrusted to him the earth,
And who hath fixed aU the world ?
Should He set His heart on Himself,
Should gather to Him His spirit and breath ;
15 AH flesh would expire together,
And man would go back to the dust.
And understand, hear thou this,
Give ear to the voice of my words.
E 'en a hater of right, can he rule ?
Or wUt thou condemn the most Righteous ?

88 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Who saith to a king, Worthless one !
O wicked one ! unto princes ;
Who accepts not the person of princes,
Nor pref erreth the rich to the poor,
For His handiwork are they aU.
20 In a moment they die, and at midnight
A people are stirred, and they vanish ;
And the strong are deposed, not with hands.
For His eyes are upon a man's ways,
And aU of his steps He doth see :
No darkness is there, and no blackness,
Where doers of evU can hide.
For He doth not regard a man stiH,
That he come unto God in the judgment.
He breaketh the mighty unsearched,
And others He sets in their stead.
25 So He recognizeth their doings,
And subverts at night, and they 're crushed.
He punishes them as the wicked,
In the place of beholders,
They who turned from Him to this end,
And did not regard aU His ways,
To bring him the plaint of the poor,
That He hear the cry of the lowly.
When He calms, who then can condemn ?
When He covers His face, who behold Him ?
As weU o'er a race as a man ;
30 That impious men may not rule,
Nor snares of the people.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 89
For has anyone said unto God,
I atone without doing wrong ;
Beside what I can see, do Thou teach me ;
Have I sinned, I wiU do it no more ?
To thy mind wUl He pay back thy mocking,
So that thou must choose, and not I ?
Now what thou dost know, speak out.
Men of mind wiU say unto me,
And the wise man who Ustens to me,
35 Job talketh without understanding,
And his words are not with insight.
Would that Job might be tried to the utmost,
For his answers Hke those of the wicked !
For he adds to his sin transgression ;
Among us he mocks,
And makes big his words unto God.

A

CHAPTER XXXV.
ND Elihu answered and said :

DOST thou hold this for just that thou saidst,
My righteousness more is than God's?
That thou sayest, What profits it thee ?
What avails it more than my sin ?
I will make thee an answer with words,
And thy companions with thee.

90 THE POETRY OF JOB.
5 Behold the heavens, and look,
And see the Hght clouds, they are higher than
thou.
Dost thou sin, how affectest thou Him ?
Grow thy faults, what dost thou unto Him ?
If righteous, what givest thou Him,
Or what doth He take from thy hand ?
For a man like thyself is thy sin,
And thy right for the son of a man.
For the many wrongs men cry out,
CaU for help from the arm of the strong ;
10 But one has not said, where's Eldah, my Maker,
Who giveth glad songs in the night ;
Who instructs us more than earth's beasts,
Makes us wiser than fowl of the sky ?
Then they cry, but He answereth not,
Because of the pride of the wicked.
Only vanity God doth not hear,
And th' Almighty considers it not :
Much less when thou sayest, thou seest Him not,
Before Him is the cause, and thou waitest for it !
15 And now since his anger has not chastised,
So " He does not mark sin very well ! "
But Job opens his mouth for naught ;
And multiplies words without knowledge.

A

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 91
CHAPTER XXXVI.
ND Elihu answered and said :

WAIT a Httle for me, and I'U teach thee ;
For stUl there are words for Eldah.
I wiU bring my knowledge from far,
And righteousness give to my Maker.
For surely my words are no He ;
One perfect in knowledge is with thee.
5 Lo, mighty is God, but not scornful,
Mighty in power of mind.
He preserves not the Hfe of the wicked,
But the right of the poor he performs.
He withdraws not His eyes from the righteous,
And even with kings on the throne
He sets them for aye, and they're high.
And when they are bound with chains,
Held fast in the bonds of affliction,
And He shows unto them their work,
And their sins, that great they are grown,
10 And He opens their ear to correction,
And bids them from evil return :
If they hear and render obedience,
They pass their days in good,
And their years in delight.
But if they hear not, then they run on a spear,
And breathe out their Hfe without knowledge.

92 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And the godless of heart cherish wrath ;
They cry not for help when He binds them.
So their soul must die in youth,
And their Hfe be as that of the lustful.
15 The patient He saves by his patience,
And opens their ear by oppression.
And enticed thee from trouble's mouth
Has a broad, unhmited place,
And thy table's supply fuU of fat.
And thou'rt fuU of a wicked man's sentence ;
Sentence and right chng fast.
For beware lest anger mislead thee by fulness,
And let not great ransom beguUe thee.
WUl He order thy cry without need,
And all the exertions of might ?
20 Long not for the night,
That nations may rise in their place.
Take heed, turn not unto sin,
For this thou pref errest to pain.
Lo, God doth exalt by His might ;
Who giveth instruction like Him ?
Who prescribed unto Him His way,
And who said, Thou doest perverseness ?
Take heed that His work thou exalt,
Which men have praised in song.
25 All men gaze fondly upon it,
The mortal beholds it from far.
Lo, God is high o'er our knowledge,
The sum of His years, there's no searching.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 93
For He draws down the drops of water,
They trickle as rain for His mist.
With them the high clouds overflow,
They distiU upon many a man.
Yea, knows man the unfoldings of clouds,
The great crash of His tent ?
30 Lo, He spreadeth upon Him His light,
And He covers the roots of the sea.
For through them He judgeth the nations,
He giveth abundance of food.
He covers his palms o'er with light,
And commands it against the foe.
His thunder maketh Him known,
E'en the herd declares His advance.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
A T this, too, my heart is afraid,
•**¦ And it springs from its place.
0 listen weU to the crash of His voice,
And the rumble that goes from His mouth.
Beneath the whole heaven He sends it,
And His Hght to the ends of the earth.
Behind it roareth a voice,
Would He crash with voice majestic ;
And He hinders them not should His voice be
heard.

94 THE POETRY OF JOB.
5 God crasheth amazingly with his voice,
He doeth great things past our knowledge.
For He saith to the snow, FaU earthward !
And the pouring rain,
The pouring rains of His might.
He seals up the hand of each man,
That aU men of His work may learn knowledge.
And the beast enters into the lair,
In its dweUing-place abides.
The hurricane comes from the chamber,
And from the scatterers cold.
10 By the breath of God there is ice,
And the breadth of the waters is straightened.
Yea, richly He loadeth His cloud,
Disperseth the cloud of His light ;
And it turneth itself about by His steering,
To do whate'er He commands it
On the face of th' inhabited earth,
If as a rod, when His earth needs that,
Or as mercy, He cause it to come.
Give ear unto this, O Job ;
Stand up, and carefuUy mark
The wonderful things of God.
15 Dost thou know when God gives them a message,
And the light of His cloud makes to shine ?
Dost thou know of the poisings of clouds,
Great things of One perfect in knowledge ?
O thou whose garments are warm
When the earth with the south wind is sultry,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 95
Dost thou stretch out with Him the clear sky,
As firm as a molten mirror ?
Make us know what to say unto Him ;
We can order no words for the darkness.
20 ShaU one teU Him that I would speak ?
Has one said he would be swaUowed up ?
And now men behold not the light ;
It is bright in the lofty clouds,
And a wind passing by sweeps them off.
Out of the north cometh gold,
O'er Eldah is terrible splendor.
The Almighty, we find Him not, lofty in strength ;
But He humbles not judgment, nor fulness of
right.
For this do men revere Him,
He heeds none wise in heart.

96 THE POETRY OF JOB.
JEHOVAH'S ADDRESS AND JOB'S ANSWERS.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A

ND Jehovah answered Job out of the
whirlwind and said :

WHO now is darkening counsel
By words that are void of knowledge ?
Up ! Gird thy loins Hke a man ;
I wiU ask thee, and make me to know.
Where wast thou when I founded the earth ?
Declare, if thou hast understanding.
5 Who has fixed its extent, that thou knowest,
Or who has stretched o'er it a line ?
On what were its pedestals sunk,
Or the stone of its corner who laid,
When the stars of the dawn sang together,
And shouted aU children of God ?
And who shut up the sea with doors,
When it burst through, came forth from the
womb;
When I made a cloud its garment,
And darkness its swaddHng bands ;
10 And brake up against it my bound,
And appointed a bar and doors ;
And said, Thus far may'st thou come, but no
further,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 97
And here be a bound for the pride of thy waves !
Hast thou ever commanded a morning ?
Hast shown to a dawning its place,
To lay hold of the corners of earth,
That thence may be shaken the wicked ?
It changes like signet-clay,
So that things appear as a garment.
15 And their Hght is withdrawn from the wicked,
And shattered the arrogant arm.
Hast thou gone to the springs of the sea,
And walked in the depth of the deep ?
Have death's gates been uncovered to thee,
And the gates of deep gloom canst thou see ?
Hast observed to the ends of earth ?
Declare, if thou knowest it aU.
Which is the way to light's dweUing,
And the darkness, which is its place ?
20 That unto its bound thou couldst bring it,
And perceivest the paths of its house.
Thou knowest, for then thou wast born,
And great is the sum of thy days !
Hast thou come to the storehouse of snow,
And the storehouse of had canst thou see,
Which I save for the time of distress,
For the day of encounter and war ?
Which is the way thither where light is divided,
Where the east wind spreads out o'er the earth ?
25 Who cleaveth a course for the rain,
And a path for the bolt of the thunders ?

98 THE POETRY OF JOB.
To give rain on a land without men,
On a desert in which no man lives ;
To satisfy desert and waste,
And to make the meadow bloom forth.
Is there for the rain a father,
Or who doth beget the dew-drops ?
From whose womb doth the ice come forth,
And who bears the hoar-frost of the skies ?
30 Like a stone are the waters congealed,
And the face of the deep groweth firm.
Canst thou bind fast the Pleiades' bands,
Or loosen the cords of Orion ?
Bring forth at their time the Stations,
And the Bear with her young canst thou lead ?
Dost thou know the decrees of the sky,
Or canst fix its dominion on earth ?
Canst thou Hft up thy voice to the clouds,
So that waters shaU cover thee richly ?
35 The Hghtnings canst send, that they go
And say unto thee, Behold us !
' Who placed in the cloud-depths wisdom,
Or gave to the seen cloud insight ?
Who can count the thin clouds in wisdom,
And who pour out the flasks of the skies,
When the dust melteth into a mass,
And the clods cleave fast to each other ?
Canst thou hunt for the lioness prey,
And the young lions' appetite sate,
40 When they crouch in their lurking-places,

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 99
When they He in wait in the lair ?
Who prepares for the raven his food,
When his young cry aloud unto God,
When they wander around without food ?

D<

CHAPTER XXXIX.
iOST thou know when the rock-goats bring
forth?
The travaU of hinds canst thou mark ?
Canst thou count the months they fulfiU,
And the time when they bear dost thou know ?
They crouch, let their young break forth,
Their pangs they cast off.
Their young become strong, they grow up in the
field;
They go forth, and return not again.
5 Who has sent the wild ass away free,
And the bands of the fleet one hath loosed ?
To whose house I have made the waste place,
And the desert of salt his abode.
He doth laugh at the din of the town,
The noise of the driver he hears not.
The mountains' choice spots are his pasture,
And for every green thing he doth seek.
Is the wild ox willing to serve thee,
WiU he pass the night at thy crib ?
10 Canst thou bind the wUd ox to the ridge with
his cord,

100 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Or harrow the vaUeys behind thee wUl he ?
Dost thou trust him since great is his strength,
And committest thy labor to him ?
Dost thou trust him to gather thy seed,
And bring to thy floor ?
The wing of the ostrich waves gladly :
Is't a gentle feather and pinion ?
Nay, she leaveth her eggs to the earth,
And warmeth them on the dust ;
15 She forgets that a foot may crush them,
May trample them beasts of the field.
She treats harshly her young, as not hers ;
Is her labor in vain, she cares not ;
For wisdom God made her forget,
And gave her no dower in insight.
When she beateth her pinions on high,
She doth laugh at the horse and his rider.
Canst thou give to the charger strength ?
Canst thou mantle his neck with trembling ?
20 Canst thou cause him to leap as a locust ?
A dread is his neighing majestic.
He stamps in the valley, and joys in his might ;
To meet the armed host he goes forth.
He laugheth at fear unamazed,
And turneth not back from the sword.
Upon him the quiver doth rattle,
The glittering lance and spear.
With stamping and anger he swallows the earth,
And stays not when soundeth the trumpet.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 101
25 He saith when it soundeth, Aha !
And from far he scenteth the battle,
The princes' shout and the war-cry.
Doth the hawk spread his wings by thine insight,
His pinions stretch out for the south ?
Or soars, at thy bidding, the eagle,
And buUdeth his eyrie on high ?
He dweUs on the rock, and doth lodge
On the crag of the rock and stronghold.
From thence he doth spy out food,
His eyes can behold from afar.
30 And his brood quaff blood,
And where carcasses are, there is he.

A

CHAPTER XL.
ND Jehovah answered Job and said :

SHALL there strive with the Almighty a
chider ?
Answer that let Eldah's rebuker !
AND Job answered Jehovah and said :
BEHOLD, I am smaU ! What answer I thee ?
My hand I do lay on my mouth.
5 I spake once, but begin not again ;
And twice, but I do it no more.

102 THE POETRY OF JOB.
AND Jehovah answered Job out of the whirl
wind and said:
Up ! Gird thy loins Hke a man ;
I wiU ask thee, and make me to know.
WUt thou even destroy my right,
Condemn me, thyself to make just ?
Or hast thou an arm such as God's,
With a voice like Him canst thou thunder ?
10 Put on now splendor and highness,
In glory and majesty clothe thee.
Pour out the floods of thy wrath ;
See aU that is proud, and abase it •
See all that is lofty, subdue it,
And the wicked tread down in their place ;
In the dust together conceal them,
Their face do thou hide in the gloom :
And then I, even I, will praise thee,
Because thy right hand brings thee help.
15 See now Behemoth that I made with thee :
He eateth grass like an ox.
Behold, in his loins is his strength,
In the cords of his beUy his might.
He bendeth his taU like a cedar ;
Interlaced are the bands of his thighs.
His bones are bars of brass,
His bones like an iron rod.
The firstling is he of God's ways,
One made to apply his sword.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 103
20 For mountains furnish him fodder,
WhUe aU beasts of the field play thereby.
Beneath the lotus he Hes,
In seclusion of cane and swamp.
The lotus, his shade, decks him o'er,
The brook-wUlows encompass him round.
Lo, sweUeth the stream, he's not frightened ;
He is calm though a Jordan rush toward his
mouth. In his eyes let one take him !
Let one pierce through his nose with hooks !

CHAPTER XLI.
CANST thou draw with a hook the levia
than,
And canst hold down his tongue with the cord ?
Canst thou put a ring in his nose,
And pierce through his cheek with a thorn ?
WUl he multiply prayers unto thee,
Or speak to thee flattering words ?
WiU he make a covenant with thee,
Wilt thou take him as servant for aye ?
Canst thou play with him as a bird,
And bind him canst thou for thy maids ?
Do the fishermen bargain for him,
Among the Phoenicians divide him ?

104 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Canst thou fiU with arrows his skin,
And with fish-harpoons his head ?
Put thou upon him thy hands !
The conflict remember ! repeat not !
Behold, his hope has deceived ;
Is he not, e'en at sight of him, prostrate ?
10 None so bold that he rouseth him up :
And who then wiH stand before me ?
Who first gave me, that I must repay ?
Beneath the whole sky, it is mine !
I wiU not pass in sUence his limbs,
The point of great strength, and his beauty of
frame.
Who has laid bare the front of his garment,
Through his teeth twofold who can come ?
Who has opened the doors of his face ?
Round about his teeth is dread !
15 A pride are the bars of the shields,
Locked up with a seal most firm.
They join one unto another,
That no air between them can come.
They are fastened each one to its brother,
They cling closely and separate not.
His neezings do radiate Hght,
And like eyelids of dawn are his eyes.
From his mouth do torches proceed,
Sparks of fire fly out.
20 From his nostrils a smoke goeth forth,
As from seething kettle and reeds.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 105
His breath enkindleth coals,
And a flame from his mouth comes forth.
On his neck doth power abide,
And terror before him casts down.
The leaves of his flesh cleave together ;
Molten upon him they move not.
His heart is firm as a stone,
And hard as the nether miU-stone.
25 Of his rising strong ones are afraid,
Through great fear they are senseless.
Doth one reach him with sword, it holds not,
Neither lance nor spear nor harpoon.
As stubble esteemeth he iron,
As wood that is rotten, brass.
A son of the bow scares him not,
SHngstones turn to stubble for him.
The bludgeons are valued as stubble,
And he laughs at the noise of the spear.
30 Beneath him are sharpest sherds ;
He spreads out a flail on the slime.
He makes the deep boU as a pot,
The sea he makes as a brewing.
Behind him shineth a path ;
One might think that the deep were gray hairs.
On earth there is not his equal,
One made without fear.
Whatever is high he beholds,
Over aU sons of strength he is king.

