and manner of his hero, as well as the relations in which he appears, in conformity with the character of the patriarchal times; we find parallels to Job's wealth in flocks in Gen. 12:16. 24: 35. 26: 13 s. 30: 43; to his authority 30: [29] 7 ss. 21 ss. in Gen. 23: 6; to his performance of priestly functions 1: 5. 42: 8. in Gen. 22: 13. 31: 54; to the great age which according to 42: 16 s. he attained, in Gen. 25: 7, 8. 35: 28 s. 50: 26 s.; to the immediate appearance of God which, according to 38: 1, cp. with 42: 5, was granted him, in Gen. xviii. 32: 30. 35: 9 ss., as well as to the vision of Eliphaz 5 [4]: 12 ss. in Gen. 15: 1 ss. 28: 10 ss.; here too belongs the mention of the Kesita 42: 11; in the poem itself, although here the poet desires nothing less than to conceal his own era, but rather allows it frequently and evidently enough to appear (cp. 9: 24. 12: 18, 23. 20: 19. 21: 7 ss. 22: 15 ss. 24: 2-17. 27: 16. 20: 24. 39: 21 ss. 23: 10. 28: 1 ss. 31: 11,28), there are not wanting passages in which the coloring of Job's mode of life and the neighborhood in which he lived are firmly retained, as 29: 6. 30: 1. 31: 26 s. 5: 22 ss. 21: 10 s. Finally, it is manifest in itself that the poet would not have chosen the tradition respecting Job for elaboration, if he had not been represented by it as an innocent man, visited, notwithstanding his especial piety, by the most grievous misfortune; and, since the disease under which Job appears as suffering was, on the one hand, of an unusual kind, and hence lay farther from the poetic fiction, than to many other diseases, and since, on the other, the description given of the discourses of Job is carefully and accurately retained, cp. 6: 7. 7:4, 5. 13: 27. 16: 13 ss. 19: 19. 30: 17, 30. 18: 13, we may admit with Ewald, that this feature also in the history of Job was delivered to the poet in the tradition. All the rest, however, that is related of Job in the Prologue and Epilogue, as well as the principal scene itself, the visit of the friends, the dispute between them and Job, and Jehovah's final appearance, must be considered as appertaining to the free elaboration of the poet; in addition to which it may be granted, that the name of the three and their residence, were not invented by the poet himself, but were found by him in another tradition, and adopted on account of the geographic suitableness of the names of the places attached to their personal names to the land of Uz.

6. Time and place of the composition of the Book.

The time of the composition of the book can be determined only by internal evidence; but these point with some degree of certainty to the last times of the kingdom of Judah, more precisely, perhaps, to the borders of the 6th and 7th centuries before Christ. That the book

was written at a time when the connection of the Hebrew with the nations of eastern Asia was not only commenced, but when many of the religious conceptions prevalent there had become incorporated with the Hebrew ideas, is widened by the enlargement of the doctrine of spirits in the representations of Satan, occurring here for the first time, and of the interceding angels, whom man addressed in order to obtain their mediation with God, 1: 6. 5: 1. On the other hand the mention of star-worship, 31: 26, does not refer necessarily to the spread of the Zoroastic doctrine among the Hebrews, since this worship had its home also in Arabia, the theatre of Job's life. The era of the poet is designated 15: 18 s, as a time when foreigners had already penetrated the country, the Hebrews no longer the sole possessors of their fatherland, and when those were seldom found by whom the wisdom of their ancestors had been preserved pure and unmixed. Expressions, as 9: 24. 12: 6, questions, as 21: 7, 16-18. 24: 1, descriptions, as 12: 14—25, bespeak evidently a time of long-continued misfortune, filled with distress and oppression, disheartening the pious and causing them to go astray; and it can scarcely be doubted that his own experience had made the poet acquainted with that power "which binds kings in chains, carries off counsellors and priests as booty, and causes people to go away into captivity." If the appearance of these points to very late times in the history of the kingdom of Judah, the passages Jer. 20: 14-17, (cp. with Job 3: 3-10), Jer. 20: 18, (ep. with Job 10:18), Jer. 17: 1, (cp. with Job 19: 24), presuppose the existence of the book of Job, since they clearly have the character of imitations, or reminiscences; and similar ones from other books are also to be met with in Jeremiah. The same is made to appear by a comparison of Jer. 31: 29, 30, Ezek. 18: 1, with Job 21: 19; for, upon the assertion which is established by Job by a reference to the divine justice, that the sinner meets personally the reward of his deeds, but that the children do not atone for the sins of their parents, a thought uttered here for the first time, Jeremiah founds his promise that it shall proceed still further; and by Ezekiel the doctrine hitherto current is without hesitation declared to be erroneous and antiquated.

