Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Book Overview - Job

by Charles John Ellicott

THE BOOK OF JOB.

Job.

BY

THE REV. STANLEY LEATHES, D.D.,

Late Professor of Hebrew, King’s College, London.

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE BOOK OF JOB.

I. Plan of the Book.—Great as are the difficulties connected with, and many as are the differences of opinion concerning, the Book of Job, there is and can be neither difficulty nor difference of opinion as to the plan on which the work is constructed. This is at once simple and obvious. There is, first, an historical prologue, just sufficient to make the reader acquainted with and interested in the hero of the book, relating who he was and what was the occasion of the following controversy, but nothing more. Secondly, a dialogue or argument carried on between Job and three of his friends who came to him in his great calamity. Each of the friends is answered by Job three times; but as the book is now found, the third friend only replies twice, unless, as some suppose, Zophar’s third speech is to be discovered at Job 27:13, and Job’s reply at Job 29:1. This great discussion or controversy which constitutes the main substance of the book is introduced by the solemn curse pronounced by Job upon the day of his birth in Job 3. Thirdly, after the three friends have ceased to accuse Job, another speaker comes forward in the person of Elihu, who is specially introduced to us at Job 32:2. He is distressed both at the tone assumed by Job and at the way in which the friends have conducted the argument, and proceeds to take a somewhat different and intermediate position; his share in the discussion is continued through the next six chapters. Fourthly, the reply of the Lord as the hitherto unseen witness but now manifested judge and umpire in the great argument, which extends from Job 38 to the end of Job 41 or the beginning of Job 42. And, fifthly, there is an historical conclusion or epilogue, which gives us the sequel of Job’s history till his death.

II. Object.—This can only be gathered from a survey of the facts and incidents recorded, which are briefly these:—Job was a man famous in his age and country for his piety and integrity. Up to a certain period also he was notoriously happy and prosperous, till a succession of ruthless calamities fell upon him with tremendous and unexampled severity; and in one day he was deprived of his ten children and of all his substance. We are further told that this was by the express permission of the Almighty, who had given him over to the power of Satan because that evil spirit had alleged that the piety of Job was not disinterested, but only for selfish ends. It may be presumed, therefore, that Satan challenged the Almighty in the case of Job, and that the Almighty accepted his challenge. It must, however, be carefully noted that the reader only, and not the several characters in this discussion, is supposed to be acquainted with this fact, for had it appeared openly at any point of the argument there would at once have been an end to the discussion. The several speakers were shooting arrows in the dark; the reader only occupies a vantage-ground in the light afforded by a knowledge of the secret. Satan, however, is not mentioned again after his disappearance in the second chapter. The result, therefore, of his challenge of the Almighty is only to be discovered in the sequel of the history. We are especially told that Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly, up to the point when Satan put forth his hand and touched his person. Nor are we told that he did so afterwards; on the contrary, from the words of God in Job 42:7, we are rather led to imply the contrary. We may infer, therefore, that the outspokenness of Job, seeing it was accompanied with faith in God, profound and unswerving, was not displeasing to the Almighty, and was not reckoned as sin; albeit Job was fain to repent himself in dust and ashes at the actual manifestation of the Lord. It was not, however, on his repentance, but on his intercession on behalf of his friends, that the Lord turned the captivity of Job (Job 42:10); and then his prosperity once more returned to him. Seven sons and three daughters were again born to him, and his cattle and substance because twice as much as they had been at the first. Such is the summary of the narrative of Job, from which alone we can gather the object of the book, and this, it would seem, must be capable of being expressed in the several truths which are obviously to be deduced from it; and these are:—

(1) Severity of affliction is not a proof of special iniquity—it does not vary as sin varies. The sinner may escape—the innocent may suffer. Because a man is exceptionally stricken, he is not, therefore, exceptionally guilty—because a man is especially prosperous, he is not, therefore, especially holy. This is a truth which is confirmed to us by the repeated experience of life; but notwithstanding this continued experience of it, the reminder thereof is oftentimes most needful and salutary in affliction, while it is always valuable as a corrective in our judgment of others. To inculcate this truth must assuredly have been part of the object of the Book of Job, if not the main and sole object; but we may learn that—