106 THE POETRY OF JOB.

A

CHAPTER XLII, 1-6.
ND Job answered Jehovah and said :

I KNOW Thou canst aU things perform,
And no plan is for Thee too hard.
" Who now is darkening counsel unknowing ?"
So I made known my thought and not wisely,
Things too lofty for me, and I knew not.
" O listen, and I wiH speak ;
I wUl ask Thee and make me to know."
By hearsay, of Thee I had heard,
But now hath mine eye beheld Thee :
Therefore I recant and repent
In dust and ashes.

A RHYTHMICAL TRANSLATION. 107

THE EPILOGUE.
CHAPTER XLII, 7-17.
AND it came to pass after Jehovah had
spoken these words unto Job, that Jeho
vah said unto Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger
is kindled against thee and against thy two
friends, because ye have not spoken truly con
cerning me, as has my servant Job. And
now take you seven bullocks and seven rams,
and go unto my servant Job, and offer for
yourselves a burnt offering, and Job my ser
vant shall pray for you ; his face alone will I
accept, that I may not bring upon you the
dues of folly, for ye have not spoken truly
concerning me, as has my servant Job. And
Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite,
Zophar the Naamathite, went and did as Jeho
vah had said unto them, and Jehovah accepted
10] the person of Job. And Jehovah restored
the prosperity of Job, while he was praying
for his friends. And Jehovah increased all
that Job had possessed twofold. Then came
to him all his brothers and all his sisters, and
all his former acquaintances, and they ate
bread with him in his house, and they pitied

108 THE POETRY OF JOB.
him and comforted him, because of the evil
which Jehovah had brought upon him. And
each gave him a kesita, and each a golden
ring. And Jehovah blessed the latter end of
Job more than his beginning. And he had
fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand
camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a
thousand she-asses. And he had seven sons
and three daughters. And he called the
name of the first Jemima, and the name of
the second Kezia, and the name of the third
15] Keren-Happuch. And women were not
found in all the land as beautiful as the
daughters of Job; and their father gave
them an inheritance among their brothers.
Now Job lived after this one hundred and
forty years, and he saw his sons and his sons'
sons through four generations. And Job died
old and full of days.

PART II.
INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM

PART II.
INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM.

CHAPTER I.
A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF JOB.
IN the second and fourth scenes of the Pro
logue (Chapter i. 6-12 ; ii. 1-6), the poet
gives us, in the conversation between Jehovah
and the Adversary, the theme of his composi
tion. After God had spoken in high praise
of His servant Job, as a man " blameless and
upright," the Adversary challenged Him to
test this apparent piety of His servant, insinu
ating that it was in reality only selfishness.
Job followed godliness because of the mate
rial blessings which he thus secured. Take
these away, and the truth would appear : Job
would renounce God. The challenge is accept
ed. Job is smitten with the sudden and mys
terious loss of all his wealth and all his child
ren ; but he does not renounce God. On the
contrary, he takes his ref nge in Him.
" Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken ;
The name of Jehovah be blessed !"
In the second conversation in heaven, God

112 THE POETRY OF JOB.
again commends His servant, and says, in
effect, that the Adversary has called his piety
in question without ground. But Satan is not
silenced. He still professes to believe that
Job's piety is not genuine. Let suffering
come home to him in the form of sickness :
he will yet renounce God. It will be seen
that the man whom Jehovah fondly believes
" blameless and upright " is so in appearance
only. He will sooner give up God than his
own life. Satan's second challenge is accept
ed. He receives the desired permission, and
smites Job with leprosy. The Prologue takes
us one step further, and records that Job's
allegiance to God still remained unshaken.
But will this allegiance continue? Will the
confidence of God in Job be justified ? The
end is not yet. Job is smitten with leprosy ;
and, with the increasing loathsomeness and
painfulness of the dread disease, the hour
may yet come when Satan's charge will be es
tablished. The Prologue leaves us in suspense.
We look for further developments. If, there
fore, the poem that follows is true to the Pro
logue, it will show that the piety of Job was
indeed unselfish ; that he had a loyalty to con
science from which neither friend nor foe could

ITS INTERPRETATION. 113
cause him to err ; that he had a trust in God
which was able to bear the strain of utmost
suffering and utmost mystery. It wiU show us
the struggles of a man who is tried in order
to refute the slander of Satan and vindicate
the confidence of God. It will answer the
question whether God is able to win the im
movable attachment of a human soul. The
Prologue has answered this question down to
the hour when the bitterness of Job's losses
and sufferings began to settle into his spirit ;
when, sitting upon the leper's ash-heap, bereft
and outcast, he began to ponder his lot, and
to feel, the inexplicable conflict between his
cherished belief and the facts of his recent
experience. Here, with this inner conflict, this
spiritual struggle, the poem begins. ,
The theme which we have thus found in the
Prologue seems to be plainly the theme of the
subsequent poem. For this follows the spirit
of Job through its long and terrible experience
until it comes out upon the uplands of a divine
calm and assurance and fellowship. It is in
deed a poem of victory, agreeably with the his
tory and hints contained in the Prologue.
This is its central thought. Under this, aU its
parts fit harmoniously together. It is a poem

114 THE POETRY OF JOB.
of resplendent victory, for its hero, single-
handed, defeats his unseen and immortal Ad
versary, triumphs over his well-meaning but
dangerous friends, and holds his ground even
when he thinks he is assaulted by God Him
self. He abides by the assertion of his good
conscience though the heavens seem to be war
ring against him.
" Behold, He wiU slay me : I hope not :
But my ways I wiU prove to his face.''
The poet establishes the fact that such a
thing as unselfish piety is possible to a mortal
on earth. He shows it to us, out of the fur
nace and in the furnace, in his hero Job. We
of course bear in mind that the glimpses into
God's purpose which the poet gives us in the
Prologue are not given to Job himself. They
are for the reader, from the poet. Job does
not know that he is to fight a battle for God.
He does not know that it is Satan, not God,
who has brought his losses upon him. He does
not know that God has such a confidence in
him that He is willing to let Satan test him to
the utmost. The sky is all dark to his gaze.
This theme, of which we have been speak
ing, is noteworthy among those chosen by great

ITS INTERPRETATION. H5
poets for their most elaborate productions.
The theme of the Iliad is the restoration of a
Spartan woman, whom a Trojan prince had
abducted. The long war that was caused by
this abduction ; the counsels and intrigues of
gods and goddesses, who took sides with the
contending parties ; the valorous exploits of
individual heroes during the long siege of Troy,
the bitter feuds of the Greek leaders, and the
sports which were mingled with the sterner
scenes of war, — these furnish the poet with
materials for his epic. Doubtless the theme
was wisely chosen with reference to the poet's
influence on his warlike people. It was a
popular theme, but not a profound one. The
poem based upon it has to do, essentially, with
man as related to man, not as related to God ;
with man as a physical being, full of desires
and passions, rather than as a spiritual being,
with a conscience and an immortal soul.
The theme of Dante's great poem is given
by him in these words : " If it shall be the
pleasure of Him, through whom all things live,
that my life continue somewhat longer, I hope
to say of her [Beatrice] what never yet was
said of any woman." The eyes of an Italian
maiden were the impulse and the theme of the

116 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Divine Comedy. But the action of the poem,
lying as it does beyond the confines of the
grave, does not come so near to the heart of
man as does the action of the Iliad or of the
.ZEneid. It possesses charms for the fancy and
the imagination which they do not have. It
has a seriousness of thought and a depth of
solemn truth unknown to the poems of Virgil
and Homer. But the general theme, the praise
of Beatrice, is less profoundly a theme for the
ages and the race than is the theme of the
Hebrew bard ; and the special theme of the Di
vine Comedy — the progress of Dante through
Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, up to the Primal
Light, — is too speculative and too full of
heathen ideas to engage permanently, to in
struct or comfort the Christian soul amid the
mysteries of life.
Milton, conforming to classic models, gives us
the theme of his great poem in its opening lines :
" Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe —
Sing, heavenly Muse."
His purpose was to
" Assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."

ITS INTERPRETATION. H7
This is not wholly different from the purpose
of the author of Job. He also, to a certain
extent, justifies the ways of God to man, for
he clears the government of God of the re
proach that might justly be brought against it,
as it was expounded in the universal doctrine
of his day. Milton's theme, however, lies
further from the every-day hfe of men than
does the theme of Job. " Paradise Lost " is,
like the Hebrew poem, a story of suffering ;
but that suffering is not common to man. It
is a historical fact, not a constantly recurring
personal experience. The theme of Job is a
part of every true man's life. Every servant
of God is engaged on His side in the great
conflict with the forces of darkness. Satan
challenges the piety of every servant of God,
and endeavors to break it down. Every one
is called to suffer and be strong, every one
meets with mysteries on the right hand and on
the left, confusing and bewildering, whose solu
tion must be left to the future. The struggle
of Job is repeated over and over again in the
experience of earnest souls, though the form
and conditions of it are ever changing. His
experience touches our deepest life at many a
point. His story, therefore, will have a living

118 THE POETRY OF JOB.
interest as long as there is a conscience in
man, and as long as a human spirit cries, out
of the darkness and mystery of earth, " Oh
that I knew where to find Him ! "
In connection with the theme of Job, atten
tion may be called, in passing, to the fact that
this is the only one of the greater poems of
history in which woman plays no part. The
most famous productions of poetical genius
draw much of their inspiration from the pres
ence of woman and the passion of love. What
would the Iliad be without Helen, Andromecha,
Briseis, and a host of other fair women ? Of
how much of its beauty and power would the
Divine Comedy be robbed, were all the visions
of Beatrice stricken from it, " Whose eyes
would make one happy in the fire " ? What
darkness would come upon the pages of Milton
and Shakespeare, were their dreams of noble
and beautiful women to fade and vanish ? But
the Hebrew poem which we are considering
has won a large place in the literature of the
world, although it has not availed itself of the
profound motive which has added so much to
the attractiveness and power of other great
poetical productions.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 119
Having spoken thus briefly of the theme of
Job, we notice, in the next place, the charac
ters introduced by the poet ; not the dramatis
personce, for the poem, though dramatic in the
intense spiritual activity of its hero and in its
animated dialogues, is not properly a drama.
It is epic, rather, in structure and tone : a
heroic poem in the truest sense. Excepting
Satan, who appears only in the Prologue — un
less we think of him as having some part in
what Job's friends say, — the development of
the theme is carried on by Job, his three
friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, by Elihu
and Jehovah. Job, a man advanced in years,
is a wealthy and upright land-owner of Uz —
an Aramaic district eastward from Palestine,-
traditionally and usually found in the Hauran,
but located by Professor Frederick Delitzsch
northeastward from Damascus. Job appar
ently does not belong to the chosen people ; is
not a Hebrew. The poem, therefore, which
magnifies his character, is a monument to the
author's catholic spirit. He recognized good
outside of Israel ; he believed that God could
make a man righteous without the law and the
prophets. In this respect Job is a parallel to
King Melchizedek, and to Ruth the Gentile

120 THE POETRY OF JOB.
ancestress of David, and so of the Messiah.
Job's name is not regarded by the poet as in
anywise significant ; and it is hence concluded
that it was not invented, but was handed down
to the writer. With the name the poet doubt
less received certain facts concerning the char
acter and experience of Job, which formed the
basis of his poem. This is the view generally
accepted by scholars. Just what the facts were
to which the poet had access, it is of course
impossible to say, and it is also unimportant ;
even as, for instance, it is impossible and of no
great moment to determine how much of his
torical fact underlies Shakespeare's "Tempest."
It would be of greater interest to know who
the princely spirit was from whose mind and
heart the poem sprang ; but even this were of
little import, either for him or for us. We only
know that he was an Israelite, and belonged to
the Golden Age of Hebrew literature, his poem
being its consummate jewel. Were he known
by name, we could still honor him best by lov
ing the truth which he taught ; but this we
can do equally well now, he being unknown.
Job is portrayed as of tender conscience and
deep religious feeling, a man of prudence and
wisdom, liberal and sympathetic, bold in his

ITS INTERPRETATION. 121
opposition to wrong-doers, cheerful and hope
ful when others are downcast, — a man honored
and beloved by all. He is a man who loves
the truth more than he loves his own opinion
of the truth, and whose mind is consequently
open and receptive. He is a man capable of
profound and fiery emotion, though by no
means unstable in his judgment. He is one
who in the extreme hour has the courage of
his convictions, and who loves the name of
honor more than he fears death.
Eliphaz, the mildest in disposition and the wis
est of the three friends, is not only older than
they, as is proved by his speaking before them
and by his richer experience, but he is also, as
it would seem (Chapter xv. 10), much older
than Job himself. He is an Edomite, and
comes from Teman, famous for its wisdom
(Jer. xlix. 7). He is profounder and gentler
than his two companions, a worthy and digni
fied representative of a narrow doctrine. Bil
dad from Shuah might seem to be descended
from Abraham and Keturah. His home is
located indefinitely in the " east country "
(Gen. xxv. 6). Bildad appeals to tradition,
as Eliphaz appealed to his own experience.
He is richer in thought and poetical expression

122 THE POETRY OF JOB.
than Zophar. The latter, from the unknown
city of Naamah, is more of a dogmatist and
less of a poet than either Bildad pr Eliphaz.
It is characteristic of all the friends, as over
against Job, that, while they are not destitute
of human sympathy, they soon become hard
and cruel in their judgments when anyone
dares to deny the validity of their reasoning.
They fancy that they are already in possession
of the truth, and hence they are not truth-
seekers. They are all unfair in their judg
ment of Job, because they do not take account
of the peculiar circumstances of his case. They
put him on the Procrustean couch of their
dogma and fit him to it, though in the process
they are obliged to lop off very suggestive facts
in Job's consciousness and life. They are all
stubborn, not naturally but by reason of their
religious pride.
Elihu, who next appears on the scene as an
opponent of Job, and whose appearance em
phasizes the universality of that theory of suf
fering which the poem overthrows, is of Aramaic
origin (Gen. xxii. 21), like Job himself. He
is a young man, a veritable Hotspur. He is
angry at Job because he has justified himself
rather than God ; and angry at the friends

ITS INTERPRETATION. 123
because they have not silenced Job. He seems
to have been present as a listener from the
beginning of the poem. He was not mentioned
by the poet at the outset ; and this may be due
to the fact that he was not to appear till near
the close of the poem, and then in a role of
secondary importance. He is not introduced
until he can speak. Consistently with his
youth, and with the fact that his aroused feel
ings have been so long pent up — for he says
that his breast is ready to burst like new
flasks, — he speaks less tersely and clearly than
the friends, especially at the beginning of his
speech. It is also in keeping with his youth-
fulness that his language is often somewhat
flowery, and that his bearing savors of a pretty
strong self-consciousness. But if these pecul
iarities are all consistent with the avowed
youth of Elihu, it is plainly wide of the mark
when they are urged against the originality of
his words. They speak for the art of the poet,
and not for the theory that Elihu's part is the
work of a later hand.
The remaining speaker is Jehovah, on whose
discourse the poet bestows his best skill.
We turn now to the general development

124 THE POETRY OF JOB.
of the poem. In the six picturesque and
dramatic scenes of the Prologue, we are made
acquainted with Job, with his sudden and
mysterious afflictions, with the motives which
induced God to permit these to befall him,
and at last with the three friends, who are intro
duced seven days before the action of the poem
begins. After these days of silence pass, in
which Job's spirit becomes sorely troubled and
perplexed by the mysteriousness of his suffer
ings, and in which the presence of sympathetic
friends invites him to pour out his sorrow, then
his noble and patient bearing of grievous losses
is succeeded by the wild torrent of complaint
which calls out the reproof of the friends ; and
thus the poem opens.
It should be said here, that the course of the
poem is determined by the belief, universal in
Job's day, that the favor or anger of God may
be unerringly inferred from the prosperity or
adversity of the earthly lot. It was this doctrine
in its most rigid form which the three friends
held, and in line with which they sought to
" comfort " Job. It was also his own inbred
belief ; but now it is no longer possible for him
to hold it. He breaks loose from it, and strug
gles after a better and profounder view of life.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 125
In this struggle his only solid ground is his
good conscience and a growing conviction that
God must be righteous even when He seems
most unrighteous. After Job's passionate ode
has opened the mouths of the friends, each of
them takes up the common cause against him.
Job responds to the words of each in turn.
Once, and again, and again, the friends seek
to bring Job to their mind ; though Zophar is
silent when his third turn comes to speak.
The friends are mild at first, and represent
Job's suffering as a chastening designed for
his good. Eliphaz says :
" Lo, happy the man whom Eldah corrects,
And the Almighty's reproof do not scorn ;
For when He wounds, He binds up ;
He hurts, and His hands do heal."
And Bildad :
" If thou dost seek unto God,
And to the Almighty dost pray ;
If clean and upright thou art :
Yea, then wiU He rouse up o'er thee,
And thy righteous dweUing restore 
He wiH yet fill thy mouth with laughter
And thy Hps with the sound of joy."
Gradually their replies become more severe, as
Job, instead of yielding, persists in asserting