If now the book of Job was written in Egypt, as will be shown further on to be probable, it is quite possible that the author was carried away into Egypt at the time of the deportation of king Jehoahaz in the year 611, by Pharaoh Necho; and the composition of the book, which, on account of the varied knowledge of Egypt which it exhibits, pre-supposes a long residence of the author in that country, would have taken place accordingly, at the point of time above designated. The language, indeed, agrees with a late age of the book, but brings it

down not later than the time mentioned; for, by far the greater number of expressions and words belonging to the Aramaic dialect, which have been discovered and adduced in order to prove a post-exile origin of the book (Bernstein, in the work quoted, p. 49-79), are rather to be considered peculiarities of the poetic language, which employs foreign modes of expression as ornaments of discourse; and not seldom does the parallelism of ideas render it necessary to encroach upon the linguistic territory of the Aramaic dialect; and, there is no doubt, that the foreign linguistic ingredients in Job would not seem so unusually abundant and striking, if other poems of the same extent had been preserved. As actual Aramaisms, not poetical peculiarities, is to be

מאים ; 8 :8 דישון : noticed the manner of writing the following words

31: 7, elsewhere only in Dan. 1: 4; 22: 29, (also by Elihu 33: 17), cp. Dan. 4: 34; 1: 30: 8; 39: 9; † 41: 4; moreover, the use of as a sign of the accusative, 5: 2. 21: 22, by for by 22: 2. 31: 3, 9; also, in 2: 10, the occurrence (in prose) of the expression p; the form for ¬ 24: 9, only again Isa. 60: 16; finally, the peculiar use of the following words: 21: 8, in a bad sense as the synonym of

, a use which pertains to a time when men had become accustomed by experience to consider the ideas of prince and sinner as interchangeable; parallel in (later) Isaiah 13: 2. 14: 5; 7pm 21: 21. 22: 3, in the sense of affair, business, elsewhere only in Ecclesiastes and (later) Isaiah; 22: 28, in the sense of to determine, to resolve, elsewhere only by Daniel and in the Targums; 26: 9, in the sense of the Aramaic to shut, again only in Nehemiah.

Very different opinions have been entertained respecting the age of this book. For, while some, as Carpzov among the more ancient, and among the moderns Eichhorn, Jahn, Stuhlmann, Bertholdt, assign it to the prae-Mosaic time, transferring erroneously the age of Job to the poet himself (the complete refutation of this view which is now rapidly disappearing, see in De Wette, as quoted), Vatke (Bib. Theol. Berlin, 1835, Vol. I, p. 563), brings its composition down as low as the fifth century before Christ, independent, however, of any reason derived from the language or the historical framework of the book, but only on account of the internal relation to the Proverbs, which with an appeal to Hartmann (Intimate Connection of the Old Testament with the New Testament. Hamburg, 1831. p. 148, and A. K. Z., Theol. Lit. Bl., 1838, No. 89), are referred in the gross to the century above mentioned. The addition (Elihu's discourse) can scarcely be assigned to so low a date; for, although the language of it has a strong Aramaic coloring (cp. obs. at 32: 6. 36: 2, 19, 22. 37: 6), and although the passage 33: 23 shows an advance in the development of the doctrine

