I am become as an owl of the waste places. I watch, and am become like a sparrow That is alone upon the housetop. Mine enemies reproach me all the day; They that are mad against me do curse by me. And mingled my drink with weeping, Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: My days are like a shadow that declineth; And I am withered like grass. Before the close of the Persian rule the little hymnal, Psalms 3-41, was probably compiled. This is a Yahwistic collection in which the proper name of Israel's God occurs nearly twenty times as often as the general name God (Elohim). Psalms 14 and 40 13-17 occur, in practically duplicate form, in the second book of the Psalter, where they have undergone an editing characteristic of that book, which has generally substituted God for Jehovah. All the psalms in the collection 3 to 41 are ascribed by their headings to David, except 10 and 33; of these 10 is properly a part of 9. Back of this book lay an earlier and larger collection of hymns which went by the name of David and which was later drawn upon largely in the composition of the second book of the Psalter. The Davidic prayer-book, containing many hymns of the Persian age, must itself have been compiled not long before the collection 3 to 41.2 1 See Psalm 72 20. 2 Whether the word "to," translated "of" in our English versions, was intended by the original editor who attached the headings of the Psalms ascribed to David to indicate authorship, or only the name of the wellknown collection from which these hymns were taken, it is impossible to determine. CHAPTER XXIII THE GREAT MASTERPIECE, JOB (Latter Part of Fourth Century B.C.) THE book of Job is one of that group of five or six world poems that stand as universal expressions of the human spirit. The Iliad, the Niebelungenlied, the Divina Comedia, belong to no age or nation, yet each is a distinctive product of its own time and of the race that gave it birth; in any other age, or among any other peoples, neither could have arisen. Similarly, Job is a characteristic product of post-exilic Israel. Without the work of the earlier prophets, the Deuteronomic era, the soul agonies of Jeremiah, the downfall of the nation and its interpretation by the writers of the exile, the book of Job could not have been written. Many students of Hebrew literature count this poem the immediate outgrowth of the exile; its relation to the whole development of Israel's literature suggests rather its composition in the latter part of the fourth century B.C., shortly before the end of the Persian rule, or soon after Alexander's conquest. The prologue and epilogue (1-2, 42 7-17) may have formed an earlier prose story of Job, and some portions of the poem are best interpreted as later accretions. The prologue moves rapidly, giving a series of distinct pictures: the ancient sheik, perfect, upright, and prosperous; the heavenly council; the first series of catastrophes. In the description of the last, one feels a formal, artificial structure somewhat like that of the late, priestly prose. The hero, his name, his home, his character, his misfortunes, are all introduced in the one chapter. The brief second chapter pictures: a second heavenly council; a new catastrophe; Job after the new misfortune has fallen upon him; the arrival of the three friends and their seven days' watch with Job. This prologue offers a curious interpretation of human suffering. It presents a man perfect, upright, scrupulous in his piety; when his sons have had their birthday feasts, he rises early and performs sacrifices for them all, lest they have sinned in some way. Jehovah himself declares that there is none like him in all the earth, perfect, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. Upon this one comes loss of property, loss of family, and loathsome disease. The old stories of Israel had taught that it was sin which brought suffering upon humanity; the prophets had developed the doctrine of a righteous God who rewarded virtue and punished sin in the nation and the individual; already the sages had formulated this idea into many a proverb. Here is a new conception! Among the superhuman beings, the sons of God, who from time to time present themselves before Jehovah, is one called the Satan, "the Adversary." The same word occurs in 1 Samuel 29a — The princes of the Philistines are afraid that David will be an adversary (satan). The word is first met as applied to a superhuman being in Zechariah 31, where the high priest is clothed in the sins of the people with the Satan standing at his right hand to act as his adversary.2 In Zechariah there is no further explanation of the Satan's functions; in Job it appears that this son of God goes to and fro in the earth as an adversary to man. He cannot believe that any man is really good, really loves goodness for its own sake; "Does Job fear God for nought?" is his sarcastic question, and when Job stands the first test, the satanic mind is not satisfied. The Satan, new as he is in the Biblical literature, is not the newest and strangest conception in this story; a God who, to satisfy this evil-minded son of his, permits misery to come to a perfect and upright man, is the most astonishing element in the story. Is this the God of justice of whom Amos and Ezekiel spoke, or the God of love that Hosea and Jeremiah came to know? Job and the friends, it is to be remembered, knew nothing of any such reasons for the misfortunes; the writer uses a kind of dramatic irony, putting the readers into possession of facts unknown to the actors in the tragedy that is to follow. Job, knowing of no reason for his misfortunes, accepts them with complete resignation - The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be 1 This is translated as a proper name in the English Bible, but in the Hebrew it has the definite article. 2 To be or act as adversary is a denominative verb formed from satan. the name of the Lord, is his word of submission. When his wife bids him to curse God and die, he answers, What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? The friends come from distant regions; they do not know Job, so changed is he; in true oriental fashion, they lift up their voices and weep and rend every one his mantle and sprinkle dust upon their heads. Then they sit in silence seven days and nights, seeing Job's great grief. So the prologue, the prose narrative, closes. The poem begins with Job's curse or lament. In a lyric of great pathos Job asks, Why was I ever born? Why died I not at birth? Why can I not die now? There is a strikingly similar passage in the Edipus Coloneus. Happiest beyond compare Never to taste of life; Happiest in order next, Being born, with quickest speed Thither again to turn From whence we came. It is difficult to account for the change in Job from complete resignation to bitter outcry, if the poem and prose prologue were originally one and do not represent two different stories awkwardly joined. It would seem, however, that there must have been something before the poem to make it intelligible at all, and either one of two explanations is suggested to account for the change: Job's fortitude has given way under the stress and progress of his disease; this is commonly held to have been elephantiasis, a form of leprosy, horrible in its physical effects and, if possible, even more terrible in its mental aspects; or Job is maddened by the silent, accusing presence of his friends. It becomes clear to the reader, as the poem advances, that the friends interpret Job's sufferings as the sure evidence of his sins; possibly he realized this in the seven days and nights of silence and so was driven to desperate outcry. To Eliphaz there is no excuse for Job's words; such giving way to grief is quite unworthy of one who has been a counsellor and upholder of others. Job ought to be confessing his sin, instead of complaining in this fashion. In the sight of God, before whom no man can be just, Job is no doubt a great sinner; trouble does not come without a cause, though it is true that man is born to trouble as naturally as the sparks fly upward. If I were in your place, Eliphaz says to Job, I would seek unto God and commit my cause unto him; then he goes off into ascription of lofty praise to God, promising great blessings to Job if he accepts correction and does not despise the chastening of the Almighty. On the strength of 412, Eliphaz has sometimes been called a mystic. Now a thing was secretly brought to me, It stood still, but I could not discern the appearance thereof; A form was before mine eyes: There was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Job's answer seems at first to have little reference to the words of Eliphaz, except as he admits that his words have been rash1 because of his great calamity. He longs for death and has no hope for the future, his strength cannot last; he is ready to faint, and pity ought to be showed him.2 The figure with which he describes his experience with his friends is an effective one in that land of streams which are dry in summer's heat. My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, Which are black by reason of the ice, And wherein the snow hideth itself: What time they wax warm, they vanish; When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.3 Chapter 7 describes the horror of Job's sickness and, near the close, turns to bitter words toward the watcher of men. |