126 THE POETRY OF JOB.
his innocence; and, at length, they do not
shrink from charging Job with particular and
grievous sins, and even declare that what has
befallen him is not the full equivalent of his
wickedness. Even the mild Eliphaz speaks
thus in his last ode :
" Is not thy wickedness great,
And are not thy sins without end ? "
To be sure, Job has been widely known as a
good man, a man " without fear and without
reproach "; but these facts are brushed away
by the logic of the friends' doctrine. Suffering
argues sin : great suffering argues great sin.
Job has unquestionably been overwhelmed with
great afflictions ; therefore he must have com
mitted grave sins. He has doubtless disre
garded the hungry and thirsty, he has neglected
the widow and broken the orphan's arms. He
has renounced God, and has led an arrogant,
self-centred life. They carry out their doctrine
to the bitter end, and blacken the character
of a pure man to save their narrow dogma.
As for Job, all the elements of his nature
are in a state of upheaval at the beginning of
the poem. His bold impeachment of the Divine
righteousness, his impassioned longings for

ITS INTERPRETATION. 127
death, and his most inconsiderate remarks
concerning his friends, are to be found in his
earlier replies. Sharing the belief that the
godly and upright man will prosper on earth,
he is brought by his good conscience and his
great sufferings to the conclusion that God is
unjust. " He bruiseth me sore with a tempest,
And adds to my wounds without cause."
" 'Tis aU one, and so I declare it :
He destroys both the blameless and wicked.
If a scourge doth suddenly slay,
The despair of the guiltless He mocks."
" Is't becoming in Thee to oppress,
To scorn the fine work of Thy hands,
And shine on the counsel of sinners ? "
Job feels that his miseries cannot be a pun
ishment for sin ; but, if they are not, then
where is the justice of God ? He is not just.
But there is no comfort in such a conclusion,
and least of all can it satisfy the deeply relig
ious heart of Job. He cannot give God up.
There must be another side to His character.
There must be a witness for Job in heaven.
He knows that his deliverer lives, and some-

128 THE POETRY OF JOB.
time, somewhere, though not on earth, he is
sure of an acquittal. Job does not know how
to solve the mystery of his suffering, but he
gradually comes to the sublime belief that
it is solvable. Not at once does he reach the
conviction that he can keep his good conscience
and his God also. He struggles on slowly,
often confused and perplexed, often torn from
his moorings by the waves of cruel suffering ;
but his clear conscience,
" That good companion which emboldens man
Beneath the hauberk of its feehng pure,"
emboldens him more and more. He not only
does not renounce God, but he looks confi
dently to Him for an attestation of his inno
cence. In the first cycle of the poem, Job is mainly
concerned with the thought that the innocent
sometimes suffer and suffer grievously. His
own case is proof of this. He can say to the
Lord, "Thou knowest I am not guilty." He
by no means claims that his life has been
wholly free from sin. No one, he says, can
bring forth a clean thing from the unclean.
He speaks of the sins of his youth, and admits
that God by searching can find wickedness in
him now, can spy out sin. But this unpar-

ITS INTERPRETATION. 129
alleled suffering, falling upon him, as it were,
out of a clear sky, in a day when he felt that
God's counsel was over his tent, this surely is
not a consequence of sin. It cannot be. His
heart rises up in passionate and persistent pro
test against the false notion of his understand
ing and the doctrine of his friends.
In the second cycle, while still occupied in
part with the suffering of the innocent, he pre
sents also the thought that the wicked prosper.
They prosper as a class.
" They spend their days in good,
And go down in a wink to Shedl."
Some one may say, Yes, but God wiU visit
their children with punishment. This, how
ever, does not at all satisfy Job. The wicked
man himself should drink of the wrath of the
Almighty. " For what recks he for his house after him,
When cut off is his number of months ? "
Himself is the one to suffer ; but as a matter
of fact, he escapes punishment. He dies in
comfort ; and after him — that is, after his ex
ample, " goes all the world,
As before him a numberless host."

130 THE POETRY OF JOB.
He is not speaking here of a casual occurrence,
but of a general rule.
In the third cycle, Job still protests his inno
cence, affirms that others in city and country
suffer without cause, and that God prospers
the wicked. He is as far as ever from justify
ing the friends. He still cleaves to his right,
and declares that his heart does not chide one
of his days. But he presents an aspect of the
truth in regard to the wicked, different from
that found in the last cycle. He there portrays
the prosperity of the wicked ; here, toward the
close of his ode, he portrays their misery,
(chapter xxvii.). The wicked, as a class,
so he says now, are punished. If their sons
increase, it is for the sword. If they gather
costly raiment and heap up silver, the right
eous inherit them. God hurls his judgment
upon the wicked unsparingly, and sweeps them
from the earth. This is the proper lot of the
wicked, but it is not an invariable rule. In
the last cycle, his representation was that the
wicked as a class prosper. But granting, as
he does in chapter xxvii., that the wicked
man is destroyed as a rule, this does not help
to solve his difficulties. This does not explain
why a righteous man like himself should suffer.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 131
It rather makes this seem more inexplicable.
It is a ray of justice that makes the darkness
of God's seeming injustice more mysterious.
The problem is still as far from a solution as
ever, though Job's feeling in regard to Him
who is back of the problem has changed. Deep
down in his heart he believes that it is the only
wisdom to fear God. This is not earthly wis
dom, but heavenly ; a wisdom that is not given
in exchange for Ophir's pure gold. Job's lofty
spiritual praise of wisdom shows that he has
known her as one friend knows another. His
heart is still anchored to God.
The last three chapters of Job's words
(xxix.-xxxi.) we may call his Soliloquy. He
no longer addresses the friends, but communes
with the bright past, now vanished; com
munes also with his sufferings, and with
his good conscience. That past appears glori
ous because God was in it, an intimate friend.
The bitterness of present suffering is the feel
ing that God has cast him into the mire, and
is persecuting him. God is changed, toward
him, into a tyrant. Hence it is that his cith
ern is turned into weeping, and his pipe to the
voice of mourners. And yet within this man
who feels himself a brother unto jackals and a

132 THE POETRY OF JOB.
friend to the daughters of wailing, whose skin
grows black and faUs off with the progress of
his disease, and whose bones burn with the
heat, there is a good conscience, which makes
a little heaven, as it were, hi his hell. He
gives utterance once more to the conviction of
his innocence. As regards the accusations
which his terrible sufferings seem to bring
against him, he can fearlessly say that he is
ready to be weighed in God's scales. He
waits with longing for some answer from the
Almighty. Then Elihu speaks, not with the arguments
of the friends throughout, but for the same
general end. He would bring Job to a hum
ble confession of his sins, and to an unqual
ified admission of the righteousness of God.
He regards Job as a man " Who drinketh de
rision as waters." He is a mocker who makes
big his words unto God. Therefore he is full
of a wicked man's sentence. Elihu fails to
comprehend the situation, even as the three
friends had failed. He judges Job superfi-
ciaUy. He lights upon the rash words of Job,
and takes him to task for them ; but he has no
appreciation of the nobility of Job's spirit
and life. His doctrine of sin is manifestly

ITS INTERPRETATION. 133
the same as that of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zo
phar. He differs, however, from them some
what in his application. He has relatively
less to say of Job's sins, and relatively more
to say of God's gracious purpose. His aim
is to justify God, rather than to condemn
Job. He has less of dogmatic hatred, and
more of intellectual ambition. He wishes it
to be seen that there are stiU words for Eloah,
that the friends have not said all that can be
said for Him. His best effort is made in show
ing that a moral purpose is manifest in Nature,
though the working of God is incomprehensi
ble. His appearance in the poem shows how
impossible it was for Job to get, from men
of his generation, the help he needed. It
therefore prepares, in a manner, for the vision
of Jehovah, deepens our feeling of its neces
sity, and quickens the pulse of longing.
The claim that Elihu weakens, and even
renders unnecessary, the address of the Lord,
is groundless. They who advance it overlook
the fact that the very appearance of God is of
the utmost significance. The impressive ele
ment here is not so much what is said, as who
says it. The omnipotence and omniscience of
God had already been set forth by Job and the

134 THE POETRY OF JOB.
friends, as well as by Elihu ; but the simple
fact of God's gracious appearance is more elo
quent than any mortal speech. This appear
ance of God for him is the Divine witness
which Job's heart has craved. Although he
is humbled by the vision, and confesses, saying :
" Behold, I am smaU ! What answer I thee ?
My hand I do lay on my mouth.
I spake once, but begin not again ;
And twice, but I do it no more ";
and again, later, confesses :
" By hearsay, of Thee I had heard,
But now hath mine eye beheld Thee :
Therefore I recant and repent
In dust and ashes ";
while he is humbled, he is calmed, assured,
satisfied. He is not told why he suffers ; but
the development of the theme by no means
requires this. He has the assurance of God's
favor, and this is better than the solution of
all intellectual difficulties. He knows that
" God stands within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own."
God does not accuse him of sin. He does
not intimate that Job's sufferings are a pun
ishment for wrong-doing. He must have done

ITS INTERPRETATION. 135
so, had that indeed been true. His silence on
this point is eloquent. It is a vindication of
Job's good conscience ; and now, more truly
than before, he can " grapple God to his soul
with hooks of steel." He can calmly leave to
Him the reason of his sufferings.
Here the poem proper ends. The theme
has received its complete development. Job
has triumphed. His character stands before
us, symmetrically portrayed. The poet gives
us, in narrative form, in the Epilogue, the
closing chapter of the hero's life. He re
lates what the Lord demanded of the friends,
namely, sacrifices of burnt-offerings to avert
from them the just dues of their folly ; and
what he gave to Job, namely, material wealth
twice as great as he had before possessed, fam
ily and friends, and many years in which to
enjoy all these blessings. This rebuke and re
ward are anticipated by the reader, yet it is a
satisfaction to have them recorded. The fact
that Job prays for his friends' restoration to
God's favor is just what we should expect him
to do. Indeed, we should have been con
fident that he did so, had it not been written
in the Epilogue. Job could not do otherwise.
Yet, while this fact really adds nothing to our

136 THE POETRY OF JOB.
knowledge of the character of Job, it is signi-
ficant> because it is a last crushing refutation
of the insinuation of the Adversary, that Job's
piety was selfish, and it is a last eloquent con
firmation of Jehovah's words, "my servant
Job, blameless and upright."

ITS INTERPRETATION. 137
CHAPTER II.
NATURE IN THE POEM OF JOB.
THE sphere of this Hebrew poem is, in an
eminent sense, the soul of man. It deals
with the invisible rather than with the visible.
It comes out of a heart that is too intent on
the mystery of human suffering to allow it to
dweU calmly on external forms and phenom
ena. Its hero is in no mood to write odes on
the sunset, to admire the grace of flowers and
the beauty of landscapes. Within his spirit
there is only darkness and tempest. Hence
his references to the outer world are sombre.
Yet the other characters of the poem speak
not infrequently of Nature, both inanimate and
animate; and these passages, though mainly
incidental, are so exalted and beautiful that
they are worthy of special study by themselves.
In the present chapter we will follow the
poet in his references to inanimate Nature.
Inanimate we may say for convenience in
treating the subject, though on the page before
us everything breathes. We may notice first
the poet's reference to earthly objects and phe
nomena in the domain of inanimate Nature,

138 THE POETRY OF JOB.
then, in order, the passages in which he speaks
of the clouds and the stars.
In Job's curse upon the day of his birth and
the night of his conception, we have not only
a reflection of his bewildered and desperate
spirit, but also a fitting introduction to the
poetical genius of the author. Here is a power
of imagination, an intensity and picturesque-
ness of utterance, that compare favorably with
anything in the poem.
" That day — 0 let it be darkness !
May Eldah not seek it from heaven,
And o'er it let brightness not shine !
May darkness and gloom redeem it,
Let a cloud make its dwelling upon it,
Affright it the dark'nings of day ! " [Chap. iii. 4-5.]
Day is a living thing that can be scared by
the darkness. The particular day of Job's birth
is given over to the keeping of primeval gloom ;
the clouds are to brood over it ; eclipses are to
affright it. God should not ask after this day
again, as he is accustomed to seek out the
days in their turn and usher them in (xxxviii.
12-13). The days are thought of as having a
distinct existence, and God calls them, one
after the other, to fulfil their welcome mis-

ITS INTERPRETATION. 139
sion. The Greek idea of the Hours was quite
different from this. The Hours were goddesses,
daughters of Zeus and Themis. As far as they
had to do with the divisions of time, their
office was to preside over the seasons as well as
over the days ; but besides this they cared for
the cloud-gates of heaven, and performed man
ifold services for the gods. The Hebrew con
ception is simpler than this, and is of course
free from any tinge of polytheism.
Going back of the day in which he first saw
the light, Job curses the night in which his
being began.
" That night — let obscurity seize it !
In the days of the year let it joy not,
Nor come into the number of months ! . . . .
Be darkened the stars of its dawning,
Let it wait for the Hght, and there be none,
And dawn's eyelashes may it not see ! "
[Chap. iii. 6-9.]
Night, also, is a hving creature that rejoices
among the days of the year. Even she has
her fellowships and her joys. We have here
a suggestion of the poet's sympathy, a hint
showing how natural it was for him to regard
the world about him as instinct with harmony
and joy. Day and Night rejoice, and rejoice

140 THE POETRY OF JOB.
together. This picture of Night waiting for a
morning that never comes, looking wistfully
toward the eastern sky that never grows bright,
might be transferred to the canvas or marble.
It has all the intensity and vividness of Dante's
painting. The reference to day-break in the
last line of the passage just cited is noteworthy.
Dawn is personified, and the first delicate
rays of light are called his* eyelashes. Hence
the break of day is the appearance on the east
ern sky of a radiant, beneficent face. Thus
Shakespeare thinks of dawn as a beautiful
woman, when he says (Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5) :
" Jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."
Milton has the same idea in Paradise Lost,
v. 1-2 :
" Now morn her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl."
And again (vi. 2) : "Morn,
Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr'd the gates of light."
Morn is a fair woman, and the first breaking
of light is her "rosy hand," an expression
*Dawn is masculine in Hebrew, not feminine as in our
poetry.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 141
demanded by the following idea, but in itself
less true to nature than Job's, comparison. We
should compare, also, Shakespeare's expression
(King John, v. 2) :
" The beauteous eye of day,"
and the well-known lines (Hamlet, i. 1) :
" But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hiU."
Dante speaks twice of the morning as a beau
tiful woman, but less happily, I think, than
Job or Shakespeare. In the Purgatorio
(canto ii.) he says :
" The white and the vermilion cheeks
Of beautiful Aurora, where I was,
By too great age were changing into orange."
[Longfellow's Translation."]
This passage is faithful in the use of colors ;
but the likening of the morning sky to the
cheeks of beautiful Aurora does not seem to
be so apt as the figure of Job. There is little
truth or beauty in comparing the morning sky
with the cheeks of Aurora, for even the fairest
cheeks do not shine ; but the eye does indeed
shine as it gives forth the radiance of the
spirit. The only remaining passage hi Dante
that speaks of the dawn is a modification of

142 THE POETRY OF JOB.
the same figure, but is still more open to criti
cism. It is borrowed in part from the Iliad
(xi. 1-5) :
" The concubine of old Tithonus now
Gleamed white upon the eastern balcony
Forth from the arms of her sweet paramour ;
With gems her forehead all relucent was."
[Purgatorio, ix. 1-4.]
But the whole sky is " relucent " with these
"gems," and one part of it may as well be
termed the " forehead " as another. Indeed,
any other portion is more " relucent " than the
"forehead," because low down on the eastern
sky the " gems " are lost in the brightness of
the morning.
It is in place to consider here the reference
to morning which is made in the ode of the
Almighty (xxxviii. 12-14) : •
" Hast thou ever commanded a morning ?
Hast shown to a dawning its place,
To lay hold of the corners of earth,
That thence may be shaken the wicked ?
It [the earth] changes as signet-clay,
So that things appear as a garment."
Night spreads a blanket over the earth. Morn
comes, and, seizing the corners of this vast
blanket, lifts it, and shakes the wicked out of