respecting angels, yet it ranks in point of literary merit and poetical contents too much above the other writings of the fifth century, with which in particular begins the period of the decline of Hebrew poetry and prose writing. Ewald places the composition of the book in the commencement of the seventh century, Elihu's discourse one or two centuries later. The conjecture expressed above, that the author of the book was a Hebrew carried away under Pharaoh Necho, is confirmed by the fact that the most striking signs point to Egypt as the place of its composition. The author has at command a knowledge of this country which is founded on something more than mere hearsay in Palestine, respecting Egyptian affairs, but pre-supposes a long personal observation. There certainly proceeded from a personal view, the description of the working of mines (28: 1-11), which in connection with the remaining references point first of all to Egypt, of whose gold mines Diodorus Siculus 3, 12, gives an account, cp. also Josephus, Bell. Jud. vi. 9, § 2; the same is to be inferred from the description of the hippopotamus and the crocodile, cp. obs. on 41:11. The Nile is also known to the author; whence the pictures borrowed from it, 9:26. 8: 11 s. 7: 12; the poet has seen the mausoleum of the Egyptian kings, 3: 14s; he is acquainted with the Egyptian fable of the phoenix, 29: 18 (cp. Von Bohlen Ancient India, ii. p. 238 ss.); the mode of justice practised in Egypt, 31: 35; finally, the description of the war-horse, 39: 19—25, reminds one in particular of Egypt, renowned above other countries for her cavalry (cp. the interpreters on Isaiah 2: 7. 31: 1, et al.) Hitzig also places the composition of the book in Egypt; see his Prophet Isaiah, Heidelberg, 1833, p. 285.4

[Hirzel's proofs that the book of Job was written in Egypt do not strike us as very weighty. It would have been perfectly easy for a native of Palestine to have obtained all the knowledge of Egypt, which appears in the book, from commercial intercourse, from the reports of travellers, from a personal visit, etc. Palestine was the centre of a most active traffic between Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, etc. Caravans were in constant motion. The writer's acquaintance with mining, ch. 28, it is thought, presupposes a residence in Egypt, in the upper part of which there were mines. But he could have obtained all his knowledge of the subject by the reports of travellers, and from other countries, where there were mines, e. g, Arabia. In short, there seems no ground to doubt that the book was written by a Hebrew in Palestine. It appears to be genuine in all its parts, complete in itself, forming a beautiful whole. - E.]

ARTICLE VIII.

EXPLANATION OF DIFFICULT TEXTS.

By an Association of Gentlemen.

I. GENESIS, CH. IV. v. 7.

"If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door: and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him."

THIS passage is so closely connected with the preceding context, that it is necessary to turn our attention to that for a moment, before we proceed to its explanation. Cain and Abel brought an offering to God, in accordance with the their respective employments: the former, "of the fruit of the ground," and the latter, " of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof." But the Lord did not have the same respect for the offering of Cain that he had for that of his brother, on account of which, he was enraged, and, as a natural consequence, appeared downcast. The Lord rebuked him by the significant questions: "Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen ?" and adds, in the verse now under discussion: If thou doest well, instead of this downcast expression of countenance, thou wouldst naturally lift up thy head, and have a cheerful countenance as those do, who are conscious of rectitude of purpose and action. But if thou doest not well, but indulgest hatred on account of this distinction made between thyself and thy brother, sin croucheth at thy door, as a wild beast for his prey. Thou art a sure victim of thy sinful passions. Sin (which is here called a lier-in-wait) desireth to have possession of thee, but thou hast the power to resist and overcome it. The little heed given to this warning of the Most High, as well as its appropriateness, is but too plainly told in the unnatural and bloody tragedy that soon ensued, as a result of which it is said: The voice of thy brother's blood calleth for vengeance from the ground.

It will readily be seen that some change or explanation of the text, as it stands in our English version, is necessary in order to make out the connected idea given above. The clause, shalt thou not be accepted, seems to have been suggested to the translators by referring the phrase, "if thou doest well ( )," directly to the offering of sacrifice; that is, according to this interpretation, it was said to Cain: If thou offerest sacrifice rightly, thine offering shalt be accepted; which,