(2) Righteousness is its own reward, independently of all the inequalities of fortune. The position and the arguments of Job would have been altogether different if he had not had the testimony of a good conscience. It makes all the difference to the impetus of adversity whether it overtakes the innocent or the guilty. This is clearly one of the inferences that the Book of Job suggests, whether or not it was part of the object contemplated by the writer. The powerlessness of accumulated adversity to overthrow the truly righteous man is taught us by the history of Job. He is proof against all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He can still trust God, and Goa will justify him. This is verily a priceless lesson, and it is unquestionably taught by the history of Job.

(3) Hope is not only brighter, but truer also than despair; the dark days of Job were not destined to be his last. He had in himself a principle of vitality which could and would survive them. The Lord, after he had tried him, gave him not only what he had before, but twice as much also as he had had before. To be sure, the children he had lost could not be restored to him; but his tears for them were wiped away by the smiles of others, and the closed page of their history was replaced by the open page of the history of others as yet unsullied and full of hope—the sweeter and brighter because of the dark background. To enforce this truth, and to remind men of it, must surely have been part of the object of him who wrote the Book of Job; and when the storm is raging it is no small consolation to remember that the sun will shine brightly after it, and perhaps the more brightly because of it. If Job had not suffered exceptionally, no one would have recorded his history or remembered his name. He would not have been known for his patience had he not been known for his sufferings. The one, therefore, is not only the condition of the other, but contains also in itself the promise of the other, even though in certain cases that promise may not visibly be fulfilled, as, for a time and while the anguish lasted, it certainly was not in the case of Job.

(4) Satan is not to be permitted to triumph over man. He shamelessly challenged the Most High to produce an instance, even where the conditions were most promising, of one who served Him for anything more than could be gained therefrom. The challenge was accepted, and Satan was foiled. He proposes the challenge, but when the issue of it is to be declared, by the course of circumstances, he is not forthcoming. His judgment goes by his default; his defeat is proclaimed by his non-appearance, although by that alone. At the same time, while man is so far justified against his ghostly adversary, the Almighty also is vindicated; for He will be no man’s debtor, and, therefore, all that Job had in his prosperity is restored to him, and in respect of worldly substance twice as much. This also is one of the lessons of Job, whether or not it was the designed object of the writer to inculcate it, upon which we are hardly competent to pronounce. It may be observed incidentally that this is virtually the teaching also of the third chapter of Genesis; while the word “enmity,” Genesis 3:15 ( אֵיבָה ’çybhah), and the name Job ( אִיּוֹב, ’yyobh), the assaulted one, and therefore the hated one, present an unquestionable although significant point of contact, inasmuch as the two words are derived from the same root ( אֹיֵב), hated, or was an enemy.

(5) Job is a typical character; for it is hardly possible to suppose that his history is not intended to be typical of the condition of man in life, and, therefore, in its degree typical of the Son of Man in His cross and passion, and in. the eventual glory of His resurrection. What is true of the type must be true of the race; and what is true of the race must be true of the Head of the race. I am far from saying that this was all foreseen by the writer of Job; but so far as the history of Job is capable of teaching the essential truth of human life to man, it must also foreshadow and reflect the history of Him who was the truth itself, and this not because of any power of arbitrary and mechanical prediction in the writing or the writer, but because the writing was inherently, essentially, and intensely true to human nature, which was the nature that Christ took. So far, then, without reference to the authorship of Job, or to its place in the Canon, we are perfectly warranted in regarding it as pointing to Him, because it points to and expresses the deepest and most essential truth of that human life and nature of which He was the deepest and the most essential truth.