ITS INTERPRETATION. 143
its thick folds. Earth, smitten by the dawn,
is transfigured. What but a moment ago was
formless clay shows now a clear and divine
impress. The mountains and hills and val
leys stand forth with sharply-cut outlines — the
beauteous garment of the earth.
Shakespeare twice employs the first of the
figures used in this passage. He says of the
sun (King Richard II. , iii. 2) :
" When from under this terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his Hght through every guUty hole :
Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
The cloak of night being plucked from off their
backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves."
And again he uses the same figure (Mac
beth, i. 5) :
" Nor heaven peeps through the blanket of the dark
To cry ' Hold, hold ! ' "
The poets whom we have cited generally
have in their allusions to morning the element
of color. That this is wanting in Job's refer
ences to dawn is not especially significant,
since these are but two in number and are
brief ; but we look in vain for color elsewhere
in the poem. It has no rosy dawn, nor golden

144 THE POETRY OF JOB.
sunset, nor brightly-colored flowers. It em
ploys several words for blackness or darkness,
as that which is gloomy and forbidding, but it
uses these without distinction of shades.
When we recall the use of color in Homer,
Dante, and Shakespeare, the entire absence of
it in the poem before us is striking, especially
since it has much to do with Nature. The
abundance of color in Homer may be seen
from the following illustrations : Apollo is
the son of the golden-haired Latona; Here is
the goddess with the white shoulders, white
arms, and dark brows ; Pallas is blue-eyed ;
Dawn is rosy-fingered, and clad in saffron
robes ; Achilles has yellow hair. Further, we
learn that Homer's galleys are black, with
scarlet prows and white sails ; his sea is dark
blue, or pale green, or gray ; and the clouds
which form a canopy over Mars upon Olym
pus are golden.* Dante has notably less color
than Homer, less even than Shakespeare ; yet
his poem furnishes us with numerous examples
of its use.
Concerning the absence of color in Job, we
"-Iliad, i. 36 ; i. 754 ; i. 572 ; xv. 102 ; vii. 30 ; i. 477 ; viii. 1 ;
i. 197 ; i. 197 ; i. 141 ; ii. 637 ; i. 480 ; ii. 613 ; xvi. 34 ; i. 359 ;
xiii. 523.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 145
may observe that his theme is dark, a theme
of suffering and mystery. Joy and gladness
give color ; grief puts on dark robes. But it
may also be remarked that color in poetry is a
matter of subordinate value. An eminent art-
critic of the present day says : " Color, even
as a source of pleasure, is much feebler than
form." A landscape may have little or no
color beneath the light of the stars, and yet its
mountains do not lose their character. Their
outlines and mass are the same. Their un
changing strength and grandeur still impress
us, and, it may be, more deeply than when the
color-giving sun is upon them.
We have spoken of Job's morning, and in
its light we may now go forth with the poet
and look again upon those objects and phenom
ena of the natural world to which he refers,
and listen to his lines. He speaks of the flow
ers beneath our feet, and of the shadows that
flit over the fields, using them to illustrate a
truth for which no apter illustration was ever
found. Man, he says,
" Comes forth as a flower, and withers ;
Like a shadow he fleeth and stays not."
It is Job in the midst of his suffering and
10

146 THE POETRY OF JOB.
mystery who is speaking (xiv. 2). His life
has been suddenly blighted, and death is just
before him. His eye finds out that in Nature
which expresses the feeling of his heart. The
flower withers, though seeming to deserve a
better fate. Its brightness and fragrance en
dure but a moment. And man " fleeth as a
shadow," swiftly, and leaving no track behind.
The grass and leaves o'er which it passes are
the same as before.
One of our poets of Nature re-echoes the
thought of Job when he says of the transient-
ness of life :
" As shadows formed by cloud and sun
Flit o'er the summer grass ;
So in thy sight, Almighty One,
Earth's generations pass."
The frequency with which these figures have
been used has perhaps made us indifferent to
their perfect propriety and beauty. Bishop
Lowth said of the first part of. Chap, xiv., in
cluding these verses : " In genere elegiaco per-
fectissimus." Of the two allusions to the grain-field, one
is specially noticeable. Eliphaz is picturing
the future bliss of Job, if he receives humbly
the ohastening of the Almighty ; and he can

ITS INTERPRETATION. 147
think of no more beautiful way in which to
speak of the evening of the patriarch's life
than in these words :
" Thou shalt come to thy grave in strength,
As a sheaf goeth up in its time." [Chap. v. 26.]
It may be doubted whether a more fitting
simile could have been drawn from the entire
realm of Nature in which to clothe his thought.
Heavy golden grain, ready for the garner, —
such shall Job be. His mission accomplished,
character ripened, virtue won ; — so shall it be
when the reaper Death, " with his sickle keen,"
shall one day come to Job.
There is another illustration drawn from
the vegetable kingdom, which is exquisitely
chosen. Job complains of God's treatment,
and says :
" The wind-tossed leaf wUt Thou scare,
And chase the dry stubble away ? " [Chap. xiii. 25.]
These are among the boldest personifications
to be found in the entire poem. A wind-
tossed leaf can be " scared," and that which
seems more dead even than a fallen leaf,
namely, the stubble, is alive and can be chased
away. And what could better represent the

148 THE POETRY OF JOB.
utterly helpless, hopeless, and mysterious con
dition of the afflicted Job than an autumn leaf
and the dry stubble, driven hither and thither
by the invisible wind ? Dante likens the lost
spirits whom Charon ferries over the Acheron
to dead leaves (Inferno, iii. 112-115). Noth
ing is more hopeless than these.
We notice in the next place the poet's re
markable words on the sea, of which Herder
said : " I do not believe that a more magnifi
cent picture of this element was ever given."
" Who shut up the sea with doors,
When it burst through, came forth from the
womb;
When I made a cloud its garment,
And darkness its swaddling bands ;
And broke up against it my bound,
And appointed a bar and doors ;
And said, Thus far may'st thou come, but no
further,
And here be a bound for the pride of thy
waves! " [Chap, xxxviii. 8-11.]
The sea is a living creature. It was born away
back in the flight of time, and in its infancy it
was swathed in clouds and darkness by the
hand of the Almighty. It dwells in a house

ITS INTERPRETATION. 149
that He made for it, a house whose bars and
doors are the enduring rocks and the everlast
ing hills. Strong and proud though it be, it
cannot overstep the bounds which He set for
it. The poet here seizes on the leading char
acteristic of the ocean — namely, its might —
and gives that the most worthy expression.
Whether one stand upon the shore of the sea
and watch the billows as they roll majestically
landward, breaking with a loud roar against
some rocky cliff; or whether one be on the
bosom of the main, and notice how the great
ship is tossed about as a plaything by the
waves : the deepest impression that one re
ceives is the impression of measureless strength.
This is portrayed in the passage before us. It
was necessary to shut up the sea as soon as
it was born, necessary to break up against it
a divine limit and restrain it with bars and
doors. It was needful, and is evermore needful,
that the Almighty himself should say unto it,
" Thus far and no further ! " This is the sea
which the poet has sketched ; this the sea as
God made it.
The poet's references to the wind are in
structive examples of his treatment of Nature.

150 THE POETRY OF JOB.
By a bold metaphor he speaks of the wind
twice as the " breath of God " (xxvi. 13 ;
xxxvii. 10) :
" By the breath of God there is ice ";
and again,
" By His breath are the heavens made bright."
That invisible and mysterious force before
which the dark clouds move silently away and
reveal the blue sky, that is the breath of the
Lord ! God is very near in the world of the
Hebrew poet. For him Nature is not a
web woven by the earth-spirit, as in Goethe's
"Faust," but it is the work of God's own
hands ; it is not the " living garment " of
Deity, but an ever-fresh manifestation of His
wisdom and power. At another time, when
Job is complaining in the bitterness of his
soul, he represents the wind as a courser :
" Thou dost mount me on wind, mak'st me ride,
And dost let me dissolve into storm." [Chap. xxx. 22.]
It is possible that Milton had this passage in
mind when he wrote of the spirits (Paradise
Lost, ii. 539-40) :
" Others ride the air in whirlwind."
The most remarkable use of this figure is

ITS INTERPRETATION. 151
found in Shakespeare (Macbeth, i. 7). The
thought of Duncan's innocence leads Macbeth
to say of his own foul purpose :
" Pity, Hke a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
ShaU blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shaU drown the wind."
Yet this passage has not the intensity we find
in its parallel, the Hebrew poem ; for there it
is Job himself who bestrides the blast. He
does not see " Pity " or " heaven's cherubim "
upon the " sightless couriers of the air "; he
sees himself there. This gives us a deep per
sonal interest in the figure, which we do not
feel for pity or the immortal cherubim. We
may observe here, what is equally noticeable
elsewhere, that no poet paints so vividly and
tersely as Job, unless it be Dante.
The clouds of Job, to which we now turn,
occupy a relatively large place in the poem ;
but they are always characteristically treat
ed. We find, in the first place, a clear recog
nition of the mysteriousness of clouds. How
are they poised in the sky ? Why do they
not sink to the earth ? The young Elihu

152 THE POETRY OF JOB.
is represented as asking Job this question :
" Dost thou know of the poisings of clouds,
Great things of One perfect in knowledge ? "
[Chap, xxxvii. 16.]
" One perfect in knowledge " would know how
those fleecy clouds hang there in the calm sum
mer sky, not one settling earthward, not one
tottering as though the invisible hands of the
air were no longer able to sustain its weight ;
but this question was too high for Elihu. Job
refers to the same mystery in his reply to Bil
dad (xxvi. 8). It is a standing miracle in his
eyes that the thick clouds are not broken be
neath their weight of waters.
Again, the poet sees the divine ministry of
the clouds. They are not merely beautiful
objects, tempting the eye upward to their ever-
changing forms and manifold colorings ; they
are also celestial messengers. They come forth
on errands of mercy or wrath.
" Yea, richly He loadeth the cloud,
Disperseth the cloud of His light ;
And it turneth itself about by His steering,
To do whate'er He commands it
On the face of th' inhabited earth, —
If as a rod, when His earth needs that,
Or as mercy, He cause it to come." [Chap, xxxvii. 11-13.]

ITS INTERPRETATION. 153
That swift storm-cloud is a "rod" of the
Lord. In its track the green meadows are
changed into sandy wastes, and the 'grain is
prostrated to the earth. But those silent
clouds that came out of the east before the sun
was up, and took their way over the land, were
God's messengers of mercy ; for they satisfied
the thirsty earth, and gave new freshness to
leaf and flower.
The reverent and simple way in which the
Hebrew poet regarded Nature is further illus
trated in these lines :
" Yea, knows one the unfoldings of clouds,
The great crash of His tent ? "
[Chap, xxxvi. 29.]
The dark thunder-cloud which Elihu sees
approaching is a " tent " of the Almighty.
A chUdlike yet sublime conception. Yonder
comes the threatening cloud, impenetrable to
human vision, majestic in its mountainous pro
portions and in its steady onward sweep.
There is a mysterious power within it, which
ever and anon lights up its caverns and tower
ing summits with a marvellous light, and
straightway its depths are shaken by a voice
that reaches to the distant hills, and is sent
back by them in long, heavy reverberations.

154 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Now its dark folds are thrown around the
summit of yon high hill, as once the cloud
enwrapped the rocky crest of Sinai ; and now
descending along the valley, its lowest drapery,
like streaming pennons that have been shredded
by rude blasts, almost touches the earth. Out
of its dark depths comes "the great rain of
His might." As the cloud passes by, and re
cedes further and further from us, we see that
its upper parts are glistening white. This is
the tent of the Lord !
It is our loss that we have magnified natural
law to the exclusion, as it were, of the Creator.
In pondering one truth we have lost sight of
the other. The Hebrew conception of Nature
is as true to-day as it ever was. A storm-
cloud is still a tent of the Almighty ; the wind,
His breath. But our feeling does not keep
pace with our understanding. It may not be
as easy to see God's hand in the objects and
phenomena of Nature now that forces and laws
are better understood ; but it is none the less
true that His hand is there, because we have
learned a little about laws and forces. These
only show how He is present.
On the heaven above the transient clouds,

ITS INTERPRETATION. 155
the heaven of the sun, moon, and stars, the
author of Job seems often to have meditated ;
and his allusions to the celestial bodies are full
of the simple beauty and sublimity that char
acterizes his entire treatment of Nature. The
correct and appreciative eye appears in the use
he makes of the stars and sky as symbols of
the most perfect purity. So Eliphaz (xv. 15) :
" Behold, in His pure ones He trusts not,
And the heavens are not clean in his eyes."
Bildad also has the same thought (xxv. 5) :
" Lo, even the moon shines not brightly,
And the stars are not clean in His eyes."
The argument requires that the poet should
choose the purest object in all the world, and he
has done it. Our eyes never look on aught in
Nature that seems so absolutely pure as the
unclouded sky and the stars. This impression
may be deepened by the fact that sky and stars
are so far above us — so far above the dust and
uncleanness of earth, far above the clouds even,
which darken our day. All that is about us
seems to partake in some degree of earthly de
filement, and we involuntarily locate absolute
purity far from us, far above us. Then, too,
we may instinctively associate with the visible

156 THE POETRY OF JOB.
heavens the immaculateness of that invisible
and spiritual world which we locate yonder
among the stars ; but however this may be, it
is certainly true that the natural objects which
the Hebrew poet took to symbolize purity are
the purest symbols that one can find.
The chief star-passages of the poem are con
tained in the ode of Jehovah. When He speaks
of founding the earth, He says (xxxviii. 6-7) :
" On what were its pedestals sunk,
Or the stone of its corner who laid,
When the stars of the dawn sang together,
And shouted aU children of God ? "
These familiar fines tell of that serene and
perfect bliss which pervaded God's creatures
on the fair morning of creation. From every
star and angel arose a rapturous song of ador
ation and joy, that filled the sky with celestial
harmony. It may seem like an echo of the last two
lines, when we read in Dante what he says of
Fortune :
" Among the other primal creatures gladsome
She turns her sphere, and bhssful she rejoices."
[Inferno, vii. 95-96.]
The passage in " The Merchant of Venice "
(v. 1) may owe its inspiration to the lines in

ITS INTERPRETATION. 157
Job ; but it does not equal their picture of un
clouded joy, nor has it their simplicity. Lor
enzo says to Jessica :
" Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines. of bright gold ;
There's not the smaUest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion Hke an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins."
In the Hebrew poem the stars sing like
stars ; the character of the melody is left to the
imagination. Then the joyousness of the He
brew scene is greater than that of the Shake
spearean, for both the stars and the angels are
singing. Shakespeare's cherubins listen while
the stars quire to them. Were they as happy
as the children of God, they could not help
singing. Milton has a passage in which the
singing of the stars seems to be understood as
rhythmical motion.
" They as they move
Their starry dance, in numbers that compute
Days, months, and years." [Paradise Lost, iii. 579-81.]
The difference between these lines and the
simple majesty of the Hebrew is easily felt.
There is little of truth or fitness in the com
parison of Milton : little truth, for the dance

158 THE POETRY OF JOB.
certainly emphasizes motion, but the stars do
not move appreciably ; and little fitness, for a
dance, even though performed by King David
before the Ark of the Lord, is still infinitely
below the dignity of the celestial spheres, mov
ing with noiseless precision through uncounted
centuries. The sublime poetry of the stars is
lost when they are made to " dance," and when
they are looked upon as an almanac, good to
" compute days, months, and years."
The remaining passage on the stars is an
interrogation of the Almighty.
" Canst thou bind fast the Pleiades' bands,
Or loosen the cords of Orion ?
Bring forth at their time the Stations,
And the Bear with her young canst thou lead ? "
[Chap, xxxviii, 31-32.]
These constellations are with one exception
the same that Vulcan, " the great artist,"
wrought upon the disk of the massy shield
which Thetis had begged for her son Achilles.
After he had wrought the earth and heaven,
the great deep and the never-resting sun and
the full moon, he set the stars that shine in the
round sky, "The Pleiades and Hyades, the
mighty Orion and the Bear, called also the
Warn, which turns about in the same place,

ITS INTERPRETATION. 159
observing Orion, yet never bathes in the ocean"
(Iliad, xviii. 486-89). The Hebrew poet does
not use the stars as ornaments ; but employs
them to teach the littleness and feebleness of
man, and the wisdom and power of God.
Jehovah is the speaker. He can bind, or
rather has bound, the band of the Pleiades, so
that from age to age they journey together,
not one straying away from the rest ; He fas
tened the cords which hold the giant Orion
firmly in his place ; He leads the Bear and her
young through their vast circles. Here, as
elsewhere, the poet introduces Nature, not for
what it is in itself, but as an object-lesson of
the Infinite, " the vicar of the almightie Lord."
The stars and the clouds and the flowers serve
as the setting of some great thought.

160 THE POETRY OF JOB.

CHAPTER III.
, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM IN THE POEM
OF JOB.
IT is a noteworthy fact that the poem of Job,
while profoundly religious and occupied
with the deep problem of God's moral govern
ment, has much to say about the beasts of the
field and the fowl of the sky. Homer, Dante,
and Shakespeare together have scarcely as
many pictures out of the animal world as has
this one Hebrew production. The relative pre
dominance in Job of descriptions from the an
imal kingdom, and the unsurpassed excellence
of these descriptions, are indications of a deep
and lively sympathy with Nature, and also of
a childlike conception of the relation between
Nature and God.
Of the propriety of introducing into serious
poetry long descriptions from the animal world
there can scarcely be any doubt, since the
composition of Job. It has here been demon
strated with conclusive force that the animal
kingdom is not beneath the consideration of
sublime poetry. This kmgdom has numerous
representatives in one of the greatest produc-

ITS INTERPRETATION. 161
tions of the human mind, and they are not
there to fill up a gap ; on the contrary, they
appear in the finest portions of the poem.
Their right has therefore been abundantly vin
dicated to a place in the loftier spheres of se
rious poetry.
But, granted that the animal kingdom can
afford appropriate material for the serious
poet, is it fitting that the Lord himself should
be represented as the poet, describing the folly
of the ostrich and the structure of the croco
dile ? Is it not out of keeping with the dig
nity of Him whom the heaven of heavens can
not contain, when a poet ascribes to him a
delineation of the wild ass or of the repulsive
hippopotamus? Is not this in violation of
good taste ? If so, then a poet who has given
us the sublimest conceptions of the majesty,
wisdom, and power of the Almighty, a poet
who elsewhere manifests deep reverence and
great humility in his references to God, has
overstepped the limits of good taste. This
will not be regarded as probable. The simple
fact, therefore, that the very poet who repre
sents Jehovah as describing the war-horse, also
abounds in the loftiest conceptions of Jehovah
ever voiced in human language, will go far
11

162 THE POETRY OF JOB.
toward shielding the practice in question from
the shafts of hostile criticism. The judgment
of such a poet is worthy of a good deal of con
sideration. But, further, it seems legitimate
to say that if it appeared good unto the Lord
to impart to the wild ass and the aurochs an
untamable spirit, to give the hawk an unerring
instinct to guide it in its long migrations, to
give the eagle's eye an unexampled power of
vision, and the rock-goat an unconquerable
shyness, it cannot be improper for Him to
refer to these characteristics. Why should it
be thought beneath the dignity of Him who
created the crocodile to represent Him as de
scribing his own handiwork ?
Assuming, now, that this liberty of the He
brew poet needs no further justification, it may
be asked, in the next place, what are the prin
cipal demands that can rightfully be made
upon the serious poet who speaks of the ani
mal kingdom ?
First, it seems reasonable to demand that
he shall tell the truth. What we demand of
the serious poet elsewhere, we expect here also.
True poetry is always truthful poetry. Imagin
ation does not imply falsity. Ideal persons and
relations are not necessarily impossible. The

ITS INTERPRETATION. 163
imagination of the true poet works along the
lines of truth. If he ventures to speak of
beast or bird, he recognizes as far as possible
the nature which God has given them. He
does not ascribe the dove's nature to the hawk
any more than the dove's plumage. He does
not create new orders of animals, nor demoral
ize the orders already existing. If he is wander
ing in mythological forests, we expect that he
wiU meet with mythological beings ; but we
ask that the creatures which he finds in the
actual forests of earth and about the habita
tions of man shall be real, not mythological.
His horse must be a horse, not a centaur. It
cannot be allowed to possess human reason
any more than a human head. It must have
equine qualities as well as equine proportions.
The eagle must be an eagle, not a hawk or a
phoenix. And in so far as the poet describes
beast or bird, he must tell the truth. He will
tell it in a very different way from the orni
thologist and zoologist ; but nevertheless it
will be the truth which he communicates.
Secondly, we certainly have a right to de
mand that the serious poet who would describe
any member of the animal kingdom shall give
us truth that is poetically important. His de-

164 THE POETRY OF JOB.
scription of a war-horse is very unsatisfactory
if he talks of mere color and shape instead of
character ; if he simply calls attention to
his "round hoofs, short joints, long fetlocks,
broad breast, full eyes, small head, wide nos
tril, high crest, short ears, straight legs, thin
mane, thick tail, tender hide "; and does not
the rather portray his nature and capacities.
All these items may be true, and may be im
portant in a way; but taken by themselves
they are not poetically important.
But we can demand, in the third place, that
the poet shall not describe for the sake of de
scribing ; but shall make his picture a poetical
means to some truly poetical and worthy end.
Doubtless a mere word-painting of a lion or an
eagle, which seeks nothing beyond itself, may
please the fancy of a moment, and afford a
sort of literary pleasure entirely apart from the
object described ; but as poetry, it is not worth
the time spent on it. A literary photograph
of beast or bird, however ingeniously and hap
pily constructed, scarcely deserves the name of
poetry. A poet of Nature must be something
more than a sensitive plate. This is good in
its place, but its product is not a poem, else
were the photographer the best poet. Poetry

ITS INTERPRETATION. 165
is always, to a greater or less extent, a product
of the imagination ; but a literary photograph
is not such a product. The poet of Nature
must do something more than cast upon the
mind such an image as the object described
casts upon the retina of the eye. He must
see, and make us see, something that is con
cealed from the physical vision. He must be
a prophet — that is, a forth-teller — of the se
crets of Nature.
We pass from these preliminary remarks to
a consideration of the poem of Job in its ref
erences to the animal kingdom. Before tak
ing up the longer descriptions of beasts and
birds, we may just glance at the numerous
allusions to them in which the poem abounds.
The moth and the house of the moth are sym
bols of extreme fragility and transientness (see
iv. 18-19 ; xxvii. 18) ; the hope of the wicked
is a spider's house (vii. 14) ; the adder's poi
son and viper's tongue stand for the fatal con
sequences of cherished sin (xx. 16) ; the eagle
swooping down on its prey represents the
swiftness with which the days pass (ix. 26) ;
the phoenix dying in its nest is the picture in
Job's mind of his own end (xxix. 18) ; and
the wailing ostrich is the emblem of Job in his

166 THE POETRY OF JOB.
affliction (xxx. 29). These comparisons are
all eminently appropriate. The same cannot
always be said of Homer's allusions to the an
imal world. His comparisons, though meant
seriously, sometimes provoke a smile, and some
times belittle his Greek and Trojan heroes.
For instance, he likens the grave Trojan no
bles, who, sitting on the towers of the city, are
taking counsel, to locusts chirping in the tree-
tops (Iliad, iii. 146-153) ; Ulysses is likened
to a thick-fleeced ram (iii. 197-198) ; Aga
memnon is like a bull amid the horned herd
(ii. 580) ; and the long-haired Greeks, throng
ing the plain in multitudes, are like the flies
that swarm in the herdsman's stalls in spring
time, when new milk has filled the pails (ii.
469-477). Dante seldom draws comparisons
from the animal world, but those which he has
are of exquisite propriety and beauty (Inferno,
ix. 76-81 ; Paradiso, v. 100-105).
We turn now to that series of twelve de
scriptions which we find in the discourse of
Jehovah, — descriptions of the Hon, the raven,
the rock-goat, the hind, the wild ass, the au
rochs, the ostrich, the charger, the hawk, the
eagle, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile.
The references to the lion and raven, the hawk

ITS INTERPRETATION. 167
and eagle, are brief sketches, and the rock-
goat and hind are mentioned together. The
poet says of the lion :
" Canst thou hunt for the Honess prey,
And the young lions' appetite sate,
When they crouch in their lurking-places,
When they He in wait in the lair ? "
[Chap, xxxviii. 39-40.]
As far as this picture of the lion-family ex
tends, it makes us acquainted with the leonine
nature ; it is a character-sketch. The stealth-
iness of the lion appears in his " crouching "
and " lying in wait "; and his carnivorous na
ture also is given in the same figure. The
ferocity of lions is implied in the question,
" Canst thou hunt," etc. Were Job to attempt
to feed the lioness and her young, he would be
devoured forthwith. The lion is a favorite with
Homer, and his sketches, like this in Job, are
mainly of the leonine nature. He notes the
stealth and ferocity, the strength and carniv
orous character, of the lion. (See Iliad,
v. 554-559 ; xi. 172-176.)
The allusion to the raven is not descriptive,
but simply has a bearing on the argument
(xxxviii. 41). The thought that the young
raven's cry reaches the ear of God may serve

168 THE POETRY OF JOB.
to illustrate the intimate and kindly relation
which the poet conceived to exist between Na
ture and its Author.
The rock-goat and hind are briefly charac
terized with reference to their shy, hardy, and
independent nature (xxxix. 1-4). There is
but One who knows when and where they
bring forth their young, and how these same
young grow up in the field ; and He it is who
also makes them sufficient for the tasks of
their lives. He sees them in their hour of
helplessness, far from the haunts of men, and
He cares for them. Even so Jesus said of
the sparrows, " Not one of them faileth to
the ground without your Father." He is pres
ent in the lonely haunts of the forests and
mountains. He who calleth the stars by name
knoweth the rock-goat and hind. They are
not cast adrift by Him.
The description of the wild ass breathes the
very spirit of perfect animal freedom.
" Who has sent the wUd ass away free,
And the bands of the fleet one hath loosed ?
To whose house I have made the waste place,
And the desert of salt his abode.
He doth laugh at the din of the town,
The noise of the driver he hears not.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 169
The mountains' choice spots are his pasture,
And for every green thing he doth seek."
[Chap, xxxix. 5-8.]
The lines of this picture are drawn only as one
could draw them who felt a true sympathy
with Nature. The joy that this free child of
the mountams takes in his freedom, " laugh
ing " at the din of the distant town, is re-felt
by the poet. He also has escaped from the
noise of the city, and has breathed the air of
the steppe and the hills.
The picture of the aurochs, which succeeds
that of the wild ass, is of a different sort.
The wild and unconquerable spirit of this ani
mal is brought out into a strong light, not by
picturing him among the mountams, but by
asking whether he will take the place and per
form the services of the tame ox. Here, as
throughout the discourse of Jehovah, questions
are employed with such effect that one is re
minded of what Longinus says : " It seems to
me that questions give a discourse more force
and emphasis than all the figures of pictorial
representation." The passage runs as follows :
" Is the wild ox wUling to serve thee,
Will he pass the night at thy crib ?
Canst thou bind the wUd ox to the ridge with
his cord,

170 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Or harrow the vaUeys behind thee wiU he ?
Dost thou trust him since great is his might,
And committest thy labor to him ?
Dost thou trust him to gather thy seed,
And bring to thy floor ? " [Chap, xxxix. 9-12.]
This is indirectly descriptive. The poet does
not affirm of the aurochs that he is untamable
and of great strength; yet he produces this
impression in a vivid manner, and the very
indirectness of the description seems to add
to the fierceness and fearful character of the
animal described.
The ostrich follows the aurochs. The pas
sage is wholly descriptive.
" The wing of the ostrich waves gladly :
Is't a gentle feather and pinion ?
Nay, she leaveth her eggs to the earth,
And warmeth them on the dust ;
She forgets that a foot may crush them,
May trample them beasts of the field.
She treats harshly her young, as not hers ;
Is her labor in vain, she cares not ;
For wisdom God made her forget,
And gave her no dower in insight.
When she beateth her pinions on high,
She doth laugh at the horse and his rider."
[Chap, xxxix. 13-18.]

ITS INTERPRETATION. 171
This is another character-sketch. We are
made acquainted with the ostrich in a few
words, with its weakness and its strength.
We see the bird at home and abroad, in its
domestic relations and as pursued by the hunt
er. Its most noticeable features — a strange
lack of affection for its young, and remarkable
speed — are tersely sketched. Yet not for the
sake of the sketch : the poet has a higher end
in view.
The description of the ostrich is followed
by that of the famous war-horse, the only do
mestic animal introduced by the poet. Herder
says of this passage : " The description of the
war-horse is perhaps the noblest ever pro
duced." We cite it in full :
" Canst thou give to the charger strength ?
Canst thou mantle his neck with trembling ?
Canst thou cause him to leap as a locust ?
A dread is his neighing majestic.
He stamps in the valley, and joys in his might ;
To meet the armed host he goes forth.
He laugheth at fear unamazed,
And turneth not back from the sword.
Upon him the quiver doth rattle,
The guttering lance and spear.
With stamping and anger he swaUows the earth,,
And stays not when soundeth the trumpet.

172 THE POETRY OF JOB.
He saith when it soundeth, Aha !
And from far he scenteth the battle,
The princes' shout and the war-cry." [Chap, xxxix. 19-25.]
Homer's war-horses are generally connected
with scenes of blood and carnage. Here it is
the eve of battle, but we are spared the clash
of weapons. This is in keeping with the dig
nity of the speaker. The charger's neck is
mantled with "trembling," that is, with a
trembling mane. Homer hardly ever omits
mentioning the mane when he speaks of war-
horses. They have luxuriant manes that
sweep the ground (Iliad, xix. 405), or flow
ing manes (xxiii. 14), or tossing manes which
stream upon the shoulders (vi. 503). This is
the first allusion to outward attractiveness that
we have met with in Job's descriptions.
Jehovah makes the charger " leap as a lo
cust," and with stamping he " swallows " the
ground. The steeds in Homer, which were so
fleet that they could fly along the topmost ears
of wheat and not break them, were mytholog
ical, the children of Boreas (Iliad, xx. 226).
The fleetness of his real horses is perhaps best
described in his account of the chariot-race
(xxiii. 500-503) : "All bright with tin and

ITS INTERPRETATION. I73
gold, the chariot rolled on after the swift
horses ; and only slight was the track of the
tires behind in the light dust, so swiftly they
flew." Shakespeare uses Job's figure of speed
when speaking of the horse of Henry IV., but
weakens it by saying that " he seemed in run
ning to devour the way."
Again, the fearlessness of the charger and
his eagerness for the fray are inimitably por
trayed in Job. He " laughs " at fear una-
mazed, he turns not back from the sword, he
is as excited as his rider can be, he scents the
battle from afar. He is all life and fire and
fearless strength. Every verse is a picture,
and the description is as terse as it is vivid.
The hawk and the eagle are next intro
duced ; the former for the marvellous instinct
that guides it in its long migrations, — the lat
ter for its power of wing, its strength of vis
ion, and its carnivorous appetite. These are
the Lord's endowments. Man's wisdom and
might cannot bring about these results. Thus
the instinct of the hawk and the vision of the
eagle are made to teach humility. It is God
who guides the hawk, and who bids the eagle
soar aloft.
The elaborate descriptions of the hippopot-

174 THE POETRY OF JOB.
amus and crocodile are regarded by Professor
Dillman and some others as not belonging to
the original poem, but as the product of a
later and inferior poet. This is not the place
to consider their arguments, which, however,
seem very insufficient. We have simply to
call attention to the leading characteristics of
the passages as poetry. That the descriptions
are relatively long may be due in large part to
the fact that the creatures spoken of were un
known to the readers. It is not in itself an
argument against the genuineness of the pas
sages. The hippopotamus and crocodile are
not attractive and noble, as are the war-horse
and lion, and hence the descriptions of them
are naturally less to our taste ; but the choice
of these creatures is determined by the course
of thought in Jehovah's discourse, and we are
to judge of the merits of the passages inde
pendent of the subjects described.
The delineation of the hippopotamus (xl.
15-24) is as good a character-sketch as is that
of the ostrich. It is true to nature, and it
gives in a graphic manner the remarkable fea
tures of the animal. His bones are bars of
brass, his taU is like a cedar, and where other
creatures are weak he is strong. His jaws