(6) The object of Job was unquestionably didactic: it was intended to teach and inculcate all the lessons that we can derive from it. The writer cannot be suspected of writing without a purpose, but must fairly be credited with all the wisdom and doctrine with which his work is fraught, whether or not it was consciously present to his mind, even as Shakespeare must fairly be credited with all the wisdom and truth that Coleridge or Schlegel or Goethe could detect in “Hamlet.” Job also, from its inherent characteristics, is a cosmopolitan book. It inculcates truth without reference to any religious systems. It aims at justifying the ways of God to man as man, whether under the Law or the Gospel, or independently of the light of either, seeing that it not improbably preceded both. It takes the broadest possible view both of the character of God and of the position of man, and deals with the mighty problem of the moral government of God, towards which it offers the only solution possible under the circumstances.

III. Character.—The Book of Job is a Divine book, and marked with the distinctive features that characterise the other books of revelation. For instance, it assumes the possibility and the fact of God’s revelation of Himself, and is in no way staggered at the thought of God’s holding direct intercourse with man. Those who demur to this position can so far have nothing in common with the writer of Job. It is a foregone conclusion with him that this intercourse and the manifestation or revelation it implies was not only a possibility, but an historic fact. However true it may be that the Lord speaks out of other whirlwinds than that of Job, it is no subjective or ordinary voice which said. Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right as my servant Job hath. Here, then, we discover the first characteristic feature of the book, and one that binds it closely to the collection of which it forms a part; the verdict, therefore, that we pass on this matter will inevitably influence all our judgment of the book. It will have no other authority than we consent to allow it unless we accept its testimony in this respect, while if we do, it will at once speak to us with the very highest authority. But, secondly, the book is essentially non-Jewish and non-Israelite in character. The hero Job was not of the chosen race; and, what is more, there is no trace of a consciousness of the existence of any such race; while it is included among the-sacred books of the Hebrews, it is distinctly non-Hebrew in character. There seem to be but two ways in which we can reasonably account for this circumstance—either the book must have been derived from some foreign source and adopted into and appropriated by the literature of Israel, in which case it furnished a solitary, and an improbable, instance; or it must be the record and monument of a time when the nationality of Israel was as yet undefined and indistinct, before Israel had become conscious of its own existence as a nation; in other words, before the Exodus. My own opinion inclines very strongly to this belief, for to suppose, which is the only other alternative, that in the palmy days of the literature of Israel any Israelite would have entirely divested himself of his nationality, and his national recollections and prejudices, and have set himself the task of bringing back and reconstructing the life and manner of a bygone age, and have thrown himself so successfully into the surroundings of the past as to betray no token of his own condition and circumstances, is absolutely impossible. The Book of Job knows nothing of Moses, or the Exodus, the Temple, the kingdom, or the Law (once only in Job 22:22 is the word law used in a merely general sense—receive the law at his mouth), or of any of the later incidents in the history of Israel. It would have been strange if, being conversant with them, no allusion to them had anywhere escaped the writer; but so it is, and this makes the book essentially non-Hebrew in character; but. nevertheless, thirdly, it is ι in no sense alien from or antagonistic to the faith of Israel; on the contrary, it takes that view of Divine things which, as a matter of fact, the unaided speculations of man have never risen to, and displays that knowledge of God which is not found outside the compass of revelation. This is a feature which must on no account be overlooked in dealing with the Book of Job. Fourthly, the book is unquestionably historical—first, because it clearly professes to be so; secondly, because, although parables and allegories are to be found in Scripture, it does not appear that any one book is purely allegorical, or is intended to be so. If the Book of Ruth, for example, or the Book of Job, is mere allegory—that is, romance—then a death-blow is struck at the root of all history, and like the gods in the story of Nala, we stand upon air when we seem to touch the ground. A tradition is found in the Talmud to the effect that “Job did not exist, and was not a created man, but the work is a parable;” but this is shown to be worthless by the reasons above given, and from the way in which the persons in Job are linked to names and places otherwise known to us, and from the general circumstantiality of the narrative. It is, of course, possible to throw doubt on the reality of anything, but there is no reason to doubt the reality of Job.