ITS INTERPRETATION. 175
are like swords, and yet he is so peaceable
that even when he is hungry the beasts of the
field can sport around him without risk. When
resting he lies secluded beneath a roof formed
by the large leaves, the white and blue blos
soms of the lotus. Then, too, he is as much
at home in the water as on land ; he would
not be disturbed though a swift Jordan were
rushing against him. The passage closes
with an ironical summons to capture this an
imal :
" In the sight of his eyes let one take him !
With hooks let one pierce through his nose ! "
The closing description (chapter xli.), that
of the crocodile, has certainly as marked evi
dences of genuineness as the preceding. It
begins (v. 1-8) with a series of ironical inter
rogations, hke the passages on the auroch,
though the irony is stronger. These questions
give a vague but fearful impression of the un
tamable and unconquerable character of the
crocodile, all the more fearful because vague.
After a parenthesis (9-11), comes a somewhat
minute description of the characteristic fea
tures of the crocodile (12-24). His scales
are a " garment " that no one can open ; his
great jaws are " doors," and " dread " is the

176 THE POETRY OF JOB.
doorkeeper; his eyes are like the eyelids of
dawn ; sparks and torches come forth from his
mouth ; power dwells on his neck ; terror casts
down any luckless one who chances to come in
the way ; and hard as the nether millstone is
his heart. The eyes of the crocodile are said
to shine so brightly that they can be seen be
fore the creature's head comes near the sur
face of the water. The crocodile's eyes are
the symbol of dawn in the Egyptian hiero
glyphics. According to Bochart, the breath of
the crocodile is ejected with such violence that
flames seem to come from mouth and nostrils.
Hence the figures employed in Job are no ex
treme hyperbole. Nothing in any of the preced
ing descriptions surpasses in vividness and force
these lines :
" On his neck doth power abide,
And before him terror casts down."
In one instance, namely, in the description of
the crocodile's scales (15-17), there is prolix
ity ; but this has no weight as against the gen
uineness of the passage, for an occasional pro
lix verse may be found in other parts of the
poem. Even Homer sometimes nods. The
last section (v. 25-34), which speaks of the
crocodUe as related to man and to his sur-

ITS INTERPRET A TION. ¦ 177
roundings, is vigorous and vivid ; but we must
pass it without further remark, and add now
a few concluding sentences.
This brief study of the animal kingdom in
the poem of Job is perhaps sufficient to show
that the poet satisfies in a remarkable manner
the chief demands that could rightfully be
made upon him. He is faithful to nature. He
is a close observer and a sympathetic friend.
He seizes always upon that which is character
istic. He portrays the nature of beast and
bird with the simplicity of Homer and the
vividness of Dante. There is nothing in any
literature that surpasses his delineations in
picturesqueness, terseness, and power. Finally,
in his descriptions of the animal world he has
ever a high end in view, which he also at
tains. He gives us there object-lessons on the
wisdom, the power, and the providence of
God, and on the frailty and ignorance of man.
We are instructed at every step, and at every
step are aware that we are instructed by a
poet. The flight of the hawk carries our
thought out to the invisible world, to Him
who gave insight ; the soaring of the eagle is
at God's bidding ; the young raven's cry is not
only into the ear of its mother but also into
12

178 THE POETRY OF JOB.
the ear of the Lord; Nature is as it were
sanctified and glorified. The presence of Je
hovah is everywhere. He has a fatherly care
and interest in each living thing. His wisdom
speaks from the earth and the air ; His power
is manifest on the right hand and on the left.
His providence extends to the young eaglets,
and to the steps of the lion. The world of
the Hebrew poet is a world close to God, and
full of His presence. A wise man, therefore,
should walk softly, not speaking of things too
high for him, nor fancying that he has an arm
like that of God.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 179

CHAPTER IV.
HUMAN LIFE IN THE POEM OF JOB.
^ l\JO mortal," says Homer, " ever suffered
1 N such pain and affliction " as the hero
Ulysses. " The gods veiled him in darkness
more than all mortals," and he is the ideal of
a "noble sufferer." "The fearful dangers
through which Ulysses goes exalt his fame
and glorify him." But the dangers of Ulys
ses are physical ; his sufferings, too, are mainly
physical. Job's sufferings are predominantly
mental, and indeed the intensest mental anguish
that is possible to man.
The " Job " of profane literature suffers as
a man belonging to this world only : the Job
of the Bible suffers as a being who belongs not
only to this world, but also to the world which
is spiritual and unseen. When the afflictions
of Job had perhaps exceeded the utmost mea
sure of Ulysses' sufferings, he was still calm,
a "noble sufferer" indeed; strong, not as a rock
that has no feeling, but with the greater strength
of a heart that rests upon the everlasting arms.
His great soul found utterance in words such
as never came from the hps of Ulysses.

180 THE POETRY OF JOB.
" Naked came I from my mother's womb,
And naked shaU thither return :
Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken ;
The name of Jehovah be blessed ! [Chap. i. 21 J
No complaint is heard as yet. The, hour of
complaint has not yet come. But when the
bitterness of Job's lot has at length settled into
his lonely spirit, and when he feels the ter
rible mystery of it all, then, out of such suffer
ings as Ulysses never experienced, came plaints
on human life such as neither Homer nor any
other classic poet ever uttered. In depth of re
ligious thought, in forcefulness, and in beauty
of expression, they are unsurpassed by anything
either in profane or in sacred literature.
To these elegiac passages in the poem of
Job the attention of the reader is now called.
And first to the pathetic outburst of chapter iii.
" Wherefore gives He Hght to the weary,
And life to the bitter of soul ?
Who hope for death, but there is none,
Who dig for it more than for treasures ;
Who joy with joy exceeding,
Who exult when they find a grave ;
To a man whose pathway is hid,
Whom Eldah hath hedged round about."
What an intensity of desire is here por-

ITS INTERPRETATION. 181
trayed! Men' searching for death with the
earnestness which was manifested in digging
for hid treasures in those days when men com
monly buried their valuables in the earth for
safe keeping. Here are men who, on finding
a grave, their grave, are filled with exceeding
joy, and exult at being vanquished as though
they were the vanquishers !
Shakespeare tells us of one man who was in
such a state of desire, namely, King Richard.
He exclaims (iii. 3) :
" My large kingdom for a Httle grave,
A little, Httle grave, an obscure grave."
Job's longing for a grave is not without a cer
tain noble foundation. It is not loss of friends,
or disappointment, or disgust with the world ;
it is because God has "hid his pathway,"
hedged him about with mystery, and he does
not know why. Eloah has wronged him, Eloah
has enclosed him in His net (xix. 6).
Again, we hear Job describing his sufferings,
and the intensity of his language is paralleled
only by the terrible earnestness of the thought.
" Th' Almighty's arrows are in me,
Whose poison my spirit doth drink ;
God's terrors are ordered against me." [Chap. vi. 4.]

182 THE POETRY OF JOB.
Dante never paints more vividly than this, and
never gives a more telling concentration of
solemn thought. The Lord is an archer, shoot
ing at Job poisoned arrows ! It is noticeable
that the figure is spiritualized in the next line,
where it is said that Job's spirit, not his flesh,
drinks the poison. In the following line it is
not a single archer whom Job sees as his foe,
but an army of terrors, drawn up in battle
array. These are no earthly terrors, else Job
could meet them ; but the " terrors of God "
encompass him in fighting order. We find the
same thought somewhat modified in chapter
x. 12 :
" Thou renewest Thy witnesses 'gainst me,
And increasest Thine anger at me,
Fresh troops and an army against me."
Even these divinely appointed legions are wea
ried by their repeated attacks upon Job ; yet
fresh troops are ever at hand to replace those
that retire. The hostile ranks remain full.
A similar war-picture meets us later in the
poem (xix. 12) :
" Together His troops come on,
And cast up against me their way,
And encamp round about my tent."
Here the " troops " are casting up breastworks

ITS INTERPRETATION. 183
from which they may assail Job in his help
lessness, and they lay permanent siege against
him on every side. He is shut in by the le
gions of God. There is no chance for flight,
and resistance is vain.
Not less intense and vigorous are other pas
sages in which Job speaks of his divine Ad
versary. " He bruiseth me sore with a tempest,
And adds to my wounds without cause.
He suffers me not to take breath,
But sates me with bitternesses." [Chap. ix. 17-18.]
" Bruised with a tempest," and this directly
from the hand of the Lord, — a man may be
excused for complaining under such circum
stances. This is heroic complaint. It is not
like the weeping of Achilles when Agamemnon
takes from him his prize, the maid Brise'is
(Iliad, i. 356). Job speaks again in similar
terms, later, in the days of his misery :
" I cry unto Thee unanswered ;
I stand, and Thou lookest upon me.
Thou 'rt changed toward me to a tyrant,
With strong hand Thou dost persecute me.
Thou dost mount me on wind, mak'st me ride,
And dost let me dissolve into storm." [Chap. xxx. 20-22.]

184 THE POETRY OF JOB.
A passage from chapter xiii. may be read in
this connection :
" Wherefore dost Thou cover Thy face,
And why dost Thou count me Thy foe ?
The wind-tossed leaf wUt Thou scare,
And chase the dry stubble away ?
Thou puttest my feet in the stocks,
And dost carefuUy watch aU my ways ;
Mak'st a Hne round the soles of my feet,
I who fail Hke a worm-eaten thing,
As a garment that moths have consumed."
[Chap. xiii. 24-25, 27-28.]
These passages give us a glimpse into mis
ery profound enough to make this world a
world of " infinite bitterness," more truly than
it ever was to the poet of the Middle Ages.
What despair in this " wind-tossed leaf " and
" dry stubble " ! What agony in the thought
that the mysterious power that is tossing him
hither and thither is the Lord himself ! What
an Argus-eyed watch is pictured by this " line
round the soles of my feet " ! God is an in
quisitor of the most painful exactness. Let
Job move but a hair's breadth, and it is noted.
Let him deviate but an infinitesimal distance
from the line of absolute rectitude, and he is
caUed into judgment and punished. And what

ITS INTERPRETATION. 185
desolation in his "worm-eaten thing," his " gar
ment that moths have consumed " !
Job refers in another place also to the scru
tiny of God, and tells us what some of the
legions are which God has sent against him :
" A sea am I, am I a whale,
That a watch Thou should'st set over me ?
When I say that my couch shalt console me,
My bed shaU ease my complaint ;
Then with dreams Thou dost frighten me sore,
And with visions dost make me afraid." [Chap. vii. 12-14.]
It seems to Job that there is bitter irony in
God's treatment of him. He, a poor, help
less, friendless mortal, sitting on his ash-heap,
is watched as closely as though he were a fierce
sea threatening to deluge some fair plain, or
a dangerous sea-monster about to wreck a
ship and destroy human lives.
The following lines are as pathetic as the
first were ironical. Job lies down at night,
thinking that sleep, which " when it comes to
sorrow is a comforter," will ease his com
plaint ; but alas ! he is kept in fear by the
terrible dreams and visions that God sends
against him. It is not strange that he should
come to dread the night.

186 THE POETRY OF JOB.
" When I lay me to rest, then I say,
When rise I ? but eve groweth long,
And tiU dawn I am fuU of tossings." [Chap. vii. 4.]
His evening grows long, for " grief makes one
hour ten." In the following passage the tone
is softened, the words are half plaint, half
prayer :
" O that in Shedl Thou wouldst hide me,
Wouldst conceal me tUl past be Thy wrath,
Wouldst set me a bound and recaU me !
If man die shaU he Hve again ?
AU the days of my warfare I'd wait,
UntU my release should come.
Thou wouldst caU, and to Thee I'd reply ;
For the work of Thy hands Thou wouldst yearn."
[Chap. xiv. 13-15.]
Job feels, like the Greek poet, that "not to
have been born is the best "; but he does not
think of taking his own life. He would be
glad if God would cut him off, or, as he beau
tifully expresses himself here, would "hide
him in Sheol." But he does not long for an
" iron sleep "; he does not wish to be hid from
God forever, but only so long as God's wrath
continues. Then, when the storm is past,
when the happy day of release comes, and
God calls in the " still kingdom," " Job ! " he

ITS INTERPRETATION. 187
will reply. He has a feeling that God will
" yearn " after him, because he is the work of
His hands.
We notice one more complaint of Job con
cerning God:
" 0 that I knew where to find Him, —
Could come even unto His place ! . . . .
Lo, eastward I go, He's not there,
And westward, I do not observe Him ;
To the north, when He works, I discern not,
He hides in the south, and I see not."
[Chap, xxviii. 3, 8-9.]
These are the saddest fines in Job, if not in
all literature. Job has lost his God, and
though he seeks Him on every side, he finds
Him not. The home of his heart is desolate ;
its warmth and brightness are gone ; the sound
of the Father's voice is heard there no more.
Only the infinitely disconsolate cry is heard :
" O that I knew where to find Him ! " Job
feels himself alone in the great universe. He
turns hither and thither, calling his God, but
there is no response. It is not that God has
ceased to be, but — something even more des
olating to the soul — He has ceased to be gra
cious. He has hidden Himself in anger. He
has concealed Himself as a foe.

188 THE POETRY OF JOB.
We pass on to notice what Job says of the
brevity of life :
" My days are swifter than couriers,
They flee, they see nothing good.
They ghde by as boats of bulrushes,
•As an eagle swoops down on his prey." [Chap. ix. 25-26.]
These comparisons are exquisitely chosen. The
courier was the living telegraph of the ancient
world. A light boat of reeds, rowed by strong
and trained hands, how easily and noiselessly
does it glide by ! (See Inferno, viii. 13-16.)
But swifter still is the flight of an eagle, as
from some lofty height he swoops down with
folded wings upon his unsuspecting prey. Sim
ilar illustrations of the brevity of life are drawn
by Homer from the natural world. He says
in one place, " Like the leaves in the wood, so
are the generations of men." (Iliad, vi. 186.)
And again, "Men are frail as leaves in the
forest, which now grow together in strength,
enjoying the fruits of the earth, and then per
ishing fly away." In the language of Shake
speare, "A man's life's no more than to say one."
Job's comparisons are always concrete. His
symbols of swiftness are the courier, the light-
boat, the swooping eagle, and the flying shadow.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 189
Shakespeare, on the contrary, draws often from
the spiritual world, and uses abstract compari
sons. He says in Hamlet (i. 4) :
" Haste me to know 't ; that I, with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge."
We consider, in the next place, Job's con
ceptions of death and Sheol. The way to the
shadow-world is a way without return.
" As a cloud melts away and is gone,
So who goes to Shedl shall not rise ;
He shaU not come again to his house,
And his place shaU know him no more."
[Chap. vii. 9-10.]
That is "the undiscovered country from
whose bourne no traveller returns." The house
whose master has gone the way to Sheol shall
not know him again. Job's pictures of "the
undiscovered country " vary with his varying
moods. When he is longing to die and de
spairing of the divine favor, he represents the
" still kingdom " as attractively as the faith of
his day would permit.
"The wicked have ceased there from troubling,
And there are the weary at rest.
Together in peace are the captives,
They hear not a taskmaster's voice.

190 THE POETRY OF JOB.
There smaU and great are the same,
And the servant is free from his lord."
[Chap. iii. 17-19.]
This is less than the classic poet says of Ely
sium, at least in some respects ; in others it is
more. Virgil says of the realm of the de
parted : " There falls no snow, no hail there
destroys, no hurricane rages there through the
blooming land. But zephyrs rustling move,
sent by Oceanus for cooling." These circum
stances are but external : the thought of Job
lies deeper. His dark Sheol has a more at
tractive feature than an Italian climate and
sea-breezes, and that feature is rest. In Vir
gil's Elysium no hurricane rages ; in Job's
Sheol the wicked have ceased from troubling.
Later, and in a different mood, Job gives
us a different description of Sheol. He dwells
now on its forbidding aspect, because he wishes
to awaken pity in the Lord, and move Him to
grant a respite from suffering.
"Are not my days few? Let Him cease,
Turn away, that I cheer up a little,
Ere I go — and I shall not return —
To a land of darkness and gloom,
To a land of blackness like midnight,
[A land] of gloom and disorder,
Where it shineth Hke midnight." [Chap. x. 20-22.]

ITS INTERPRETATION. 191
If darkness be the " dam of horrors," this pic
ture is one of the most fearful. Light is
one of the most striking characteristics of the
Christian description of heaven, and gloom is
the leading feature of Job's Sheol. We have
not words enough in our language to express
this gloom. The mildest darkness in that blind
world is midnight. Job says further of it :
" If I hope for Shedl as my house,
Have spread in the darkness my couch,
Have caUed to the grave, Thou 'rt my father !
My mother ! my sister ! to worms :
Then where, O where is my hope,
Yea, my hope, who shaU ever behold it ? "
[Chap. xvii. 13-16.]
Job has entered, in imagmation, the house
which lasts till doomsday. He has spread
his couch there, has called the grave by the
tender word " my father "; he has greeted the
worms as " sister " and " mother." He feels
quite at home with them. Dante says he so
imagined things he felt them ; and so does
Job. No more powerful imagination has ever
expressed itself.
Another aspect of human life on which the
author of Job spends much thought is the
Fate of the Wicked. This is the theme of

192 THE POETRY OF JOB.
some of his most characteristic and poetical
passages. It is peculiarly the theme of Job's
friends, as the elegiac passages are mainly by
Job himself. The wicked are not followed into
the next world, but the "Inferno" of the
poem lies on this side of the grave, and its
punishments are all believed to be fearfully
real. The passages on the theme under con
sideration are so numerous that we shall be
obliged to pass over many without the notice
they deserve. We will choose a few as speci
mens of the poet's thought and skill.
In the vigorous language of Bildad, the wick
ed man is one "whose trust is a fragile thing, —
" And a spider's house is his hope.
He leans on his house, and it stands not,
He grasps it, it doth not endure.
He is fuU of sap in the sunshine,
And his shoots o'er his garden come forth ;
Round a mound are his roots interlaced,
Between the stones he crowds through.
If He blots him out from his place,
It denies him : ' I never have seen thee.' "
[Chap. viii. 14-18.]
A spider's house, so frail that a fly may shat
ter it or a squirrel's foot tear it in pieces —
that is the emblem of a sinner's hope. His

ITS INTERPRETATION. 193
hope is his wealth, his family, his house in a
broad sense of that word. He leans on it in
the day of distress, but it stands not ; in his
despair he grasps it, as a sinking man clutches
at a spar, but it is all in vain. Again, the
wicked is a luxuriant vine. It sends out abun
dant shoots ; and its roots force their way be
tween the stones of the mound on which it is
planted. But when the Lord visits this luxu
riant vine in judgment, it is so terribly changed
that it is henceforth unrecognizable in the
place of its abode.
Still more impressive is the description by
the aged Eliphaz, in which the suffermg of the
wicked is represented as caused by the scourge
of a bad conscience.
" The wicked man is in pain aU his days,
And the sum of the years reserved for the tyrant.
A terrible sound in his ears —
In peace comes the robber upon him !
He expects no return from the darkness,
And chosen is he for the sword.
He roams for his bread — ' Ah, where ? '
He knows that near by stands the day of gloom.
Distress and anxiety fright him,
It vanquishes him like a lance-trained king."
[Chap. xv. 20-24.]
A single brief sentence, and a poor wretch
13

194 THE POETRY OF JOB.
stands before us, terrified and trembling, out
wardly in peace but seeing with the mind's eye
the weapons and fierce looks of robbers. He
already regards himself as a dead man. The
figure changes, and this bad rich man is tor
tured by imaginary hunger, and sees himself
wandering about in a vain search after bread.
The poet hears his despairing cry, as he turns
this way and that, exclaiming, " Ah, where ? "
We see the man with an evil conscience when
he is at last overcome by distressful anxiety.
He is vanquished by it as by a lance-trained
king. King Richard's account of an evil conscience
is powerful, but is less concrete and picturesque
than that by Eliphaz :
" 0 coward conscience, how thou dost afflict me !
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a viUain."
[King Richard the Third, v. 3.]
Less profound than the words of Eliphaz,
but hardly less vivid, is Bildad's description of
the fate of the wicked. We quote some pas
sages from it :
" The steps of his strength are straightened,
And his own advice casts him down.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 195
For his own feet do ensnare him,
And he walketh over the toils.
A gin layeth hold on his heel,
A noose doth fasten upon him.
Concealed on the ground is its cord,
And its net is hid on his path." [Chap, xviii. 7-10.]
Even with short, careful steps, the sinner es
capes not. He is self-ruined : his own counsel
casts him down. The impossibility of escape,
the suddenness of his fall, and the dishonor of
his end, are admirably portrayed. Wherever
the man goes, there are toils beneath him. A
gin lays hold on his heel, and a noose fastens
upon him. Its cord is concealed in his very
path. Nets, toils, gins, snares, nooses, — the
things he has used in his wickedness, the em
blems of his own craft and guile, — these are
before, behind, and beneath him, that he es
cape not.
In a following passage the poet weaves into
his description some features of Job's own case.
" There eateth the limbs of his frame —
Eats his members, the first-born of death.
He is dragged from his tent, his trust,
To the king of terrors must march." [Chap, xviii. 13-14.]
The "first-born of death" is a mortal dis-

196 THE POETRY OF JOB.
ease, — a bolder figure than that of the Arabic
literature, in which deadly fevers are called
the " daughters of fate." It is plain that this
figure was chosen to describe the leprosy which
was consuming Job. The picture of what fol
lows after the first-born of death has eaten the
limbs of the doomed one is intense and terri
ble. The ministers of death come to get the
dying man. He resists, and they must drag
him forth from his house. Then he is com
pelled to march off to the king of terrors.
Compare with this characterization of death
that by the Greek poet : " Thither leadeth me
the queen of shadows." This passage on the
end of the sinner, in its vividness and rugged
force, is unsurpassed. We can imagine Dante as
speaking thus, but hardly a second modern poet.
It remains to notice what Job himself says
of the fate of the wicked. Unlike the friends,
he begins by describing the loss of the wicked
man's various possessions, saving the destruc
tion of the wicked man himself until the last.
First he speaks of the sinner's family.
" If his sons increase, they 're the sword's,
And his seed are not sated with bread.
His remnant are buried by death,
And as for his widows, they weep not."
[Chap, xxvii. 14-15.]

ITS INTERPRETATION. 197
That one's children should perish by the sword
and hunger, is a heavy loss ; but heavier is the
calamity when the affection of the most inti
mate friends is turned into cold indifference.
Job assumes here the death of the sinner, but
the disgrace that attaches to his memory is
none the less a personal loss. What befalls
the sinner's wealth is next described :
" Though he heapeth up silver as dust,
And raiment prepareth as clay :
He prepares, but the righteous doth wear it,
And his silver the innocent shares.
He has buUt as a moth his house,
As a booth that a watchman has made.
He Heth down rich, but not twice,
He has opened his eyes, and is gone ! "
[Chap, xxvii. 16-19.]
He not only loses his wealth, but it comes into
the possession of the very people whom he
hates. His strong house is, after aU, most
fragile, and in the twinkling of an eye both
himself and his wealth disappear. He is rich
a single night. In the morning he opens his
eyes and lo, in the next breath, he is gone.
Then his fearful end is described :
" Terrors o'ertake him like waters,
A storm bears him off in the night.
East wind lifts him up and he goes,

198 THE POETRY OF JOB.
And it sweeps him away from his place.
And He hurls upon him unsparing,
From His hand he would utterly flee.
Men clap their hands at him,
And hiss him forth from his place." [Chap, xxvii. 20-23.]
It would be difficult to conceive of a more fear
ful ending of fife than this. Terrors, like a
sudden flood, overtake the sinner, the dire
forerunners of his awful end. His life has
been black ; it goes out in blackness. A vio
lent storm sweeps him away in the night, as
though he were but chaff. The description is
completed by a reference to the attitude of
God and men toward the sinner. The former
hurls upon him His bolts without mercy, and
the latter hiss him from his place. The wrath
of God and the execrations of men are upon
him. This painting is by a master-hand.
There is nothing like it save in the Inferno of
Dante. He alone has such terrible and vivid
imagery. There is yet a third aspect of life which the
poet presents, especially in Job's retrospect
and in his final plea. It is the life on which
the smile of God rests.
After the contest with his friends was past

ITS INTERPRETATION. 199
and Job's thoughts were free to turn whither
they would, it was natural that he should flee
from the mysterious and painful present to
take refuge for a little space in the bright days
gone by. As we look back through Job's eyes
on his past life, we see that which enables us
to understand the depth of his present misery,
and the hope which now and then shoots up
like an auroral light toward the zenith.
Let us hear his words :
" Had I [months] like the months of the past,
Like the days when Eldah watched o'er me ! —
When His lamp stUl shone on my head,
By His Hght I walked in the darkness ; —
As I was in the days of my prime,
When God's counsel was over my tent,
WhUe yet the Almighty was with me,
Around me my children." r„,
J [Chap. xxix. 2-5.]
How could a brighter picture of happiness and
prosperity be drawn than is contained in these
figures ? — " the days when Eloah watched o'er
me," " when His lamp still shone on my head,"
" when His counsel was on my tent," " when
the Almighty was with me." Heaven lay
about him. A light that never was on sea or
land shone on his head. Ravished by the
thought of that departed bliss, he dwells upon

200 THE POETRY OF JOB.
the secret of it, and repeats again and again
that the Lord was with him. Not only was
God's counsel on his tent, but the family-circle
was unbroken. His children were round about
him. Then memory recalls his outward good-
fortune. " When my steps were bathing in cream,
And the rock pouring rivers of oU at my side."
Even the rock became fruitful for him whom
God loved. Job dwells with especial fond
ness on the honor which was shown him in
those by-gone days. When he erected his
seat in the place of judgment, the young
men " hid themselves," the old men " arose
and stood," even the princes were " chary of
words," and the noble ones " ceased " speak
ing (verses 7-10). He was clothed with honor
because he had clothed himself with righteous
ness. " I put on justness ; it clothed me ;
My right was as mantle and turban."
At that time Job looked forward to a green
old age.
" I said, In my nest I shaU die,
And shaU multiply days like the phcsnix.
To the waters my root wiU He bare,
And dew pass the night on my branch.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 201
My glory stiU fresh wUl be with me,
And my bow will grow young in my hand."
[Chap. xxix. 18-20.]
The allusion to the beautiful fable of the phoe
nix is an appropriate dress for the thought of
the long life that stretched out before him.
Equally happy is the figure that follows, in
which Job compares himself to a tree whose
roots shall not lack water and whose branches
shall be refreshed by the nightly dews. Nei
ther will he lack honor in the future, and his
strength will be continually renewed.
This retrospect gives place to a picture of
the unhappy present (chapter xxx.), and then
follows Job's final plea (chapter xxxi.). The
ideal of pure and noble character which it con
tains is without parallel in pre-Christian liter
ature. This ideal is presented in a simple,
picturesque, and dignified poetical style. The
figures are all from the scenes of common life.
In picturesqueness and force this passage is
remarkable, even in the poem of Job. Virtues
and vices breathe and move. Job does not
mention chastity and lust by name; but de
clares that he has made a league with his eyes,
as two persons enter into a covenant for some
common end. His eyes are under bonds not

202 THE POETRY OF JOB.
to look on a maid. He does not speak of be
nevolence ; but of warming the poor man with
the fleece of his lambs. Nor of superstition ;
but of kissing his hand to the moon. A com
plete system of ethics is presented in a series
of pictures, each of which is simple and clear-
cut. Every figure seems perfectly adapted to
the idea. The poet shows the highest skill in
bodying forth abstract thought. He can com
pose as poetical an ode on a man's creed as on
the works of Jehovah. He can make the com
mon-place sights and experiences of daily life
vehicles for the expression of the loftiest mo
rality and the most intense feeling of a soul
that is pleading its cause at the bar of God.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 203

CHAPTER V.
THE POET'S CONCEPTIONS OF GOD.
REGARDED simply as poetry, the views
of God to be found in the Book of Job
have few parallels in any literature outside of
the Bible, and even there are never surpassed.
The magnificent descriptions of an Isaiah may
be placed by the side of the poetry in Job ;
but there is nothing in classic heathen writers,
and little even in the great Christian poets
of modern times, that merits such an honor.
Homer and Milton may be taken as fit reprer
sentatives of the poets of these two ages ; and
we may compare their conceptions of the Di
vine Being with those of the poem of Job.
While admiring the lofty genius of these writ
ers, I believe that they themselves would have
bowed before the unknown author of Job as
one who brought from his harp sublimer strains
than they. If a comparison should seem to
substantiate this statement, we should not be
left poorer in Homer and Milton, but richer
as regards Job. This Hebrew poem is rela
tively unknown as a literary production. When
it is studied, it is studied only for its teaching ;,

204 THE POETRY OF JOB.
and furthermore, its literary merits are less
appreciable in any translation that has been
made than are those of Homer, Virgil, or
Dante, in the translations of their works which
we possess.
In drawing a comparison between Job on
the one hand, and Homer and Milton on the
other, it is of course not forgotten that they
represent three widely different planes of rev
elation. One sings in the twilight of a revela
tion through nature and conscience ; one, in
the midst of a history illumined and exalted
by supernatural displays of Divine power and
grace ; and the last, in the increasing splendor
of a Christian civilization. Yet while not
comparable as regards the absolute truth of
their conceptions, it is possible to compare
them as poets. This only is proposed.
Now we find, on studying Homer, that his
gods are often laughable, often undignified,
often less honorable and less poetical than his
Greek and Trojan heroes ; and they are sel
dom sublime. Longinus felt this when he
said : "It almost seems to me that Homer
tried to make his Trojans gods, and his gods
men." It is amusing to read, for instance,
how Oileiis identifies the dwellers on Olympus.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 205
" Some god, O Ajax, from the Olympian hill,
Hke the seer in form, doth bid us fight by the ships ;
for Calchas was it not, who augurs from the flight
of birds : for weU I marked from behind the f oot-
prints and the legs, as he departed ; verily the gods
are easUy known." — [Iliad, xiii. 68-72.]
One can scarcely prevent a smile on reading
the answer which Sleep makes to the request
of Here, who asks her to close the glorious
eyes of Zeus. Sleep relates how she had once
lulled the senses of the iEgis-bearer, while
Here, planning mischief for Ulysses, waked
the blasts of all the bitter winds to sweep the
ocean, and then she adds :
" But he on awaking was wroth, hurHng the gods
about in the hall ; but me he seeks before aU, and
me, banished from the ethereal sky, he would have
cast into the sea, had not Night, the subduer of gods
and men, preserved me." — [Iliad, xiv. 256-259.]
Still more noticeable are the warning words
which Zeus directs to Here :
" Dost thou not remember when thou didst swing
on high, and I hung two anvils on thy feet, and
bound around thy hands a band of gold that none
could break ? Then in the air and clouds thou
didst swing, and the gods through high Olympus
were sorrowful, but no one, coming near, dared to
loose [thee]."— [Iliad, xv. 18-22.]

206 THE POETRY OF JOB.
This is rather too serious a matter to smile at,
yet the scene that is brought before us — Here
suspended hi mid-air with an anvil tied to each
immortal foot to keep her straight — does not lie
far from the ludicrous. Of the same character
is the test proposed by the Father of the gods.
If they doubt his supremacy, they can convince
themselves of it by this simple experiment :
" Make now the trial, O gods, that all of you
may know. Letting down, a golden chain from
heaven, do aU ye gods and aU ye goddesses chng
to it, yet. ye could not from heaven to earth draw
down Zeus, adviser supreme, and though ye quite
wearied yourselves in the toU. But should I now
myself be inclined to pull, with the earth itself I
should draw you up, and e'en with the sea. And
then I would bind the chain round the topmost peak
of Olympus so that all things would then hang sus
pended." — [Iliad, viii. 15-23.]
But- the Olympian deities not only appear
in an amusing light, which detracts seriously
from their legitimate effect even as poetical
gods, — they are also often positively undigni
fied. Pallas steals up behind Achilles and
pulls his yellow hair (i. 197); Here harnesses
her own horses (v. 731); Pallas and Phoebus
assume the form of vultures, and sit in the top
of a birch-tree (vii. 59); Thetis finds Vulcan

ITS INTERPRETATION. 207
sweatmg and toiling, plying the bellows with
busy hand (xviii. 339); Zeus seizes Ate by the
hair of her head, and swinging her on high
hurls her from the starry heaven (xix. 126);
all the gods go forth to mingle in the fight be
tween Trojans and Greeks (xx. 32); Here
whips Diana, beating her about the ^ars with
her quiver (xxi. 502). One might suppose
that a god could attract the attention of a mor
tal in a more god-like way than by pulling his
hair. Here, as queen of the gods, spouse of
Saturnian Zeus, would be acting in a way bet
ter becoming her state if she should dispatch a
servant to bring her team. It is by no means
beneath her dignity to work, — but she must
work as a goddess, not as a common menial.
The poet has no right to sacrifice her dignity.
Again, we could have no objection if Pallas
and Phoebus should choose the vulture as their
favorite bird, but there is a lessening of respect
for them as gods when they enter into the un
clean carrion-eating vultures. Zeus himself is
represented as a mere executioner, and a bar
barous one at that. He seizes Ate by the
hair, and swings her around in the air before
hurling her from the battlements of heaven.
This picture is disagreeably human. If Zeus

208 THE POETRY OF JOB.
were an uncultivated savage, we should feel
that such actions were in harmony with his
character; but call him a god, and indeed
the supreme god, and our sense of what is be
coming is harshly offended. Again, Here whips
Diana in the presence of Apollo and Neptune.
This does not appear to us a fitting scene for
the stage of epic poetry. One woman beating
another is in no wise a poetical incident. The
comic poet, wishing to satirize womankind or
to amuse the vulgar, might introduce such an
episode, but no serious poet can do it. Now
if the action of one woman beating another lies
without the sphere of serious poetry, much more
does the action of one goddess beating another
goddess. If Here and Diana bear themselves
no better than two quarrelsome women, the
poet can not be considered to have achieved
great success in his endeavors to represent them
as goddesses. Indeed, Andromache and the
wife of Ulysses appear to better advantage than
Diana and the consort of the Cloud-compeller.
Furthermore, Homer's gods are immoral,
and immorality injures their appearance in
poetry. We cite only two instances of the im
morality of Homer's gods, but these are con
clusive. First, Pallas lies to Hector (xxii. 239).

ITS INTERPRETATION. 209
While Hector is fleeing before the swift Achilles
around the Trojan walls, Pallas approaches him
in the form of Deiphobus, a brother of Hec
tor. This was a lie, and a very mean one
too. It awakened in the heart of a brave man
the hope of assistance, while Pallas not only
intended to leave him unhelped, but purposed
to aid his foe. The whole bearing of Pallas
is ignoble, and if found in a man would justly
give us cause to abhor him. But still more
objectionable, if possible, is the circumstance
that Zeus himself lies. He tells Agamemnon
a deliberate falsehood in order to bring honor
to the Trojan arms (ii. 8). Here again the lie
is especially wicked, because it is treacherous.
Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon, bidding him
arm the Greeks, for the hour has come when
Troy shall fall. He, Zeus, pities Agamem
non, and has decreed the destruction of the
Trojan city. Yet all this time Zeus is planning
the ruin of myriads of Greeks by the side of
their dark ships. And thus Zeus lies to his
own children, which we have no reason to
think that Hector or Nestor would have done.
Indeed, as poetical conceptions, Andromache
or Hecuba are less subject to criticism than is
Zeus. Now we do not expect in a heathen
14

210 THE POETRY OF JOB.
poet a perfect conception of moral character,
but we have a right to look for at least as high
a conception in his representations of the gods
as in those of men.
We pass on to notice the sublime in Homer's
-conception of the immortals. They are by no
means always undignified; they are occasion
ally described in lofty and majestic strains,
and their actions are wholly worthy of their
character. Some of the most notable exam
ples of the sublime in Homer's descriptions of
the gods are the following. The poet, speak
ing of Apollo's hostile approach to the Greeks,
says: "And he came from the heights of Olympus
with wrath in his heart, on his shoulders bearing
the bow and well-covered quiver. Loud rattled the
arrows on the shoulder of the angry one, as he
moved along. He came Hke night. Then he seated
himself far from the ships, and shot an arrow. A
terrible clang resounded from the sUver bow." —
.[Iliad, i. 44-49.]
Equally sublime is the nod of Zeus :
" He spake : and with his dark brows nodded the
;son of Cronius, and the King's ambrosial locks
flowed forward from the immortal head : then trem
bled the heights of Olympus."— [Iliad, i. 527-529.]

ITS INTERPRETATION. 211
This may be compared with Job xxvii. :
" The pillars of heaven do quake,
And shudder at His rebuke."
A third example is in the Fourteenth Book
of the Iliad, where the poet describes the mo
tion of two goddesses :
" Then on the firm land they moved forward,
and the crest of the forest trembled at their steps."
We notice also the description of Neptune's
escort in the Thirteenth Book :
" Sea-monsters, coming from their hiding-places,
sported around him on every side ; they knew their
lord. With joy the sea divided, and they [his
steeds] flew as on wings, nor was the brazen axle
moistened beneath."
Such instances of the sublime in Homer's con
ceptions of the gods are rare ; nor do even these
select passages equal in beauty and majesty
what is contained in the Hebrew poem.
If we glance now at Milton's conception of
God, we find here also a painful lack of dignity
which is less easily apologized for than is that of
the heathen poet. Jehovah, speaking of the de
fection of the first man, is represented as saying :
" Whose fault [is it] ?
Whose but his own ? Ingrate, he had of me
AU he could have." [Paradise Lost, iii. 96^98.]

212 THE POETRY OF JOB.
But this is not God the Lord, of infinite maj
esty and glory : the speaker is an irritable,
angry man. The passage breathes the bitter
spirit of some sectarian, and not that of Him
who is long-suffering, abundant in goodness
and truth.
Again, Raphael, in his discourse, says to
Adam concerning the race that should spring
from him : " If they Hst to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the heavens
Hath left to their dispute, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model heaven
And calculate the stars." [Chap. viii. 75-80.]
The Bible ascribes laughter to God, but the
occasions are very different from this. The
Psalmist says :
" The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
Let us break their bands asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.
He that sitteth in the heavens shaU laugh,
The Lord shaU have them in derision." [Psalm ii. 2-4.]
The occasion for laughter in Milton, being the
quaint, scientific opinions of men, is trivial and

ITS INTERPRETATION. 213
unworthy ; but the occasion in the Psalm, the
proud and rebellious plotting of kings and
rulers, is appropriate. Not less objectionable
is the laughter spoken of in Book xii. 58-61.
Sometimes Milton's conceptions are not only
undignified, but also positively belittling. For
instance, God is represented as saying :
" Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ
In our defense, lest unawares we lose
This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill."
[Chap. v. 721-724.]
Zeus might have spoken thus, and the concep
tion of him still remained high; but for the God
of Scripture to speak in this way is absurd.
Must He advise with others how He is to hold
His empire ? Is He, forsooth, thrown upon the
help of angels for the defence of His sanctuary?
More unworthy and unpoetical is the picture
when the poet speaks of the creation of Eve.
He relates a dream which Adam had while the
deep sleep was upon him. Adam sees the Lord,
" Who, stooping, opened my left side, and took
From thence a rib, with cordial spirits warm,
And life-blood streaming fresh ; wide was the
wound,
But suddenly with flesh filled up and healed."
[Chap. viii. 565-568.]

214 THE POETRY OF JOB.
The account which the Bible gives of the cre
ation of Eve is poetical, though written in
prose ; Milton's description is prosaic to the
last degree, though written in verse. Homer
paints many a bloody scene, enumerates repul
sive details of slaughter and death. His he
roes hew one another in pieces, the dark blood
spurts forth, the marrow runs from the severed
bones, and the axles of the chariots are cov
ered with gore ; but repulsive as these details
are, they do not seem to us to be so gross a
violation of poetical taste as this scene at the
creation of Eve. The Lord stooping over the
sleeping Adam, holding in his hand a rib with
cordial spirits warm, streaming with fresh life-
blood — this is as unpoetical and as unparadis-
aical a proceeding as can well be imagined.
The most unintelligible mysticism of Dante is
preferable to this scene of blood. These ex
amples of the undignified and low in Milton's
conception might be increased, but need not
be for the present purpose. They are suffi
cient to enable one to feel the difference be
tween Milton and Job. It will be readily
admitted by everyone that Milton has sublime
passages relating to God. No one speaks
more grandly than he, when he says :

ITS INTERPRETATION. 215
" Now had th' almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits,
High throned above aU height, bent down his eye
His own works and their works at once to view."
No poet speaks more worthily and more au-
gustly than he in the lines that describe crea
tion :
" So sang the hierarchies : meanwhUe the Son
On his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of majesty divine ; sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were poured,
Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones,
And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots winged
From the armory of God, where stand of old
Myriads between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,
Celestial equipage ; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord ; Heaven opened wide
Her ever-during gates ; harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds."
And a third passage might be quoted, than
which nothing has been sung of God that is
more dignified and beautiful :

216 THE POETRY OF JOB.
" God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts ; who best
Bear his mUd yoke, they serve him best : his
state
Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
But with these choicest utterances of our
great epic singer, who lived under the full
light of Christ's perfect revelation of the Fa
ther, we may compare the lines of the unknown
author of Job. First, we notice the words of
Zophar on the unf athoinableness of the Divine
Being :
" Canst thou find out the depth of Eldah,
Or fathom th' Almighty's perfection ?
Heights of heaven ! — what canst thou do ?
Than Shedl it is deeper ! — what know ?
Its measure is longer than earth,
And broader is it than the sea." [Chap. xi. 7-9.]
The exclamatory description of the Divine per
fection is simple and sublime. "Heights of
heaven ! " Look up to the clouds and the
stars : so immeasurably does the wisdom and
power of God transcend human comprehen
sion. Deeper than the unfathomable Sheol,
long as the earth, and broad as the sea, is the

ITS INTERPRETATION. 217
perfection of God. This representation is con
crete, and perhaps impresses the mind more
deeply through the senses than any abstract
conception could do. The majestic power
and unapproachable purity of God are por
trayed by Bildad. There is no sublimer or
more beautiful expression of the immeasur
able gulf between God and man, as regards
power and purity, than this description by
Bildad :
" Dominion and fear are with Him,
Who maketh peace in His heights.
Is there of His troops any number ?
And o'er whom doth not His light rise ?
How can man be just before God,
How the woman-born one be pure ?
Lo, even the moon shines not brightly,
And the stars are not clean in His eyes :
Much less is frail man — a crawler !
And the son of man — a worm ! " [Chap, xxv.]
He maketh peace! There is no more beauti
ful and forcible way of expressing the sover
eignty of the Almighty. There is no clash
of arms, no shout of battling squadrons, no
wounds or ruin. Perhaps our poet would not
under any circumstances have described a war
in heaven, as Milton does. But if there were

218 THE POETRY OF JOB.
hostility against God, He has troops without
number, and in no case would He need to be
personally active in the conflict. Milton, as
will be remembered, represents the Son of
God as leading in person the hosts of faithful
angels, and as taking part in the battle with
Satan and his legions. This is a sublime pas
sage, and as terrible as it is sublime. But
there is a still sublimer conception of God as
a sovereign, in relation to rebellious creatures,
and it is briefly contained in the words of
Bildad :
" Dominion and fear are with Him,
Who maketh peace in His heights."
Were there hostility toward him among God's
creatures, a single calm word would suffice to
lay the storm or hurl the offenders down into
darkness and prison. Such is the sovereignty
pictured in these lines. It is in a measure
derogatory to the dignity of God that He
should actually take part in battle. To repre
sent Him as so doing is an anthropomorphism
which can be justified only by the most intense
feeling on the part of the writer (as in Job vi.
4), which feehng, in Milton's case, was neces
sarily wanting.
The remaining passages that we shall con-

ITS INTERPRETATION. 219
sider are from the Hps of Job himself. He
not only knows more about the living God
than do his friends, but on the whole he
surpasses them all in descriptions of God's
wisdom and power. First, Job's reply to
Bildad (chapter ix. 4-10) :
" Wise of heart and strong in might,
Who has dared Him, and yet remained whole ?
He who mountains removes and they know not,
Because in His wrath He o'erturned them ;
Who shaketh the earth from its place,
And its pUlars do reel to and fro ;
Who speaks to the sun, and it shines not,
And setteth a seal on the stars ;
Who spreads out the heavens alone,
And walks o'er the heights of the sea ;
Who maketh the Bear, Orion,
The Cluster and Chambers of Teman ;
Who doeth great things beyond searching,
And wonderful deeds without number."
Here, as in chapter xii. 13-25, the theme is
the might and wisdom of God. In this case
the poet draws his illustrations from Nature ;
in that, from the dealings of God in History.
In another passage (chapter xxvi.), he has to
do again chiefly with the manifestations of
God's wisdom and power in the natural world.

220 THE POETRY OF JOB.
He evidently prefers this theme — God in Na
ture ; and he speaks on it more sublimely than
he speaks of God in History.
The passage before us puts the power of
God in the foreground, and with unsurpassed
majesty. His hand moves the everlasting
mountains and shakes the earth itself. Its
pillars reel. The sun hears God's voice, and
ceases to shine. The countless stars of heaven
are hidden by the sealing touch of His hand.
The canopy of the sky, as a vast and luminous
tent, set with planets and stars, He spreads out
alone, and over the waves of the sea, which,
rising mountain-high, seemingly threaten the
universal earth beneath this heavenly canopy
with destruction — over these He walks, their
ruler and lord. And the great constellations
of the heavens — the Bear, Orion the giant, the
Cluster which the Greeks called Pleiades, and
the Chambers of the South — these unchanging
witnesses of man's frailty, the same in their
bright silence as generations pass, all these He
made, and, as it were, re-makes, since He con
tinually upholds them. The selection of ob
jects is admirably adapted to the end in view,
and the treatment is simple and vivid. The
exalted actions of the Almighty are repre-

ITS INTERPRETATION 221
sented as taking place before our eyes, and
they are all worthy of Him.
We should notice also the quiet majesty
which characterizes these actions. God simply
" speaks " to the sun. He does not, like Mars,
shout as loudly as nine thousand men ; He
does not cry out, but only " speaks." Again,
He " walks " on the waves of the sea ; that is,
He is calm in the midst of the roaring and
tossing waters. There is no haste, no fear, no
excitement. He is calm in the performance
of the greatest deeds, and even though He be
surrounded by tumult and confusion. Here
is a sublimity to which Homer and Milton do
not attain.
The passage in chapter xii. 13-25, which
illustrates the wisdom and power of God from
History, is not unworthy of our poet. It rep
resents God as moving through human society,
loosing and binding the girdles of kings, lead
ing away to banishment those who were high
in authority and esteem, bringing to naught
the speech of the trusty and the judgment of
elders, humbling and exalting the nations, and
He is represented as doing this calmly and
irresistibly. The last example of Job's power to which

222 THE POETRY OF JOB.
we call attention is the following passage:
" The shades suffer pains
Beneath the sea and its dweUers ;
Shedl is naked before Him,
And no covering hath the abyss.
He spreads out the north o'er the waste,
And suspendeth the earth over chaos.
In His thick clouds He shuts up the waters,
Yet a cloud is not broken beneath them ;
He encloseth the front of the throne,
He spreadeth upon it His cloud.
A circle He drew on the waters
To the last ray of Hght near the darkness.
The piUars of heaven do quake
And shudder at His rebuke.
In His might He exciteth the sea,
By His knowledge He shattereth Rahab.
By His breath are the heavens made bright,
His hand the flying dragon hath pierced.
Lo, these are the ends of His ways,
But what a mere murmur we hear,
And the roar of His great might who knows ? "
[Chap. xxvi. 5-14.]
The poet draws on the universe in the fol
lowing order: Sheol, heaven, earth, heaven.
His last word, as the last word in each of the
three parts of Dante's great poem, concerns
the sky.

ITS INTERPRETATION. 223
Far down in the " blind world," at the great
est possible distance from the light and glory
of God's dwelling, the shades, though insensi
ble to joy and sorrow from other sources, feel
the workings of God's power. To the extreme
limit of the universe His hand reaches, and
the most insensible creatures tremble before
Him. Sheol, whose gates man has never
seen (xxxviii. 17), the world wrapped in mid
night, is " naked " before His eye ; and so the
whole universe is " swept forever by the vision
and breath of God." He spreads out the
northern sky, and suspends the earth over
nothing. Then foUows the cloud-miracle, daily
repeated before our eyes. The general idea
in the second reference to the clouds seems to
be that God uses them to curtain His throne,
when He comes near to the earth in judgment.
The sea, whose rising is feared by men, God
excites without fear, and He shatters the sea-
monster Rahab, which, accordmg to the folks'
legend, was thought of as active in making the
sea tempestuous. Turning his eye upward
again, the poet sees how the heavens are made
bright by the breath of God, and how His
hand impales to the heavenly vault the flying
dragon, the monster which was supposed to

224 THE POETRY OF JOB.
darken sun and moon. But all these won
drous manifestations of the wisdom and power
of God, when compared with the depths of His
wisdom and power, are but as a murmur com
pared with the loud thunder, a magnificent
closing to a magnificent description. Here, as
before, the handling of the theme is concrete.
Sheol and its dwellers, the northern sky, the
earth hung in mid-air, the marvellous clouds,
the mountainous pillars of heaven, the tem
pestuous sea and the flying dragon, — this is
the sublime imagery which the poet employs.
And it is used vividly, grandly, and in a man
ner worthy of Him whose power is portrayed.
It is poetry that moves the soul of a child as
well as that of the mature man. It is child
like in its outlook on the world, it is natural,
transparent, sublime. It breathes a simple,
large, beautiful conception of Nature and Na
ture's God. It is full of primitive strength
and of reverent nobility. Homer is not so
sublime, Milton is not so sublime ; the Hebrew
bard is their unapproachable master.

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